Томас Домке / GitHub
In a recent podcast, GitHub CEO Thomas Domke said that future programmers should learn coding as early as possible — and it would be great if such a subject became one of the main subjects in schools.
«I strongly believe that every child should learn to program», — says Domke (via Business Insider). «In fact, we should teach them coding in school just like we teach them physics, geography, language, math, and anything else».
According to Domke, who has been working as a programmer since the 90s, coding is one of the most fundamental skills for children and the only reason it hasn’t become part of the curriculum is that «it took us too long to realize it».
In the rest of the interview, he touched on artificial intelligence, which has made «modern engineering exciting» and has made it easier to break into the field» and is poised to make software more pervasive than ever.
«It is now much easier to start developing software. You can just write a prompt in Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar tools, and they will most likely write you a basic web page or a small program, a Python game,» says Domke.
Thomas adds that AI will allow «to make dreams come true for» because fewer projects will be nipped in the bud and smaller teams will be able to take on bigger things.
«You see some early signs of this when very small startups — sometimes five developers, or even one — believe they can become millions, if not billions of dollars in business using all the AI agents available to them», he adds.
Domke isn’t the only tech leader to identify AI as having the potential to reduce the amount of labor in large projects. Earlier, Harry Tan, CEO and president of Y Combinator, said that AI-powered coding now allows approximately 10 engineers to create what once required the efforts of «50 or 100 specialists», which is expected to cause some teams to worry about potential layoffs.
Earlier, Anthropic’s boss boldly stated that artificial intelligence «will write 90% of the code in half a year, and in a year — will take over all of», and Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that he has already more than a quarter of new code in the company is created by AI.
«The anxiety is understandable, but developers have found time and time again how to channel new capabilities into entire areas of innovation that didn’t exist before,» Domke wrote in a January blog post. «They have always used automation to make their lives easier».
For those already working in the industry, Domke advises to maintain a «sense of curiosity» for new things and use all available tools to constantly improve their skills.
«You must keep practicing. You have to keep studying. You will never be done learning,» he says. «If I look back 30 years ago, I would have been far behind if I hadn’t constantly read blog posts, specialized literature, and tried things myself».