I am writing a book the premise of which is “software Literacy” - the ability to code is a major inflection point. You may, 100 years ago have been a brilliant solider / seamstress/ sailor / sushi chef but if you were illiterate you were at significant disadvantage - and I believe the same is true today for software.
The “technical skill” everyone talks about is coding - and it matters. The desire to arrange the world so it can be iterated over, the … I don’t know the difference between someone who understands a three act structure and story arc and someone who has never read a novel is a big gap
> The “technical skill” everyone talks about is coding
not really necessary or sufficient in many cases. the real question is whether or not someone has the background and interest to understand the details at hand and how they fit together.
I would say so as well. I would take a manager who can't code, but is a car mechanic nut in his spare time over one who can code a bit, but has no private interest in anything vaguely techological 7 days a week.
The important bits about technological choices translate somewhat well between domains. A shitty overly complex motor looks impressive on the blueprint, but it is a shitty overly complex motor.
I suppose you feel you could understand the technical details of another software engineers architecture if they explained it you, even if it were written in a programming language you don't know and without reading the code?
If so, it's probably because you understand the features and limitations of volatile memory, persistent storage, networking, and parallelization. Which suggests its not necessarily 'coding' that matters.
Learning and writing lots of code is a surefire way to become familiar with those things, but I think it's possible to become familiar with them by different means.
The ability to code is not generally important, and in no way is comparable to literacy.
Coding skills are different depending on the language and the kind of language, but what they all have in common is the ability and patience to think algorithmically: step by step, in terms of relevant primitive operations.
You don’t need ever to have written code to be able to think algorithmically, and the ability to think algorithmically does not translate into the ability or willingness to think critically about complex systems.
Agreed, actually I'd say the practical value of learning to code for the average person has been declining for some time. It is easier than it ever has been to get computers to do what you want. I think it will continue to get easier. The whole idea that programming is a life skill may have had some merit years ago, but I don't see it anymore.
The “technical skill” everyone talks about is coding - and it matters. The desire to arrange the world so it can be iterated over, the … I don’t know the difference between someone who understands a three act structure and story arc and someone who has never read a novel is a big gap