領導也得懂編程Coding as a second language
Alliott Cole sees a large number of tech start-ups in his work as principal in the early-stage investment team of private equity firm Octopus. The trouble is that he often struggles to comprehend what those writing the software that underpins those companies are talking about.
作爲私人股本公司Octopus早期投資團隊的主管，阿利奧特•科爾(Alliott Cole)在工作中接觸到大量技術型初創企業。令他頭疼的是，他常常很難搞懂那些寫軟件支撐這類企業運轉的人在說些什麼。"For several years I have worked hard to understand how new infrastructure, products and applications work together to disrupt markets," he says, explaining why he recently decided to take a course that claims to be able to teach even the most IT-illiterate person how to create a software application, or app, in just a day.
在解釋自己爲何最近決定去聽一門號稱能在短短一天內教會頂級IT盲編寫軟件應用的課程時，科爾表示：“幾年來，我一直在努力理解新的基礎架構、產品和應用是如何合力促使市場發生突變的。”"While I am conversant in many of the trends and the – often confusing – array of terminology, it troubled me that I remained an observant passenger rather than an active driver, particularly in the realms of computer programming."
“儘管我對許多潮流和各種常常讓人頭暈的術語都很熟悉，但令我苦惱的是，我仍然只是一名善於觀察的‘乘客’，而不是一名掌握主動的‘司機’，尤其是在計算機編程領域。”
Mr Cole is not alone, which is why eight executives and I are sitting in a penthouse apartment perched on top of a 1930s office block in London’s trendy Clerkenwell having our turn on the same course.
像科爾這樣的人還有很多。正因如此，我現在才與8名高管坐在一間上世紀30年代建成的辦公樓的樓頂公寓裏，聆聽科爾上過的那門課。這座辦公樓位於倫敦時髦的克勒肯韋爾(Clerkenwell)地區。The programme is run by Decoded, a training business created by three former advertising executives – Steve Henry, Kathryn Parsons and Richard Peters – and Alasdair Blackwell, an award-winning web designer and developer.
該課程是由培訓公司Decoded教授的。Decoded是由三位前廣告業高管——史蒂夫•亨利(Steve Henry)、凱瑟琳•帕森斯(Kathryn Parsons)和理查德•彼得斯(Richard Peters)——以及曾獲過獎的網頁設計師兼開發者阿拉斯戴爾•布萊克維爾(Alasdair Blackwell)創建的。They appear to have tapped into a widely felt, but rarely discussed, problem. Tech talk is increasingly commonplace in business and life. Many of us rely on smartphones and the web for work, but most people, including senior executives, find the language used by software engineers, social media professionals and the "digital natives" for whom modern technology is intuitive, baffling. So, anything that can help is warmly received.
他們似乎把握住了一個大家普遍有所感觸、卻很少展開討論的問題。技術語言在商業和生活中越來越常見。我們許多人在工作中都需要用到智能手機和互聯網，但包括高級管理人員在內的大多數人，都發現軟件工程師、社交媒體專業人士和“數字原住民”（他們已把現代技術當作本能）所使用的語言很難理解。所以，任何能有助於理解這些人語言的舉措都受到了熱捧。Decoded has invited me to its rooftop classroom to see whether it could bring out my inner geek. After pacing the streets while struggling to use the Google Maps function on my iPhone to find the venue, it seemed highly unlikely that I would be an app developer by five o'clock as Decoded had promised.
Decoded邀請我去他們那間位於樓頂的教室，看能否調動出我內在的“極客”(geek)才能。我費了好大勁才藉助iPhone上的谷歌地圖(Google Maps)功能、走過幾條街找到教室所在地。看來，要想讓我像Decoded承諾的那樣在下午5點前成爲一名應用開發者，似乎是一件根本不可能的事情。My fellow students are an assortment of executives and copywriters from Ogilvy and Mather, the marketing group. Decoded says earlier course participants have come from organisations including BT, O2, Facebook, the BBC, as well as the editor of Campaign magazine, members of the Downing Street policy team and the founder of the think-tank Education Foundation.
