What I don't get about all this fuss is: Who is forcing anybody to learn about anything?
Free learning resources are huge empowering forces that are just starting to get a decent scale (see coursera.org, udacity.com.) It doesn't matter at all about what, few exceptions aside. If some person wants to learn something why should you discourage them?
In fact, to Jeff's phrase "I would no more urge everyone to learn programming than I would urge everyone to learn plumbing. That'd be ridiculous, right?"
Wrong, that wouldn't be ridiculous. People who'd care to learn how to plumb would do so of their own accord, not just because they saw an encouragement on a website. Just like people learning to program.
Free learning resources are huge empowering forces that are just starting to get a decent scale (see coursera.org, udacity.com.) It doesn't matter at all about what, few exceptions aside. If some person wants to learn something why should you discourage them?
In fact, to Jeff's phrase "I would no more urge everyone to learn programming than I would urge everyone to learn plumbing. That'd be ridiculous, right?"
Wrong, that wouldn't be ridiculous. People who'd care to learn how to plumb would do so of their own accord, not just because they saw an encouragement on a website. Just like people learning to program.