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I have to disagree. There are people who, outside of any job, discovered programming to be fun at a young age, such as modding games, and if they keep at it, th

I have to disagree. There are people who, outside of any job, discovered programming to be fun at a young age, such as modding games, and if they keep at it, they become at least intermediate-level at a young age. Then there are people who heard coders make good money, studied it in college, and got a job doing it (at a place that doesn't need to pay for, or can't determine, the former type), but wouldn't do it for fun. They know the concepts, but they have a weak link to enjoyment of using them, and only learn what they need as a minimum to make some contribution. They want to like what they do, but it's not easy. The former can easily be 10x more productive than the latter, but they're on such different levels, it's unlikely they'd work side by side so you could compare them. This is ignoring the rare savant who's closer to a 100xer, but I've seen them too.

watwut 7y ago
I don't think there is such dichotomy and early youth passion is strongly overrated. Many people who liked modding and similar activities as young are not that great - especially when it comes to difficult tasks. And many people who started to learn it at college or even after are great. The modders and early starters have massive advantages in beginner courses and maybe in intermediate. But many of them don't progress all that much further or hit some kind of ceiling (difficulty to learn algorithms, it becomes boring once not creative) or even actively dislike programming for business (difficulty to deal with changes in requirements and other business annoyances). And I know people who studied something else and then changed to programming - most of them come from physics or math background, two teachers. The original decision was for money, but they did learned fast and made up the difference. Mostly because they were used to learn hard things. Learning something makes you like it in the end and that happened too, but was not the actual reason for anything.

watwut 7y ago

I don't think there is such dichotomy and early youth passion is strongly overrated. Many people who liked modding and similar activities as young are not that great - especially when it comes to difficult tasks. And many people who started to learn it at college or even after are great. The modders and early starters have massive advantages in beginner courses and maybe in intermediate. But many of them don't progress all that much further or hit some kind of ceiling (difficulty to learn algorithms, it becomes boring once not creative) or even actively dislike programming for business (difficulty to deal with changes in requirements and other business annoyances). And I know people who studied something else and then changed to programming - most of them come from physics or math background, two teachers. The original decision was for money, but they did learned fast and made up the difference. Mostly because they were used to learn hard things. Learning something makes you like it in the end and that happened too, but was not the actual reason for anything.