Programming Education: Selling People a Lie?

[DEAD7]

It's hard to exist in the tech world today without hearing the constant refrain about learning to code: "it's easy, we desperately need programmers, and everyone should learn how!" UK software developer Mike Hadlow disagrees, strongly. He says, "Formal education for programmers seems not to work very well and yet the majority of those who are successful programmers are mostly self taught. On the one hand we seem to have people who don't need any guided education to give them a successful career; they are perfectly capable of learning their trade from the vast sea of online resources available to anyone who wants to use it. On the other hand we have people who seem unable to learn to code even with years of formal training.

This rather puts the lie to the barriers to entry argument. If the majority of current professional software developers are self taught, how can there be barriers to entry? Anyone with access to the internet can learn to code if they have the aptitude for it. The evidence points to a very obvious conclusion: there are two populations: one that finds programming a relatively painless and indeed enjoyable thing to learn and another that can't learn no matter how good the teaching. The elephant in the room, the thing that Yvette Cooper, the 'year of code' or 'hour of code' people seem unwilling to admit is that programming is a very high aptitude task. It is not one that 'anyone can learn', and it is not easy, or rather it is easy, but only if you have the aptitude for it. The harsh fact is that most people will find it impossible to get to any significant standard."

 

[Soon]

I can see a Computer Sci for more advanced stuff like AI or robotics or project management or platform development.

But this degree wasn't even required or common in the 60's, my fundamentals professor said he would just go to the company's library and read up COBAL if he needed to use that language.

 

[MrPentatonic]

This can be said the same with math education or various other subjects imo..

not really saying anything other than it comes easier to some and hard for others

 

[kevm3]

That get $100,000 for graduating from a 3 month code bootcamp stuff is garbage. maybe a few people lucked out and got that, but I'm sure their salaries were adjusted back to more reasonable levels not too long after. One thing about programming is that you have to LIKE what you are doing or you are going to be miserable because you can't fake it. Either your program works or it doesn't. If you're not willing to go home and spend hours a day learning, I don't know if I could recommend it for someone.

What they're not saying about self-taught programmers who end up making it is that they have dedication on par with, if not more intense than the average college grad who got a degree. They've probably worked through a ton of books cover to cover, or worked through tons of video tutorials and just spent a ton of time experimenting.There is nothing magical about the building school that traps learning there. A guy who went through college probably has more formal, theoretical knowledge out of the gate, such as knowledge on data structures, algorithms, compilers, etc. On the other hand, the self-taught programmer probably has more knowledge on things like frameworks and more immediately practical things.

The people who think you can teach people to become reasonable programmers with 'an hour of code a day' are deluding themselves. You have to put in the work or else you're going to be stuck with the glut of people who can throw a little html and jquery around. There is a reason programmers have been getting paid so much and despite those salaries, they are finding it hard to find candidates who can do the job.

 

[Yogi]

I just had a convo with a CPA who is now working as a programmer. He told me that he hated accounting, so one of his friends helped him learn how to code. He took it and ran with it and ended up getting a programming gig making six figures.