I agree with the article's thesis: programming general-education needs to step away from abstracted problem sets. Instead, I think programming should first be presented as a tool - rather than a complicated science.
The comp-sci courses I had access to in high school / college were all depth-first, so the barrier of entry was overwhelming. The dense theory, to me, was so much less attractive than solving a problem with a BB plugin or broken Javascript in the real world. I believed I was going to be a script kiddy forever, because I enjoyed tinkering and tweaking more than traditional coursework.
It didn't click for me that I could be a "real" programmer until after I dropped out of college (was studying Latin/Classics, no science or math background). I started building my own games and game-helper apps, in Python, while working an IT helpdesk. Observing people interact and engage with things I built gave me the confidence to pursue a career in web development, using MOOCs (MITx series was excellet) and project-based tutorials to self-educate. I stepped up to tackle more real-world problems outside the scope of my helpdesk position, mostly day-to-day scripting and org automation.
So, educational strategies like Human Resource Machine really tick the right boxes for me. If I had played that game years ago, I think I would've gravitated towards comp-sci much earlier. I needed a strong reward system (coworker's gratitude) to propel me through advanced topics, and game-ification of edu is all about treadmilling through a reward track.
I hold the title of software engineer today, without ever having completed a formal comp-sci course outside of MOOCs. I don't think this narrative is uncommon, especially among women or first-generation programmers. I clearly demonstrated the skills necessary to be a successful developer: linguistics and programming share many common themes. But I was funneled towards a silly Latin program, because I and my academic advisers thought my non-existent math/science background precluded me from computer science.
Progamming has seeped into the vernacular of day-to-day problem solving, and I think this is the angle that intro courses should seize.