[venomsnake]

It is not a pathway - it is a side effect of it. Most self taught geeks have started from "wanting to do something" and "make a computer program to do it" as the solution. It is a nice skill, but I would never code something until I have exhausted the other (lazier) possibilities.

[danso]

I very rarely write raw HTML today as a web developer, but if I hadn't created my first personal webpages from scratch and known what it's like to publish to the entire world instantaneously, I would not have had the impetus to learn web dev as an engineering practice. Learning literacy is not a linear path from concept to output.

[j_h_s]

I agree wholeheartedly. I've met too many developers who can't even use a command line.