* reading and writing code is basic literacy for the information age
* One generation hence, any company that is literate (almost all employees write code, the use of code runs through all its processes) will have enormous competitve advantages. Or rather any company that is illiterate will have enormous competitive disadvantages
* So Software will eat the world.
* but in the process from here to there, developers will take over more and more - moving from the "typing pool" into
all of the company.
* this is unlikely to be a fixed supply of coders getting more % of revenue, and more like everyone learns to code and then usual political fighting resumes.
But everyone learning to drive is / was.
Being a car driver is python coding. Being a car mechanic is probably on the order of writing a compiler.
The analogies will always break down but really, in this day and age, an adult in the Western world who cannot drive is socially and econmoically disadvantaged. (chooses not to is likely a different thing - for half of 20 years in London I had no car and biked / tubed everywhere. Now, my day would be impossible without a car. Sad but true)
I mean how many 17 year-olds do you know who say, "Learning to drive - who needs it?"
>> "But everyone learning to drive is / was. Being a car driver is python coding. Being a car mechanic is probably on the order of writing a compiler."
I think being a car driver is more equal to being a competent computer user not a python programmer.
Really?
Driving a car is hard... lives depend on it, it requires judgement and constant attention to details. That we have mostly got it down to our sub-concious does not change that.
"competant" computer users who do not code basically send email and write word docs. Thats the level of putting on a seat belt, or working out how to turn on the air-con.
We can argue about the analoigy for a long time, but pretty much anyone can be taught to code a simple dynamic web site.
Children learn Logo - thats Lisp basically.
You're straining this analogy though. Using fine motor skills and hand eye coordination is different from understanding recursion and using to solve problems. Let's get serious everyone. :)
This is not to knock anyone but let's say all of us participating in this discussion are at or better than the level of coding we think the general public should be at. This coding ability still doesn't seem to make us have great, sound, logical arguments and all these other attributes that are being espoused.
You're analogy sort of fails little bit though. It's more like being able to use a computer and being able to browse the web is much more like being a driver in the automotive age than being a compiler writer is to a mechanic (the compiler writer seems to be more like the automotive engineer ...).
* reading and writing code is basic literacy for the information age
* One generation hence, any company that is literate (almost all employees write code, the use of code runs through all its processes) will have enormous competitve advantages. Or rather any company that is illiterate will have enormous competitive disadvantages
* So Software will eat the world.
* but in the process from here to there, developers will take over more and more - moving from the "typing pool" into all of the company.
* this is unlikely to be a fixed supply of coders getting more % of revenue, and more like everyone learns to code and then usual political fighting resumes.