I am writing this today because I have a friend who teaches a class on information technology at Harvard University. She teaches it in the context of a course called “Information Technology: The Humanities and Social Sciences”, but she also teaches it in the context of the “Three Levels of Self-Awareness”.
In the course, students are given a computer and a computer file for a class project. The students make a computer program by writing code, drawing pictures, and so on. The students are required to put the computer program together in a way that makes it work correctly and understand what’s going on. The students aren’t told how to do this or encouraged to do it themselves.
I had a long discussion with my students about this, and they brought up the fact that this is a class project based on what they have learned at school in their class. They are alsont told how to do this, which is important for the reason they mentioned. When you’re learning complex things like programming, you need to learn to think about these things as well as you can.
I was in a very similar situation to my students. My students had to write a simple program that would tell me why all of their classmates are so lazy. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to comprehend all the code, and I didn’t. It was very disheartening to have spent the week writing and re-writing code that was difficult to understand, and then have to tell all of my students to do this too.
Well, it’s not a programming problem, but rather a social problem.
You see, when you are in a situation where you have to write code, you can either write the code yourself, or you can hire someone else to do it for you. Both solutions have their pros and cons, but I wouldnt call either of these solutions an “either-or” solution.
The problem with hiring someone to write code for you is that they are often not as familiar with the language as you are. I know this because I have friends who have been coding for years who are still learning a new language, who also use code that is not their own. Some people are good at reading code, and others are good at writing code. But you can’t always tell who someone is by just looking at their code.
Hiring a coder is like hiring a plumber. The plumber might be as good at plumbing as the plumber, however, the plumber might be a horrible plumber. For instance, the plumber might have terrible plumbing skills, and it could be a lot of trouble getting a job that pays the bills.
Hiring a coder is a similar process. We don’t want to get into the whole “is a coder a good person” thing. A good coder is just like a good plumber. They can do things you can’t, and the plumber can do things you can’t do. For instance, we’re looking for a coder that can read and write code that is not their own.
The coder might just be a poor coder. As with the plumber, the coder might have terrible plumbing skills, and it could be a lot of trouble getting a job that pays the bills.
