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Joseph Styers
Prof. Ashley Whitmore
COMP 105
29 September 2015

Programming is the Future

As the world pushes forward with new technological advancements, there comes a
growing dependency on programmers and code. Marc Prensky, with his article "Programming is
the New Literacy", argues that a person must be able to program in order to stay literate. He goes
on to explain that programming will no longer stay a specialized skill for nerds and the like, but
will become a common attribute for every educated person. Prensky also pulls reference to the
past where people would often hire scribes to write for them and how this parallels today's
society. Finally, Marc explains that the new influx of programmers will create new tools for the
future, which would benefit everyone.
Prensky presents many reasons as to why programming (He defines as the ability to
control machines) will soon become the norm. In ancient Egypt, scribes were hired to write for a
person who could not write themselves. As knowledge and technology became more readily
available, scribes went extinct as ordinary people learned how to write. Today, business people
hire programmers to write codes for them, sometimes for more than they are worth. Prensky is
trying to get the idea across that intelligible people will eventually learn to program. Kids that
grew up in the 1990s/2000s already have much experience with technology as they have always
been around it. When Howard Dean ran for president, he hired an eighteen-year-old to write a
program for contributions towards his campaign. After a few weeks, the young man completed
his task which gave Howard a huge advantage. As people learn code, they will soon create and

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invent new tools for everyone else. Marc explains that as new programmers invent new codes,
they will want to share and sell their ideas, giving more inspiration for everyone else.
The author tries to hit all points of the rhetorical triangle. Prenskys audience might
consist of older school faculty who dont believe in teaching with computers and current
programmers along with students and adults. Since Marc is also trying to inspire others to pick
up programming, one reader may show this to a school without programming classes in order to
encourage the formation of those classes. With logos, Marc repeatedly says that most problems
can be solved with a computers power: We all have ideas and needs amenable to programming
solutions. On the pathos side, Prensky tries to hit the inspirational side of his audience.
Companies like Google and eBay started with the genius of only one or two people, and these
people later become quite rich. Ethos does not really come into play as not many sources are
cited in the article, though Prensky establishes his credibility with his knowledge of
programming languages.
Though his article is well written, Prenskys writing contains a few flaws. One is that he
does not establish any cited sources. Prensky claims that many schools are teaching kids
programming languages such as flash, but he uses no studies or actual schools to back this up.
Another flaw is that he does not give enough evidence that those cannot program will be left
behind. He simply gives one paragraph about this subject and does not offer anything else.
Prensky also does not allow for the other side of the argument. What if programming stays as a
specialized trait? Marc never considers this question.
Marc believes that literacy could expand into the realms of programming as more and
more people become educated about it. He thinks hired programmers will become a thing of the
past as coding moves closer and closer to the average educated person. When most everyone

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knows how to program, Marc believes that technological advancements will appear more often
and show us towards an even better life.

Works Cited:

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Prensky, Marc. "Programming Is the New Literacy." N.p., 13 Jan. 2008. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.