Programming as the New Latin: How Code Creates a Digital Knowledge Elite

This is about 3 years outdated. Whoever chose a coding career many years ago, now found themselves in a bind: no longer have a profession that keeps a roof over their heads, and personality way too transformed by practicing it over a long time to realistically learn anything else. Just created a new generation of smart and angry people with nothing to lose.

I've been thinking about the historical parallel between Latin literacy in the Renaissance and programming literacy today. Both created distinct knowledge elites, but with one crucial difference: Latin eventually died as a living language, while programming's importance keeps growing.

What struck me is how this affects social mobility. In the 16th century, learning Latin required access to monasteries and universities. Today, learning programming requires access to computers, internet, and quality education—still unevenly distributed.

Some observations:

- Bootcamps have become the new seminaries for digital priesthood

- The self-taught vs. formally educated divide creates new class markers

- Geographic tech hubs function like medieval intellectual centers

I explored how this impacts everything from salary disparities to who gets to shape our digital future: https://blog.thecodejedi.online/2025/10/the-great-digital-di...

Curious if others in tech have thoughts on whether we're consciously building a more inclusive system or recreating historical exclusion patterns.