教室的同學形形色色，他們是來自營銷集團奧美(Ogilvy and Mather)的高管和廣告文字撰稿人。Decoded表示，上過這門課的人來自各種組織，包括英國電信(BT)、O2、Facebook、英國廣播公司(BBC)等機構的員工，以及Campaign雜誌的主編、唐寧街政策團隊的成員和智庫“教育基金會”(Education Foundation)的創始人。For some, memories of coding are distant. Mike Nicholson, head of strategy at OgilvyAction, the company's branding agency, admits that he had not tried to program a computer since his school days in the early 1980s. "We had BBC Micros and I learnt how to make the screen go red and to print," he says.
對有些人來說，編程是一份遙遠的記憶。奧美品牌推广部門奧美行動(OgilvyAction)的策略主管邁克•尼科爾森(Mike Nicholson)承認，他上次嘗試計算機編程還是在上世紀80年代初上學的時候。尼科爾森表示：“我們那時使用BBC微機(BBC Micro)，我學會了怎樣讓屏幕變成紅色、怎樣打印出東西。”Now, however, as modern technology is changing his industry, he feels the need to revisit the basics of how technology functions. "In my department I have people who build websites and work in social media. In order to take the fear away you have to understand it. I am here to understand what happens inside the box."
但今天，隨着現代技術不斷改變他所在的行業，他感到有必要重溫一下技術運作機制的基本知識。“在我管轄的部門裏，有人負責建設網站和使用社交媒體工作。爲了消除恐懼感，你必須要懂行。我來這上課，就是爲了弄明白這裏面到底有什麼名堂。”Nick Midworth, the company's finance director, says his last experience of computer programming was typing numbers into a machine during the maths component of his economics degree in the late 1990s. "I am sure that would be miles away from this,"he says.
奧美行動財務總監尼克•米德沃斯(Nick Midworth)表示，他上次體驗計算機編程是在上世紀90年代：那時還在攻讀經濟學學位的他，只是在上數學課期間在一臺計算機上鍵入了一些數字。“我相信，那時的編程和現在有天壤之別。”Like the others, his main reason for attending the training session is to help his day job. "It is being able to know a little bit more than clients so you can at least get by," he admits.
米德沃斯來上這門課的主要原因與其他人一樣，都是爲了方便自己的日常工作。他承認：“現在可以做到比客戶懂得多點了，這樣你起碼能夠對付過去。”As we huddle in a corner of the living room around the coffee and pastries, there is an air of nervous anticipation you do not normally experience on corporate awaydays. "I feel like I am joining the Matrix," one of the creatives quips, referring to the films beloved of many programmers.
當我們擠在客廳的一角、喝着咖啡、吃着糕點時，大家都有一種緊張的期待感，這是在參加公司放鬆日(awayday)活動時不常有的感覺。“我感覺自己像是加入了黑客帝國(the Matrix)，”某位廣告創意人員詼諧地說。他這裏指的是那部深受許多程序員喜愛的電影。According to Mr Blackwell, however, the popular view of code promulgated by movies such as The Matrix is part of the problem his company is trying to combat.
但布萊克維爾表示，《黑客帝國》等影片所散播的那種關於編程的流行觀點，正是Decoded力圖糾正的觀點之一。"A lot of the reason people fear software programmers is the fault of Hollywood," he says. "The idea of coding is that it is done by someone who has a different brain to the rest of us – a boy in Illinois who is tapping away on a computer in his bedroom, hacking into the CIA."
