If you aren’t dreaming of becoming a programmer—and therefore planning to embark on a lengthy course of study, whether self-directed or formal—I can’t endorse learning to code. Yes, it is a creative endeavor. At its base, it’s problem-solving, and the rewards for exposing holes in your thinking and discovering elegant solutions are awesome. I really think that some programs are beautiful. But I don’t think that most who “learn to code” will end up learning anything that sticks.

One common argument for promoting programming to novices is that technology’s unprecedented pervasiveness in our lives demands that we understand the nitty-gritty details. But the fact is that no matter how pervasive a technology is, we don’t need to understand how it works—our society divides its labor so that everyone can use things without going to the trouble of making them. To justify everyone learning about programming, you would need to show that most jobs will actually require this. But instead all I see are vague predictions that the growth in “IT jobs” means that we must either “program or be programmed” and that a few rich companies want more programmers—which is not terribly persuasive.

Via Slate and Chase Felker

Ian Leslie suggests that Pablo Picasso’s success with Cubism was hardly inevitable, but rather the product of circumstance:

First, there was a new kind of consumer: the industrial revolution had created a class of young, educated, affluent Parisians, who, keen to distinguish themselves from their more conventional elders, prided themselves on daring displays of taste.

Second, new channels of distribution were opening: the French government had divested itself of responsibility for the city’s annual art salon, and private galleries sprang up in its place. Finally, a new breed of art dealers emerged, many of them foreign and thus outsiders to the Parisian establishment. These young, hungry businessmen competed to find the new new thing first and sell it at the most aggressive price possible.

In short, and almost without anyone noticing, Paris’s art market had become receptive to the commercial possibilities of risk-taking. Artistic innovation was becoming economically viable for the first time. Breaking with the past was starting to be encouraged; soon it would be demanded. This was the environment in which Picasso made his leap into the unknown.

[Professor Stoyan] Sgourev’s analysis of Cubism suggests that having an exceptional idea isn’t enough: if it is to catch fire, the market conditions have to be right. That’s a question of luck and timing as much as it is of genius.

Hat tip Andrew Sullivan and The Dish