[justinj]

the implication that learning to code results in 10,000 viewers? please. it wasn't your coding skills that brought in those UVs. by your logic, all of the sites created by shit-hot coders like us should hit 10,000 views in the first two hours easy. you're propagating the kinds of myths that i debunk daily with friends and family, who grossly underestimate the difficulty of attracting eyeballs to their content (and whose motivation sadly erodes when said eyeballs don't instantly materialise).

if people have something to contribute, there are so many tools and services out there that negate the need for coding it isn't funny. i always advocate non-coders to test out their market theories using tumblr, wordpress, facebook, twitter, posterous, pinterest, et al before rushing off to pay someone to develop something. (in fact, i think us developers should bill ourselves for our own time on our own projects, but that's fodder for another post).

should the average person understand tech? definitely. understand the web? for sure. hypertext markup? why not. javascript? yea, you can skip that.

jeff atwood, you are right on the money.