In the world we live in today computers run every aspect of our lives. The problem is computers don’t speak the same language humans do. They use their own language. Coders also speak this language, the language that the world and the future is written in. This elevate the status of coders quite a bit!
Sure enough in places like Silicon Valley coders are treated like rock stars complete with their own agents!
While coding is so important in today’s world, there is also a shortage of people to fill those positions. Lots of people are being to take advantage of these opportunities. As more and more people are realizing the importance of coding in the 21st century those who code is starting to change and broaden. Coding is now for everyone!
With this being said the progress is slow. A great article on what it’s like to be the only women coder can be found here. It offers an amazing insight into the need for more women coders. Some great organizations exist that are trying to fix this problem:
2. Girls teaching Girls to Code
As well as many nonprofits that work to teach code to anyone who wants to learn, such as this nonprofit in queens. This article also illustrates the fact that learning to code pays off, literally. The occupational outlook handbook from the Bureau of Labor backs this up stating that coders make on average about $74,000.
I myself, a women who does not know how to code, tried my hand at coding. I started my education with a look at Introduction to
Computing: Explorations in Language, Logic, and Machines by David Evans. In the first chapter I learned what binary and bytes were and how to use these to solve problems. It seemed pretty straight forward once I got the hang of it. Feeling pretty confident I moved on to Code Cademy a website that will teach beginners how to code.
Here is the progress I made:
The site allows the user to learn code while building a project. I got started with building a galaxy. It starts pretty easy and will spell out exactly what your suppose to do. After a while the instructions become less and less clear. I think by that point your suppose to know whats going on enough to figure it out. While this is sometimes true most of the time it was not. I used the Q&A support page quite a bit. At the end of both projects your suppose to have learned enough to add more on your own. I was not ready for this in either of my projects. The site does not give a lot of further information so I found myself turning to Google for help on finishing.
This learning style did not seem to work for me. The site teaches by example and rarely explains what any of the code means or what it could be used for. In my second project, making a web page, some of the instruction explained information I wish I had during the first project. I finally found a page at the end of one of my projects that linked to a guide with a little more information but it wasn’t enough to get by on.I wished there was an elementary starting course that explains the basics before you get starting with projects. (Maybe there is and I just didn’t find it.)
Overall I was not very impressed by the site. I do not think this is a great place to start if you have no background in coding. I think a better way would be to learn some of the basics first and get a good foundation and use to site to test drive your skills.
I do still want to learn how to code and plan on using the site again in the future. I will definitely be using another source to supplement though.
So what does any of this have to do this marketing?
Well as Ad Age’s Huge Hosts Crash Course in Coding Over Four Days at SXSW. Their Point: Everyone Should Learn to Code points out: “One of the biggest challenges in marketing is that the people responsible for decisions don’t know what it takes to implement certain solutions.”
Marketing has entered the digital world that is written and run in code. Learning how to read and write it seems like a logical next step that will greatly help any marketer. Hubspot also makes this case: “
My journey through digital marketing 