Coding used to be a niche skill but has quietly become cultural literacy.

A closer look

Once upon a time, coding was like knowing how to speak an obscure dialect that few understood. Today, it’s more like knowing how to ride a bike—you don’t need to be an Olympian cyclist to hop on and glide, but the skill can carry you remarkable distances. Teenagers write tiny scripts that animate memes across the internet, or cleverly teach computers to manage their pocket money. Others transform a late-night hobby project into a startup that reshapes entire industries. Coding has shifted from being a rare talent to a shared alphabet of modern society—a second language of logic and creativity woven into everyday life.