&gt;All the evidence shows that programming requires a high level of aptitude that only a small percentage of the population possess.<p>&gt;The current fad for short learn-to-code courses is selling people a lie and will do nothing to help the skills shortage for professional programmers.<p>Outside the obvious lack of definition as to what a &quot;programmer&quot; actually is, this is a non sequitur (the conclusion doe not follow). There&#x27;s an assumption built in that those who <i>do</i> possess a high level of aptitude already have CS degrees or are self-taught because it comes to them naturally. What if there are people who possess that high level of aptitude and they want something to help them learn in a structured way?<p>Extrapolated, the author&#x27;s argument could be seen as, &quot;Sorry, there&#x27;s no point in teaching programming, because everyone with the aptitude to program already knows how to program,&quot; and I think that is a recognizable falsehood, if only anecdotally.<p>In other words, even given the assumption that programming <i>does</i> require a higher aptitude than some subset of the population does possess, there is no surefire way to determine who that subset is based on credentialing.