[mtberatwork]

I'm not sure the analogy of the scribe works or that the population needs to be come "literate" in programming languages. You can essentially substitute any profession and the analogy holds true. For example, doctors are literate in medicine, while I am not. Do I need to become literate in medicine (beyond a surface level)? No, this is why professionals exist in the first place, so that I do not need to become "literate" in everything.

[v-erne]

No, the analogy still stands in my opinion - medicine is not "eating the world". It has only very narrow application (very important but still narrow) and software can literally change everything in our lifes (if for the better that's up for discussion). So seeing every one else as illiterate sounds lot better than saying that we need better alphabet.