Audio: http://archive.dconstruct.org/2012/commoncode Slides from my talk at dConstruct 2012 (Brighton, UK): http://2012.dconstruct.org/conference/lukas/ Slide Illustrations by the radical Matt Sutter: http://twitter.com/msutters http://birthdaystreet.com/

2. CURE FOR CODING FROM
ANYWHERE

3. CURE FOR CODING FROM
ANYWHERE
(It’s actually a fractured tibia)

5. OBLIGATORY CROWD
PARTICIPATION SECTION

6. IF YOU COULD LEARN ANYTHING,
WHAT WOULD IT BE?

7. HERE’S SOME THINGS I’VE HEARD:
•Start a fire
•Make mayonnaise
•Escape a straight jacket
•Create animated gifs
•Learn Spanish
•Basic electronics
•Play guitar
•Make beer or spirits
•Perform the Heimlich
•Make jewelry
•Throw a football
•Garden

8. TELL THE PERSON SITTING NEXT TO
YOU YOUR ANSWER

9. WHY HAVEN’T YOU
LEARNED IT YET?

10. WHY HAVEN’T YOU
LEARNED IT YET?
•Laziness
•Afraid to dislocate shoulder
•Can’t retain new information
•Too busy
•Requires someone to show me how
•Can’t find resources
•Don’t have the tools (Photoshop)
•Money
•Don’t know where to start
•Afraid to fail
•Time

11. “There's an unlimited
number of things to
learn, so knowing
where to start is
daunting.”

12. “I need to be taught. I
don't learn well from books
unless I'm furthering
knowledge that's already in
my brain. So if I didn't have
someone literally teaching
me step-by-step, I never
would learn.”

13. “I need someone to
find a class and say it
happens at this time,
for this long and it
costs this much
and I would be in.”

14. “I need [help/support] to
find [a resource] at [a date],
for [length of time] for
[monetary value] and I’m
[confirmation exclamation]!”

15. “Jenn told me about a
Girl Develop It Class
on October 6th, for 4
hours for 80 bucks
and I’m totes in!”

16. GIRLDEVELOPIT.COM

17. I WANTED IN

19. ZELDMAN.COM - 1996

20. ZELDMAN.COM/FAQ.HTML - 1999

21. “It will show you how to use simple,
inexpensive tools to make web pages
that shine: pages that look great,
load fast, connect to each other
in intuitive ways, and above all
CONVEY SOMETHING WORTHWHILE
to your chosen audience.
Because it's not about dancing baloney
and flashing lights, it's about
COMMUNICATION AND SHARING.
This is our medium – perhaps the most
open and democratic medium the
world has yet known.
IT BEHOOVES US TO USE IT WELL.”

22. MORE CODERS, MORE CONTENT
CONTENTSMAGAZINE.COM LILBUB.COM

24. SEXHOBBIT.TUMBLR.COM

25. ALEXISANDJOE.TUMBLR.COM

26. PIXELUNION.NET/THEMES/FLUID

27. ALEXISANDJOE.TUMBLR.COM

28. ALEXISANDJOE.TUMBLR.COM

29. THIS IS MY MOM

30. ETSY.COM/SHOP/WISHTO

31. “I took a Dreamweaver class. I
loved every minute of it. I FELT
SMART while I was learning it ...
and IT FELT MAGICAL TO
WRITE CODE and it produced a
website!
I used to like to practice writing
different things and then
viewing what those different
things produce.”

32. THIS IS JOHN

33. FACULTY.CCP.EDU

34. FACULTY.CCP.EDU

35. “All of my students use
phones now, so I thought
a mobile site would be
good. Just trying to keep
up to date.”

