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What I mean is that people who enjoy programming probably tend to be smart. I haven't done any statistical surveys, but the motivational feedback loop for learn

What I mean is that people who enjoy programming probably tend to be smart. I haven't done any statistical surveys, but the motivational feedback loop for learning programming rewards intelligence.

Xylakant 13y ago
I doubt that. There's a lot of people going into programming because they think a) IT is akin to playing computer games all day. b) It's easy work in a climatized office with solid pay c) The jobs are relatively secure and abundant. I've seen many people go into IT that would much better have been employed elsewhere, so I think that we, as programmers are not more intelligent on average than the rest of the population. I might agree that people who enjoy programming have a knack for a certain type of intelligence and problem solving ability, but I don't think that programmers are limited to the group of people that enjoy programming.
- kenster07 13y ago
  You have a point. Sometimes, I forget that there are actually people out there who pursue careers where they know they won't enjoy the journey.
- ogoldberg 13y ago
  looks like the one part you said you might agree with in your very last sentence is 100% of the group that they were talking about: people who enjoy programming.
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    Actually, since I'm the author of the post they're referring to I can say that the group we're referring to is "programmers" or rather "people you'd hire as a programmer" which is a superset of "people who enjoy programming." Even if you only consider people who enjoy programming I'd be very careful about calling them "more intelligent". They're probably good solvers of a certain kind of logical puzzle, but intelligence encompasses much much more than that.
Mgccl 13y ago
I haven't done any statistical surveys, in my undergrad years, I find math students are much smarter than the cs majors.
- kenster07 13y ago
  *presuming that you went to an undergraduate institution where the variance in student intelligence is large enough to detect an appreciable difference between the avg intelligence in these two majors.
  - Pitarou 13y ago
    Actually, I think he might have a point. The phenomenon of the Computer Science graduate who can't write a FizzBuzz program, or even the post-graduate who can't write a simple recursive function, is well attested. But a Math student who can't handle a recursive definition is unlikely to make it through the first term.

What I mean is that people who enjoy programming probably tend to be smart. I haven't done any statistical surveys, but the motivational feedback loop for learning programming rewards intelligence.

Xylakant 13y ago

I doubt that. There's a lot of people going into programming because they think a) IT is akin to playing computer games all day. b) It's easy work in a climatized office with solid pay c) The jobs are relatively secure and abundant. I've seen many people go into IT that would much better have been employed elsewhere, so I think that we, as programmers are not more intelligent on average than the rest of the population. I might agree that people who enjoy programming have a knack for a certain type of intelligence and problem solving ability, but I don't think that programmers are limited to the group of people that enjoy programming.

kenster07 13y ago
You have a point. Sometimes, I forget that there are actually people out there who pursue careers where they know they won't enjoy the journey.
ogoldberg 13y ago
looks like the one part you said you might agree with in your very last sentence is 100% of the group that they were talking about: people who enjoy programming.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  Actually, since I'm the author of the post they're referring to I can say that the group we're referring to is "programmers" or rather "people you'd hire as a programmer" which is a superset of "people who enjoy programming." Even if you only consider people who enjoy programming I'd be very careful about calling them "more intelligent". They're probably good solvers of a certain kind of logical puzzle, but intelligence encompasses much much more than that.

Mgccl 13y ago

I haven't done any statistical surveys, in my undergrad years, I find math students are much smarter than the cs majors.

kenster07 13y ago
*presuming that you went to an undergraduate institution where the variance in student intelligence is large enough to detect an appreciable difference between the avg intelligence in these two majors.
- Pitarou 13y ago
  Actually, I think he might have a point. The phenomenon of the Computer Science graduate who can't write a FizzBuzz program, or even the post-graduate who can't write a simple recursive function, is well attested. But a Math student who can't handle a recursive definition is unlikely to make it through the first term.