[jacobr1]

An alternative analogy would be "learning first-aid is a dumb thing to do unless you become a medical professional."

I wouldn't lose respect, but it is a narrow view, and one worthy of debate.

"Programming" is such a powerful tool for everyone to interact with technology and we could do a better job exposing programatic abstractions. Think of how many people use spreadsheets with complex expressions. Is that that not also programming?

[whatshisface]

The problem is that basically every profession contains some parts that basically everyone could benefit in their daily lives from knowing. Chemistry, mechanical engineering, finance, accounting, law, sales... programming is just one item on a list of thousands of things that would be nice to know. It's not reasonable to hold it up above the rest when all of the other ones also deal with things modern life runs on. If there's a message I can get behind, it's "learn more than school taught you, and keep learning after graduation," but holding up one subject above the rest on the grounds of its importance seems a little flimsy when they're all that important. So, all of the things you could be learning on your down time are about equal. If programming has a high place, it's a high place shared among all the rest. Knowledge does have a high place, after all.