This does assume that the students are exposed in some form or another to programming in middle/high school, which I feel can be a bit of a stretch. I haven't been out of of high school for *that* long (Class of '01) and my high school had programming classes, clubs, or anything. There was a single 'computer' course: typing. I had to go to college to learn to program.
I suppose the argument could be made that those who really want to know can dabble in their spare time, but I know in my case that I had fairly limited access to computers for a large portion of my childhood, so this wasn't very possible.
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This does assume that the students are exposed in some form or another to programming in middle/high school, which I feel can be a bit of a stretch. I haven't been out of of high school for *that* long (Class of '01) and my high school had programming classes, clubs, or anything. There was a single 'computer' course: typing. I had to go to college to learn to program. I suppose the argument could be made that those who really want to know can dabble in their spare time, but I know in my case that I had fairly limited access to computers for a large portion of my childhood, so this wasn't very possible.