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The programming talent myth

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Re: The programming talent myth

#261

Post by sulam »

exstudent2 wrote: post #247
xkjkls wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a form of elitism very specific to programming. I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering, and barely did programming until I began my first job out of college. In many people in the programming space, I see contempt that coding was something I didn't start until later in life. When I interviewed for Electrical Engineering positions, no one ever scoffed at me, "you haven't been computing the…

I don't think it's elitism, it's just that programming offers a unique opportunity to do this stuff from a very early age from home and the end results is some people end up being very good at it "early" in their career. Unfortunately you couldn't start "computing the impulse response of a filter" when you were 12 but if you could, and you continued to practice it daily, you would be very capable compared to people w…

You're demonstrating the exact syndrome the story discusses: conflating the ability to write code "well" with all the other things one does as a software engineer. The article goes into more detail, but I do a fair number of things every day that do not involve typing in code on a keyboard.

Going further, I would argue that most people I know who've been programming since they were 12 weren't even writing very good code at 22 (or whenever they left college and entered the working world). It's vanishingly rare that people were writing flexible, maintainable code in their teens. It's much more common that they were coding to scratch an itch, and that their code only solves the pieces of the problem they cared about, and probably not very well.

Note: I've been programming since I was 12.

Re: The programming talent myth

#262

Post by fapjacks »

agumonkey wrote: post #84
dragonwriter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I will certainly never say "anyone can learn how to code" any more than I'd say "anyone can become a concert pianist" I would certainly say "anyone can learn how to code" in the same way that I would say "anyone can learn how to write", or "anyone can learn to run", or "anyone can learn to play piano". I wouldn't say "anyone can learn to become a concert pianist", in the same way that I wouldn't say "anyone can lea…

I'd say it's all a question of bandwidth. Geniuses just have enough capacity to converge quickly. "Incapable" people are below the threshold, so everything ends up as a cache miss, lock contention, pipeline flush; progress is so slow that they're directed onto other things. Wise people can attempt to craft their learning to converge smoothly too, they have patience to focus energy and wait for data to emerge, because…

I think this is really the key here. There is surely a natural, in-born talent for writing code, as there must be for every activity a human can engage in. But I think it's possible for people arrive at the set of circumstances that takes them from okay programmer to "talented" programmer. Time and focus I think are key, as you mentioned. People that don't dedicate enough time or focus to this craft will never achieve a high enough level of productivity to be called "talented", unless they have that natural, in-born, freak capability to code. But even these people are just okay programmers on days they can't get into the flow. Anyways, I think circumstance plays a much, much bigger part than most people realize.

Re: The programming talent myth

#263

Post by sandyarmstrong »

mikecmpbll wrote: post #254

Yet more programmer/tech industry denigration propped up by completely unproven assertions. Firstly most of this is based on the idea that as a programmer you are only either great or shit, and that this is somehow a problem of the industry rather than just being something entirely human and normal in ANY WALK OF LIFE (the best and the rest). Secondly, there's this awful assertion that this purported industry problem…

It's not out of nowhere. The context is very clear in the video, and in the article it's just a few paragraphs earlier:

> When we see someone who does not look like one of those three men, we assume they are not a real programmer, he said. Almost all of the women he knows in the industry have a story about someone assuming they aren't a programmer. He talked to multiple women attending PyCon 2015 who were asked which guy they are there with—the only reason they would come is because their partner, the man, is the programmer. "If you're a dude, has anyone ever asked you that?"

Re: The programming talent myth

#264

Post by fapjacks »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #253
derekp7 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it really comes down to how much enjoyment one gets out of programming. If you thoroughly enjoy the process, you are more likely to put in the time and effort (in fact it will feel effortless), and you will be thinking about it all the time. Then there are those who don't mind programming, or maybe even see it as a chore, but choose to do it anyway.

Yes! Like musicians that have tunes running through their head constantly. Or poets that turn every phrase over in their minds. Did you ever dream of debugging your children? That if you could only find the right breakpoint to set, you could adjust them and fix something? Then you are truly a programmer.

