Mostly everybody can learn to cook, only a few will become professionals, and fewer still will ever get a Michelin star. Mostly everybody can learn how to cycle

Mostly everybody can learn to cook, only a few will become professionals, and fewer still will ever get a Michelin star. Mostly everybody can learn how to cycle, but only a few will compete in (let alone win) the Tour de France. Everybody can learn how to read and write, but there's only a handful of Shakespeares and Hemingways among us. All of these are useful, easy to acquire, everyday skills that can be done at incredibly high levels of sophistication. Programming is easy in exactly the same way all of these things are easy, and hard in the same way all these things are hard.