Programming is the language between people and machines that everyone should own.

There is more and more controversy and reasoning about the importance of programming in modern life. Do everyone really need to be able to code? And whether it is useful to those who are not going to associate themselves with this profession? According to the famous computer scientist John McCarthy, writer Stewart Brand and academic Admiral Grace Hopper, yes, it will come in handy, because programming is the most important skill that every sane person needs to master.

The reasons for these prominent personalities in their statement are described below.


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For thousands of years, some people led others

John McCarthy:

The ancient Romans built an empire at the hands of slaves. The British created a powerful state, imposing their will on the inhabitants of the British-owned colonies. The United States has become an economically strong state thanks to cheap labor from the industrial revolution. But with the course of history, the situation has gradually changed and in the 21st century we do not own or control people. In modern times we own and operate machines.

John McCarthy (1927-2011) - author of the term "artificial intelligence", inventor of the Lisp language , founder of functional programming, winner of the Turing Award for his enormous contribution to the field of artificial intelligence research

The nature of fundamental labor has changed and today most of the work is done not by people, but by machines. Every day, over 3.5 billion requests are sent to Google. And the search engine obediently searches for the necessary information. And now let's think about how many man-hours it would take to manually process at least one Google request. You can imagine a group of doctors of science, scientists and specialists from various fields who call each other around the clock with questions and discussions on documents and other materials. And then all this is issued to the requester. Only a machine can do this job quickly and efficiently.

Trip Adviser, one of the largest travel sites, helps to choose a place for a vacation. Next, Expedia’s resource allows you to book your flight. Well, Google maps shows the way to the airport and hotel. All these services are available to the average consumer due to the fast and well-coordinated operation of the machine. But machines do this kind of work only because people tell them what to do and how. Here the importance of the role of writing software, that is, special software, is revealed. Well, of course, for successful management, knowledgeable people are needed who can provide very clear instructions. Simply put - write code.

As McCarthy said:

Coding is a “new letter” of our time, which, along with reading and spelling, should be taught to children. The future of the machines, they will be able to replace many other professions, perform various tasks and automate the workflow.

Program or be programmed?

Stuart Brand:

After the new technology has swept the world, if you are not part of this rink, then become part of the road.

American writer Stuart Brand (born in 1938), creator of the catalog of tips and articles on the environment and technology The Whole Earth Catalog (on the cover of the first photo of the Earth), founder of one of the first online communities WELL

According to Brand, it is impossible to stop the development of a technology. You can only adapt to it. The new technology is like a gin that has come out of the bottle - you can’t drive it back. So it was with the development of aircraft, antibiotics and nuclear weapons. And it also happens with microprocessors, the Internet and the improvement of machines, robotics.

According to Brand:

Those who lively adapt to the passing waves of change are flourishing. And those who do not pay attention to them cannot even understand that they exist. They asymptotically approach unnecessary. Coding is new literacy. As was the reading in the XII century, writing in the XVI, arithmetic in the XVIII and driving - in the XX. And just as not everyone who can write will be a professional writer, and who teaches arithmetic a great mathematician, and not everyone who studies the code will become a software developer. But the study of these areas will definitely improve the person, teach him to think and come in handy in life.

Think of your ability to read a label on drugs or the ability to count money. The fact that you can encode is also something equally important. For example, you can take boring daily tasks and automate them. And some people use this basic skill as a way to accumulate their own wealth or to improve the world.

"Ships are designed to sail"

The American scientist and Rear Admiral of the US Navy Grace Hopper (1906-1992), developed the first compiler for a computer programming language, developed the concept of computer-independent programming languages, which led to the creation of a high-level COBOL language. I wrote programs for Harvard computer Mark I.

Grace Hopper:

At its core, computers are a complex of fragile parts and complex circuits. And the human brain is a learning machine. It may seem that you never learn to encode. It may also seem that you are simply not creating for this. And even there are quite a lot of people who tried to encode, but they did not succeed. But this is only their subjective opinion, which cannot be judged on their own abilities.

Among teachers there is an opinion that every thinking person can learn to encode in the same way as learning to read, write, perform arithmetic operations, or drive a car. It takes only desire and patience.

Summarizing

Grace Hopper advises learning to code - “go out to sea and learn new things.” Stuart Brand recommends adapting to the development of technology and mastering programming at least at a basic level. John McCarthy encourages learning the language of cars.

At the end of the post - a few free resources, which provide video lectures, online courses and lessons not only for those who want to learn how to program, but also for specialists.



Code.org is an original website made in an entertaining game style.

Codecademy is a fairly popular site where you can learn the basics of programming. Content is constantly updated, new programming languages ​​are added.

Udacity is a resource representing something like an online programming institute. It collected a huge number of courses and video lectures on programming.

Code Avengers helps you learn HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. At the end of each lesson it is proposed to consolidate the knowledge gained by the example of a mini-game.

Treehouse is a resource for novice programmers with basic knowledge and skills. Video tutorials are aimed at solving a specific practical problem.

Code School offers more advanced development and programming courses. But the truth on this resource is not all sections are free.