36. DUDAMOBILE.COM

37. THERE’S NO SHORTAGE OF REASONS
THAT PEOPLE WANT TO LEARN CODE
•Edit blogging themes
•Customize your MySpace page
•Bulletin Board posts
•Portfolio sites
•Try out web fonts
•Further careers
•Help inform web design decisions
•Communicate with clients about their website
•Learn something new

38. THIS IS THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY
TWITTER.COM/MIKEBLOOMBERG/STATUS/154999795159805952

39. CODEYEAR.COM

40. CODEACADEMY.COM

41. CODESCHOOL.COM

42. CODE.GOOGLE.COM/EDU

43. FTACADEMY.ORG

44. LYNDA.COM

45. OPERA.COM/COMPANY/EDUCATION

46. ACADEMICEARTH.ORG

47. P2PU.ORG/EN/SCHOOLS/SCHOOL-OF-WEBCRAFT

48. TEAMTREEHOUSE.COM

49. CODEAVENGERS.COM

50. SOME PEOPLE DID NOT THINK THIS
WAS A GOOD IDEA

52. FORBES.COM/SITES/TARABROWN/2012/01/10/LEARNING-HOW-TO-CODE-IS-A-WASTE-OF-TIME

53. CODINGHORROR.COM/BLOG/2012/05/PLEASE-DONT-LEARN-TO-CODE.HTML

54. SOME PEOPLE DID NOT THINK THIS
WAS A GOOD IDEA
•Underestimates time it takes to learn code
•There's no help with definitions or concepts
•There's no help at all
•Badges aren’t enough incentive
•Boring content
•No use case for lessons learned
•A tool seeking a problem
•Reciting code, not understanding code
•Unnecessary skill
•Implies that there's a thin, easily permeable
membrane between learning to program and
getting paid to program professionally

55. LEARN X IN Y MINUTES!!
RINKWORKS.COM/BOOKAMINUTE

56. SET REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

57. IDENTIFY TRUST-WORTHY RESOURCES

59. HTML.NET

60. “Oh boy.”

61. HTML.NET

62. “This talks to you like you’re
an idiot.”

63. W3SCHOOLS.COM

64. W3FOOLS.COM

65. BAD EDUCATION HURTS.
1.BEING BADLY EDUCATED HAMPERS YOUR
ABILITY TO SCORE A GOOD JOB.
2.INACCURATE REFERENCES SLOW
DEVELOPMENT AND CAUSE COSTLY QA LOOPS.
3.LEARNING KEY WEB DEVELOPMENT IDIOMS
SLOWLY OR INCORRECTLY PUTS YOU YEARS
BEHIND YOUR OWN COLLEAGUES.
W3FOOLS.COM

66. I've worked my way through
all the "Getting Started with
Programming" lessons and
I've even tackled the
Intermediate Javascript
course. I've got badges. I've
earned achievements. And I
don't know shit.
- Audrey Watters
http://www.hackeducation.com/2011/10/28/codecademy-and-the-future-of-not-learning-to-code/

67. FOCUS ON REAL USE CASES

68. INFORMATION-BASED LEARNING
Focuses on the delivery of
information by the teacher through
lectures, notes, etc. and its recall by
the student

69. PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING
In a problem-based learning (PBL) model, students
engage complex, challenging problems and
collaboratively work toward their resolution.
PBL is about students connecting
disciplinary knowledge to real-world
problems—the motivation to
solve a problem becomes
the motivation to learn.

70. “My biggest barrier was that I
didn't know where to start. I
read articles, did tutorials, and
watched videos, but I wasn't
sure of what I should focus on,
so I felt like I wasn't
progressing
It was incredibly valuable
having a curriculum to follow.”
- Yesenia Perez-Cruz

71. YESENIAPEREZCRUZ.COM

72. GET EXCITED!!

73. TWITTER.COM/JERESIG

74. KHANACADEMY.ORG/CS

76. CREATE A SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT

77. GET PEOPLE INVOLVED
Adults often learn or remember the following
after one month:
• 10% of what they read.
• 20% of what they hear.
• 30% of what they see.
• 50% of what they see and hear.
• 70% of what they say.
• 90% of what they do and say.
“How People Learn”
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/familydevelopment/components/08503p13-14.pdf

78. BLOC.IO

79. DEVBOOTCAMP.COM

80. DON’T WASTE ANYONES TIME

82. MAKE TIME YOUR FRIEND

83. MAKE TIME YOUR FRIEND

84. SKILLSHARE.COM

85. LEARNING NEW STUFF FEELS GREAT
GET YOUR RUBBER BANDS OUT