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Doubt it. For whatever reason, it seems like the way of thinking required for even simple programming doesn’t come naturally to most people. I saw this with a

Doubt it. For whatever reason, it seems like the way of thinking required for even simple programming doesn’t come naturally to most people. I saw this with a bunch of kids I went through nearly CS classes with. People who could not wrap their heads around pointers or reference semantics. People who didn’t get polymorphism and seemingly couldn’t no matter how many times you went through it with them. People who couldn’t seem to write programs, even very simple ones, despite being clever in most other ways that can be measured by academe. To be sure, it could be the slice I saw was not representative of typical people, but that would require typical people to be better suited to programming than those admitted to a high tier university. Maybe they are, but it doesn’t seem especially likely.

eismcc 8y ago
Also, I’ve seen smart people just not have the patience required to work on programs. There’s a level of pain tolerance required for debugging, for example, that some people just can’t handle - or don’t want to.
- matwood 8y ago
  Agreed. The patience comes from actual interest. Few people if any just sit down and code a whole program from start to finish without hitting any bumps. A person's tolerance for dealing with those bumps will determine if they can be a programmer or not. No matter how smart someone might be, there comes a point where they will have to grind out a solution to a problem. That means sitting in the front of the compute for hours with seemingly no progress. That is challenging for many people.
spamizbad 8y ago
I think when you get started coding earlier, your existing knowledge about the world doesn't disrupt the seemingly idiosyncratic way languages and computers operate and describe operations. But one issue that definitely is a killer is just that some people, even if they have a "knack" for it, just don't enjoy programming and find the whole thing tedious and frustrating and/or the attitude of "I'm done with school. I'm done learning new things. Just put me to work". Those two traits greatly limit the pool of people who are willing to work as a software developer, despite being fully capable of doing the work.
notus 8y ago
Actual logical thinking doesn't come naturally to anyone. Look at symbolic logic classes in Universities and how much people struggle with that. You only get good at it by doing it a lot and banging your head against the wall sometimes. Most people would do just fine with programming if you frame it the right way for them. We are already used to working within constraints.
- awakeasleep 8y ago
  My theory is that we have a personality dimension related to "tolerance for being wrong" In 'real life' we're ultra careful about implying, let alone proving people are wrong. Considered by most to be highly insulting! And showing someone they're wrong is often interpreted as disrespectful. On the receiving side, it's common to hate the feeling of being wrong and deny reality itself when the feeling comes around. All of these common cultural assumptions and potentially biological traits are deeply at odds with programming.
christophilus 8y ago
Yep. We had a 50% dropout rate in year 1 at my university. Most of those were in it for the money, but didn’t have enough personal interest in the subject to push through the combination of logic and tedium that makes up introductory computer science.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  Over my 4 years in undergrad, ours was 90%. 300 in, 30 out.
  - christophilus 8y ago
    Yeah. I didn't track the stats across all 4 years, but I suspect they'd line up with yours.
booleandilemma 8y ago
What I saw in college was a lot of people dropping out of the Computer Science track for the Information Technology track, because they wanted to learn about computers and the business surrounding them. The early CS classes were about pointers, iteration, conditionals, and other things they had 0 interest in. I think it takes a specific kind of personality to be interested in this stuff, and it’s not something that most people would enjoy doing as a job, contrary to what articles like this want us to believe.

eismcc 8y ago

Also, I’ve seen smart people just not have the patience required to work on programs. There’s a level of pain tolerance required for debugging, for example, that some people just can’t handle - or don’t want to.

matwood 8y ago
Agreed. The patience comes from actual interest. Few people if any just sit down and code a whole program from start to finish without hitting any bumps. A person's tolerance for dealing with those bumps will determine if they can be a programmer or not. No matter how smart someone might be, there comes a point where they will have to grind out a solution to a problem. That means sitting in the front of the compute for hours with seemingly no progress. That is challenging for many people.

spamizbad 8y ago

I think when you get started coding earlier, your existing knowledge about the world doesn't disrupt the seemingly idiosyncratic way languages and computers operate and describe operations. But one issue that definitely is a killer is just that some people, even if they have a "knack" for it, just don't enjoy programming and find the whole thing tedious and frustrating and/or the attitude of "I'm done with school. I'm done learning new things. Just put me to work". Those two traits greatly limit the pool of people who are willing to work as a software developer, despite being fully capable of doing the work.

notus 8y ago

Actual logical thinking doesn't come naturally to anyone. Look at symbolic logic classes in Universities and how much people struggle with that. You only get good at it by doing it a lot and banging your head against the wall sometimes. Most people would do just fine with programming if you frame it the right way for them. We are already used to working within constraints.

awakeasleep 8y ago
My theory is that we have a personality dimension related to "tolerance for being wrong" In 'real life' we're ultra careful about implying, let alone proving people are wrong. Considered by most to be highly insulting! And showing someone they're wrong is often interpreted as disrespectful. On the receiving side, it's common to hate the feeling of being wrong and deny reality itself when the feeling comes around. All of these common cultural assumptions and potentially biological traits are deeply at odds with programming.

christophilus 8y ago

Yep. We had a 50% dropout rate in year 1 at my university. Most of those were in it for the money, but didn’t have enough personal interest in the subject to push through the combination of logic and tedium that makes up introductory computer science.

lallysingh 8y ago
Over my 4 years in undergrad, ours was 90%. 300 in, 30 out.
- christophilus 8y ago
  Yeah. I didn't track the stats across all 4 years, but I suspect they'd line up with yours.

booleandilemma 8y ago

What I saw in college was a lot of people dropping out of the Computer Science track for the Information Technology track, because they wanted to learn about computers and the business surrounding them. The early CS classes were about pointers, iteration, conditionals, and other things they had 0 interest in. I think it takes a specific kind of personality to be interested in this stuff, and it’s not something that most people would enjoy doing as a job, contrary to what articles like this want us to believe.