It's a bold claim, but it's been largely proven by the famous "The Camel Has Two Humps" article that one basic prereq for learning CS/programming effectively is understanding that one is dealing with a formal system that's following consistent rules, even if it's not always clear what these rules might be. It seems to be quite hard to teach this understanding precisely to those who haven't internalized it, but it's a key part of the tacit knowledge one would need to work in the field.