Not at all. It's "Some (maybe many) people will require an implausibly large amount of will for learning to code to be a worthwhile use of their time." Like an

Not at all. It's "Some (maybe many) people will require an implausibly large amount of will for learning to code to be a worthwhile use of their time." Like anyone who has pursued a diversity of interests fairly seriously over decades, I've found that some things are really easy for me, others not. I'm an excellent poet, if I do say so myself, and although I've worked hard at it, it comes easily to me. But after forty years of steady practice I'm pretty sure I will never be much of a prose stylist, no matter how hard I work at it. I can tell a decent story, but when I look at people like Iain Banks or David Mitchell I recognize that they "get it" in a way I probably never will, no matter how much effort I put in. So the belief that force of will can overcome all obstacles is not one that I subscribe to. It can help, but some obstacles are simply too big. It is an open question if this is often the case with regard to learning to code, and while I think it is, the lack of any independent measure of "getting it" makes my position implausible. As such, all that would take to convince me otherwise would be a way of teaching CS1 that didn't routinely result in the traditional bimodal mark distribution.