Everyone’s New Second Language

A BBC article is asking if coding should be replacing Latin as a foreign language taught in schools. Now, as a former 3-year latin student myself, I can attest to the benefits of taking Latin. So I do not think that Latin should be completely replaced, really. But the real question is whether or not coding should be taught in schools at a young age. And the answer to that is a resounding yes. Especially web languages such as javascript, php, and html. As our young students get tossed out into the modern world, I can’t think of many careers that wouldn’t benefit in some way from the knowledge of using code. Even your typical non-technical artists and craftsmen and craftswomen can use the web. What better way to spread the knowledge of your skills than via a blog, or twitter, or something along those lines? Some might argue that there are plenty of coders that are making tool – a la Dreamweaver – for the non-coders to be able to publish to the web. But that’s only if you want to have a website that looks and moves just like everyone else’s. With those kinds of tools, you are automatically limited by the tool itself. But learning to code a website yourself? Now you have your own tools that can help you take your ideas and your wildest imagination and put them into… pixels and electrons.