You Need To Learn How To Program

Slate ^ | Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, at 4:48 PM ET | Farhad Manjoo

[Sonny M]

If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution, let me suggest an idea that you might not have considered: You should learn computer programming. Specifically, you should sign up for Code Year, a new project that aims to teach neophytes the basics of programming over the course of 2012. Code Year was put together by Codecademy,* a startup that designs clever, interactive online tutorials. Codecademy’s founders, Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski, argue that everyone should know how to program—that learning to code is becoming as important as knowing how to read and write. I concur. So if you don’t know how to program, why not get started this week? Come on, it’ll be fun!

Code Year’s minimum commitment is one new lesson every week. The company says that it will take a person of average technical skill about five hours to complete a lesson, so you’re looking at about an hour of training every weekday. That’s not so bad, considering that the lessons are free, and the reward could be huge: If you’re looking to make yourself more employable (or more immune from getting sacked), if you’d like to become more creative at work and in the rest of your life, and if you can’t resist a good intellectual challenge, there are few endeavors that will pay off as handsomely as learning to code.

[skr]

bfl

[raybbr]

ping

[raygun]

Just download any one of the “Sam’s Teach yourself” X “in 21 days” courses.

[spetznaz]

Bump

[kalee]

Ping

[HossB86]

BFLR

[raygun]

There’s a bit of that...

ROFLMOL

That notwithstanding, it boils down to logic and how adept one is breaking the process down into its components.

Back in the green-screen, green-bar paper days there was only “coffee” to be made. Now one has to code to make ALL SORTS of coffee that might possibly be made in any possible of ways - with one program - and if not properly your code “crashes”; i.e., goes WTF?

[Bobalu]

I wonder if there are enough freepers interested in programming as a hobby to make it worthwhile for me to start a blog and teach a basic course in programming micro-controllers?

I think I could manage to do it, I’d estimate total cost of tools and parts to be less than 20.00

It would be C and assembly language....both are really simple and the average freeper would have NO problem. (I hold that the average freeper is well above the average citizen in brains and ability)

[rightly_dividing]

bump

[raybbr]

LD A,10100101B ;
OUT (01),A
START LD HL,0070H
LD C,0AH
COMP LD A,(HL)
CP B
INC HL
JP Z,MATCH
DEC C
LD A, 00H
CP C
JP NZ,COMP
JP Z, NMATCH
MATCH LD A,0F0H
OUT (01),A
HALT
NMATCH LD A, 0FH
OUT (01),A
HALT

[Squantos]

Bump for later read....

[Democrat_media]

The media has been pushing this since the 90’s (”The information age,economy etc”, “post industrial age etc”) . Ha , there are no jobs in America.

[Paisan]

Bought a TRS-80 Model 1 back in 1977. You turned it on and it said “Ready?” on the screen. From there, you were on your own. To justify the expense of this new toy, I HAD to learn to program. Discovering what a computer could be used for back in the day when there were NO pre-packaged programs was the best thing I ever did. It was pretty daunting because I was never any good at math and I thought one needed to be a math whiz to be a programmer. Not true.

Later, I took a course in Computer Science. I ended up teaching most of the class how to program, since, by that time, my programming skills had surpassed that of the teacher.

[Paisan]

Ah yes. Machine Language in Hex. Once I learned this, my old Trash 80 performed at light speed.

[Woodman]

BASIC was my first language. I learned to program it in the 70’s. Is it still being used anywhere?

[Cronos]

anyone can code, but to logically think through a process chain is where the real software engineering comes through. I've spent a decade coding on Cobol, basic, C, java, sql and primarily on datawarehousing. When I hire folks I don't care if they know a language in details -- I look for those who can logically think through steps.

Programming may be rewarding monetarily but the job situation is that one must always be studying and the working times can be a killer.

[ctdonath2]

Well, to start from first principles...

[Cronos]

if you want an assured job learn Cobol and MVS/JCL scripting -- you'd be surprised how many large companies still run on these -- and for a reason, they are extremely reliable.

To be constantly learning, pick up Java or Ruby or something

To play around, learn Perl.

To go insane try to understand a Teradata logical data model or SAP B/W -- oh, yes, if you are an expert on ABAP you can name your price.

visual basic is for kiddie programming, terribly simple. Learn C if you want a challenge and how to really code..

[Fresh Wind]

Rat’s ass indeed. OOP never made any sense to me.

I mostly wrote code in C and a little assembly. All very straightforward and logical, especially to a hardware guy like me who had some software jobs dumped in his lap.

I tried OOP, my brain locked up.

[Woodman]

I code, but am mostly self taught. I can recommend the Complete Idiots Guide to C Programing Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 if you want to learn C.

I am currently learning vbScript because it is useful for the testing tools I use and can be very useful for Windows administration or moving to VBA for Office.

If I had a choice of what to learn right now I would have a serious look at learning RUBY and RUBY on RAILS. It is a newer scripting language that looks to be gathering a following and may take off.