You tell people who honestly want to get into professional programming that you have done this your whole life with the implication that this is the way? That anything less is “bootcamp” delusion? No wonder they get deflated. Of course they can’t go back in freaking time to when they were kids and get subliminal Programming Pearls from their wet nurse.

And it’s also just wrong. People get into professional programming with... less experience than that. You might have never met anyone in your particular bubble but they do exist.