[biogene]

That may be true, but the point was about empowering the end user. Making programing popular through the app store (arguable) is a separate (also important) topic.

Empowering the end user to not look at the computer as a black box that they have no idea about how it works is quite freeing and mind-expanding.

In the long term, I do believe there is a real risk for programming to become a niche where you end up asking for permission from the h/w vendor before you are allowed to write code on the device. We're slowly heading in that direction with app stores being bundled with the OS, and we may end up in a situation where you can only install s/w through the app store. And only "authorized" persons can download IDEs and dev tools. A large population that has no concept of programming is likely to not oppose this because the vendor will throw the security/privacy boogeyman at them, about "unauthorized" developers writing software that can harm them.

[cesarb]

> And only "authorized" persons can download IDEs and dev tools.

Just in case someone hasn't read it yet, I have to post a link to this classic short story: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html (The Right to Read, by Richard Stallman).

(The bogeyman back then was copyright infringement, nowadays it's as you mentioned security and/or privacy.)