As a programmer and every day user of really advanced Excel shenanigans, I can confirm your view is pretty spot on. The fact that I have the mental model of a programmer means I instinctively follow best practices that non-programmers simply can't get into their heads. Namely: keeping data and presentation separate, DRY, the concept of named variables, understanding how array formulas work and why you can map functions to intermediate in-memory vectors, the list goes on...