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Here is my proposed question. Is it on-topic?

What would be the reasons for people with non-tech background decide to learn programming?

There are existing no-code/WYSIWYG solutions for most common task. If they are not enough then you can still hire someone to customize for you. If you don't have enough money then I guess that even when you knew that you should learn it by yourself, the inertia was still large enough. What's the final straw that makes people with non-tech background put learning programming as the top priority?

The article What topics can I ask about here? - Help Center - The Workplace Stack Exchange is still vague to me on which side this question belongs to.

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    What exactly is the connection to the workplace? What problem in the workplace are you trying to solve?
    – nvoigt Mod
    Commented Feb 27 at 7:05
  • I'm having a social project for computer literacy and would like to study the need of people from workplace to learn programing, so we can target the audience/serve their need better
    – Ooker
    Commented Feb 27 at 7:54
  • My artist husband learned Python so he could make his genAI tool do what he wanted it to do. The programmers working on the open source project either didn't believe him or didn't understand him when he told them parts of it weren't working correctly. I don't know if he counts as having a non-tech background though. He just didn't know how to code. I imagine there are as many reasons people learn to program as there are people.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Feb 27 at 13:55
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    Possible suggestions to improve the wording/grammar: “What would be the reasons for a non-tech person to learn code/programming?” …"for most common tasks… what would be the moment that drives someone to study programming?"
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Mar 1 at 8:54
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    You either learn programming because that's what you love doing or out of sheer necessity. For example, those who are forced, due to professional circumstances and/or the job market (money), to be able to find work. But without passion I can't imagine any language being easy to master, I suspect those who strongly dislike math would find it most challenging. // In brief, although your question is interesting, it would encourage discussion in the comments and in the end nobody would agree with anyone.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Mar 1 at 9:07
  • @Mari-LouA if you find it's interesting, I wonder if you find it a workplace problem, or a problem to a job itself?
    – Ooker
    Commented Mar 1 at 18:33
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    It's not really about the place of work, though is it? It's about changing career, learning a valuable skill, and/ or improving your chances of getting a job or one that pays more.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Mar 1 at 20:09

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It would probably not be on topic here and it would probably make a bad fit for any SE site.

SE specialized in a Q&A model, that means there is a question that can be objectively answered by a single answer. On some sites that might be more obvious, since you can compile and find out whether it objectively solves the problem, on some sites it's a little more cloudy and relies on expert's experience and other expert's ability to judge that.

You question will either generate a single authorative answer with a link to a statistic someone else already compiled, or a whole bunch of personal experiences, each as valid as the next.

But neither is a good answer for SE, since it is either an off-site resource (something we try to avoid, because we want to provide "THE answer", not a stepping stone in a thin line of links through the internet which if followed may maybe lead to an answer, or more likely to a 404 if you wait long enough), or just a collection of personal experiences without an actual answer.

From the first impression, I'd say you might be better served by some survey tool.

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  • if the answer is a statistic, then isn't that we should copy the relevant part in the answer, and that's what notorious in SE?
    – Ooker
    Commented Feb 27 at 16:38
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    Sure, if it's open content and you are allowed to do so. But even then, it's not really a "workplace" answer, because there does not seem to be a workplace problem. You could as well ask "what standing desks do office workers prefer" or "what are the reasons constructions workers prefer soda over tea". Sure, it's all tangentially related to the workplace, but none of it really is a workplace problem. Nor is SE a good format to get a good answer to those kind of questions.
    – nvoigt Mod
    Commented Feb 27 at 17:03
  • it seems to me that "workplace problem" is all about interpersonal issues in the office, right?
    – Ooker
    Commented Feb 28 at 4:04
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    Not at all, being fired unfairly from the job at a fishing trawler by HR using an algorithm is definetely a workplace problem, although it isn't interpersonal or involves an office. What makes it a workplace problem is that it is an actual problem with the workplace, opposed to a problem with the job itself (lets say "how do I operate a 500SX crane on a trawler") or a survey.
    – nvoigt Mod
    Commented Feb 28 at 6:11
  • I understand a problem with the job itself is not a workplace problem. Can you give an example on a survey that looks like a workplace problem but not?
    – Ooker
    Commented Feb 28 at 13:18
  • Not sure what you mean. Surveys are generally a bad fit for our SE format, we expect each answer to be an authorative answer to the question. A survey questions multiple people, each with their own answer that is not an authorative answer to your question and only through piecing it all together and compiling numbers and averages, you will get what you are looking for.
    – nvoigt Mod
    Commented Feb 28 at 13:27
  • oh, I was framed by the statistic research, and thought survey is it. I guess you mean it's the proposed question
    – Ooker
    Commented Feb 28 at 17:53
  • hmm, how are workplace problems different to HR problems?
    – Ooker
    Commented Mar 1 at 18:46

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