You should learn to program

Why you should learn to program is Chapter 1 of an online book by Chris Crawford (a game developer).

This is one of a whole series of well thought our writings by Chris Crawford, here is his Library page - on Politics, Global Warming, What do Women Want?, Artists and Technologists, Statistics that misrepresent the popularity of games, The Education of a Computer Game Designer. I disagree with some of his views, but clearly Chris Crawford is a thinker.

Most of these essays are valuable for clear thinking about the role of computer games in society.

Crawford provides two bad reasons and three good reasons for learning to program. He gives much more detail than my very brief summary below:

BAD
1) You won't miss out on doing interesting things with computers if you can't program
2) Don't learn it for the money

GOOD
1) Recreation, a fun hobby
2) It will teach you the importance of clear communication
3) It will make you a better thinker. It's a new language that will take you to new places. Different sorts of places than where a language like English will take you. This last one is his main reason.

Tags:

• programming