My brother-in-law frequently ran the “coding does not make you a programmer” line past me when I first developed basic apps for my multimedia performance art in the eighties and I couldn’t agree more. Yet, as a writer, coding is essential to my profession, whether it be eBook production or tweeking my blog and web-sites (or others’).

I see far too many author’s products crippled by the pre-packed templates they buy to deliver their work in, and I suggest that if they only mastered simple HTML and scripting they wouldn’t need settle for such unsatisfying results. “I’m a writer, not a programmer,” they tell me.

Geez, I think, that’s exactly what my brother-in-law says to me. Which loops us back to paragraph one and I exit with the thought that I still write code and am glad I bothered to learn it because it’s a valuable writing tool. Especially when I find an excuse to incorporate it into dialogue.