Opinions expressed in this blog are personal and does not reflect that of my professional associations.
Alvin Toffler in his book "Future Shock" written in 1970 said "the illiterate of the future are not those who can't read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn". This is so true for the technology industry, In a conversation today about skills required for the immediate future of software industry, my colleague and I concurred that coding is essential for all roles not just software developers. In a matter of fact way he put the point across as "if you are a military man you should know how to fire a gun, if you are in the software business you should know how to write code, failing which means certain death (figuratively)". This profound statement made me think about the reality and the question "how important is it to continue coding?"
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works. - Alan J Perlis
I first started with programming in 1989, the language was known as "BASIC" on a IBM PC XT hardware and subsequently moved on to many different combination of hardware and software programming languages. I never lost touch with programming through the years, it was not just passion, I strongly felt that to know coding is essential if you are in the software business, I did not want to be the soldier who does not know how to fight. Over the years I have maintained coding as a hobby while the platform, language and the techniques changed, the fundamentals remained the same, "to learn unlearn and relearn is key to success". During some years it was even quite fashionable to confess that one does not know how to code, which I did not agree to. Also I surely feel that everyone no matter how senior in the organisation how much the role is non-technical, should spend time coding even if it was for hobby or for symbolic purposes.
Learning a trade in real world akin learning to code in the digital world:
In as many years I have been associated with this industry, There are two trends that I see at present are important, the acceptance of alternative framework for software development, and the emergence of Artificial Intelligence as a key theme in everyday business applications. AI skills which is already among the hottest skill in the industry, gets hotter by the day as the implementation becomes commoditised and simplified and more languages start supporting the frameworks provides easier libraries. This surely is not just another skill to learn, I believe similar to the paradigm shifts that was caused by OOPS and GUI programming, AI has changed the way softwares were traditionally developed and hence a fundamental shift is happening in the way softwares are imagined.
Traditional softwares use algorithms or rules for branching of logic, while this is not an inferior way of doing things, this approach is not dynamic and does not accommodate the changing preferences and other environmental factors. In such situations machine learning could make a big impact on the results.
The changing demographic preference which is expecting for lesser human interaction and greater self service, can be made possible using NLP instead of menus and options. This ability to drive the interaction with natural language processing is a critical change to the way humans interact with computing devices.
The thought, that "An idea can change the world" is now true and current, and that idea could be from you is not a distant dream it is a powerful dream, to realise the idea in the new world, the world that combines traditional, digital and AI together to provide the new age computing abilities, to realize the design, to be able to code becomes essential. That one idea you have in your mind could well be realised with little effort and you might well be the one who changes the world. The possibility that my powerful dream can be realized with little resources is empowering and that is the key to why one should learn to code.