The problem is that if you are not interested in CS and haven't been programming before the course then lets face it - you won't become good at it during a seme

The problem is that if you are not interested in CS and haven't been programming before the course then lets face it - you won't become good at it during a semester. So later, when you are faced with different environments and sets of instructions (excel, perl) you'll just call your computer guy, or fill the spreadsheet manually. It might be better to teach programming after 3-4 semesters, to show how some tedious work from previous classes can be replaced by a neat excel macro.