I’m a programmer with 15 years of professional experience and another 10 as a student and hobbyist before that. My brother is a carpenter by training who was never even the slightest bit interested in programming. Last year, he learned Pine script[1] because he wanted to customize stuff on TradingView.com. Sure, he doesn’t really understand all the details and sometimes asks me for help, but he is able to successfully get the results he wants. I think most people just need sufficient motivation and they’ll get it. I’ve always said that the reason most people don’t learn to program isn’t because they can’t, but because they don’t really have enough reason to put the time and effort in.
Learning a skill takes time and tenacity. Years ago, I tried to learn guitar, but gave up after a few months because progress was too slow for me. I was impatient and not motivated enough and therefore ultimately didn’t get anywhere. Two years ago, I decided I wanted to learn sleight of hand card “magic”. There was one flourish in particular that I just couldn’t do, but I kept trying anyway. Day after day, I couldn’t do it and then one day I realised I could. The only difference between that and guitar is that I kept at it and out the effort in.
Sure, some people are predisposed to certain things which is a bit of a shortcut (I definitely found programming easier to learn than card magic), but I believe that most people can learn most things, if they have sufficient motivation and put in the time and effort (I include finding a way that works for you as part if effort, just doing something repeatedly may not be enough on its own, as they say: “practice makes permanent; perfect practice makes perfect” — ie be careful of learning bad habits that may get in your way)
I’m personally not against visual programming and have had some good experiences with it, but the name “no code” in my opinion completely misses the point: its still code (and programming). The text was never the hardest part, so by eliminating that, you’re not really winning much. The hard part is the logic, calculations, data manipulation and translating ambiguous requirements given by people who don’t really know what they want. Very little of my day to day is actually about the text I type into my editor, but rather the problem solving that goes on in my mind. Visual languages don’t magically make that go away, they just represent the code in a different form. Sometimes this can be really useful (visual languages make flow explicit and I personally tend to think in “boxes and lines” anyway), but often thats not the biggest roadblock. Often the roadblock isn’t the code at all.
Learning a skill takes time and tenacity. Years ago, I tried to learn guitar, but gave up after a few months because progress was too slow for me. I was impatient and not motivated enough and therefore ultimately didn’t get anywhere. Two years ago, I decided I wanted to learn sleight of hand card “magic”. There was one flourish in particular that I just couldn’t do, but I kept trying anyway. Day after day, I couldn’t do it and then one day I realised I could. The only difference between that and guitar is that I kept at it and out the effort in.
Sure, some people are predisposed to certain things which is a bit of a shortcut (I definitely found programming easier to learn than card magic), but I believe that most people can learn most things, if they have sufficient motivation and put in the time and effort (I include finding a way that works for you as part if effort, just doing something repeatedly may not be enough on its own, as they say: “practice makes permanent; perfect practice makes perfect” — ie be careful of learning bad habits that may get in your way)
I’m personally not against visual programming and have had some good experiences with it, but the name “no code” in my opinion completely misses the point: its still code (and programming). The text was never the hardest part, so by eliminating that, you’re not really winning much. The hard part is the logic, calculations, data manipulation and translating ambiguous requirements given by people who don’t really know what they want. Very little of my day to day is actually about the text I type into my editor, but rather the problem solving that goes on in my mind. Visual languages don’t magically make that go away, they just represent the code in a different form. Sometimes this can be really useful (visual languages make flow explicit and I personally tend to think in “boxes and lines” anyway), but often thats not the biggest roadblock. Often the roadblock isn’t the code at all.
[1] https://www.tradingview.com/pine-script-docs/en/v4/index.htm...