What Happens to Everyone, When Everyone Learns to Code

Farrah was a keynote speaker at Rails Conference 2014, the Flagship event of the Ruby on Rails team members and community. It’s the largest official gathering of the year, attended by top Rails talent, companies and project representatives from all over the world.

Transcript

1. what happens to everyone 

   when everyone learns to code.
   #railsconf2014 | @farrahbostic
   

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2. Hi, I’m
   @farrahbostic
   !
   !
   I run...
   

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3. i come from advertising.
   

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4. “software writers.” awesome.
   

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5. just write.
   then leave it.
   read it aloud.
   edit.
   kill your darlings.
   What is
   good
   writing
   practice?
   

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6. The lyf so short,
   the craft so longe
   to lerne.
   - Chaucer
   

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7. what happens to everyone 

   when everyone learns to code?
   

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8. fact: “Everybody should learn to code”
   

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9. how to become a coder
   

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10. 1,000,000 STEM graduates
    “be a coder” in >4 years. it’ll cost you six figures.
    

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11. “be a coder” in 10,000 hours, or 10 years, whichever comes last.
    

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12. meanwhile…
    

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13. We’ll let you “be a coder” in 12 weeks, give or take.
    

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14. I’ve been working on it, too
    @noahbrier
    @stueccles
    @jondahl
    @rachelsklar
    @aviflombaum
    

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15. the truth is,
    you learn to code by coding
    

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16. Which starts out feeling like this.
    

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17. THEN YOU FIND SOMETHING THAT FEELS LIKE THIS.
    

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18. but then you decide to turn hard core.
    Start fast.
    Go hard.
    Stop.
    

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19. so how’d that work out?
    

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20. ‘i didn’t build that’ - we did
    Matz • dhh • RailsGuides • Ryan Bates • Redactor.js • Woo Themes • John Resig • Dave Methvin •
    PostgreSQL • Jonas Nicklas • Corey Johnson • Heroku • GitHub • @olvado • @hjames • @cjbell88 •
    @j_schelling • TypeKit • kuler • moo.com • keynote • pixelmator • slideshare • youtube • skype •
    AddThis • LocomotiveCMS • sirtrevor.js • mini-magick • carrierwave • flexslider • jQuery • uistencils
    

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21. the internet teaches you how to
    create more internet.
    But you’re not just learning/teaching the code,
    you’re also learning/teaching the culture.
    

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22. and maybe
    that’s a little
    scary.
    

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23. interesting thought from dhh
    “Professionals obey the laws.

    Amateurs break them…”
    But there are amateurs, and there are novices.
    Novices break laws too, accidentally, 

    and often without even realizing it.
    

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24. but then we meet the stack trace
    

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26. and we end up at stack overflow
    It’s great for amateurs.
    We find out we’re not alone
    experiencing a problem.
    We get answers to our questions.
    Great, right?
    

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27. but we struggle to belong.
    “It’s difficult to tell
    what is being asked
    here. This question is
    ambiguous, vague,
    incomplete, overly
    broad, or rhetorical
    and cannot be
    reasonably answered
    in its current form.”
    

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28. stack overflow == terminus?
    

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29. For novices & amateurs, 

    “coder” is a moving target.
    

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30. ‘code inequality’
    It’s good for you to be experts and
    me to be a novice.
    That motivates me to get better.
    But the goal is not to make that
    difference permanent and immutable.
    That would be structural inequality -
    where novices give up, amateurs
    never become experts, and experts
    only become more expert.
    That would be bad.
    

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31. so what?
    

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32. technology is feeling magical again.
    

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33. but it’s also scaring the shit out of people.
    

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34. whose side are you on?
    

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35. okay, let’s take a deep breath.
    

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36. everyone should still learn to code,
    right?
    

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37. but who is everybody? 

    and how much do i really have to learn?
    

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38. most code schools are teaching 

    most amateurs to be 

    (at most) conversational coders.
    

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39. so what does that mean for you?
    It means you need to be more than “just” devs.
    It means you are now writing 

    for a much broader audience.
    And solving even problems that go beyond

    how to write beautiful code.
    

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40. what about “strategy inequality”
    

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41. forget about being an expert.
    be a problem-solver.
    become a customer-centric coder.
    

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42. we’re all in this together.
    

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43. meet the new product team.
    Conversational
    Coders
    Customer-Centric
    Coders
    

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44. how do we get ready?
    

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45. for starters, keep the good intentions
    & match it with good behavior
    

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46. “code should make you happy”
    

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47. “Don’t code alone”
    

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48. clarity counts.
    

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49. more pseudo-code*. more sketching.!
    * not the same as sudo code. 

    which is possibly a lesson i learned the hard way.
    

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50. empty readme
    

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52. this is also a metaphor
    For constructive criticism.
    For providing context to your code.
    For not preferring RTFM to RTFC.
    empty readme
    

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53. just write.
    then leave it.
    read it aloud.
    edit.
    kill your darlings.
    This applies
    to writing
    code, too.
    

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54. let’s optimize the right things.
    Just like dhh’s comments about TDD…
    Optimize the important things.
    Yes, your code.
    Sure, your process.
    And, yeah, the documentation.
    So we can spend most of our focus 

    on optimizing products for people.
    

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56. who are you optimizing for?
    You have three customers.
    Your product team.
    Your community (which isn’t all experts).
    Your end user.
    

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57. who are we designing for?
    

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58. it’s complicated.
    

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59. so then what?
    

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60. we write code to create value.
    Marketers worry a lot about making things people
    want, and making people want things.
    !
    We should focus on making things that are valuable.
    

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61. when we’re all coders, we can all be awesome.
    Conversational
    Coders
    Customer-Centric
    Coders
    Awesome Product Teams Making 

    Awesome Products
    

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62. Challenge
    Accepted
    

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63. what’s next?
    @farrahbostic
    

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