The programming talent myth

Most of what I make is mostly or completely electronic, and I can barely listen to classical. If you think "learning the piano" and "playing piano music" are synonymous, that might be the problem. You can make a lot of interesting sounds if you hook a MIDI keyboard up to a computer.

(aside, the best investment I made was Piano Companion Pro. The scale DB is full of interesting scales from all over the world)

He does not deny that there are people on the tail of the normal curve. But his point would be that there are more people that started at 12 and programmed a couple of hours on the weekend v. 4 hours a day. And there are still more than that that started at 15. This creates a normal curve, not a bimodal.

These kids are young enough that almost nobody had any exposure to "coding" or algorithmic thinking before this. It's about 30 kids. Here's what I've observed (Yes it's anecdata... but I'm reporting my own impressions here):

There are about 6 kids who're pretty quick on most of the assignments... evenly divided between 3 girls and 3 boys... then there's about 15-20 kids who are more or less similar in aptitude. The top 5-6 programming kids are also the kids who I feel have the most advanced verbal skills (just from speaking with them). I've been told by the class teacher that two of these kids are advanced math learners but the others are good students but not advanced beyond grade level.

The more surprising part is the bulge of 15-20 students in the middle. That's a far bigger number than what I expected who regularly complete challenges correctly and within the time given. Many of these kids are not particularly top level math students. Most seem to have good verbal skills but nothing exceptional. Most surprisingly, many of these kids are first graders. Once I saw this in the first few classes, I significantly raised the level of challenges I was giving them. And they kept working them out. It's fair to say that I was pleasantly surprised.

Yes it's not a particularly strong scientific study but I'm here to say that there's absolutely no way you can convince me that Programming ability is some genetic trait with a bimodal distribution... at least not in the absence of hard scientific data. The one study that has polluted our discourse for many years (because Jeff Atwood trumpeted it on his blog) was retracted in dramatic fashion by it's own lead author:

http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-...

And to complete my story - Yes, there are 2 kids who don't particularly enjoy this class at all. They do seem to be behind the rest of the class in general scholastic aptitude though by no means "stupid"... my wife spent an extra hour with them separately and they thrived under a higher level of direct attention. There are a handful of others who end up doing their challenges slower than others. One of the most amazing and heartening things I've seen is that the kids who finish the challenges are spontaneously going to the kids who haven't and have been helping them out. And in the end, each and every kid has finished all the challenges we've given them

Like most things, programming is a mix of natural talent and practice. Some people have incredible natural talent and will succeed no mater when they started. Some people will achieve a very productive level of programming with less natural talent because they put in the work to achieve it. There are more than just two archetypes that make up the landscape of developers.