I was talking to a team a couple of years ago. This team had a bad reputation at the organization, and I was supposed to come help them. So I did a day of ligh

I was talking to a team a couple of years ago. This team had a bad reputation at the organization, and I was supposed to come help them. So I did a day of light training. Then I offered some free books -- with the caveat that they email or ask me for them. Nobody asked for the books. Out of 20 folks, 2 of them bought the books (instead of getting them for free). They didn't want the rest of the team to know they were interested! I firmly believe two things: 1) just about anybody can become a programmer given the right environment, and 2) Due to social issues, teams get "out of whack" and suck really big time. And when #2 happens, the other programmers always blame it on technical skills. At a recent conference, I saw a guy talk about "mob programming". Mob programming is where you take the entire team, say 3-7 guys, and work on one story at a time. There's one terminal. One guy is typing and everybody else is planning and navigating. He said it created a huge training opportunity for everybody because everybody was involved in every little detail all at once. People got the chance to compare notes. Poor programmers got better. Good programmers learned cool stuff from each other. But the really interesting part was when he described doing this in teams where not everybody was a programmer. He said out of several experiments, in every case within a few hours the noobs were picking up how to program in that language. Within a week they were able to actively and helpfully participate along with everybody else. It wasn't just that weak programmers got better, it was that most anybody could learn how to program. I don't think most people in the industry are ready to hear that.