What I meant was that it takes a certain skill to translate a business problem into something a computer can understand. You need to think extremely logical, rigorous. You have to consider everything that may go wrong.

That takes natural aptitude and experience. A minority of non-programmers have the aptitude, and extremely few have the experience.

That's what makes programming hard. And that's why this article is bullshit.

Programming is not hard because of esoteric programming languages. It's just hard, period.

"certain skill to translate a business problem into something a computer can understand"

Absolutely! And that skill includes analysis, not just development. Almost all the best analysis I've ever done has been WITH the skill of competent users, not in spite of them.

"A minority of non-programmers have the aptitude"

A minority of programmers have the aptitude, too.

"That's what makes programming hard"

Uh, try hot tarring a roof or digging ditches in 100 degree heat. THAT'S hard.

"It's just hard, period."

Hard is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think programming is much harder than most other things. It's easy doing it right. It's hard doing it wrong.