iPhone App Directory

How should non-techie's learn programming?

Interesting question raised at slashdot, which I bet lots of people have asked themselves over time. How do I get get my heard into coding?

My favourite comment at slashdot was "Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day. Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let someone who knows code for you and spend your time doing something better ;-) It's my opinion after fifteen years programming...

ashley said...

Well, I'm still going to give app inventor a go

Jamie Bullock said...

I think it depends on *why* someone wants to learn programming. A lot of artists learn 'creative coding' in environments like Processing and OpenFrameworks, where the code is highly work-specific and experimental. The resulting software is not intended for use by others, so a lot of the criteria that usually govern software development don't apply.

However, if the reason you want to code is to write an *application*, possibly one that is intended for use by other people, I definitely think it is better to employ a programmer and not use the DIY approach.

Writing software for other people is a lot harder than writing it for yourself.