I think it comes down to a question of measurement. Now, of course you&#x27;re going to find a lot more programmers now because computers are ubiquitous and CS is a hot major. But one way to think about it is what is the ratio of users that can program their computers to the ratio of pure end-users. I think its orders of magnitude lower now. You could argue that because we have all these fancy apps now and we don&#x27;t need to program our computers but I believe people don&#x27;t get a fraction of the computing power they can or need from their devices. This is evident by the recent trend in bots and &quot;workflow&quot; applications (e.g. Microsoft Flow, IFTT, etc). People want a lot more from their machines. And apps are a single-purpose,  crude way of doing computing. The way you get the most out of your computer is that you program it.<p>Looking at it from this lens -- I don&#x27;t the barriers are lower. Most kids&#x27; first interaction with computers now are through smartphones and tablets. And the separation between using these things and actually programming them can&#x27;t be further away.