I actually am an experienced programmer - just not in Python yet. ;) I wrote the post from the perspective of someone with a keen interest in computer science education. My specialty is teaching beginners, whether it's a week-long course for eighth graders or non-major undergrads. This context is likely not clear in the post on its own.

When learning Python, I looked at it through the lens of someone just getting started with programming. While it's not really possible to do this in a completely unbiased way, that was where my musings came from.

In terms of your thoughts on programming: I find them interesting. I think it's a reasonable perspective. For the audiences I work with, it can be important to hook students early on with the cool stuff or else you might lose them too early. I personally hope we can then get them into what you define as programming, but even if we can't, at least they leave with something.