An interesting article from LinkedIn on the skills of coding.
Learning to Code Yields Diminishing Returns
The premise of the article tackles a number of diverse subjects that are outside the scope of whether learning to code is good advice or not.
Fundamentally learning to code is a good skill to have. It is a skill that if you want to have a coding career must be developed and cultivated.
The mistake is to think that simply having a skill makes you indispensable and guaranteed of gainful employment. Employment is much more complicated than just simply having the correct skills for the position. Relationships, personality, personal drive, politics, geography, and no small amount of luck are all factors that contribute to your employment status.
Whether you utilize the skills in your daily tasks or not the understanding of logical processing is applicable to every aspect of life if you are so inclined.
One reply on “More and more, ‘learn to code’ is looking like bad advice”
Interesting article. I agree that coding is a useful skill in the same way cooking and sewing are useful skills. Some people make a living on those skills and others don’t, but the skill is still useful for many.
The idea that technology eliminating jobs is a new or bad trend seems somewhat overwrought. I’m sure people have been arguing for centuries that new technology has destroyed jobs. Horse and buggy driver, anyone? This is the tide of progress. While not all good, it’s certainly not all bad.
New technology opens up as many new opportunities as it closes, and they aren’t all temporary. However, I think people need to be adaptable, and it is those that have the entrepreneurial spirit that excel. Those that can’t adapt, may get left behind.
Besides, no one said that the current population size is sustainable. Different economic landscapes will support different numbers of people. Population size will need to evolve along with everything else.