Watch the following video, pay particular attention to Lottie Dexter’s bit from around 5:35. While you watch remember this: Lottie Dexter is the head of the government’s “Year of Code” initiative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7x7GYItzS4 - The video has been removed since this post was published.

Done? If you’re not riled up by that you really should be. I’m fuming! “Coding” is a complex skill that requires many years of education and experience, but according to self-confessed code virgin Lottie (a “communications manager” by day) Teachers can not only learn to “code”, but also learn to teach “coding” in a day.

I have never been so utterly offended and insulted - Clearly my years of experience and Computer Science degrees are utterly worthless if teachers can learn not just to code, but to teach others how to code in a DAY! Despite not knowing how to code Lottie proclaims that if she did then she could do a better job building a website than professional web developers.

Lottie also thinks that complete novices can create a Website completely from scratch in an hour and that a clueless moron with a “communications manager” day job and no previous experience can be Mark Zuckerberg in a year. I’ve been “coding” for 16 years and I’m still learning new things every single day, I have no doubt Zuckerberg would say something similar. For reference Lottie: Zuckerberg himself took many years of education, training and experience to become what he is now. He started “coding” in middle school, he had private tuition from a professional software developer, took a graduate course while still at high school and ultimately studied Computer Science at Harvard, where he was considered something of a prodigy. He launched Facebook in 2004, while still at Harvard. But you think you can be where he is in a year? Yeah, right.

So here’s a message for Lottie, on behalf of coders everywhere, written in code of course:

#include <stdio.h>;
int main(void)
{
    char* str1 = "fornicate";
    char str2[3];
    str2[0] = 'o';
    str2[1] = 'f';
    str2[2] = 'f';
    printf("Oh do kindly %s %s Lottie", str1, str2);
    return(0);
}

(yes that is a Blackadder reference)