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The usual definition of computer literacy stops at the UI (user interference), which is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. If a user knows how to make the machine work, he or she is computer-literate. But, the deeper literacy of the programmer is far more powerful. Computer languages and human languages are very similar. Like human languages, computer languages vary in form and character (Python to Java to Ruby) and can be put into action in many ways. My Python probably won't look like your Python, but it can do the same thing, or the way someone speaks may not sound like the way you speak, but it means the same thing. Likewise, a single idea can be expressed using a variety of combinations of English words. And both kinds of language are infinitely flexible. A person literate in programming languages can create repetitive tasks, saving time for things only a human can do, like to distribute access to systems of communication and control to large groups of people, and train machines to do things they've never done before. Computer programming already does marvelous things like typing this paper.The current potential for innovation would be greater if every schoolchild had a firm grasp of programming concepts and how to apply them. I do think or at least, hope that computer programming will become the next version of literacy. When I watch my 6 year old brother interact with his tablet, I see him using interaction patterns that older people may often have trouble with, even when they're computer-literate. Kids can easily memorize huge quantities of facts about complex abstract systems like Pokemon games. So clearly they "could" have the potential to learn how to code. .
Not everyone in the programming community agrees with programming as a literacy. Jeff Atwood argues that verbal literacy is a different kind of skill, and more fundamental. "As much as I love code, if my fellow programmers could communicate with other human beings one-tenth as well as they communicate with their interpreters and compilers, they'd have vastly more successful careers" (Atwood).
