Like iOS and Mac developer Guy English, I’ve noticed a growing sentiment in the web development community that “writing code” or “programming” is somehow approaching a level of importance similar to writing a novel, essay or research paper.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, for example, is fond of saying, “scripting is the new literacy.”

Unlike Guy English, I’d like to echo his response to this sentiment with a “me too.”

There’s a dusting of ego in the air, I think, when developers are suggesting that the near future will demand that most everyone know how to “write code,” just as they need to write English.

Guy English:

Writing software is a craft. I’m quite good at it. Brent and Jalkut are also very successful at our craft. But it’s a craft. It’s something we’re really good at but, in my opinion, it’s not something that everyone needs to care about.

Without a doubt, improving our world’s infrastructure through scripting will be one of the most important efforts of our lifetime. Designers, developers — people that write code — are, and will continue to be, in enormous demand. Their scripting literacy will be, in many ways, as valuable to them as their English, Spanish or German literacy.

But elevating that value to the level of general literacy (something we expect of everybody), rather than recognizing its place in our industry, is a mistake. I’d hate to see our community be disregarded as behaving too self-important.

UPDATE: I wrote a follow up to this piece regarding “humility,” a much more applicable term for this matter.