My point is that programming is useful in a variety of contexts and you don't have to be that great at it to accomplish something.

You're right, I probably wouldn't work out at most programming jobs. I do contract work; the web app I'm writing now I had about 3 weeks to knock out, will be used by 2,000 people, and will only be used for about a month. But I'm still a "programmer," because I program.

We're not all writing mongodb or working at Google or whatnot.