[jjoonathan]

I wish I had more than one upvote to give, you hit it on the head. Apple of all companies has tried repeatedly (and failed repeatedly) to bring programming to the masses. It doesn't seem to matter if you format the task so that it looks like making a slideshow, pressing a record button / writing English prose, or moving + connecting blocks. Programming still requires that the programmer be able to break an abstract task into concrete chunks, and even though there was a plausible argument that Hypercard/Applescript/Automator might have made the task easier or more discoverable, it didn't turn out to be the case. I learned to code in AppleScript Studio, so I know what I'm talking about here: moving to C/ObjC felt like a breath of fresh air, not a hurdle. Syntax, pointers, and memory management were much easier to learn than the nuances of the strange restricted subset of English that was AppleScript. Before you learn to break things down, no analogy (or even record button) is going to help you write code. After you learn how to break things down, an expressive language + good documentation is simply the best tool for the job.

Also, with XCode/Instruments downloadable for free, easier to use, and more powerful than ever, I think it's a bit silly to slam Apple for this one. There might be an argument for slamming Microsoft, but VS Express isn't that bad IMO. There is definitely an argument for slamming nix, but decentralized authority is inherently incompatible with the kind of reform that would make the nix desktop programming experience more palatable to newcomers and open source libraries are a boon for function discovery, so it's still a bit of a wash. Web development as a desktop platform has inarguably improved by leaps and bounds over the past few years. StackOverflow has dramatically smoothed the learning process for all of these.

I'm pretty sure the long term trend is exactly the opposite of what OP said: getting started with programming has never been easier, and the people who make programming environments have been working tirelessly and trying everything in their power (even moonshots) to make the process easier and more newcomer-friendly. None of the moonshots worked but the more traditional efforts have paid off in spades.