I’ve taken the evening off to play Diablo 3. I’ve come back to re-read this post and the associated responses. (Including the “discussion” on Twitter; if you can even call it that.)
I have to say the criticisms of Jeff’s post seem a bit undeserved. - Yet I can understand where they’re coming from.
Jeff, I feel like you didn’t make it clear enough that you are not dissuading hobbyists from learning to program. This, I feel, invited the opportunity for attack.
In a way, the title you’ve chosen and the visual aid you’ve chosen have invited an attack on an otherwise sound and constructive post.
However, I still think I agree with the fundamentals of your post. People shouldn’t learn to code because of the money. Learning to do anything because it commands a high salary is simply the wrong motivation.
Also, programming is not a fundamental life skill. At least not right now.
In fact, I posit that if we as developers and designers do our jobs properly, we should need less programmers.
If you make increasingly better cars, you need fewer mechanics to keep them all running, no? Programming should be the same. If we create better pieces of software, it should take fewer people to keep the whole charade running.
@Brad Rembielak
Y’know, as the son of an electrical engineer, I’ve only just started learning about circuits and logic gates of my own accord. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262640686/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00)
So your post hit especially close to home.
Clearly it wasn’t required knowledge, but it is certainly nice to know, and it makes things conceptually easier. I have to admit that I’m somewhat glad that my dad never said “you need to learn how circuits work! It is a fundamental life skill!”