I agree all of that is hard. However, three years ago we were saying they had a long way to go before an AI could make a photorealistic photo, pass a traditional turing test, etc. And yet here we are...
Guess we'll see - my main point to the OP was that their child should go into it with their eyes open. On the list of jobs that are more venerable to disruption by AI, coding is fairly high on the list.
A slightly different approach to pure software development would be to look at Infrastructure as Code (IaC) focussing on something like Terraform to provision…infrastructure. Considerably easier to get to grips with and a more tangible output e.g. getting a Cloud service like a database provisioned and running in just a few mins. Still plenty of career opportunities.
If that floats the it could tie in with plenty of other languages e.g. Go which was mentioned earlier.
Just thinking:
What about playing in Excel and building macros / VBA applications?
You start by recording keystrokes and then build by adjusting the resulting code.
(I'm a child of the 80s and learnt Basic. I dabble with Python on a Raspberry Pi to run weather stations and adsb flight trackers. I have a lot of fun at work automating tasks with macros in Word and Excel)
Guess we’ll see – my main point to the OP was that their child should go into it with their eyes open.
Yes, I personally would not recommend programming as a career but for reasons nothing to do with AI
On the list of jobs that are more venerable to disruption by AI, coding is fairly high on the list.
Definitely disagree with this, the only coding jobs it may take are ones where people are just writing a script. LLM are limited in what they can do in this area a long long way to go for AI. We are a long way from any jobs being under threat, augmented perhaps but under threat no, especially programming.
@hb70 - just resurrecting this as a thought occurred to me when I found some stuff from a recruitment thing I went to in March.
These folks are a neurodiverse IT consultancy:
I had a good chat with them at the fair and they were talking about how they do outreach stuff with young people interested in IT careers. It might be worth having a look to see if there's anything there of use to your daughter.
Hey @stevious that's super kind. And to all of you actually. We took the advice that you gave, she's just nearly completed her first taster course and really enjoyed it. So thanks for your kindness and wisdom you lovely bunch x
