6 ms·

This is a cool post. It's a really interesting thought that this whole "learn to code" movement existed in some form seventeen years ago and somehow didn't take

This is a cool post. It's a really interesting thought that this whole "learn to code" movement existed in some form seventeen years ago and somehow didn't take off when it seems like such an inevability right now. But I think it's one of those things we'll look back on like the 2010 iPad / 1993 Apple Newton and say "yeah coding trade schools were a cool idea back then, but the world just wasn't ready for it yet", and now that they've become 'cool' so to speak we're going to see that permanent explosion. I mean, I'm new to this game but did you even call it "coding" in 1996? To me just the word "coding" represents a kind of coolness factor that I doubt existed around programming in the mid 1990's. It used to be a nerdy thing, something you had to be 'smart' and work at a big company to do. Now tech is cool, the game has completely changed. I mean were startups even a thing in 1996? Were hoodies, mac laptops, red bulls and coding on rooftops popular? Because of things like Github, Ruby on Rails, awesome screencasts etc. I think it's just gotten more fun and productive to be a programmer and the lifestyle has more of a mainstream draw than it used to. The other big plot line in 2013 that wasn't there in 1996 is the impending genocide of universities in America. Higher tuition rates, lower employment rates, it seems like the learn to code movement is the Newtonian "equal and opposite reaction" to the imminent death spiral of 4-year degree programs in America. I think we're going to see a ton of innovation from the "learn to code" schools in the next few years, innovations in education that the Universities won't be able to match, and the "learn to code" schools are going to kick the living crap out of colleges when it comes to where people choose to spend the money they have allocated for education.

smacktoward 13y ago
> I mean, I'm new to this game but did you even call it "coding" in 1996? Yes, we did. It wasn't that long ago! Sheesh! Thanks for making me feel old :-D > were startups even a thing in 1996? Ask pmarca! (https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pmarca https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pmarca) In seriousness, yes, they were, but it took a lot more money to get one off the ground back then than it does today; lots of proprietary software licenses to be bought, physical servers to be rack-mounted, and so forth. (You used to have to pay thousands of dollars per seat just to get access to some companies' API documentation! Yes! Seriously! Now, of course, you can just Google it.) It was sufficiently expensive that a college student (which I was back then) couldn't really think of starting one on a whim. You had to get access to some serious capital to make a real go of it. So many of those costs have collapsed these days that it's much, much easier to do a startup than it was then. But that's a double-edged sword -- while it opens up opportunity to lots more people, it also means there's lots more half-baked "startups" out there than there used to be.
coldtea 13y ago
>It's a really interesting thought that this whole "learn to code" movement existed in some form seventeen years ago and somehow didn't take off when it seems like such an inevability right now. It seemed an inevetability back then too (and 10 years before that, with the first wave of the cheap PCs). Like now, it actually wasn't. >But I think it's one of those things we'll look back on like the 2010 iPad / 1993 Apple Newton and say "yeah coding trade schools were a cool idea back then, but the world just wasn't ready for it yet", and now that they've become 'cool' so to speak we're going to see that permanent explosion. Nope, it's just a fad now too, driven by the current bubble. It will subside with it. >I mean, I'm new to this game but did you even call it "coding" in 1996? You'd be surprised, but it was called coding in 1986, 1976 and even 1966. And it has been considered cool, in the right circles, ever since 1970 (circa). >I mean were startups even a thing in 1996? Sure they were. And Open Source. Everybody and his dog started a startup around that time, until they had a bubble bust circa 1999-2000. Seriously man, you have to check up on the history of this "coding" thing. You seem to be missing a lot of knowledge, that's not just folklore but also essential to a well groomed developer. Here's a 1998 documentary on the building of Mozilla: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u404SLJj7ig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u404SLJj7ig Here's the Hacker's Dictionary: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html
UK-AL 13y ago
Yes tech start ups were HUGE(Possibly bigger than now) in the 90's. It all came crashing down in the early 2000's.

smacktoward 13y ago

> I mean, I'm new to this game but did you even call it "coding" in 1996? Yes, we did. It wasn't that long ago! Sheesh! Thanks for making me feel old :-D > were startups even a thing in 1996? Ask pmarca! (https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pmarca https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pmarca) In seriousness, yes, they were, but it took a lot more money to get one off the ground back then than it does today; lots of proprietary software licenses to be bought, physical servers to be rack-mounted, and so forth. (You used to have to pay thousands of dollars per seat just to get access to some companies' API documentation! Yes! Seriously! Now, of course, you can just Google it.) It was sufficiently expensive that a college student (which I was back then) couldn't really think of starting one on a whim. You had to get access to some serious capital to make a real go of it. So many of those costs have collapsed these days that it's much, much easier to do a startup than it was then. But that's a double-edged sword -- while it opens up opportunity to lots more people, it also means there's lots more half-baked "startups" out there than there used to be.

coldtea 13y ago

>It's a really interesting thought that this whole "learn to code" movement existed in some form seventeen years ago and somehow didn't take off when it seems like such an inevability right now. It seemed an inevetability back then too (and 10 years before that, with the first wave of the cheap PCs). Like now, it actually wasn't. >But I think it's one of those things we'll look back on like the 2010 iPad / 1993 Apple Newton and say "yeah coding trade schools were a cool idea back then, but the world just wasn't ready for it yet", and now that they've become 'cool' so to speak we're going to see that permanent explosion. Nope, it's just a fad now too, driven by the current bubble. It will subside with it. >I mean, I'm new to this game but did you even call it "coding" in 1996? You'd be surprised, but it was called coding in 1986, 1976 and even 1966. And it has been considered cool, in the right circles, ever since 1970 (circa). >I mean were startups even a thing in 1996? Sure they were. And Open Source. Everybody and his dog started a startup around that time, until they had a bubble bust circa 1999-2000. Seriously man, you have to check up on the history of this "coding" thing. You seem to be missing a lot of knowledge, that's not just folklore but also essential to a well groomed developer. Here's a 1998 documentary on the building of Mozilla: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u404SLJj7ig http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u404SLJj7ig Here's the Hacker's Dictionary: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html

UK-AL 13y ago

Yes tech start ups were HUGE(Possibly bigger than now) in the 90's. It all came crashing down in the early 2000's.