This is a poor analogy. Writing code is a technical discipline or a craft, as is technical writing. "Writing English" is not, for any place where English is the

This is a poor analogy. Writing code is a technical discipline or a craft, as is technical writing. "Writing English" is not, for any place where English is the business language. From there, the analogy breaks down. If you want a better analogy, it's like the distinction between a reporter vs a newspaper editor. If you make someone who's never been a reporter a newspaper editor, you will likely fare disastrously. But insisting that the newspaper editor should cover a beat? It's just not the same job, so it's doubtful whether that's a good use of the editor's time. The editor is concerned with what is covered, what is being followed up on, and such. If the CEO is spending a day buried in spreadsheets, then he's likely spending time the wrong way, or is operating a very small business where he can afford to do such things. Again, the idea of "pushing to the CEOs repo" is actually crazy for all but the smallest shops. There should be no "CEO's repo". There should be "org x" repo or "product y" repo. I agree with your sentiment that a working knowledge of programming should become something like a working knowledge of Arithmetic. Every educated person is expected to know basic addition, multiplication and so on, and also be able to use a calculator to perform these tasks. Similarly, every person should be taught the concept of a Von Neumann computer and writing programs in a simple programming language. However, building software product vs. writing a basic computer program are, again, two very different things.