I think it's a great question we should keep asking ourselves every 5-10 years. A farmer didn't have a daily use for reading 200 years ago, but today literacy

I think it's a great question we should keep asking ourselves every 5-10 years. A farmer didn't have a daily use for reading 200 years ago, but today literacy is without question useful and has changed the world. I often wonder if there were other things, like higher level math, that would do the same if they were more ubiquitous. I think coding has potential to do the same, but after 20+ years I haven't seen it change the average person's job and think it's less likely in the next 20 years than it was previously. The main reason is that the tools are moving away, making the burden higher: the GUI made this more difficult than when commandlines were in vogue, and tablets and phones make it even harder. Programmers dump on Excel because people often use it as a database (even in capacities that should scare someone), but I think it's fantastic that it's one of the few things that has enabled an average user to wield a computer to do what they want. But, when working in an office, the average person thought I was the Excel guru because I could reference cells from other sheets and help them figure out why they were looking at #VALUE! I'm in no way an Excel guru, but tried to teach what I knew. I think they would have benefitted from a little bit of Excel knowledge, but the amount of training and time for them to learn and retain anything more than basic skills would be huge compared to the value I saw in the average job. Yes, Tim Cook and Steve Jobs' roles don't require comp sci, but the jobs they had leading up over the last 30 years didn't need it, either. Tim Cook was working for IBM and Compaq since the early 80's before he was at Apple. He's had every opportunity to learn and leverage computer science (I wouldn't be surprised if Cook was an Excel guru, though). This is all conjecture on my part (I hear his daily-driver is an iPad pro). I would love to hear him talk about this if I'm wrong. I definitely think it should be accessible, but don't see the benefit of making what would have to be an abstract curriculum to high school students required. I'd like to see classes offered in HS, basic computer literacy mandatory, and specific, more professionally focused classes offered on the web and at community colleges (Excel, SQL, etc).