the comments on this are a fascinating read. who knew programmers had such a deep belief that their ability is rooted in almost magical notions of talent, art,

the comments on this are a fascinating read. who knew programmers had such a deep belief that their ability is rooted in almost magical notions of talent, art, creativity and is not just another skill you can learn. it is definitely a satisfying notion to think of your activity as a consequence of a god given gift, rather than just a job, but as engineers i think we should do better than relying on anecdotes and beliefs to understand what it is we are doing it.