I fully agree, but I still think it's good that people learn how to code. Why? Because it's good to know a little bit -- just a wee little bit -- about how computers work. And while you could just get a good description from a book, nothing beats hands-on experience, which is easy (and mostly fun, initially) to get when it comes to coding.

I think of it as learning a little bit of math or science -- good for your general understanding of the world, and how the thing that is your interface to most of the world operates, it's basic functions and limitations. It's even a bit like learning civics or economics -- as code makes more important decisions every day, a naive yet fundamental understanding of omgow these things work among the general population helps a lot. Everyone should learn how to code a little bit as part of a general education. If you want to do it professionally, then yes, learning problem solving and automation is the way to go.

And it would be nice if people practiced a tiny bit of debugging, so we could see fewer horror tales from tech support.