A Case For Computer Literacy

(CNN) -- This week, New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg tweeted his intent to learn computer code by the end of the year. He joined about 300,000 other people who have signed up at CodeYear to receive free interactive programming lessons each week from the Codecademy, a web-based tutorial. I am greatly relieved.

It's time Americans begin treating computer code the way we do the alphabet or arithmetic. Code is the stuff that makes computer programs work -- the list of commands that tells a word processor, a website, a video game, or an airplane navigation system what to do. That's all software is: lines of code, written by people.

We are socializing, working, consuming, and living in a world increasingly defined by programs. Learning to code is the best way to understand what all those programs do, or even to recognize that they are there in the first place.

There is a perfectly logical argument for why we must start including computer literacy in programs targeting both young and old. This is not a phase, it is the new language that will govern our financial, personal and professional lives. My computer skills are self-taught, and thanks to some patient geeky friends I have grown into a geeky and talented woman. Yet I joined Codecademy so I can see how it works, and prepare my newbie friends for their introduction to computer programming. Much like reading, it will be required to function in everyday life. Embrace it or prepare for a lifetime of ignorance.