One Pager

Computers have become a part of our daily lives over the past few decades, and it is becoming less and less frequent to find a place where computers are not accessible. Hand in hand with this comes the use of computers in the workplace. Any productive space, whether it be an office, warehouse, or even a school, will have access to computers. Because of this, many people now value computer coding as one of the most important job skills around. While I believe that coding is a very useful job skill, I also believe coding is something people should learn even if they do not plan on working in a field that requires the skill.

Lydia Dishman of the magazine Fast Company believes that coding is still the most important job skill, and will be for a long time. She says that the increased use of computers in our lives brings a large demand for more software development. She also states that computer programming jobs are growing at a rate 12% higher than the market average (Dishman, 2016).

Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis of the New Yorker have a different opinion. They believe that our knowledge of computers and computer programming is growing fast enough that soon we will not need to know how to code, the computers will do it themselves. They think that soon we will have programs that will be able to improve themselves and write others. This means that the demand for computer programmers will fall, as they will no longer be the most efficient way to develop software (Davis and Marcus, 2014).

I think that there is some validity to both of these claims. I do think that programming is a big need right now, because computer use is very popular. I also think that computer programmers are in high demand right now because computer science is not yet at the point it needs to be in order to have computers write programs for themselves in the same way that humans can. However, this might become true in the future, which leads me to my point: I don’t know whether computer programming will be as useful as it is now in the future, but I do think it is important to learn. Computer programming teaches a way of thinking that is different from the ways we are used to. This is why I think it is so valuable. This way of thinking emphasizes resourcefulness, because in order to learn programming, you must draw from many different sources and piece the information together. This is why I think computer programming is something that everyone should try to learn.

Bibliography

Dishman, Lydia. “Why coding is still the most important job skill of the future.” Fast Company, 14 June, 2016, https://www.fastcompany.com /3060883/why-coding-is-the-job-skill-of-the-future-for-everyone

Davis, Ernest and Marcus, Gary. “Do we really need to learn to code?” The New Yorker, 6 June, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/ do-we-really-need-to-learn-to-code