http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emmanuel-straschnov/you-shouldnt-have-to-lear_b_6111914.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular It seems like the person who wrote this article doesn't actually understand how coding *works*, LOL... Cheers, David Van Beveren http://btmods.com/chat ^ Chat with other BT members live! http://btmods.com/hire ^ Hire MrDavid for one of his services!

No, David, it isn't just you. If you want a computer to do all sorts of things, the coding will be complicated (or more so than the author thinks is reasonable).

It's the standard BS... 'You shouldn't have to be good at something in order to do it' The Huff Post uses this philosophy on everything they do. Especially what they consider 'news'. Cheers! -- Smug

Its a spot-on article. It's not meant to look down on the importance of coding. He merely wants the evolution of coding to happen at a faster pace. For example, we have evolved from: - Machine coding - Assembly coding - Language coding - 4GL coding - powerful IDEs - Visual coding (LabView, etc) - Control Panels (WordPress, Buzztouch, etc) He simply wants "creation" to have less of a learning curve. That means new paradigms have to be envisioned, created and matured. There are fantastic teams out there pushing on that button right now. Either jump in with both feet into that emerging work and keep getting better at the current technologies. By example, the Guttenberg Press did not stop pen and paper style of writing. Nor has Microsoft Word stopped people from keeping personal journals. All styles and tools for coding will still have its place in the sun. :-) -- Niraj

@Niraj: I get that - but I think what he was saying was that everyone learning to code was old-school and bad ideology, that coding should not "be" coding. What you're talking about (like the control panel) helps people build software visually, but the coding that is required is all there in the back nonetheless. He wants there to be no code, he doesn't want code to make a red button, he wants to visually create a red button and that would be that - I don't think he understands that code is neccessary to do such a thing in the first place. He says that the idea of everyone learning how to code is outdated, and should not be done, I disagree - we all need to learn how to code, regardless if more software comes out that helps us to do it easier, there will always be the guy behind that software coding that particular thing. We can transform the code, change the code, update the code (think swift), but code is code, logic is code, we can't visually express logic without the program understanding the parameters. UI is not logic, and vice versa. You're right, we have evolved, and transformed, and updated, but it's all code at the end of the day, and we need people to learn to code. Not just for coding sakes, but learning to code teaches you far beyond just how to make software, it teaches you how to think, it teaches discipline, it teaches logic, patience, accomplisment, creativity, and more. Two cents from me :-) Cheers, David Van Beveren http://btmods.com/chat ^ Chat with other BT members live! http://btmods.com/hire ^ Hire MrDavid for one of his services!

Windows and the MAC OS did elevate us beyond the command line - but via code written by programmers/engineers that make the OS work. Even the chips have to be coded - I wrote microcode for custom chips for the M1-A tank simulator so the operators could "program" fire control. Our microcode created a system that was easier to "program" I am all for a reduced learning curve, but I'm afraid David is right - this guy began by advocating not learning coding at all. That is a bit like advocating NOT learning (enough) German to work in Germany with German engineers. In a world where computer hardware and software touches every field and every endeavor, to advocate "learning to code" is actually to advocate acquiring a better understanding of the devices and the software that are shaping our world and every aspect of our lives. And telling us that we shouldn't learn how this works, is like telling people that they should not learn how to read because of this thing we call 'video.' :-) And then there is my youngest daughter, who apologized to Dad for pitching a HUGE drama fit when he forced her to learn about her car (how to change a tire), but not till after she got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone signal. Of course, Dad also told her not to buy that junk heap to begin with, but that's a whole different issue. :-) Joe

I am fine with the differing viewpoints on the intention of the article. We all understand the perspectives. After all, we are all spot-on. Even the author. If there was no one to push the coders, then the evolution would happen at a slower pace. For example, David Book made Buzztouch for two audiences: the folks not skilled at coding and the ones who can code. And both sets of users are CREATING solutions with code! All cheers and a nod off to sleep I go ... -- Niraj

I've read the article carefully, and he says "Visit my site" so frequently that all of it only seems as a link bait to me.

lol - true. May have been his purpose in the end. One way to get traffic to a page is to purposely 'stir things up," even piss people off. People feel compelled to visit. The only problem is, it's the wrong kind of traffic. :-) joe

