> I know when I was a kid, I was smart enough for BASIC and Pascal but C++ just looked weird and complex and hard. HTML, CSS and Javascript were awesome and I jumped into that instead.
When I was a kid, C++ was easy and I didn't start learning javascript until a few years ago. I also learned TI-BASIC in AP Calc, and Java (CS II-Honors) was presented at my school as harder than C++ (CS I). A lot of what is labeled difficult is very very subjective. A coworker of mine stumbled over Intro to CS/Programming because he was stuck trying to understand how to program hello world without understanding how the compiler worked first. Without a teacher to talk to, this very intelligent student could be seen as one who can't even grasp 'the basics'. I stumbled over my programming languages class because I confused the machine interpretation of Scheme, while we developed a interpreter in Scheme. I'm still confused over it.
> What drives a divide is when you go build an entire ecosystem and hand it off to a cloistered priesthood.
It's not so much that it's handed off to, it's more that people aren't very vocal about what they don't understand. This leads sort of to a 'survival of the fittest' cycle of development, on a macro scale, with the people who have a direction, at all, making important decisions, and the people who are most cautious, staring blankly in confusion. The reality is that everyone is probably missing some part of what is considered 'the basics' to someone else.
A responsive community dedicated to bringing people into development is also what lowers the barrier to entry. Students that are so afraid of their teachers and the 'scary aesthetic' of the material raises the barrier to entry. If you have someone to ask "what does this symbol mean?" or "am I thinking in the right direction, or am I making this lesson more complex than it was intended to be?" then complex and hard become more approachable (not more simple, however). Sometimes having a person reply back, "I don't know" can actually help a lot.
When I was just learning to program, I was afraid to ask questions, to talk about what I knew or thought. I don't know if many young developers struggle with that today, given how much the landscape has changed. Then I wonder, has it changed so much, or did it just take me about 15 years to become comfortable in chaos?
Just some thoughts.