I used to do card tricks for fun. I made an interesting observation about card tricks. I could show someone how to perform the slight of hand. I could even show

I used to do card tricks for fun. I made an interesting observation about card tricks. I could show someone how to perform the slight of hand. I could even show them the trick and explain how misdirection works. Despite that, they couldn't do the same thing (even if it was a fairly simple trick). Free info simply wasn't enough to copy the trick. They had to have the aptitude and put in the hours if they wanted to do it themselves. As coders, we do something similar. We show the code and explain how it is put together. We even talk about the theory behind the application. But for them to learn, they have to have the aptitude and the practice. Coders have the aptitude, and they seem to insist anyone can do it too. Companies go along because it's in their best interest if this is true. The reality is that people have varying degrees of ability for handling abstract logic. Only a small portion of the population is adept enough to handle abstract logic at scale and we need that skill in more fields than just programming. Reality seems to bear this out as we have increased the amount of recruiting every year at every level of business, school, and government, but with diminishing returns. I believe that we offer to teach because we like finding people who think like we do (or maybe wish to believe we think the same way as the rest of the world), because we like to believe we are making other people's lives better, and on some level, because it's safe in that the returns are small enough to not threaten our own wellbeing, but maybe I'm just too cynical...