program or be programmed (CodeYear)

[Darren Dirt]

http://codeyear.com/

Learn to code in 2012.

345,387 people are learning to code this year. Why not you?

Sign up for Code Year to start receiving a new interactive programming lesson every Monday. You'll be building apps and websites before you know it!

"The need for computer literacy
has never been greater. This is a fabulous product at the right time" -Tim O'Reilly, Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media

for the non-technical person you know... who wants to fill that particular skill gap, without being overwhelmed.

brought to you by http://www.codecademy.com/ "Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends."

[Thorin]

Very cool!

[Darren Dirt]

wow, even New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed up for it

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/12/opinion/rushkoff-write-code

[Darren Dirt]

Very cool!

... or very pointless? (if not for the "right" reasons)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarabrown/2012/01/10/learning-how-to-code-is-a-waste-of-time/

[Darren Dirt]

Very cool!

... or very pointless? (if not for the "right" reasons)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarabrown/2012/01/10/learning-how-to-code-is-a-waste-of-time/

related: "Please Don't Learn To Code" ( http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-to-code.html ) had apparently caused some upset in the i.t. community... and need for clarification I guess.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/so-you-want-to-be-a-programmer.html


Author seems to be someone who loves and deeply respects the fine art of programming ... but as a result is so strong in attacking the non-programming "programmers" out there -- both potential and existing.

[Mr. Analog]

Some people don't understand what "PR" is from the sounds of things

Just a side note: Programming is a Hammer, not a mystical @%&#ing paintbrush.

You can give any idiot on the street a hammer and some nails and they'll build something, it'll be far from perfect but they get the idea. You want something built properly you don't give the hammer to any idiot, you give it to someone who knows what to do with it. THE KEY HERE though is that sometimes you need to get the hammer into someone's hand before they know how to use it.

How many of us were exposed to programming through BASIC? How many of us ended up ENJOYING programming from that first weak hands on experience.

Say what you will about Bloomberg but he's trying to spark that interest again, make it something Gee Whiz, something, anything, to get people interested in Computer Science again, particularly in a State whose economy has shifted from manufacturing to high finance, where a Comp Sci degree is in demand.

Plant seeds today, reap the benefits 20 years down the road.

/rant

[Darren Dirt]

How many of us were exposed to programming through BASIC? How many of us ended up ENJOYING programming from that first weak hands on experience.

Plant seeds today, reap the benefits 20 years down the road.

Agreed!

Typing in letter by letter from "Compute!" magazine in the early 1980s, then "breaking" the code (and seeing what changing this and that did to the resulting program) = eventually led me to go from "programmer" to "developer" (to my present developer + BA-in-all-but-name). One thing I gotta thank my dad for, he brought a computer to our faces and let us play around just like it was LEGO. BASIC with line numbers to start with, the rest was up to us if we wanted to seek it out (Pascal at the time, then eventually C, and then of course NAIT to "get a piece of paper" so I could actually work in this crazy field).

[Darren Dirt]

"Mr. Mayor (and virtually everyone else) , please DO NOT learn to code"
     
http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to-code/

Cliffs: there's already a surplus of terribad veteran "programmers" out there let alone naive noobs, instead learn to accurately analyze and describe problems -- a far more useful real-world skill (which also would greatly help the programmers do all that programming you might need done!)

[Darren Dirt]

I found myself smiling A LOT when reading this... Dammit after 33 years I admit I *still* love to code! "They PAY me to do this?"

http://blog.codinghorror.com/so-you-want-to-be-a-programmer/