i hear stuff like this all the time. all it accomplishes is to make CS a field of very similar people that happen to have the required mental models for entry.

i hear stuff like this all the time. all it accomplishes is to make CS a field of very similar people that happen to have the required mental models for entry. it's ridiculous. other fields don't have this arrogant "you either get it or you don't" attitude. even math, the most opaque of opaque subjects, tries to dampen the learning curve to thinking like a mathematician. most kids that weren't living their childhoods on a computer simply don't understand how to think about computers and programming. to deny them entry to your field because they can't figure out how pointers work is toxic - especially when introductory CS classes are huge and students don't get much one on one help. programmers that think like programmers are a dime a dozen. programmers with more diverse mental models are the ones that innovate, even if it takes them longer to grok programming.