“Programming” isn’t really a coherent vocation any more, and will probably become even less so as time passes. By way of analogy, being a scribe was once a trade in its own right, but any contemporary job you’re ever likely to want will demand literacy.
Jobs might not require coding literacy, but knowing how to write rudimentary code (in a scripting language like Python) makes a computer another tool at your disposal (a very very powerful one!). e.g.
one can use a regular expression to find all the telephone numbers in a text document
if one has a list of 20 files to download, then knowing how to write a 4 or 5 line script that takes the list and downloads the files will make it much faster.
[edit] scripts are reusable, so an hour investment of time writing a script that cuts 5 minutes off a common task pays for itself quickly
(Also, being able to clarify ones thoughts enough to convey them unambiguously to a computer is possibly a useful skill in itself.)
one can use a regular expression to find all the telephone numbers in a text document
Recognizing phone numbers is actually a non-trivial problem, because people write them in so many crazy ways. It’s easier if you have a list of phone numbers all formatted in roughly the same way, but that’s not always the case.
Ah, good point, but something very general like /[0-9+\-() ]{4,}/ will at least reduce the amount of manual filtering required!
In a neat coincidence, I was just reading this article, of which the first 3 paragraphs are most relevant:
Performing manual, repetitive tasks enrages me. I used to think this was a corollary of being a programmer, but I’ve come to suspect (or hope) that this behaviour is inherent in being human.
But being able to hack together scripts simply makes it much easier to go from a state of rage to a basic solution in a very small amount of time. As a side point, this is one of the reasons that teaching the basics of programming in schools is so important. It’s hard to think of any job which wouldn’t benefit from a few simple scripts to perform more automation.
When we’re hiring, even for non-developer roles, we look for this kind of mentality—it’s extremely useful, especially when building a software businesses, if costs don’t scale linearly with revenue. The more we can invest up-front in automation, the less time our team has to spend on performing stupid, manual tasks. As we add more employees, the benefits are compounded. And less rage generally makes the workplace a much happier place.
This more or less would have been my response. It may not be worth your while becoming a software developer, but it’s definitely worth your while learning to code.
“Programming” isn’t really a coherent vocation any more, and will probably become even less so as time passes. By way of analogy, being a scribe was once a trade in its own right, but any contemporary job you’re ever likely to want will demand literacy.
Are you saying that all jobs will soon require coding literacy?
Jobs might not require coding literacy, but knowing how to write rudimentary code (in a scripting language like Python) makes a computer another tool at your disposal (a very very powerful one!). e.g.
one can use a regular expression to find all the telephone numbers in a text document
if one has a list of 20 files to download, then knowing how to write a 4 or 5 line script that takes the list and downloads the files will make it much faster.
[edit] scripts are reusable, so an hour investment of time writing a script that cuts 5 minutes off a common task pays for itself quickly
(Also, being able to clarify ones thoughts enough to convey them unambiguously to a computer is possibly a useful skill in itself.)
Recognizing phone numbers is actually a non-trivial problem, because people write them in so many crazy ways. It’s easier if you have a list of phone numbers all formatted in roughly the same way, but that’s not always the case.
Ah, good point, but something very general like /[0-9+\-() ]{4,}/ will at least reduce the amount of manual filtering required!
In a neat coincidence, I was just reading this article, of which the first 3 paragraphs are most relevant:
This more or less would have been my response. It may not be worth your while becoming a software developer, but it’s definitely worth your while learning to code.
That makes sense. Programming as a side dish.