> Even if person doesn't understand one set of abstractions such as pointers, it is likely that they excel at others such as recognizing perfect shade of color

> Even if person doesn't understand one set of abstractions such as pointers, it is likely that they excel at others such as recognizing perfect shade of color, musical composition or designing game levels. Instead of everyone trying to understand pointers, I think people should find their sweet spots, especially the one that they enjoy. This sounds like the assumption that lack of predisposition to one field is correlated with skill in other fields (eg, "X is not a math person so he's likely to have some talent in lit or the arts). I thought I recalled reading that what evidence there is doesn't support this: and that in fact those who have a knack for, eg, math are more likely to be good at other fields too. (This of course isn't talking about time spent practicing each field, which is rivalrous, but we're talking about "inherent advantages" here).