Self-taught veteran coder here. I'm not great, but I've built a few things in Python (with a LOT of input from more experienced developers). I never really tho

Self-taught veteran coder here. I'm not great, but I've built a few things in Python (with a LOT of input from more experienced developers). I never really thought about coding until I came to a developer with an idea and he said "Great now go build it." It was very intimidating, but I was lucky because I had a boss who gave me the freedom to devote time to learning and many false-starts. It took about 6 months before I had something slammed together that worked. I learned that coding (while hard) is not impossible to learn. More importantly I believe that it re-wired my brain for problem solving. I think more logically than I did before, and that has helped me to learn other skillset and further grow my career. I now have an MBA and work in finance. So I'm sorry but I don't believe that coding is something that you have to be a natural rockstar to do. There are so many small and solvable problems out there and so few coders. These are still wildcatter days. I do tend to agree about programming classes being rote, but isn't that true of any kind of education? Perhaps what is more important is having an employer flexible enough to let their employees learn new skills while working.