“人們害怕軟件程序員，這在很大程度上是由好萊塢(Hollywood)的錯誤所致。”他表示，“好萊塢散播的觀念，是把編程視爲一件某個想法獨特的人對我們其餘人做的事情，比如一個伊利諾伊州男孩在自己臥室裏的電腦鍵盤上噼裏啪啦地敲擊、侵入美國中央情報局(CIA)網絡。”Mr Blackwell and Mr Richards, our teachers for the day, spend the first part of the course leading us through a brief history of the internet before moving on to the basics of modern programming. The assumption is clearly that everyone on the course knows nothing and needs to have every piece of jargon explained clearly.
當天給我們上課的老師是布萊克維爾和理查德，他們先用了一半的時間簡單介紹了互聯網的發展史，然後又講授了現代編程基礎。他們顯然事先認定，來上課的人全都對編程一無所知，因此有必要把每一條術語都講解得一清二楚。The good news, it seems, is that ever since Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web and hypertext mark-up language (HTML), the main coding language used to create web pages, writing software has become ever simpler, helped greatly by programmers posting their code online so that others can copy and adapt it.
這裏似乎有個好消息：自蒂姆•伯納斯-李爵士(Sir Tim Berners-Lee)發明互聯網和超文本標記語言(HTML)以來，寫軟件已變得愈發簡單。這主要是得益於程序員將他們的代碼發佈到網上，這樣其他人就可以拷貝和改寫。HTML是創建網頁所用的主要編程語言。By the time we get down to actually writing the code on stylish MacBook Air computers in the afternoon, we can at least see how it all fits together. All the data we need to use will be stored in HTML. We use a programming language called CSS to turn that into a nicely designed webpage. Finally, we animate it all by telling the computer what to do using a language called JavaScript. Put these three elements together and you have a working website.
到了下午我們坐寫來在時髦的MacBook Air上真正開始編寫代碼的時候，我們起碼明白了各種元素是如何相互配合的。我們需要用到一切數據都將存在HTML文件裏，然後用一種叫做層疊樣式表(CSS)的編程語言，將這些數據轉化爲一個設計得很漂亮的網頁。最後，我們告訴計算機要用一種叫做JavaScript的語言做些什麼，以讓網頁“動”起來。將上面三種元素合起來，就能做出一個具有正常功能的網站。And, by the end of the day, each of us has built an app – a simple location-based tool that tracks the movements of the user on the map function of a smartphone or tablet device, then alerts them when they have reached a certain grid point. The app could be used by a retailer to promote discounts when the smartphone owner walks past one of its shops, or as a game to encourage people to try to find a new nightclub venue.
這一天快結束時，我們每個人都創建了一個應用。這是一種基於位置的簡單工具，它使用智能手機或平板設備的地圖功能來追蹤用戶的位置移動，當用戶到達某個特定格點時，會發信息提醒用戶。零售商可以使用該應用向走過自己某家門店的智能手機用戶推送折扣信息；它也可以被當作一款遊戲，用來鼓勵人們努力找到新的夜總會地點。While it is unlikely that we will be challenging the position of location-based apps such as Foursquare, the sense of achievement among the participants is incredible.
儘管我們這個應用不太可能對Foursquare等基於位置的應用的地位構成挑戰，但大家獲得的成就感是令人難以置信的。Mr Cole says he had a similar experience. He had arrived at the Decoded apartment with a blend of nerves and excitement, but had walked out a convert. He likened the experience to the "sense of wonder" he felt the first time he went scuba diving.
科爾表示，他也有過類似的體驗。他剛到Decoded的教室時感到既緊張又興奮，但走出去時完全變了一個人。他把這種體驗比作他在首次嘗試水肺潛水時體會到的“驚奇感”。However, a day at Decoded is not enough to convince him or the others to quit their day jobs and become full-time programmers. That is a role they are happy to leave to the experts – but now, at least, they feel more confident of being able to talk the same language.
然而，在Decorded上的一天課還不足以讓科爾或其他人放棄日常工作，轉而成爲一名全職程序員。他們很樂於把編程工作留給專家去做，不過，現在他們起碼對自己能與程序員講同一種語言更有信心了。
