I think you'll find plenty of upwardly mobile and reasonably successful adults on HN that know how to program. Many of the best started as little kids. And as software increasingly touches every aspect of our lives, knowing the basics of programming will be useful for understanding how things work in the world.

Brain surgery is a highly specialized discipline that takes years of preparation before the surgeon makes her first cut--Daisy the Dino is specifically trying to make programming less intimidating to learn with a lower barrier to early success.