> The reality is that some people can think in abstract terms, while others cannot. This is true, although there's also a gray area of spectrum in between. I'

> The reality is that some people can think in abstract terms, while others cannot. This is true, although there's also a gray area of spectrum in between. I've worked with a few programmers who could write imperative-style code just fine, commented and clean, looping over arrays and FizzBuzz and such; but who never grokked first-class functions or SQL set-based operations. (I've replaced many a complex cursor-looping SQL procedure with a set-based query running ten or more times faster.) I think a more nuanced description of the question here is whether and how one can successfully drive oneself to think in progressively higher abstractions. It's not all black and white, abstract or concrete.