The idea that “coding is the new literacy” has been thrown around a lot over the last few years, and has almost become conventional wisdom at this point. While I think learning to code is an excellent life choice, I do not think that it rises to the same level of importance as learning how to read.
The purpose of coding is to get a computer to do what you want it to do. Put another way, coding is the process of translating a human thought into something that a machine can understand and execute. The ability to communicate with computers is very valuable, and we as a society have benefited enormously from the software that has been created over the past few decades by people who were “literate” in coding.
However when I think of literacy, I also think of how ubiquitous and irreplaceable it is for humanity. Our ability to communicate has been a giant evolutionary advantage that propelled us to the top. However, that only got us so far. Developing a written language where we could write information down, and read that information at a later point in time was a critical enabler of building large, complex societies that are at the heart of technological progress.
Literacy is also so important that every country in the world has made it a goal to teach their entire population how to read and write. There is a resulting stigma for the illiterate - whether you are a child whose friends or older siblings can read while you are still learning, or you are an adult who lived in poverty and didn’t have access to education as a child. We’ve come a long way, with many countries achieving over a 90% literacy rate.
Coding does not share these characteristics. Only a tiny percentage of people actually know how to code, yet countless people who do not code share in the benefits of their creation. You don’t have to know how to code to send an email, visit a website, book a plane ticket, or use a credit card, yet all of these tasks are made possible by software.
The few people who can code have created software that abstracts and simplifys the process of communicating with computers for the masses. When I compose an email, I am most definitely communicating with a computer. The fact that the process was simple and did not require me to write any code made the task quick and efficient.
The ability to code does not have to be ubiquitous in order for people and computers to communicate with each other. Over time, as technology progresses, the ability of all people -- including those who can’t code -- to communicate with computers will improve. It may even improve to the point where no one actually needs to know how to code to be able to get a computer to do exactly what they want. In this sense, coding, unlike written language, is currently substitutable (software such as an email composer) and possibly replaceable in the long run (artificial intelligence).
I applaud the efforts of organizations like code.org, and the countless others, who are inspiring people of all ages and backgrounds to learn how to code. We need more engineers, and we need engineers to be more reflective of society at large. But increasing the number of software engineers is a far cry from teaching the entire population how to code. I hope that more people learn how to code, and that these organizations continue their excellent work. Coding is an amazing skill to have that can lead to a rewarding career, but we don’t all need to learn how to code, and those who don’t know how to code are not illiterate.
In short, coding is important, but it is not “the new literacy”.