You should revisit #5 “Everybody Should Learn to Code”. As written, it’s not quite right.

The point of “Everybody Should Learn to Code” is not that everyone should become the equivalent of a chef or painter (or similarly an electrician, accountant, or lawyer). We’re not advocating or encouraging everyone to drop what they are doing to take a path of reinventing themselves as software developers. That’s not the main agenda here. If it were, I agree it with you that it would be a lie.

The point of “Everybody Should Learn to Code” is that learning to code should be done to enhance the skills and profession you are already pursuing. It’s a multiplier. Like math, science, reading and writing, coding is another core competency that can further your work no matter what professional path you take.

Some examples…

A friend of mine (who’s primary role is accounting), has been learning to code so he can write some scripts to automate a lot of the busy work he has to do manually in Excel. What used to require 2 hours a day each week now takes 10 seconds. Thats 10 hours to dedicate elsewhere in his career and work.

Another friend (this time in operations / logistics) needs to aggregate shipping data and invoices across tens of thousands of line items to look for problematic situations. Not possible to do manually with some many data points. So he took some PHP lessons, whipped up a few scripts, and now has them running weekly to automate and output reports.

Everyone Should Learn to Code. But it must be stated in the context of enhancing and multiplying what you are already doing.

Anyone who has ever written an Excel formula has already written code, and maybe you didn’t even realize it. “Everyone Should Learn to Code” is simply an extension of that.