I think you're missing the point about the initiative. It's not about getting more professional programmers into the job pool. Programming itself covers a whole range of skills that have real world uses. Critical thinking, problem analysis & solving, logic, etc. These are the skills the current generation of kids seem to be missing out on in their education and part of the reason the Raspberry Pi and similar initiatives were formed. Also, I don't think Mr Bloomberg is planning on becoming a coder. This to him is a hobby, you do other things for fun besides code eh?