How do you convince a creative person to become a programmer?

The best way is to convince them to make a product to improve their lives and that the tools are not far from their reach.  Not only would they be able to think of great ideas; but they would have the devices to directly implement them. In general, it's difficult to convince someone to get into programming; but maybe they would get inspired by watching hacker movies like Antitrust, Swordfish, or Sneakers. 

Maybe by convincing them that code is now an important medium through which culture is communicated. Not just among those that use software, but between those that write software and those who use it as well. There is the temptation to think of software as cold, lifeless automation - but, that's pretty obviously not the case. A piece of software is a cultural "artifact" just as much a Jackson Pollock painting. Each embody biases and values from the cultures that they are a part of. The reason I'm emphasizing culture here is that one possible characterization of "a creative person" is someone who is interested in the transformation of a base material into an object of cultural significance (pigment to paintings, concrete to shared spaces, etc). From that perspective, code is a pretty rich base material. Not only can it be "molded" into a Photoshop, or a Facebook, but it's a "language" as well. Not an ordinary language though. In the words of Friedrich Kittler : "There exists no word in any ordinary language which does what it says. No description of a machine sets the machine into motion." One other point to make is how totally pervasive software is. We really shouldn't leave something so integral to our lives unexamined.

I'm an artist type and never cared for programming until just a year or two ago.  How did I eventually become more interested in the actual programming part? First, I naturally like innovation and technology and read all the popular tech blogs. A lot of terms came up that I didn't fully understand because I'm not a programmer, and I don't like having a blank in my head about something. So I wanted to learn more. Next, what made me think I could even start learning something so different from anything I've ever done? First, I had to get rid of my fear and feelings of intimidation. Some thoughts I had, "what if I wasn't smart enough or had what it takes to get into programming"? I got over this fear once I began searching the internet for help and tips. There are so many sites and organizations out there set up to teach programming for the beginner and they are so welcoming and make you feel comfortable about it instead of being elitist or intimidating. Third, and probably most important, several of my friends are programmers and not the zombie type programmers, my friends are the ones leading innovation in the field and bringing excitement and passion into it. The energy and passion they emit really rubbed off on me. They are solving problems and changing the world in a tangible way to make life better for everyone. They inspire me very much.(By the way, they never encouraged me to start programming at all. I don't think they even thought I'd be interested. It was by purely being around them that I made the decision on my own.) I think artists and programmers are similar in that they want to change the world. They just take different approaches. A lot of artists I know, bring attention to the dark side of humans, the problems of humanity, to connect us all, to make us think more deeply, and hopefully perhaps inspire something deep inside of us. Programmers want to make what's deep inside of us, our dreams and fantasies, real. They want to connect us as a community and further solve our everyday problems, small or big. Something like that, anyway.  ;-)

I wanted to be a songwriter and then a screenwriter.  I failed at both.  Dispirited, I took a job as an accounting assistant, my creative days behind me.  As I went about this "boring" job, trapped in a windowless cubicle, I was asked to learn SQL programming to derive better financial reports off the mainframe.  Surprisingly, I liked it.  I got good at it.  I spent the next ten years as a programmer analyst, and I loved it.