These books shouldn't be dismissed since they provide people with a foundation for further learning. They also offer a friendly introduction to programming, rather than imposing an intimidating wall that will keep people away. It is also important to note that these books break the learning into 24 one hour modules, or something similar, so they can have reasonable coverage of a programming language.

If these books have a failing, it has little to do with the concept and everything to do with being poorly written.

Yes, the biggest fault of those books was that the titles were a cheap gimmick. The implication that you could blow through the book in a day and know the language is kind of a lose-lose, because it undersells the difficulty of the lessons to newcomers and sounds patently ridiculous to professionals. Realistically, someone who has no prior programming experience would take more than an hour per lesson, and would probably take a month or two to get through the book, like any other first-time programming tutorial.

My first exposure to programming was Sam's Teach Yourself C++ In 24 Hours from a used bookstore in my early teens. I didn't stick with it for more than a couple chapters but compiling a program that printed "Hello world" was a magical experience.

The essay is not critical of the contents of these books, but rather of their titles. And I agree with that sentiment. The titles are the clickbait of their time.

The point is that there are better books to start with. The title sets unrealistic expectations.