The world also has over 1 Billion cars, individual transport changed everything and is a massive worldwide industry, does that mean everyone has to understand how they work ? No i dont think so, and that can be said about alot of other technological advances that are part of our professional and private lives today.
In the first DotCom boom every John Doe who could write some HTML got a job as a programmer and everyone studied IT in that time to make the big bucks. With the current shortage in the US i bet the scenario is likely going in the same direction and in a few years they end up like all the unemployed lawyers today.
Of course its not bad to expose kids to programming, but i argue that its not very useful because you need years of experience to make anything useful and that point is only reached by people that have the passion for it anyway.
'does that mean everyone has to understand how they work ?'
A little bit, yes, enough to get them maintained, keep them road safe, put the right fuel in, yup.
'i argue that its not very useful because you need years of experience to make anything useful and that point is only reached by people that have the passion for it anyway.'
How does someone know if they're interested of passionate about something if they're never exposed to it?
How do you know to embark on the path leading to years of experience unless you have an intro to it?
This is not about getting every moron into the profession, it's about giving people a start who otherwise might never know that programming is a thing, especially as more and more computing devices are geared to straight consumption.
I'm not in the US, I'm in the UK, where computer related education seems to come down to 'here is how to write a letter in word, start an excel spreadsheet and open mspaint', which is entirely inadequate.
In the first DotCom boom every John Doe who could write some HTML got a job as a programmer and everyone studied IT in that time to make the big bucks. With the current shortage in the US i bet the scenario is likely going in the same direction and in a few years they end up like all the unemployed lawyers today.
Of course its not bad to expose kids to programming, but i argue that its not very useful because you need years of experience to make anything useful and that point is only reached by people that have the passion for it anyway.