[blahedo]

I have no problem with this idea of iterative refinement, and indeed I actively teach it. There are certainly students who pick up the syntax more slowly, but this is largely a matter of degree. But the students I refer to above have trouble even identifying what's wrong about an intermediate value or where things went off the rails or what a correct answer would even look like. They're more common than you (as a hacker) would ever believe unless you teach intro CS. They can be taught at least enough to pass CS1, but it's not easy and "natural language programming" will not help them with the things they need help on. (Might actively hurt, actually.)