Less than a decade after stunning workers at his Japanese tech giant with an edict to learn English, billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani wants to do the same with computer programming. Rakuten Inc. may soon expect its more than 17,000 employees to know how a computer compiles a program and understand the difference between a CPU and GPU (one is the brains of a PC, the other runs the graphics). Underpinning that is a mandatory, entry-level ability to code.
Mikitani, a trailblazer in Japan’s internet economy, is considering this dramatic step as his e-commerce empire faces increasing pressure from the likes of http://Amazon.com Inc. It’s an attempt to keep the skills of employees up to date and answer the question -- do you need to know programming to work in tech? “If you’re working for Toyota, for example, you know how the automobile works -- basic structure of the engine, suspension and so forth,” Mikitani told Emily Chang of Bloomberg Television. “So if you work for an IT services company, you need to have the basic knowledge of what’s in the computer.”
An ability to write Python code or dissect the differences between fourth- and fifth-generation wireless networks isn’t something that most tech companies would treat as a prerequisite for a non-operations role. While the World Economic Forum estimates that more than half of workers are going to need significant training by 2022, few seem to be following the lead of companies such as Nokia Oyj, which has plans to make familiarity with machine learning mandatory.
Thomas Malone, professor of information technology and organizational studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, thinks that maybe they should. Some amount of programming knowledge could be extremely valuable in helping both managers and rank-and-file go beyond buzzwords to understand what technology can actually do. “We are all living in a world shaped and defined by IT, but many of us have a mental model of technology that’s analogous to disease is caused by evil spirits,’’ Malone said. “You can give people enough understanding so they know how to ask the right questions.’’
亿万富翁三木谷浩史（Hiroshi Mikitani）在他的日本电商巨头公司颁布员工英语学习法令后的不到十年的时间，产生了新想法：颁布一个同样的编程学习法令。乐天公司可能期望很快它的1.7万多名员工知道计算机如何编译程序，并理解CPU和GPU（一个是电脑大脑，一个是图形处理器）之间的区别。这是一种强制性的入门级编码能力。
日本互联网经济先驱三木谷浩史正在考虑这突破性的一步，因为他的电子商务帝国正面临着来自亚马逊等公司越来越大的压力。这是一次保持员工技能与时俱进的尝试，同时也回答了一个疑问：你需要了解编程才能在科技领域工作吗？“比如您在丰田工作，就知道汽车工作的原理——发动机基本结构、悬架等。因此如果您在一家IT服务公司工作，就需要对与电脑相关的东西有基本了解。” 三木谷浩史对彭博电视台的艾米丽·张说。
编写Python代码或分析第四代和第五代无线网络之间的差异的能力并不是大多科技公司认为的非运营角色的先决条件。虽然据世界经济论坛估计，到2022年，半数以上的工人将需要大量的培训，但似乎很少有人效仿诺基亚等公司的做法，他们强制要求员工学习、熟悉机器。
麻省理工斯隆管理学院信息技术和组织研究教授Thomas Malone认为，也许他们应该采取这一措施。一些编程知识对帮助管理者和普通用户深度了解“技术到底是做什么”而非仅停留在流行行话层面，是非常有价值的。Malone表示：“我们都生活在一个由IT塑造和定义的世界里，但是我们中许多人对于科技都有一个心理预设，这就像疾病一样，是一种‘邪’。人们需要足够的知识，慢慢就会知道如何正确提问。”
edict 法令，告示
underpinning 基础材料，基础结构
mandatory 强制的
trailblazer 先驱者，开拓者（拓：pioneer先驱者，拓荒者，创始者）
up to date 最新式的，现代化的；目前为止，至今
prerequisite 先决条件
estimate 估计，预测
buzzword 流行行话
analogous 相似的，可比拟的
rank-and-file 普通成员，士兵
the likes of <口>像…这样的人/事物
You can give people enough understanding so they know how to ask the right questions. “understanding”更常用义为“理解”但此处结合上下文应理解为 “知识”，人们有了更多的知识，才不会对技术有成见。
Thomas Malone, professor of information technology and organizational studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, thinks that maybe they should. 句子看似很长，其实主干很简单“Thomas Malone thinks that maybe they should.”，中间逗号隔开部分为插入语，是Thomas Malone 的头衔，介绍Malone作用。
Python是一种解释型脚本语言，可以应用于以下领域：Web 和 Internet开发；科学计算和统计；教育；桌面界面开发；软件开发；后端开发等。
Rakuten Inc. 乐天株式会社，是日本最大电子商店街“乐天市场”经营者，2006年使用者超过1800万人，此外也经营“Infoseek”等许多不同业务的网站。
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