[rasmusrygaard]

I think this post touches on an interesting point about web development (might apply to other areas too, but the web seems particularly bad). A lot of things appear to be easy (Rails, Django, Heroku, AWS, JQuery etc.), but the number of different components you need to manage is still overwhelming. Furthermore, you often end up having to develop a low-level understanding of problems that someone else claimed to have solved for you. While this low-level knowledge is useful, it does add significant amounts of complexity for beginners and people who might not be committed as the hardcore full timers out there.

As we seem to push more and more for the "everybody should learn how to code" mindset, I think there is a big opportunity for someone out there to combined managed and protected environments with the ability to write your own code. I don't know if the solution is unifying languages across front and back end or a better set of abstractions, but I see way too many obstacles for 'simple' coding (although the situation today is without a doubt better than ever), and I imagine this is some of what the author of this post ran into.

[danso]

I wish that the learn-to-code movement had a greater emphasis on code as a utility belt, rather than "here's how to make a social website!"

Web dev is exceedingly complex and involves a lot more memorization of arcane things than does general purpose programming. Whereas for a non-technical founder, the important thing to learn is how aspects of business and content can be handled in modular, abstract ways (something that is apparent after learning loops and methods).

Learn enough code to understand implications of such things as granularity of data, taxonomy, and automation...if a novice can generate a static webpage chart from mashing up multiple data sources, that is hugely useful

[rasmusrygaard]

It would be great if everybody saw code as a utility belt, but I imagine that it would be unrealistic to expect people to develop those skills. When I think about what kinds of tools I use in, say, home DIY projects, I tend to have a decent understanding of a narrow part of the field but not a lot of knowledge about the area in general. I know how to change a light bulb or a fuse or fix a power strip, for instance, but I don't claim to know much about circuits in general.