I think this is a reasonable stance, mostly because she is saying it's not programming itself that sucks, it programming for others on matters that aren't what you are passionate about that sucks, and I think that's an important distinction to make. Her options are to either find something she is passionate about programming and do that for a living, or do like many of us do and do it on the side.

I'm a sysadmin, and I have almost no formal programming training, but on the side I really like experimenting with developing solutions to my very specific set of problems, and it is empowering to me. At work I often cobble stuff together in bash, perl, and python, but I'm sure if a professional programmer reviewed my code they would balk... but it works for me, and I document everything heavily to make sure the next fellow won't have too much trouble.

For me programming is about problem solving, because that's what I do best. I will admit though, sometimes I go through burnout phases, and perhaps this is where the author is at the moment.