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> 99% of people can learn to program A good sixth of people are nearly functionally illiterate. I'd say well less than a third of people could ever write a rea
by a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
> 99% of people can learn to program
A good sixth of people are nearly functionally illiterate. I'd say well less than a third of people could ever write a real program.
- Bjartr 11y agoIs that because they're unable to learn, or because they haven't been taught?
- vacri 11y agoNot only that, but most people are utterly uninterested in programming. Talk to almost any teacher and they'll say that uninterested students don't learn well.
- logfromblammo 11y ago"Real program" treads close to No True Scotsman. 99% of people can learn to write hypersimplistic programs, with an absolutely maddening amount of hand-holding. Those people will never be employable as software writers, because they cannot be independently productive. My own father can program well enough to impress all of his friends with his old-man's technical savvy. But whenever he tries something even slightly difficult, he needs my help. He can do well enough to make websites that include a few simple interactive features, but he will literally beat his head against the wall for days trying to solve something that I can fix in 30 seconds. I can't explain that disparity without employing the premise that some people are naturally better at coding than others. The ultimate irony is that my mother is a retired lawyer who specialized in draft legislation. If she cared to, she could probably learn to program ten times as well as my father in one tenth the time. She does not care to; she prefers to play video games. (So do I, for that matter, but I need the money.) Lawyers that work in contract law or draft legislation are essentially writing programs in (nearly) natural language that execute on a human-based operating system, with non-deterministic processors.