My son is a programmer & built his last two machines from the ground up. Bad programmers you mean. Not real programmers.

That's so sad. It should be mandatory to build some Flip flops and implement a clock in 1st semester. A serial to parallel interface and vice versa. Understand memory spaces and addresses. First in theory, then with an soldering iron. Build a computer from discrete components. Something like this. Every electronics technician with an 3 years apprenticeship can do this. FFS they should at minimum program some low-tech robot in C or assembler. Or at least do something with an ATmega or similar.