Coding was always a temporary profession

Coding was always a temporary profession. Back 200 years ago, most people were illiterate. If you could read and write, there was work. You could become part of the machinery of the beginning industrial revolution, actually quite an important cog. Just by knowing how to read and write, someone would need your skills to coordinate stuff, mostly mundane. But it meant you had a way into a business. You might convert your clerkship into accountancy or law, or you would become a manager, knowledgeable about whatever business you were working in. As time passed, everyone became literate. Knowing how to read and write stopped being the only thing you needed to get on the career ladder. When I started working, my boss had no degree. He had energy, and he could do arithmetic. This got him a job as a young man running around with slips of paper in the LIFFE pit. Eventually he learned how option trading worked. He got older and hired me. By this time, you could easily find a highly numerate graduate, and only such people were considered for finance roles. …