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Programming in isolation is simple to learn. Rudimentary understanding of control flow, syntax and how to use primitive data types are literally enough to write

Programming in isolation is simple to learn. Rudimentary understanding of control flow, syntax and how to use primitive data types are literally enough to write any program in the world. I feel like 80% of people could probably go from zero to fizzbuzz in a week if they had a good teacher and a modicum of interest. But the real world is so much more complicated and that it is the real gatekeeper. I've taught several non-technical people how to code, and the biggest first hurdles usually are: setting up their dev environment, installing dependencies, understanding the command line. I think it's interesting that explaining why you have to add things to your $PATH is harder than explaining how an if statment works.

opportune 6y ago
Good point. It took me years to learn software well enough to be able to understand, fix, and anticipate those kinds of issues. Even now that I write software professionally it still happens at a more technical level (for example, I’ve been tripped up by esoteric aspects of how networking in data centers works). Modern computer systems are just very very complicated which makes teaching them challenging: nobody, even very very good programmers, knows how all software works from top to bottom. So being productive writing software requires a self-starting, deductive approach to solving problems, which is much harder to teach than basic syntax.
hajile 6y ago
I've seen people try to do flow or visual programming. There is no barrier due to dev setup. They don't even have to understand the low-level details about how a computer actually works. But despite that, they still have trouble getting anything to happen. While not all smart people can program, professional programmers have an average IQ that is a full 24 points higher than average [0] That's one and a half standard deviations above the population average. If you account for all the programmers you meet that seem incapable of doing anything, I suspect that the IQ of people who actually get things done skews even higher. Even if you buy into the whole "IQ doesn't measure everything" camp, the things it does measure (logic, pattern matching, memory, problem solving, etc) are exactly the same things that are critical for a career in programming. Based on this idea, it can be said quite simply that the overwhelming majority of the population are simply incapable of performing the job well. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150325075720/http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150325075720/http://www.statis...
3minus1 6y ago
> I feel like 80% of people could probably go from zero to fizzbuzz in a week Then why do so many self-described professional coders do horrendously on fizz buzz or equally simple problems?

opportune 6y ago

Good point. It took me years to learn software well enough to be able to understand, fix, and anticipate those kinds of issues. Even now that I write software professionally it still happens at a more technical level (for example, I’ve been tripped up by esoteric aspects of how networking in data centers works). Modern computer systems are just very very complicated which makes teaching them challenging: nobody, even very very good programmers, knows how all software works from top to bottom. So being productive writing software requires a self-starting, deductive approach to solving problems, which is much harder to teach than basic syntax.

hajile 6y ago

I've seen people try to do flow or visual programming. There is no barrier due to dev setup. They don't even have to understand the low-level details about how a computer actually works. But despite that, they still have trouble getting anything to happen. While not all smart people can program, professional programmers have an average IQ that is a full 24 points higher than average [0] That's one and a half standard deviations above the population average. If you account for all the programmers you meet that seem incapable of doing anything, I suspect that the IQ of people who actually get things done skews even higher. Even if you buy into the whole "IQ doesn't measure everything" camp, the things it does measure (logic, pattern matching, memory, problem solving, etc) are exactly the same things that are critical for a career in programming. Based on this idea, it can be said quite simply that the overwhelming majority of the population are simply incapable of performing the job well. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150325075720/http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150325075720/http://www.statis...

3minus1 6y ago

> I feel like 80% of people could probably go from zero to fizzbuzz in a week Then why do so many self-described professional coders do horrendously on fizz buzz or equally simple problems?