Technology

I think I noticed it widespread in the mid 2010s. Maybe around the same time that DIY and various hobby/handicrafts became just "making".

I still remember when I bought a tool off someone and was chatting about what i was going to do with it and they declared out of the blue: "I am a maker!". I just had to end the conversation as quickly and politely as possible. I don't know what the point of that statement was, but it made them sound a bit unhinged.

That said I'm sure the term coding was in use before, but more like a sub-activity that 'computer programmers' or 'software engineers' might do as part of their job. Maybe 'coder' and 'coding' became more popular with the spread of the term 'agile' into the bullshitting-consultant / middle-management cultures; I think that's when some people started using that term as an excuse for skipping 'design' and 'engineering' parts of any complex project.

Still more acceptable, in my opinion, than going from "using" to "leveraging"...

Could have been worse, it could have turned into "apping".

Iirc it kinda started getting used interchangeably in the 60s but spawned from the term/name Fortran automatic coding systems.. I def would need to hit my search engine of choice and do some digging however. As for the mass public usage sometime 2010ish? With all that learn to code and code.org stuff coming into the mainstream.

Code was in use relating to the set of instructions used to control a computer in 1946; with it becoming a verb by 1986. Programming was from 1945 as a first use in regards to computers; meaning "cause to be automatically regulated in a prescribed way.

Now the funny thing is the noun 'Program' in regards to computers in 1945 meant "series of coded instructions which directs a computer in carrying out a specific task"

So if we really work through the etymology a bit, coded instructions was first, then Program/ming, then Code and coding; though certainly 'encoding' would have been used before programming given the definition of 'coded instructions.'

So... Blame Ada Lovelace for not coming up with something catchy like 'lacing' which would have been far more camp (and much more accurate to the gender of early programmers).

It's probably predominantly because of the switch to mobile computing / smartphones / web being dominant, and everyone referring to programs there as "apps" / applications.

i.e. If you write a mobile app with a function-as-a-service backend, you will never compile what someone would refer to as a "program", so calling yourself a "programmer" (as-in, someone who makes programs) feels inaccurate and a not helpful description for people. "Coder" (as-in, someone who writes code) is a vaguer in terms of the type of code you write and more accurate in terms of what you spend your time producing.

Programming could also refer to lower paid jobs operating machines, like a CNC Programmer or Radio programs.

So the real computer software people started using the term “software engineering”. But that’s too long, so ‘coding’.

This is a guess but I feel like it was around the time that most coding was done for things that weren't explicitly "programs", like web design CSS/Java and smartphone "apps".

I think the window for having that debate was some time around 1992.

I described myself as a coder for a while starting somewhere around '03 or '04 IIRC.