Today the above advertisement for code.org went viral for advocating that programming be taught to everyone because of the way it impacts thinking. Not only does learning how to code change your thinking, it empowers you to make better decisions.

The Anecdote

I’m going to be moving to Seattle this year and the internet speed at my future apartment matters to me. Condointernet is the fastest internet provider in Seattle, but they don’t provide a way to see all their locations on a single map.

The Code

So I opened up Chrome’s web inspector and typed a few lines of JavaScript that exploited the following pattern in the HTML (every apartment’s name is surrounded by h2 and address by strong):

<li> <h2>Royal Crest</h2> <p><strong>2100 3rd Ave Seattle, WA 98121</strong> </li>

The Output

When I executed the code, I got the following output:

apartment address Barclay | Broadway 412 Broadway Seattle, WA 98122 Via6 2112 6th Ave Seattle, WA 98121 [...] Marlborough 1220 Boren Ave Seattle, WA 98101 Metro on First 215 First Avenue West Seattle, WA 98119

Then I pasted the output into batchgeo which created the following map automagically:

View Condo Internet Feb 26 2013 in a full screen map

In a few minutes I was able to create the information I wanted. It’s skills like these that will differentiate people in the workplace’s of tomorrow.