DrScheme has a stepper that helps visualize expression evaluation. I think that can go a long way toward helping "non-programmers" learn.
Developing new languages is a great exercise in creating new tools to solve specific problems. Rails really kicked the status quo and made programming so much easier for a bunch of us. But is it possible to ever create a language that will make all the different kind of programming problems equally easy? It always seems like there is a tradeoff, programming abstractions vs performance. As another case, all of us know english, but how many of us are great writers? (not I! haha)
Great link though. Look forward to the day when game programming is as easy as brainstorming out loud to our computers.