The use of technology pervades the lives of each and every individual from infancy to the grave. Computer technology and computer programming has an effect in daily life from creating bank and investment statements, processing a paycheck or bill, to the software that is used in hospital monitoring from birth to death.
The pros and cons follow.
Computer Programming, was not in the Plan
The first negative that comes to mind is that a computer engineering or programming career was never in the planning. Most people would agree but should consider other decisions made tangential to their avocation. Do young women list “being a mother”, “wife”, or “chauffeur” on a juvenile resume? Likewise, does the young man list “father”, baseball coach, or homemaker?
“Not in the plan”, does not indicate no need or necessity.
Too Complicated, not Enough Time
Life itself is complicated. It is the unknown and unseen and often irrational and definitely illogical. Computer programming is a stepwise, logical formulation of rules given to a computer.
As far as wasted time, consider time in traffic, time in boring and useless meeting, and time watching sitcoms on television. Taking a little time to understand some fundamentals of computer programming is not such a waste of time.
Don’t See the Benefits
A person working in an office spends hours in front of a screen “controlled” by others. Learning a little about computer programming may give an insight into what goes on behind the scenes or in a perverse sense, what “they” are doing to the helpless acolyte.
Having discussed the negative, it is important to see that the benefits outweigh the costs.
Becoming a Better Consumer
Learning about technology will make the consumer more aware and effective in making decisions in consumer purchases, When reading advertisements touting software and hardware products and solutions the consumer is often lulled into the non decision that “bigger is better, faster is better”.
This is the solution that manufactures of hardware, software, and data transmission want the consumer to believe. It is what has driven the computer industry forward for generations
Learning about computer programming at least to a sophisticated novice level can reveal some of the fallacies in the big and fast view which has made fortunes for those willing to market a product. Two simple questions should make it clear. What is a gigabyte in terms of the storage I need to do word processing or store pictures? What difference would be realized if rather than a 2 megahertz processor, a one megahertz processor was used, assuming a dial-up computer connection was used.
The ability to understand terminology and computer function comes in part from learning about computer programming and inevitably, as part of that study, computer technology.
Whether a Parent or Not
Computer programming takes a certain amount of planning and brain power. For parents, it may keep them on a par with their kids in terms of being computer savvy. For the population at large, it helps maintain mental agility and when all goes wrong, humility.