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Disagree. Not only can anyone program. But anyone can do surgery, become a fighter pilot and become a barrister. It's the same thing as how anyone can learn ma

Disagree. Not only can anyone program. But anyone can do surgery, become a fighter pilot and become a barrister. It's the same thing as how anyone can learn mathematics, algebra, biology and any of the typical subjects you learn at school. You struggle with deep learning only because it's a paradigm shift. It's too different from traditional programming so the initial learning curve makes it seem like you're incapable. Given enough time anyone can surpass the hump and become good at deep learning. That is not to say that these skills are trivial. There must be a lot of training time to achieve these skills. But make no mistake... anyone can do it.

lostlogin 5y ago
> But make no mistake... anyone can do it. We have all seen the professionals in action… There may be more people who can do it than one would instinctively think, but it doesn’t take long on a helpdesk or in any public facing role to conclude that many humans are maxed out with tasks that really aren’t that hard.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Maybe anyone is too broad. I mean anyone Normal can do it.
jokethrowaway 5y ago
Your comment is typical of people with an average or high IQ. There are people whose IQ is so low they can't even be legally enlisted in the army (the ASVAB test the Army does correlates with IQ). Some people won't have the same learning ability you have. I also thought that everyone could learn to program and organised bootcamps and education for developers (for free) - it turned out only a fraction of the people I've met would actually manage to learn some basic programming and a fraction of those people would move on to become a programmer.
- k0k0r0 5y ago
  As a mostly private teacher of mathematics with 7 to 10 years experience for both, children at schools and adults at university, and both, individuals and groups, and both, those who struggle and those who do not, I'd like to share my narrow experience and disagree. Most people I worked with struggled with something entirely different than the actual content they are trying or forced to learn. I am certain the biggest obsticles are stress, fear and and hopelessnes. And often not towards the methematics, but rather something entirely different. E.g. issues in the family, fear of the consequences of bad grades, and no hope regarding their own future, regardless of whether they learn or not. I expierienced some challenges as ADHD and expierienced them as somewhat orthogonal. And definitely additionally challenging for me as a teacher. I also expierienced people who did struggle a lot, independent of anything I mentioned so far. So I am sure, there is differences among people (you may measure that in IQ or whatever, I prefer not to). But for most people I met they are not the problem.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    Appreciate your insight. I believe you're speaking accurately from your own experiences, but I do have another anecdotal countering viewpoint. Like many on HN I went to a top engineering school. there I saw about 2/3 of my colleagues drop out within the first two years. At least half of them worked tirelessly and efficiently to pursue their goal, and still failed. This was a large public school that will admit basically everyone with a pulse into engineering, with the expectation most will fail out as unfit and filter into some of the programs my college was less known for. I did not have a particularly exceptional upbringing, and went to a middle of the road country school without any special preparations that would advantage myself over these other middle-class white people I saw. I'm not saying this to brag, because no doubt many of these people are far more successful than me in other fields (one I know went on to become a doctor for instance) but there is definitely something at play that different people are 'wired' for different tasks. I could almost sleep through much of the engineering curriculum and remain near the top while I saw many smarter people than me struggle tirelessly with engineering; something else was going on in our minds.
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
ngc248 5y ago
aptitude is a real thing and interest is another thing. Then there are other externalities like access to resource etc. Not everyone can do everything, maybe due to lack of aptitude or interest. So in essence, "anyone can do anything" is just an empty feel good mantra
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  No, not anyone can do anything. I never said that. I said anyone can master the subjects mentioned above. Including programming. These subjects are so easy that anyone can do it. If I said anyone can master chess and play it on the level of a grandmaster, I'd be wrong. But for just learning to be an adequate programmer or playing chess adequately... anyone can do it.

lostlogin 5y ago

> But make no mistake... anyone can do it. We have all seen the professionals in action… There may be more people who can do it than one would instinctively think, but it doesn’t take long on a helpdesk or in any public facing role to conclude that many humans are maxed out with tasks that really aren’t that hard.

deltaonefour 5y ago
Maybe anyone is too broad. I mean anyone Normal can do it.

jokethrowaway 5y ago

Your comment is typical of people with an average or high IQ. There are people whose IQ is so low they can't even be legally enlisted in the army (the ASVAB test the Army does correlates with IQ). Some people won't have the same learning ability you have. I also thought that everyone could learn to program and organised bootcamps and education for developers (for free) - it turned out only a fraction of the people I've met would actually manage to learn some basic programming and a fraction of those people would move on to become a programmer.

k0k0r0 5y ago
As a mostly private teacher of mathematics with 7 to 10 years experience for both, children at schools and adults at university, and both, individuals and groups, and both, those who struggle and those who do not, I'd like to share my narrow experience and disagree. Most people I worked with struggled with something entirely different than the actual content they are trying or forced to learn. I am certain the biggest obsticles are stress, fear and and hopelessnes. And often not towards the methematics, but rather something entirely different. E.g. issues in the family, fear of the consequences of bad grades, and no hope regarding their own future, regardless of whether they learn or not. I expierienced some challenges as ADHD and expierienced them as somewhat orthogonal. And definitely additionally challenging for me as a teacher. I also expierienced people who did struggle a lot, independent of anything I mentioned so far. So I am sure, there is differences among people (you may measure that in IQ or whatever, I prefer not to). But for most people I met they are not the problem.
- notch656a 5y ago
  Appreciate your insight. I believe you're speaking accurately from your own experiences, but I do have another anecdotal countering viewpoint. Like many on HN I went to a top engineering school. there I saw about 2/3 of my colleagues drop out within the first two years. At least half of them worked tirelessly and efficiently to pursue their goal, and still failed. This was a large public school that will admit basically everyone with a pulse into engineering, with the expectation most will fail out as unfit and filter into some of the programs my college was less known for. I did not have a particularly exceptional upbringing, and went to a middle of the road country school without any special preparations that would advantage myself over these other middle-class white people I saw. I'm not saying this to brag, because no doubt many of these people are far more successful than me in other fields (one I know went on to become a doctor for instance) but there is definitely something at play that different people are 'wired' for different tasks. I could almost sleep through much of the engineering curriculum and remain near the top while I saw many smarter people than me struggle tirelessly with engineering; something else was going on in our minds.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago

ngc248 5y ago

aptitude is a real thing and interest is another thing. Then there are other externalities like access to resource etc. Not everyone can do everything, maybe due to lack of aptitude or interest. So in essence, "anyone can do anything" is just an empty feel good mantra

deltaonefour 5y ago
No, not anyone can do anything. I never said that. I said anyone can master the subjects mentioned above. Including programming. These subjects are so easy that anyone can do it. If I said anyone can master chess and play it on the level of a grandmaster, I'd be wrong. But for just learning to be an adequate programmer or playing chess adequately... anyone can do it.