Don't learn to code - Unless you can't help it....

Apropos of my post the other day, "Don't Learn to Code":

Quite a few people have come up and asked me about this post. "Really?!? I'm taking a coding class RIGHT NOW!! Are you saying I shouldn't bother??..." No, I'm not saying you shouldn't bother. I'm saying, evaluate your level of obsession / passion.

This from a recent interview by George R.R. Martin, author of the omnipresent and omnivorous series Game of Thrones - A Song of Fire & Ice:

If you have to write, if the stories are in you, if you made up names and stories for your toy spacemen when you were little, if the stories come to you, ask yourself the question, ‘What if no one ever gives me a penny for my stories? Will I still write them?’ And if the answer is ‘yes’, then you’re a writer,” he said. “Then you have to be a writer. It’s the only thing you can do. If the answer is ‘No, I’m going to quit after a few years because I’m not selling’, then maybe you should quit right now and learn computer science. I hear there’s a real future in these computer things. - G.R.R. Martin

I'm not saying don't learn to code, any more than I'm saying don't learn to write an essay or a short story. I'm saying that if that isn't the thing that you feel compelled to do - that doesn't keep you up at night thinking about, put a spring in your step and a smile on your face, causes you to annoy your friends and loved ones babbling about - then consider it a personal enrichment project. A hobby. Something to gain a little knowledge from.

Just don't expect to go out and be the next Linus Torvalds or Steve Wozniak because you went to a weekend bootcamp. Don't even expect to be the "weird developer dude down the hall". Because it does keep those people up at night, and that's why they are who they are. Personally, I can't not see an inefficient business process and start immediately imagining the various ways to automate it away. ( Yes, I know that was a double negative. I'm a coder not a writer. :P ) I was up till 3 last night planning a project's architecture in my head. I would imagine that many of "you" weren't.

Find your passion, your obsession, and the rest is easy.