Digital Financial Reporting

Should accountants learn to code?  Here, an AICPA article Should Accounting Students Learn to Code? tries to make the case that there are advantages.  Similarly lawyers are asking the same question.  This article, To Code or Not to Code: should lawyers learn to code? You could generalize this question and ask, "Should professional services providers learn to code?"

Here are my personal observations.  First, I know how to code.  I recall that my first programming class was FORTRAN.  That may have helped me; but the thing that I believed perhaps help me the most was a Formal Logic philosophy class that I took in community college.

I did not just "learn to code" and then my accounting career took off.  Someone referred to me as a "dinker" once. She was right.  I "dink" around, trying things.  How did I have time to dink around?  Well, I made the time.  Something interesting here is that when I was with Price Waterhouse I was one of the most productive staff in our office.  I moved to another smaller CPA firm and I was also the most productive person there also.  Was there some sort of connection between my "dinking" around and being productive?  Dinking around builds productive capacity, but takes away from actually producing.  Producing contributes to production.  Throughout my careeer I was always flipping between producing and building productive capacity.

"Learning to code" is not what is necessary.  What is necessary for some professional accountants is:

• To understand how to think logically (formally).
• To understand how to communicate with information technology professionals.
• To understand how to solve problems and improve processes.

If I had it to do over again, I would go to Stanford University and get into their Symbolic Systems Program. That program did not even exist when I went to college, it was created in 1986 (I graduated from college in 1982).  Also, you might want to check out declarative logic programming.

In my view, "learning to code" is not necessary for every accountant.  Understanding how to code provides certain advantages for certain advantages, similar to how understanding a foreign language can provide certain advantages.  What is important is not just ability, but also diversity.  There is no one right answer.