Why you should learn to code?

With millions of people working and studying from home, our screen time has increased considerably. With all the face to face meetings replaced by videoconferences and having transferred all my commuting time, and some more, to screen time not only for work, but also social networking and on-line training and a little bit of gaming, my screen time went up between 30 to 40% during quarantine.

Keeping track of that time is important for me but understanding how productive that screen time is and how much value it can generate in the short and long run is even more relevant.

Are you Creating or Consuming Technology?

Answering emails, putting together a nice deck in PowerPoint, browsing the web or watching Grey's Anatomy on Netflix with the latest and more expensive mobile devices might give us the wrong idea of being Digital but in reality, all we are doing is Consuming Technology.

Creating Technology opens a new world of possibilities for the future

Consuming Technology helps to get today's work done, and get instant gratification and fun, but on the other side, Creating Technology opens a new world of possibilities for the future. The entire process of identifying a problem, setting hypothesis, and putting together an experiment to test them is stimulating. Understanding how the technology works from the inside, how programs run, and software developers think, increases your chances to succeed in challenging the way things are done. Learning the basics of Coding is a fantastic way to increase this knowledge.

Why do I think learning the basics of coding is important?

I don’t think you need to be an expert in Coding to Create Technology as the process of writing code is evolving itself. For example, AI is challenging the basic task of programming with models that create programs based on their interpretation of instructions in natural language (see the link below about GPT-3 by OpenAI).

To Create Technology, you must be capable to ask the right questions.

To Create Technology you have to be capable to ask the right questions, collaborate with the right people, and be open to identify a problem or an unsatisfied need that otherwise will be hard to identify with the naked eye, and I believe that a great way to improve this capability is by learning how to code.

Am I too old to learn?

No. There are many free online courses, apps, and tools to learn different programming languages that don’t require you to be a Software Engineer or have any prior experience in coding. My 8 years old son and I are learning together using Playgrounds from Apple, it’s a fun and engaging way to learn how to code in Swift, the programming language designed to work with iOS and macOS.

Which programming language should I learn first?

Thanks to my godmother Lucy, I started with Atari BASIC when I was ten, mainly because I wanted to build my own games. Of course, no one uses BASIC anymore but that’s the thing with programming languages, they get replaced but some of the logic behind is always the same.

My recommendation is to start with something simpler like HTML and then look for the programming language that best suits the kind of problems you want to solve. JavaScript if you’re more into web development; Python or R if you’re into Analytics and Automation or my personal favorite, Java if you’re more into solving problems, building applications and games.

Here you will find the ten most popular programming languages on GitHub. If you don't know what GitHub is, you should. It was acquired by Microsoft a couple of years ago a is the most popular software development hosting supplier.

In a nutshell, I learn to code, not because I want to become a full stack developer (I have a lot of respect for what they do) I do it because it makes easier for me the process of understanding how people is shaping our world through technology, and I hope it makes sense to you as well.

Key takeaways:

• Consuming Technology is not the equivalent of being Digital.
• Creating Technology requires asking the right questions, understand how programs run and software developers think. Learning the basics of Coding is a fantastic way to increase this knowledge.
• Everyone can learn to Code; age is not a restriction. Start with a simple programming language and then move to something more specific on the type of problems you want to solve.
• No. I haven't asked GPT-3 to write this post for me (next time maybe).

Some interesting content to explore more:

GPT-3 by OpenAi

A natural language process - NLP - machine learning model that is capable, among many other things, to build a program based on the instructions you give to it in natural language: https://youtu.be/8psgEDhT1MM).

Free Codecamp

A non-profit organization with the mission to help people learn to code for free. All their content is freely available for the public.

Code.org

This is one of the resources my son Lucas use to learn how to code and build his own games. Code.org has tutorials with block-based code so it's easy to learn and engage with.