The "Hard Way" books are not for everyone, but they are exactly what some people need. Not everyone learns the same way.

I like having Shaw around because his absolutism inspires other absolutists to step out of cover. It's good to know where all the absolutists are hiding...

Are those people going to be good and happy programmers?

Shaw is himself a good programmer, although I wouldn't hazard a guess about his happiness... I would expect long term programming prospects to be orthogonal to learning style. Certainly anyone claiming otherwise would have the burden of proof.

The Streisand effect talks about hiding, removing or censoring a piece of information. To me, that is quite different than not promoting.

It's a distinction without a difference. The end result is the same, along with the resulting Streisand effect.