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Comment by Xichekolas | Hacker News Reader

While his definition of 'programming' is a bit broad (he lumps in 'configuring things via menus' with writing code) and his vision for the application of programming skills in the future shows a lack of understanding of what code is useful for, I thought his analogy to medieval scribes was excellent.

Also, this is totally false (and a cop out, people can learn if they want to): "Most of the tools (and even the concept of programming) were developed long after these teachers were born or schooled."

Of course, I agree with his overall thesis, that coding will become as vital to expressing yourself as writing is today, and that is why I posted it.

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I fully agree with the premise, if not with the details, programming to me in the broadest sense of the word consists of arranging elements in order to create new functionality.

Configuring something is not programming by that standard, but arranging functional blocks in an IVR system and linking them is. (even if that's a very limited environment).

I think a computer works for mentality the way a powertool works for a tradesman, being skilled in its use allows you to do more work or different work than if you were working 'unaided'.

The ability to use such tools is indeed almost as essential as the skill of reading and writing, and there is a link between them in the sense that for almost any activity that you could call programming you need to be able to read and write.

Schools are slowly catching on to how essential this is, and even though the various 'computer classes' still are not much more than glorified 'how to use excel' courses there is a shift in the direction of more universally applicable knowledge.

> there is a link between them in the sense that for almost any activity that you could call programming you need to be able to read and write.

I couldn't agree more. With that in mind, his last paragraph really bothered me:

"Thirty years from now, will the United States be more competitive with a population that can read English at a tenth-grade level or with a population excellent at making the complex machines of that era do their bidding? The two options may be mutually exclusive..."

All the best programmers I know are also excellent writers. I don't know if I'd reach for causation there, but the correlation is impressive.

Yeah -- if a native English-speaking adult hasn't acquired a grade ten level of literacy (understanding rules of punctuation, grammar, spelling, composition, semantics, cogent argument), what chance do they have at reading/writing code?

Such a situation would basically be (is?) an admission that the educational/social system has failed to help the individual develop mentally [!] to the level which is probably possible for most people. Which is something that I find sad.

I think you could easily make the case that in order to be able to program you have to be able to verbalize your thoughts to the point that they are unambiguous and that takes much more effort if you are not able to present a coherent argument in the first place. Writing prepares you like nothing else for that because it 'freezes' your thoughts to the point where you can analyze them.

People who can do that generally become lawyers for way more money and social prestige than programmers.

There's a glut of lawyers on the job market, though. It's not as lucrative as it seems.

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