Hmm, well I absolutely agree with the hoop jumping, and while yes no one has ever shared an iPhone executable with me (although they could and I could run it without any sort of license without jailbreaking), I've really been pretty content with Apple's walled gardens (hardware and software). Every app runs pretty smooth since there are so few models and screen sizes to accomodate and I never have to worry when I download from the app store, at all! That's a pleasure.

Setting up a development environment is an absolute pain in the ass, for a professional developer. But when I was in middle school on my pops pre G3 apple computer (or maybe it was the G3 at that point I'm not sure) I pretty easily figured out how to use a text editor and a preinstalled language to solve project euler problems. Boy those were fun.

I'd imagine access to the computer is a big issue, and only god knows where I found projecteuler for the first time but those sparks are really whats needed. If it ends up getting taught in some stale way as proofs in highschool were taught with lots of rote memorization and none of the art it'll probably end up producing a similar amount of interest.

Also, I presume, as people get older they're less likely in many cases to spend the time to learn a skill which doesn't offer anywhere near the tangible benefit of speaking and writing. Speaking and writing are practiced near constantly just because they're generally the best tools (along with drawing, gesturing, touch) for a job (communication) which must be performed everyday. I can't imagine the future where programming ever hits that level and see it more like the internals of a car with its standard bellcurve distribution of understanding across society.