A lot of effort has gone into trying to invent ways of teaching programming to complete newbies. If really no-one has succeeded at all, then maybe it's time to seriously consider that some people can't be taught.

http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/

The researcher didn't distinguish the conjectured cause (bimodal differences in students' ability to form models of computation) from other possible causes (just to name one — some students are more confident, and computing classes reward confidence).

And the researcher's advisor later described his enthusiasm for the study as "prescription-drug induced over-hyping" of the results ...

Clearly further research is needed. It should probably not assume that programmers are magic special people, no matter how appealing that notion is to many programmers.

Once upon a time, it would have been a radical proposition to suggest that even 25% of the population might one day be able to read and write. Reading and writing were the province of magic special people like scribes and priests. Today, we count on almost every adult being able to read traffic signs, recipes, bills, emails, and so on — even the ones who do not do "serious reading".

A problem with programming education is that it is frequently unclear what the point of it is. Is it to identify those students who can learn to get jobs as programmers in industry or research? Is it to improve students' ability to control the technology that is a greater and greater part of their world? Is it to teach the mathematical concepts of elementary computer science?

We know why we teach kids to read. The wonders of literature aside, we know full well that they cannot get on as competent adults if they are literate. Literacy was not a necessity for most people two thousand years ago; it is a necessity for most people today. Will programming ever become that sort of necessity?