I just had a big "update".
EDIT: I'm a little less sure now. See the end.
I found something to teach programming on an immediate level to non-programmers without knowing they are programming, without any cruft. I always wished this was possible, but now I think we're really close.
If you want to get programming, and are a visual thinker, but never could get over some sort of inhibition, I think you should try this. You won't even know you're programming. It may not be "quite" programming, but it's closer than anything else I've seen at this level of simplicity. And anyway it's fun and pretty.
The important thing about this "programming" environment is that it is completely concrete. There are no formal "abstractions," and yet it's all about concrete representation of the idea formerly known as abstractions.
Enough words. Take a look: http://recursivedrawing.com/
[I was excited because to me this seems awfully close to the untyped lambda-calculus, made magically concrete. The "normal forms" are the "fixed points" are the fractals. It's all too much and requires more thought. It only makes pictures, though, for now. However, I can't see anything in it like "application" so... the issue of how close it is seems actually quite subtle. Somehow application's being bypassed in a static way. Curious. I'm sure there's a better way to see it I just haven't gotten yet.]
PS: Blue! Blue! Blue! (**)
** This is a joke that will only make sense if you've read The Name of the Wind: Rothfuss. If you prefer to spoil yourself, here, but buy the book afterward if you like it.
cross-posted here [I'm not sure about the etiquette, but I think this idea deserves not to be lost in an old thread.]
I recently flipped through the "Cartoon Guide to Physics", expecting an easy-to-understand rehash of ideas I was long familiar with; and that's what I got - right up to the last few pages, where I was presented with a fairly fundamental concept that's been absent from the popular science media I've enjoyed over the years. (Specifically, that the uncertainty principle, when expressed as linking energy and time, explains what electromagnetic fields actually /are/, as the propensity for virtual photons of various strengths to happen.) I find myself happy to try to integrate this new understanding - and at least mildly disturbed that I'd been missing it for so long, and with an increased curiosity about how I might find any other such gaps in my understanding of how the universe works.
So: what's the biggest, or most surprising, or most interesting concept /you/ have learned of, after you'd already gotten a handle on the basics?