I remember being taught BASIC in elementary school as part of the standard curriculum, which was now a long, long time ago. And this was just a small rural scho

I remember being taught BASIC in elementary school as part of the standard curriculum, which was now a long, long time ago. And this was just a small rural school, literally surrounded by farms. My parents both talk of learning how to program on punchcards in high school. They struggle to use a computer, let alone program one, so I'm not sure it was of any real benefit to them. Though once you've covered basic algebra, you're basically there. Coding itself is super easy. The more challenging problems come from understanding the nuances of your stack (which comes with experience) and understanding more complicated algorithms (which is rooted in higher level math). That all requires much more time and effort than an intro course in elementary school.