This video from Code.org has gotten quite a bit of attention over the last week, mainly due to the tech heavyweights including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates who feature talking about how getting into coding from a young age had helped them become successful.
While there’s no doubt the world will need more and more coders in the future, I don’t think kids will need any help getting excited about coding considering the amount of time most will spend on the web or their smartphones etc. (plugging the cool offices and free food that these tech companies tend to have won’t do any harm though).
The real problem will be how fast educational institutions adapt and allocate sufficient resources to coding in schools. That is why outlets like Code.org and Ireland’s own Coder Dojo are so important in giving the next generation a chance to learn coding on their own terms.
As for the rest of us, I learned basic web design skills online in my spare time. It’s like everything else these days, all the information is out there on the web, just a Google search away, available to anyone who wants to use some initiative and learn some new skills.
