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It is NOT good to have bad coders, it's good to have a promising talent. Also when can we finally drop this IQ thing? Your IQ does not guarantee you anything.

It is NOT good to have bad coders, it's good to have a promising talent. Also when can we finally drop this IQ thing? Your IQ does not guarantee you anything. Attention to details, perseverance, curiosity are the great promising qualities, not your IQ.

tormeh 8y ago
Coding is essentially a series of IQ tests. Seeing patterns easily, having lots of working memory... You're not going to be good without it. Life is unfair, and some get this given to them, and some don't. To be fair that probably partly applies to the qualities you listed as well. So it's true, IQ is not a promising quality, it's a requirement.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  Is there any proof of developers having higher average IQ than other career paths or are we just assuming that because we're developers we're naturally more intelligent (with a dash of dunning-kruger for flavor).
  - rurp 8y ago
    I don't think the parent comment is saying that developers have a higher IQ than all other professions, just that developers are smarter than average. I personally think that there is a huge range but would bet that the average programmer has a higher IQ than the average non-progammer. Of course, the same could probably be said for a number of professions.
  - gcommer 8y ago
    Google for "occupation iq" readily finds many surveys of different occupations with a fairly expected correlation: Professors and scientists on the high end of the spectrum and laborers on the other. Software engineers/CS isn't at the top but tends to rank fairly highly. However, narrowing these stats to a single person as meaning "if you have a low IQ you can't be a good engineer" is incorrect, as that is totally throwing out: 1) IQ being only a single of many factors (reading about this from people in the field, I often hear IQ cited as the best single predictor we have, but still only accounting for ~30%) 2) IQ can change 3) IQ doesn't include domain knowledge, determination, or any other factors particular to a specific occupation.
  - gowld 8y ago
    You don't have to be dumb to stock groceries or be a line cook, but you don't have to be very smart either, and if you are smart you won't get a lot of intellectual challenge from work.
  - mcphage 8y ago
    > Is there any proof of developers having higher average IQ than other career paths or are we just assuming that because we're developers we're naturally more intelligent I don't think the poster is claiming that programmers are smarter; they're claiming that what IQ tests evaluate, and what programmers do, are similar. But IQ isn't the be-all and end-all of intelligence. If you're a programmer, you might score high on an IQ test, not because of how smart you are, but because the skills being evaluated align. You might not be very intelligent at all, just good at IQ tests.

tormeh 8y ago

Coding is essentially a series of IQ tests. Seeing patterns easily, having lots of working memory... You're not going to be good without it. Life is unfair, and some get this given to them, and some don't. To be fair that probably partly applies to the qualities you listed as well. So it's true, IQ is not a promising quality, it's a requirement.

fzeroracer 8y ago
Is there any proof of developers having higher average IQ than other career paths or are we just assuming that because we're developers we're naturally more intelligent (with a dash of dunning-kruger for flavor).
- rurp 8y ago
  I don't think the parent comment is saying that developers have a higher IQ than all other professions, just that developers are smarter than average. I personally think that there is a huge range but would bet that the average programmer has a higher IQ than the average non-progammer. Of course, the same could probably be said for a number of professions.
- gcommer 8y ago
  Google for "occupation iq" readily finds many surveys of different occupations with a fairly expected correlation: Professors and scientists on the high end of the spectrum and laborers on the other. Software engineers/CS isn't at the top but tends to rank fairly highly. However, narrowing these stats to a single person as meaning "if you have a low IQ you can't be a good engineer" is incorrect, as that is totally throwing out: 1) IQ being only a single of many factors (reading about this from people in the field, I often hear IQ cited as the best single predictor we have, but still only accounting for ~30%) 2) IQ can change 3) IQ doesn't include domain knowledge, determination, or any other factors particular to a specific occupation.
- gowld 8y ago
  You don't have to be dumb to stock groceries or be a line cook, but you don't have to be very smart either, and if you are smart you won't get a lot of intellectual challenge from work.
- mcphage 8y ago
  > Is there any proof of developers having higher average IQ than other career paths or are we just assuming that because we're developers we're naturally more intelligent I don't think the poster is claiming that programmers are smarter; they're claiming that what IQ tests evaluate, and what programmers do, are similar. But IQ isn't the be-all and end-all of intelligence. If you're a programmer, you might score high on an IQ test, not because of how smart you are, but because the skills being evaluated align. You might not be very intelligent at all, just good at IQ tests.