The notion that teaching programming at an early age will somehow degrade the software engineering profession is simply preposterous. The fact that I took Spanish for 4 years certainly doesn't devalue the translation profession. Learning how to code is like learning a foreign language-- it takes time to master and is best learned when being fully immersed in it. But that doesn't preclude from introducing it earlier. In fact, it will probably have the opposite affect that you imagine. After my years of failing to learn Spanish, I have a profound respect for those who can speak it so easily. And because I know good bilingual speakers are hard to come by, I would probably pay a premium for their talents if my day job required me to interface with Spanish-speaking cultures.