So should people learn to code? That is, should people learn how to create scripts and programs that eprform software tasks? Audrey Watters explores the question in her excellent 'Trends of 2012' series, looking at examples like Codecademy. Jeff Atwood responds negatively, exhorting students (and the general population at large) "please don't learn how to code" (don't miss the extensive discussion in the comments). He writes, "It assumes that more code in the world is an inherently desirable thing," which is is most definitely not. It "assumes that coding is the goal" and "puts the method before the problem." All very true. But, as explains in this post, learning to code isn't about creating solutions or becoming softwrae developers. People use code to visualize, to help themselves comprehend data, to try things out. Being able to code is being able to see the world in a certain way, and as such, has value beyond the specific applications developed.
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