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I might have interviewed a very different subset of the programming world than you, but I wouldn't make the categorization in this way. Indeed, I haven't met a

I might have interviewed a very different subset of the programming world than you, but I wouldn't make the categorization in this way. Indeed, I haven't met any programmer who couldn't understand recursion when explained in clear terms, same goes for indirect referencing. If I had to divide the programmers who really understand algorithmic reasoning into two categories, those would be - A: those who program because it's their job, - B: those who program because it's their passion. I believe this grouping is more helpful to explain differences.

ig1 14y ago
It's a relatively well studied area of programming pedagogy, numerous studies have shown students struggle with those concepts: https://student.brighton.ac.uk/mod_docs/cmis/past%20papers/ci_modules/level%20_2/2006_07/ci215_cs2_2006.pdf https://student.brighton.ac.uk/mod_docs/cmis/past%20papers/c...
- uniclaude 14y ago
  Thank you for the link. You wrote students, while I meant professional programmers. It's not because some people have a tougher time learning those things (whatever the reason can be) that they have no change to get them by the moment they are active professionals. This said, if I tried to apply your grouping to the people I have been interviewing last year, I would have approximately 100% of them in one category, hence my comment.