There is too little effort, which is not enough to prepare future programmers. In fact, we often keep rookies away from the art of programming and mislead them into a small, limited sandbox. In the past, these sandboxes were Excel macros, and Visual Basic and Access could be used if needed. Now it is Power App. The more you become, the more inseparable you are-if you want to become a professional programmer, you still cannot follow the standard education path.
Modern education lowers the threshold of coding literacy. But this has not changed the meaning of professional programmers.
How much is the code farmer worth?
The other part of Tim O’Reilly’s comment is a bit subtle. In short, if everyone’s coding skills are improved, will it threaten the privileged position of programmers in the labor force?
For at least the past two decades, everyone has been claiming that writing code has become commoditized. Some programmers today should remember that some people will tell them to learn something more effective, such as mathematics, because the gap in programming skills will become smaller and smaller.
But I’m going to sing the opposite—a forecast without a timeline is actually not a forecast at all. Today, we have more programmers than ever before, and a large number of overseas talents are eager to fill our IT needs. It stands to reason that there is no shortage of programmers. However, skilled programmers are still lacking. Facts have proved that this shortage has been surprisingly long. Even if we have expanded traditional education (more in-depth advancement of STEM subjects) and non-traditional education (explosive growth of project-based code training camps), the shortage of skilled developers remains unchanged. The current estimate is that the shortage of programming talents will only increase in the next few years.
You can easily assume that the gap in skilled programmers reflects a lack of expertise in emerging technologies such as machine learning and big data analysis. Although the demand for developers in these fields is indeed great, this does not seem to be the source of the shortage. On the contrary, what we lack now are skilled mid-level developers. Those who have mastered the basics of coding, but also understand soft skills such as efficient teamwork and collaboration.
Skilled intermediate developers can combine programming skills with skills that are difficult to quantify (such as the ability to analyze large systems, debug real-world problems, manage projects, and communicate with stakeholders).
In the future, coders who have just learned may have difficulty finding a job (depending on the local job market and their skill set). But experienced developers will be a valuable resource for decades. where