What is Code
“As you know, we are a very technology intensive company and we hire people who
have the rare ability to bridge the gap between business and technology. In your words,
why is it important for every person in business to understand the basics of code? Also,
if you were to explain programming to a non-technical person how would you explain
it?”
The benefits of understanding the basics of code come in two flavors: one of the mind and one of
practicality. In one hand, it provides a new lens through which to look at problems, and in the
other, a strategy of where to focus that lens. But code itself is the medium between humans and
computers. It’s a new sandbox of opportunities for creative creators in a globalized, highly
competitive flat world. Thus, the importance of understanding the basics of code is to lead and
manage the creators in the company.
For the mind, coding is a new way of thinking- unlocking fresh problem solving and
organizational techniques. The fundamental approach to solving a coding problem is to break it
into pieces and systematically solve each one. By rolling the previous solution into the next
piece, its easy to spot where errors pop up. But cutting a problem into bite sized chunks serves
more purposes than identifying errors, it also organizes the problem into steps. Reorganizing the
order in which to solve them can bypass trivial or redundant steps. Most importantly, this
organization allows for more efficient collaboration, by dividing and conquering. And while
redundant code may be bad, redundant coders would be far worse.
As for practicality, a better understanding of code provides insight as to how and where we can
leverage the best of what software can offer. It sets expectations and gives our hopes and dreams
a sense of reality. Not to say that it stifles dreams, but it labels our timelines of them more
accurately (or just accurate to begin with). Which is one of the biggest concerns for managers
and scrum masters as exemplified by Paul Ford’s “What Is Code” narrative.
For those of us who are strangers in a strange land, programming is how humans interact with
computers. Take for example the lighting in a home. Like flipping on a switch to power a light,
coding is the flipping on and off of gazillions of switches inside a computer. We could dive
deeper, to the very atoms of information, and see they are in fact like a switch, nothing but 1’s
and 0’s. But where Paul Ford describes the levels of programming languages, binary code (1’s
and 0’s) would be primitive, and higher forms of language allow us to zoom out and orchestrate
the whole concert in English. Programming would therefore be the composing of information,
how it’s stored, and how it’s retrieved. You grok?
A common argument to stress the importance of understanding code rests on the realization we
are increasingly surrounded by devices using code. However, the opposite may be just as true.
The more code surrounds us, the more usable the interfaces become, allowing us to squeak by
without any coding. In the not so distant past, we needed to know a little html or Java to build a
website. But today, all that is needed is a mouse and some taste in style to drag and drop buttons,
text boxes, and other plug-ins. Of course, code is working behind the scenes all along, but as the
next generation of electronics, utilities, and other tools come out, code fades further into the
background.
All good and well for consumers, but for businesspeople, we’re in this strange land because
competition has brought us here. Data mining, artificial intelligence, and automation are among
the advantages offered by computing power. Steering the company towards these advantages
requires a leader with a basic understanding of code, how to think like a coder, and how to see
like one.
Works Cited
Codebasics. “What is Code?” Youtube, Dec 3, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYws-
CDXA7k
“As you know, we are a very technology intensive company and we
hire people who have the rare ability to bridge the gap between
business and technology. In your words, why is it important for every
person in business to understand the basics of code? Also, if you were
to explain programming to a non-technical person how would you
explain it?”
As a technology company, our products function through code. It’s important for everyone in the
business to understand how our products work and subsequently the software that runs them. A
basic understanding of code can make us better salespeople, marketers, and managers. This
allows us to speak the language of our customers, highlight the software advantages in marketing
campaigns, and lead our software developers with relative technical competence.
