[jordanb]

I think it depends on the person. There's the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" type person, where the acquisition of some terminology and the creation of some toy programs leads the person to believe that they've mastered the domain and can start telling people what to do.

In my opinion that type of person is not going to be a good boss no matter how much or little they know.

I think for a more humble person though, the ability to create small programs is empowering and makes them far more effective in any job involving computers. And going through the debugging process, and dealing with the growth in complexity in their programs, helps them understand the problem software engineering seeks to solve.

The ideal organization purges itself of the former type of person and teaches the latter how to code.