Coding and Digital Literacy

Code, a system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages is used as the instructions in a computer program.  Most people do not understand coding and are often discouraged from learning or talking about it due to its complexity.  To the untrained eye many see it only as a cluster of random numbers and letters, however when read correctly words, letters and a general infrastructure are created.   

Which leads to a discussion regarding digital literacy. Tasneem Raja’s article We Can Code It!  Why computer literacy is key to winning the 21st Century examines that the way that computer science is taught in high schools as well as the projected need for more computer science related jobs.  Often studying how to read and write code is discouraged towards students who are not in the computer sciences.   Raja explains that there are benefits for students from all academic backgrounds within the realm of learning computational thinking and along the lines of being “computer savvy” serving as a career boost.

Coding can be seen in various forms and is used in multiple ways.  Coding is used to in operating systems, scripts, and video games. Some of the most wealthy companies in the world were started on code. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are some of the most well known companies around the globe, and they were founded on coding. Apple for instance, uses what is known as ‘secure coding’. Which is coding that “guards against the accidental introduction of security vulnerabilities.” Some of the primary causes for these vulnerabilities is consistently found to be: defects, bugs, and logic flaws. These errors are usually very small, but common software programming errors.

Similar to the English language, Coding has specific rules that that need to be followed, and similarly to the English language has its own syntax and grammar.  Proper usage determines if the code created will be considered good or bad code.   This is important when considering the security of a program or operating system.   

Hackers are people that generally enjoy learning about code at advanced levels, and are very digitally literate. A hacker generally will find flaw in the code, but they don’t use it to harm or manipulate the system. They usually will tell the company what is wrong and how to fix it. If that company chooses not to fix it, that’s when they will exploit the flaws to the public. The people who exploit the code for their own personal gains are known by a couple names: crackers, attackers, or black hats. Most of these people aren’t incredibly skilled, but they do use the flaws that a hacker has posted for their own personal gains.