Hi Daniel 👋

I'm biased considering I'm a programmer 😉 but after learning how to care for their basic needs, be a nice person, and learning how to read, write, and do arithmetic, I think people should learn how to code. I think understanding computers at a basic level will become even more important than it is today already.

Thanks for the question :)

I think that's pretty much nonsense since most people lack the mental fortitude to do the task properly. I suspect that's how we end up with so many people who have ZERO business writing code attempting to do so, blindly pasting together poorly written snippets and blindly hoping it works.

But conversely it would be nice to have so many of the middle managers making decisions on technology ACTUALLY be qualified to make such determinations instead of blindly trusting what they read in Forbes. As I often joke "taking technology advice from Forbes is like taking financial advice from Popular Mechanics."

Even so most people are so incapable of logic and reason they can't even handle basic math much less algebra, which is why IMHO teaching any of that below the college level is a waste of resources and time. We're (at least here in the US) pumping out kids with high school diploma's who allegedly passed calculus classes with A's that can't even do simple arithmetic in their heads. You know it's bad when most state colleges now provide remedial math and end up requiring kids with perfect GPA's to take them! Hence why I consider today's US High School diploma inferior to what I got by the fifth grade back in the '70's. You ask a college grad "what's six times seven" and they give you a blank stare. You make a joke about the forward to Huck Finn they have no clue what you're talking about. You ask math majors who supposedly took geometry whether we should use arctan or depth division projection and they answer "Use a matrix!"

Tossing programming into the curriculum isn't likely to alleviate matters when we have biology and science majors who defend belief in a magical man in the sky. Joe Sixpack and Susie Sunshine are incapable of rational thought or logical planning.

Which is why it should be available to anyone who wants it or shows aptitude in it, but we shouldn't be shoving it on people who won't use it, won't retain it, and simply cannot and will not ever grasp it. Education in general spends WAY too much time trying to hammer every peg into the same round hole regardless of shape, and not enough time playing to individual students strengths and aptitudes. It boils down to one simple truth; the flaw of averages.

One size fits all, fits nobody.

On a basic level like algebra and geometri it should be required to learn, so that everyone are capable of scripting to existing applications. Also everyone should be taught computer science on an intro level so they will have the basic understand. Finally some overall topics should be covered such as what AI is, what it might do in the future but also how the internet or cloud is structured so it's not too SciFi for the general population.

There's no doubt that within 10-30 years that at least 50% of the jobs are related to Computer Science/Engineering/What-ever-subtitle.

There's also no doubt that paper jobs such as accountant and lawyer will see a great decrease in demand as default tasks can be converted to algorithms. Taxi drivers and bus drivers are also in risk, but the political barrier is greater here, allowing self driven cars. It might be beaten at first by self driven track transportations (train, metro, mono rail, ..)