Let's clear some facts first: - You're not born a programmer, there's no such thing as "talented" - Different people have wildly different levels of skill/pro

Let's clear some facts first: - You're not born a programmer, there's no such thing as "talented" - Different people have wildly different levels of skill/proficiency in programming. - Skill in programming invariably takes time to acquire, nobody has become a great programmer after programming for a week. With that being said, what the author aims for is to predict who will become a great programmer, not just an average one, he's looking for the 99.9th percentile of programmers, for the 0.1%, the ones which outrank 1000 of their peers. For most of the profession/craft of programming that doesn't matter. You're certainly looking for people to hire in the 80th percentile and above but between 1:1000 and 1:5 there's a huge difference. We know that you can train people to become proficient enough in programming to be useful in it. As to the difficulty of "training" great programmers, it takes a long time and a lot of hours, persistence and passion to become one. Probably in the order of 10 years, 10'000 hours. Not everybody can do that. The simple fact that different people have different preferences, priorities, etc. ensures that most people on the path from beginner to great programmer fall somewhere along the wayside. But those few with the stamina to persist, who push themselves, for a decade or more, those people have a shot. So can you train personality traits that will allow you to pull trough? I think it's unlikely. You can show so-inclined persons the way, and if they have the right personality they can walk it, and you can train them on walking the path well. But you can't reshape their psychology to fit the path.