rogramming courses?

Dear /puddi/,

Why or why do so many people fail to learn programming?
Is it because they fail to see programming as calculation of data and instead see a black box that magically does things?

Or is it because they can't grasp the "strict" typing of a programming language?

What is it, /prog/, that makes programming so hard, even the introductory course seems so hard for people, even with languages like LISP or Python, and books like SICP?

Suppose we loosely define a religion as any discipline whose foundations rest on an element of faith, irrespective of any element of reason which may be present. [Atheism], for example, would be a religion under this definition. But mathematics would hold the unique position of being the only branch of theology possessing a rigorous demonstration of the fact that it should be so classified. -- H. Eves, Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969.