Don’t Learn to Code, Learn to Talk Code
Those who opt to teach themselves how to code sorely miss out on an even more important skill
In today’s technological day and age, some consider coding as important as reading and writing. Since the field has proven to be so lucrative, it’s no surprise that many are investing their time and energy into learning this new form of art.
You see a movie like The Social Network and witness a student in his early twenties strike gold seemingly overnight. How did he do it? Through coding, of course! Let’s code a website that allows college students to keep in touch online — maybe we’ll get a few sign-ups?
It’s no wonder college universities saw a 23% increase in undergraduate computer science majors in between the 2010 and 2011 academic year. Coding is perceived as… cool.
The issue is that many people — who’ve already graduated with a degree outside of the computer science field — see the opportunity current university students have and jump on the bandwagon. They attempt to teach themselves how to code in hopes that they can keep up with technology and cash in.
Just look at former New York City mayor, Mike Bloomberg. He pledged to use Code Academy to learn how to code in 2012. And for what? Surely coding wouldn’t help Bloomberg more efficiently do the job tax payers are paying him to do.
My question is: why force yourself into an area that’s not in your field of expertise? Why not let those who specialize in that area do the dirty work?
Say, hypothetically, you’re a young entrepreneur looking to build a startup. You notice that Apps have become popular, so you set out to build your own. You formulate an idea… and now it’s time to teach yourself how to code so you can build your product, right? Wrong.
So many people fall into this trap of unnecessarily teaching themselves how to code to fulfill present or future business ideas. “Let’s revolutionize technology,” they say.
What a lot of people miss is that they can still revolutionize the technological world without physically building their idea. Building is what legitimate computer programmers are for. It’s much more efficient to hire the average university trained programmer to do that grunt work — and to do it well. Doing so actually has benefits that most don’t consider: people are forced to develop the skill of talking code.
Talking code allows you to better communicate with a computer programer in regards to how your product should be built. This eliminates a lot of confusion for the programmer and heightens the chances of you receiving a product you’re happy with.
By learning to talk code, you instantly have programming at your disposal without having to learn any languages. Gone is the headache of clearing such a major learning curve. Gone is the headache that your newly-learned, online skill could result in a terribly-coded, bug-filled product.
Instead you have a skill that can almost guarantee well-made software (if you hire the right person) … a skill that allows you to keep up with the technological world without wastefully immersing yourself in it.
Now you have the ability to focus your energy on other business aspects outside of product development, such as marketing — which is equally as important.
For the average person, learning to talk code far exceeds the benefits of learning to code. Let the programmers be programmers, and focus on the areas that you truly excel in.
That’s a recipe for success.
P.S. Since there are so many sites out there pushing people to code, I decided to start DontCode.org. Let’s take a stand! #DontCode
