This is obviously a subject that I care about a lot.
I'm not sure that I'm ready to hand down some sort of moral imperative, but I do think that learning programming brings _advantages_ to one in almost any other profession. But this can be said about almost any cross-disciplinary study.
Really, it's hard to have an outside perspective on this; we all see programming as important (if not necessary) because our lives revolve around tech. Yet many of my friends do not know how to program, and they get along just fine. Almost all of them that have gone on to learn the basics have enjoyed the additional perspective, however.
Having studied economics and programming, I think that programming is advantaged. Econ taught me some principles that serve me well in understanding incentives and behaviors, but programming teaches a way of organizing thought which is more broadly useful.
Thinking about what I'd studied in public school, I wish I could trade hours spent learning rules of grammar for hours spent learning how to create and organize symbolic logic.
I'm not sure that I'm ready to hand down some sort of moral imperative, but I do think that learning programming brings _advantages_ to one in almost any other profession. But this can be said about almost any cross-disciplinary study.
Really, it's hard to have an outside perspective on this; we all see programming as important (if not necessary) because our lives revolve around tech. Yet many of my friends do not know how to program, and they get along just fine. Almost all of them that have gone on to learn the basics have enjoyed the additional perspective, however.