[rasmusrygaard]

I can see why you would argue that you need early exposure to become a programming prodigy, but I honestly don't see why you would say that all hope of becoming a "good" programmer is lot by the time you're in your early/mid/late teens (or at any other age for that matter). I always saw programming as a meritocratic field where motivation and determination got you a long way as long as your code stood the distance. As a CS college student, I see a fair amount of people who have been coding for years being blown out of the water by people who hardly programmed before college. They might not be prodigies, sure, but saying that they'll never become serious programmers is a pretty narrow-minded statement.