On Learning to Code | jemery.com

While I normally agree with nearly every one of Jeff Atwood?s posts, I find this post, Please Don?t Learn to Code, at best utterly baffling, and at worst, deeply troubling. He makes several points and the post is, as usual, well thought out and written, but I think this is the crux of my disagreement:

The ?everyone should learn to code? movement isn?t just wrong because it falsely equates coding with essential life skills like reading, writing, and math. I wish.

It might not be at the level of reading and writing, but I think basic coding is up there up there with math and civics. Software and automation are becoming increasingly embedded in, and critical to, our everyday lives. Hell, my kids might not ever have to learn how to drive, but they damned well better have some notion of why and how their car knows how to drive itself. Otherwise it?s just magic and that?s a huge problem that?s only going to continue to get worse as time goes on.

If we continue to allow the already-too-wide knowledge gap between ?those who understand (more or less) how computers work? and ?those for whom computers are magic? then we really might be well on our way to a technological singularity. Except the singularity won?t be a Kurzweilian/Vingeian/Strossian nerdvana event, it will just be that the rest of the population has fallen so hopelessly far behind in understanding how anything around them works that people who understand software will exert a terrifying amount of control over those who don?t. Basic programming skills are becoming essential life skills, even if they are skills that are never actually used to write code beyond school.

Not only should we be teaching everyone basic programming skills and How The Computer Works 101, we should be doing it as early as possible and as equally as possible. As much as geek culture has evolved out of the Revenge of the Nerds days to be something that?s celebrated and includes, there is still a tremendous amount of intimidation and fear amongst non-programmers about ?code.? The simplest experiment you can do to see this is to open open a shell (much less an actual interpreter prompt) on a non-tech savvy person?s computer and watch their physical reaction. A lot of people will physically recoil from the computer as if it had spouted a fire-breathing head and you were sprinkling magic fairy dust that made the Bad Window go away. That?s horrible and it shouldn?t be that way.

?Fear of technology? and ?Lack of Interest in Programming as a Career? are both the same problem and that problem is all about exposure and inclusivity (see also: sexism in technology). The earlier we expose kids to computers and programming, on equal footing, from the poorest most marginalized minorities to the richest, white males the better we equip an entire generation to deal with an ever-more complex world. To do anything else is alarmingly irresponsible.

To be clear, I?m not talking about trying to get 8 year-olds contributing to gcc or the Linux kernel. But I?m not talking about teaching ?office skills? either. If we teach kids the principles of how their devices work, they won?t ever need an ?office skills? class. Kids need to see that there are ways they can control and instruct the increasing number of electronic devices around them. If they want to pursue that, great, and if not, that?s also great, they?re still going out into the world with a better understanding of how the things around them work.

Web geek, liberal, technologist, Python, Java, Soccer, WVU Mountaineers, occasional gamer and oh yeah, I went to performing arts school, which always shocks people. I live in San Francsico and work at YourTrove.

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