> Learning Classical Latin and Ancient Greek is also worthwhile.
In what sense?
From this perspective everything is worthwhile.
If "worthwhile" is relative to learning other skills then Classical Latin and Ancient Greek is near the bottom of that pile, and you probably know what which is why you cited them.
So then the question is where coding sits on that hierarchy, and if someone should learn to code vs acquiring other skills.
Personally I'd not advise anyone to learn to code today. It's not just that I'm not convinced of the utility of the skill going forward, but I also think it's very hard to actually learn to code competently for someone starting out today. I had the luxury of spending decades coding without LLMs professionally. No one learning today is realistically going to have the opportunity to compete with old school coders with decades of experience writing code by hand, even if we assume the skill will be worth anything.
Latin and Greek were taught at grammar schools: part of upper class status signalling. But also deeply foundational to many languages, literature and history, if you think those topics are useful.
I'm a Dilbert, yet today I asked AI why т (\tau) was being used by Huawei for their latest chip design and I specifically asked about the meaning in Mandarin.
The choice of the character “韬” (tāo) [1] has a deliberate second meaning: In classical Chinese, it means to conceal, or to sheathe a weapon. It implies keeping one's sharpest edges hidden while quietly building up inner strength. The naming directly references the famous Chinese idiom “韬光养晦” (tāo guāng yǎng huì), which means "to hide one's light and bide one's time."
Yet the publications in English (mainly state sources?) don't mention that. I enjoy cross-language jokes but my language skills are undeveloped. I enjoy asking AI to find crazy connections, but I'm not sure if programming myself that way is healthy. I also worry what other good questions I haven't thought to ask professor AI to teach me.
Yes, I'm not sure it was clear, but that was largely my point – to say it's "worthwhile" as a flat statement probably doesn't capture the nuance.
It's obviously going to be worthwhile in some sense as almost all skills are worthwhile to some degree. But normally when we're talking about whether something is worthwhile to learn we're weighing up other competing things we could be learning instead. In that sense I think it's far more debatable about whether coding is worthwhile to learn.
Like learning a programming language, these activities stretch your mind in different ways.
And expose you to a different kind of beauty and a very different world.