| Bah humbug. By their very nature blog articles like this are reaching an audience of non-coders, to show them that a basic understanding of programming is within their grasp, that it's a worthwhile intellectual exercise, and yes, that there IS fun to he had in the endeavour. Blog articles like these are not prospectuses for Computer Science courses, they are not meant to be a sombre accounts of the travails to be had in professional programming life. And your profession is no more devalued by their existence than Electrical Engineering is somehow devalued by those kits for children to make their own rudimentary electrical circuits. And just the same, these kinds of articles have an educational function, especially when it comes lowering the perceived barrier for entry for lay people to understand some of the fundaments of how software works - and this includes young minds who may well choose it for a career. I'm one of those ordinary people who read these kinds of articles and was motivated into action. And I was profoundly embarrassed at how long it took me to make my first to-do app. It didn't come natural to me, and I cracked the shits and banged the table at how I overlooked the one character typo that was screwing it up. But you know what? Finishing it was actually "fun" and it was "rewarding". I'll leave it to you to guess whether my stumbled first steps into n00b level code have meant that your craft and your profession is now diminished in my mind, or elevated. In a world where software is all pervasive, there's nothing to be served in encouraging popular ignorance. And I'm sure there's more to be gained for your profession as a whole if the wider world was just a little more literate about what you do. |