[sunraa]

On a slightly less controversial tangent, the author did a nice job explaining getting up and running with her first program as well as explaining what programming does. The comments at the article thus far are mainly from programmers. It would be interesting to see how much non-technical folks take away from it.

[ttt_]

Yes, I think it illustrates what I think is the actual steepest learning curve to start programming and that's abstraction, to apply meaning to arbitrary things. It's something we are not really used to learning in standard education. Sure there's math, but most of the time it's taught by applying some kind of method without most ever questioning further.

I think the best way to learn programming is by doing puzzles and logic mind-benders. Get your brain used to abstract thinking and following logic, as well as being rewarded for solving a difficult problem.

If you manage that, than programming becomes simply applying conventions logically to solve problems (also prepare to be flooded with increasingly higher level conventions).