I'm going to go out on a limb and agree with Niraj on this one. MrDavid, you make great points, don't get me wrong. Coding is important and we something I have advocated that everyone learn. It's not just about understanding a device or making a button, either. It's a way of thinking - a paradigm shift for most people. I don't think the author is arguing we get away from that. Instead, he's suggesting it needs to (or perhaps even scarier, it will) evolve. Let's take the red button example. In objective-c, I could create a red button that gives me a popup message when clicked that say "hello world". It would take me a dozen or two lines of code. In Swift, that could probably be done in only a couple or few lines of code. Now, imagine a programming language that allows it to be done in one line of code: "Xcode, create me a button that alerts the user with 'hello world' when clicked and is centered on the screen". You might say "that's not code - that's English". But I argue it's not much different from what we do already, just simplified. The "coders" still need to understand loops and complex problem solving for this, though. If I say "loop through every child item in my menu array until you find the one with a property called "load my screen" and then load a screen using the assigned value", that requires a coding mentality. But it's still in English. The main reason we aren't there now is because English is hard. It's hard for people who have spent a lifetime speaking it. It's even harder for people who have spent a lifetime speaking a similar yet different language to learn (think Spanish). It's impossible (currently) for a computer to speak it. They can spit out a sentence based on what they were told to spit out, but they can't truly converse in English. It's way too complex. But, that's just for right now. The author speaks of "the next 50 years". By that time, we will have definitely reached the singularity. And once we pass the singularity, it won't be hard to imagine a computer that's fluent in a human language. And once we have that, software engineers can build an IDE (call it "Y-Code") that allows you to input "code" in easy-to-understand English. Said another way, what we call "code" today isn't what people of the early days of computing called code. As Niraj pointed out, what we call code is really languages on top of languages, all the way down to 1's and 0's. Not many people in this community knows how to program using 1's and 0's. We program in, essentially, English. It's just a very strict form of it. There will come a time when someone develops a language that doesn't replace objective-c/swift/java, but rather sits on top of them, just as they sit on top of the assembly language. It's scary, for sure. But it will happen at some point.

@chris, beautiful, I can understand what your talking about, extremely thought provoking, and now I'm a little excited for the future too. *You* should have written the article in place of that author, I think you relayed the point he was trying to make correctly, wherein I think he was unable to place it in words. Cheers, David Van Beveren http://btmods.com/chat ^ Chat with other BT members live! http://btmods.com/hire ^ Hire MrDavid for one of his services!

Wondering how "thoughtful" this thread would be a few years ago, before I met you guys. Hmm, loving it. My two cents: In 50 yrs it won't matter. We'll all be eco-vored-vanished becuase all the ice is melting. In the meantime, while we still exist, I'm loving this conversation. I'm a very very very long way from "supporting" the author's thesis. And here's why... "50 years from now, I can't imagine people programming as we do today. It just can't be. The future I imagine is a world in which programming is self-explanatory, where people talk to computers to build software." In this scenario nobody is building ANYTHING. No software, no programming, no installable binary whatever the heck it's called. If programming were self explanatory no software would be necessary and therefore no "programming" would be necesssary. If all you had to do was "tell" your computer (robot, droid, R2D2, cool lamp, whatever) what to do and how to do it it wouldn't need any software at all! Except of course it's operating system (iOS no doubt) to decipher your comments, remarks, wishes. I think the missing link here is the author completely overlooked the biggest no brainer of them all. Lots and lots of "programming" has nothing to do with code! Like I've always said "Code is the easy part." The most magical Objective-C, Java, [insert language here] translater thingy in the world would be junk of all it did was translate instructions to code. There are plenty of SHIT programmers out their than know how to code JUST FINE that still make shit programms. Knowing the SYNTAX and the CODE is NOT WHAT MAKES A PROGRAMMER A GOOD PROGRAMMER. Good programs come from good minds come from good exeriences come from hard lessons learned come from a deep understanding of the problem at hand come from domain expertise come from volumnes of testing come from the BT community. R2-D2's a bad ass I hear when it comes to hammering out thousands of lines of Fortran. C-3P0 owns Vulcan d-Base II as I understand it. But, both those crazy smart programmer dudes are a mess when it comes to the real world. One spins in circles and beams images of some crazy girl with Cinnibons stuck to her head while the other trips around in a half limp drunken stooper even though he's "fluent over six million forms of communication." Except the one that matters of course. Humans, keep learning to CODE. Journalists, keep writing provocative click-bait-titles to drive traffic to your "Bubble" startups. All will be well. You have 49 yrs to learn. out.