I think the author is pointing at the crop of "learn programming" classes offered for elementary kids under the guise of STEM. And I have seen parents spending

I think the author is pointing at the crop of "learn programming" classes offered for elementary kids under the guise of STEM. And I have seen parents spending sleepless nights because their kid cannot and the neigbor kid can program in Python in Grade 4. Which I believe, is utterly pointless, and does not define how good/bad your kid will be at programming in adult-life. I think some this myth stems of the stories of great programmers whose parents got them an Atari at the age of 4 and so on. I think they are a rare exception, than the norm. I can relate to this article -- my daughter went through programming courses in school (Bay Area public schools are full of these crazy STEM courses), but she did not understand a thing of constructing software. All they learnt was a bunch of syntax, and a bunch of solved problems. I think they will do much better if the STEM courses focus less on a "programming language" and more on "problem solving and thinking software" (I just made this up now). :-)