You missed the part where I said I got a job, producing code which made someone else money, after only a semester of C having never done any programming before.

You missed the part where I said I got a job, producing code which made someone else money, after only a semester of C having never done any programming before. The other examples were there to give credence to the fact that you can learn vast amounts in a semester. Also you missed the bit where I trained people in 4 weeks who had never programmed before how to hand write SQL queries on the linux command line. There were 2 out of a class of 16 whom I would be comfortable recommending as junior DBA or reporting type folks. "Too early" depends on the industry. In neurosurgery you need an undergrad degree, then a postgrad degree in medicine, then 4 years as an intern, and blah blah (it's been a while since I watched "Scrubs" :) but for programming, particularly writing web based C.R.U.D apps, deploying Wordpress sites, maintaining existing projects, or writing internal tools for business automation, you can basically start as soon as you understand the basics of programming. Not every company in the world is a 4 person startup looking for "full stack unicorns" - there is a huge industry out there that can make use of people with a solid grounding in the principles of programming to product "merchantable" work with real value.