Telling people to just "learn to code" when they lost their job or want a better life is asinine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's wrong to tell people to improve their lives or learn a new skill.

It's just that I think people think programming is a simple and easy way to spring board yourself into making a boat
load of cash with a decent work life balance.

The days of being able to learn html and charge a decent amount of cash to build a website are pretty much over
because anyone can hire someone from Belarus or whatever remote part of the world to do the same job for a quarter
of the money.

To really make a career out of programming requires 100% of your being. It's not as simple as learning a language,
you'll have to grind and create projects, build relationships, network, etc., like any other industry. The
people who make it in programming, as I've seen at least, all seem to have a fiery passion for it.

They enjoy mundane tasks and taking hours to debug and sift through stack overflow just to get a computer to do
something. Most people aren't going to have that same passion.

So yea, telling someone struggling to make end meets to just "learn to code" is like saying "learn astrophysics" or
"learn medicine". It's something that requires a serious amount of devotion and commitment.