My first exposure to "programming" when I was in middle school was using the Warcraft 2 level editor, setting up custom triggers and using my imagination to build something I thought would be fun for others to play.
That's basically 1000000x better than those games that stress on learning programming or are build around coding. A game that is good by itself and has a great map editor or a good api for modding. Now that's fun. These "programming games" just make me think of tricking people with no interest in programming to do some. Not that I don't recognize some do enjoy these and fall in love with programming thanks to them.