All this program is doing is attempting to give exposure to programming to young students who may not otherwise have an opportunity to do so. No matter how naturally gifted a student may be, the tools to learn and grow have to be put within their reach in the first place.<p>The criticism this article is levying is how it is threatening to produce code monkeys instead of well-rounded software engineers. But that is because (I believe) that they are suggesting &quot;programming&quot; credits could be used in lieu of math&#x2F;science credits to graduate. Which would create high school graduate who can program tolerably but have little to no skill doing anything else... aka a vocational training.<p>The criticisms aren&#x27;t &quot;Well they won&#x27;t be any good at it anyways.&quot;<p>You&#x27;re also making a very strong elitist stance on the matter. The tone of your comments strongly imply &quot;software engineers are better than other people, only the chosen few may join our illustrious ranks!&quot;