I think this should be the top comment here. I taught myself to program as kid, not because I was interested in Computer Science (I'd never heard of it, and if I had, it wouldn't have been appealing to my 7 year old brain). I learnt to program because I wanted to make things, specifically games. That's what kept me typing in those lines and lines of BASIC, that's what inspired me to keep learning new languages and technologies - so that I could make better stuff! And this continues to this day. If I'd been pressured into learning Computer Science instead, I would certainly not be a programmer today. Back then, and even now, I just wanted to make stuff and experiment - Computer Science has only been something I've become interested in in the last few years, and has been completely inconsequential to my career development.

So I disagree with this article. Programming is a creative, fun thing which is much more accessible to children (and adults!) than the comparably dry, stuffy subject of Computer Science. And it's not even true to say that people with formal computer science backgrounds make better programmers, so what is the benefit here?