The article makes good points but is a little harsh... of course mastery takes aptitude and practice and it is ridiculous to think that you could learn anything

The article makes good points but is a little harsh... of course mastery takes aptitude and practice and it is ridiculous to think that you could learn anything even remotely complex in an hour or a day. But the "learn to code" efforts that are referenced serve the important purpose of exposing people who might have aptitude to the idea that they can realize that aptitude. I imagine that people without the prerequisite aptitude would just quit because it wouldn't interest them, and those who can cut it would continue on auto-didactically. I'm not trying to be too critical, but criticising those efforts with the idea that "it is hard, you probably can't do it" is unhelpful at best.