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?

Lets assume that "infinity" exists. Then one can conceive infinity series, where each even denominator is negative:
    x = /1 - /2 + /3 - /4 + /5 - /6 + ...
Note: here and below "/n" stands for a rational number "1/n"

Using commutativity of addtion, we rearrange elements in such a way, that after each positive number would go to two negative:
    x = /1 - /2 - /4  + /3 - /6 - /8 + /5 - /10 - /12 + ...

Now, using associativity of addtion, we group elements in following way:
    x = (/1 - /2) - /4  + (/3 - /6) - /8 + (/5 - /10) - /12 + ...

But (/1 - /2) = /2, (/3 - /6) = /6, etc.., so we have
    x = /2 - /4 + /6 - /8 + /10 - /12 + ...

Multiplying both sides by 2 gives us:
    2*x = /1 - /2 + /3 - /4 + /5 - /6 + ...

That is "x = 2*x" or "1 = 2"!