This article reads like an amateur-gardener complaining about how hard it is to grow orchids.<p>&gt; Selling coding as a ticket to economic salvation for the masses is dishonest.<p>Most of the articles I&#x27;ve read and discussions I&#x27;ve had about &quot;learn to code&quot; emphasized that the goal is not to become an engineer but simply to develop algorithmic thinking in order to have a basic understanding how a lot of things work in a computerized world.<p>&gt; It took me more than a year of self-taught study before I got a freelance gig.<p>Either the OP is a genius or delusional. I had the privilege to learn from some very, very good engineers and all of them felt not being worth a salary for the first <i>decade</i>. It took me 15 years to refuse low-paid jobs because I was confident enough to say &quot;My time is worth more than that.&quot;<p>&gt; Do they keep coding in what is quickly becoming the language of lesser choice, or do they start again? If you’re a young twenty-something, this may pose little difficulty, but if you’re taking care of a family — with bills to pay and mouths to feed — the task becomes Herculean.  [Yes, I am quoting out of order here].<p>And if you really understand what you are doing - i.e. you really are an engineer - then it&#x27;s merely reading and meditating on specs for a week or two and a few more weeks of retraining muscle memory.