Learning to code is still worthwhilestevekrouse.comview source<br>Learning to code is still worthwhile

July 6, 2026

Is there any point to learn to code in the age of vibe coding?

Literally no one is uttering what we thought were the immortal lines “learn to<br>code,” right? I don't think that sentence has been spoken for many months now<br>in Silicon Valley

Making Sense with Sam Harris #481

I'm the founder of Val Town, a "Silicon Valley startup"<br>for writing and deploying code, and I still believe everyone should learn to<br>code.

Sam is right that “learn to code” is no longer trotted out as a quick path out<br>of poverty. The ability to string together two lines of JavaScript no longer<br>guarantees you a 6-figure-salary.

This is also true of math, literature, science, or any of the liberal arts. Like<br>those, coding is worthwhile to learn on educational grounds, not merely<br>vocational ones.

1. Code is possibly the best medium to learn mathematics, and meta-skills for learning in general

I grew up hating math. I stumbled into<br>an after-school program that taught programming. Through<br>it, I fell in love with math, and excelled at it beyond my wildest dreams.

Later, I learned this experience masterminded by a math & education researcher<br>named Seymour Papert. He wanted children to learn math like they learn to speak:<br>through exploration instead of instruction. He started from the assumption that<br>we all know it’s impossible to be congenitally “bad at French”: if you grow up<br>in France, you’ll learn it. So Papert tried to create “Mathland”, a place where<br>anyone could grow up “speaking math.”

The Mathland he created was the LOGO programming language, where you can draw<br>pictures by giving instructions to a turtle on the screen with ink on its feet.<br>I recently made a version of it you can<br>try out online. Can you figure out how to draw a<br>circle?

Through learning to program, I learned so many meta-skills, like debugging,<br>composition, and logic. Most importantly, I learned that there’s literally<br>nothing that cannot be learned. These meta-learnings of programming may explain<br>the unreasonable competence (and arrogance) of computer scientists: why we think<br>we can solve all the world’s problems – even those far outside our original<br>domains.

2. Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music

Coding is a delightful activity that combines the creativity of writing with the<br>precision of mathematics and the instant feedback loops of a video game. It<br>helps you sharpen your desires into precise language that computers can carry<br>out.

It’s remarkably close to casting spells. I think of Hermione correcting Ron –<br>"it's levi-O-sa” – as a good model of what it’s like learning the arcane syntax<br>of code. But once you master that, “You are a wizard, Harry.” You can encode<br>what you imagine into an arcane language that a computer will make real. We all<br>can be wizards.

LLMs can write English as well as they can write code, yet we have no fear for<br>the relevance of humanities. The same intuition holds true for code.

Many dismiss code in the same way they dismiss legalese as inscrutable, tedious<br>details. But like law, code is what our world runs on, and an elegant line of<br>code can literally change the world. Think of e=mc2 or “we hold these truths to<br>be self-evident” if you doubt the power and majesty of precise formal language.

And finally, programming is simply fun. It's a joy. My calling in life is to<br>spread the joy of programming, so if you have any inkling of interest in<br>learning to code yourself, shoot me an email – steve@val.town.

The dream of universal code literacy – or the "real computer revolution” – lives<br>on, even in the age of LLMs.