Last week on Tech Tuesday, I ran the second reader survey to figure out what to write about next. I have to admit that I was a bit anxious about the results as I realized that I personally favored one of the topics – an overview of programming. So I was thrilled to see the following chart:
Among nearly 150 responses, an overview of programming received almost half the votes. Somewhat to my surprise though, the theory of computer science was a pretty meaningful runner up with about one third of the votes.
There are three reasons I am excited to be writing the overview of programming. First, part of the audience for Tech Tuesdays is my own family. We are currently home schooling the kids and they are learning a ton of hands on programming for which I am hoping to provide some context. Second, I am personally convinced that programming is the modern day equivalent of literacy. Your experience of the world around you will be entirely different if you know how to program that world than if you don’t. And third, with the Instagram acquisition by Facebook we now have a home run example for entrepreneurial success by a self-taught developer. Instagram also illustrates that we now live in a world where a team of a dozen can build a service that is used by many millions.
In addition to the votes, I also got a ton of terrific free form commentary and suggestions. These were very broad ranging but one theme was to write more about how tech issues intersect with startup success and failure. That does indeed seem like a very rich topic and one that I have a lot of experience with. I am currently mulling on whether that should be a separate series of posts or makes sense as part of Tech Tuesdays. Thanks to everyone for participating!
