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Comment by mack73 | Hacker News Reader

If you and your parent poster are right about why Excel is so prominent, and I personaly think both of you are, then we might be able to see a shift in economics and businessmanship and in the way Excel formulas play a large part of what it is that makes the world go 'round, once business men start to learn how to program, or when Excel start's to learn to talk "business", but no earlier than that.

Which movement do you think is strongest? The AI camp or the ones that think programming should absolutely be a part of a proper education in business or economics? I hope for the latter, because I think it will be the end of the huge gap there is today, between the decision makers and the engineers, two groups who quite often but for no good reason feel alienated from each other.

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The division of labor here is due to time constraints, not a failure to understand value. A lawyer can also be a doctor, if not for the fact that they'd get little of either done.

If you make programs that 'speak business', then you make programs that are significantly more complex than those that 'speak computer'. Learning how to handle this complexity and optimize this kind of code is not something a business/economics person wants to spend their time doing. So they leave it to someone who specializes in it.

Yes, I see what you mean. But surely, just adding Programming to the curriculum of businessmen, who I'm sure are quite intelligent or else they should be considering other occupations, does not equate to a person having to learn Another Occupation. Or do you think programmers, good ones, just know Programming?

Some folks do combine excellent programming skills with excellent business skills, but that's not necessarily what everyone should aim for.

I find that you can score someone on a whole range of skills, much as you can on computer games. The more overall skills you have, the more you will cost. If a job requires excellent programming skills but doesn't need any business skills, then paying for someone that has excellent business sills would probably be a waste of money.

In terms of your parent point about whether all business analysts should learn some programming, I think that programming skills are definitely helpful for business analysts, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient. Different skills help in different situations.

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