>I doubt that I am much smarter than the average person. If I can learn this stuff anyone can. Let me be super clear, there is nothing special about me or most

>I doubt that I am much smarter than the average person. If I can learn this stuff anyone can. Let me be super clear, there is nothing special about me or most other software developers, we just decided to show up and go for it. Are you sure? You claim to be "not much smarter than the average person," but remember: if you're any smarter than a person with median intelligence, you're smarter than most people. Also remember the really high failure rates in introductory programming classes: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programm... >Despite the enormous changes which have taken place since electronic computing was invented in the 1950s, some things remain stubbornly the same. In particular, most people can't learn to program: between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department's intake fail the first programming course. Maybe they're simply lacking in confidence, but these are students that chose to take the course in the first place.