i am an old fogey. i wrote my first program on a piece of paper after watching my fiend use his zx spectrum. i didn't do exercises - i knew i could make this awesome spinning prism (dude! a spinning prism!) and so i just bugged the hell out of my friend until i found out what commands did what.
isn't it obvious that you should start by building something fun? what's so wrong with people that they think they need to do exercises first?
what is wrong with culture when programming is a "task" that requires "exercises" rather than something awesome you're going to make happen?
are these people that are being made to program (when they don't want to)? do they have no imagination? are they scared? why are they spending their lives doing exercises rather than things they want to do? don't they know they will die?