That's because it's perpetually misrepresented. Including by, but not limited to, this article.
Developing a passion takes time and effort. Speaking for myself, I've actively disliked a whole slew of things until I developed enough skill to appreciate it. The stage between starting an endeavor and finding satisfaction in it can be very damn long.
Beginner to intermediate just-about-anything isn't "fun" and won't inspire feelings of "passion" or "love". That doesn't mean people should be discouraged by their pursuit.
Some are fortunate to either be very talented or very inspired very early on. That's the exception, not the rule.
Beginner to intermediate just-about-anything isn't "fun" and won't inspire feelings of "passion" or "love".
I haven't found that to be universally true. Beginner to intermediate programming is really great, if you start it in a sensible way that foregrounds some of why it's interesting up front, with enough tools to let you make something happen fairly soon. The first 30 minutes of playing with Logo when I was in elementary school were amazingly eye-opening, and I couldn't put it down for weeks! It was pretty awesome really, you could give these commands to draw turtle graphics, and then change them to draw others, and then learn new techniques to make fancier things, etc., etc.
Unfortunately I think most people approach programming less in the way Papert was trying to promote, and more in the coding-death-march sort of way where you take a high-school class that lectures about C++ syntax for weeks. The hacker scene has a better angle on it, imo; plenty of first-time attendees at places like SuperHappyDevHouse and Maker Faire see an inspiring side of technology they missed in school.
Developing a passion takes time and effort. Speaking for myself, I've actively disliked a whole slew of things until I developed enough skill to appreciate it. The stage between starting an endeavor and finding satisfaction in it can be very damn long.
Beginner to intermediate just-about-anything isn't "fun" and won't inspire feelings of "passion" or "love". That doesn't mean people should be discouraged by their pursuit.
Some are fortunate to either be very talented or very inspired very early on. That's the exception, not the rule.