Exactly. My dad is a musician, and I always wanted to make music, but I just don't have that thing where I'm always thinking of new melodies or beats or whatever. I know that I could not make music on par with the people in the world that do this like my father. Unless I have some previously undiscovered stroke of genius with music. But that is very unlikely, and still the standard comes down to "How much do you enjoy doing X?" that really determines how good you are or will be at X. I fucking love programming. That means I've got the capacity to excel at writing code. But I'm only okay at making music, and I only really listen to music when I code. So there is diminished capacity for me to be a rock star. Sufficiently diminished capacity that I probably will never be a well-known musician, let alone Michael Jackson.

Re: The programming talent myth

#265

Post by scotchmi_st »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #245
justinpaulson wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You created a bimodal distribution because you only talked about two types of people. Some people start later in life, but have an incredible talent for programming. Some people start early because they really like programming, but never achieve the highest levels of proficiency because they lack some natural talent. Like most things, programming is a mix of natural talent and practice. Some people have incredible na…

Then, there are those profoundly incapable of programming. My high school classmate who seemed to be getting it, but on the 1st assignment came to me and asked for help. It became clear he had no concept of the ordering of statement. He wrote them like math formulas, and didn't understand that they got executed in order. Fast-forward 3 years; both of us in college. He had to take a programming class again. I met him…

> Some people are tone-deaf too, and will never sing nor play an instrument.

That's quite a telling statement. Actually, there are very, very few people who are _truly_ tone deaf. Since intonation is used extensively in nearly all human languages, anyone who truly is 'tone deaf' will have quite an issue in communication. Nearly all the time (and tbh I think it probably is just all the time), they actually just have an 'untrained ear'. Like most people in that kind of position, part of the reason they are in it may well be because they were told when they were young that they weren't any good, and decided to put their efforts elsewhere. And like all people in that position, you can get better. Will they be the next Miles Davis? Probably not. Will they be able to play in a band with their mates? Yes.

A century or two ago, around the time literacy started to become a thing most people could attain, people must have had a similar attitude to yours with learning to read. Some people can read, others will just never learn. Their brains aren't designed for it.

This is how stigmas form. Coding is not that much different to other human endeavours.

All I'm saying is, if you plan on becoming a teacher ever (in the widest possible sense), you're really going to have to re-think your attitude there.

Re: The programming talent myth

#266

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #245
justinpaulson wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You created a bimodal distribution because you only talked about two types of people. Some people start later in life, but have an incredible talent for programming. Some people start early because they really like programming, but never achieve the highest levels of proficiency because they lack some natural talent. Like most things, programming is a mix of natural talent and practice. Some people have incredible na…

Then, there are those profoundly incapable of programming. My high school classmate who seemed to be getting it, but on the 1st assignment came to me and asked for help. It became clear he had no concept of the ordering of statement. He wrote them like math formulas, and didn't understand that they got executed in order. Fast-forward 3 years; both of us in college. He had to take a programming class again. I met him…

> It became clear he had no concept of the ordering of statement. He wrote them like math formulas, and didn't understand that they got executed in order.

That's not an ability issue, just a knowledge issue. Coming from math, you'd assume there is no evaluation order.

Re: The programming talent myth

#267

Post by bps4484 »

mod wrote: post #137
pjc50 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On magical ability: there's a joke image going around which tells you how you can easily learn to draw an owl. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl 1. Draw two circles. 2. Draw the rest of the owl. This is a common problem in art, music, sport and programming - you have an expert trying to teach newbies, and they say " just do this". The newbies have no idea how to begin to do it and the expert knows it s…

I find that it's commonly best to learn from someone not too far past your own ability. My father is a very talented pool player, but he was not the best teacher until my own skill became pretty considerable. He's so far removed from the things that are important to beginners. He says "you have to hit that shot with a medium-power, really good draw stroke." They have no real idea what medium power is, and no idea wha…

I've called this concept in teaching "remembering the struggle". If a person is so far removed or such an expert in a field, they may not even remember what a person trips up on when they first get started. They may even have been so talented they didn't even been tripped up at all. Lacking this ability to empathize and relate can make teaching very difficult.

Re: The programming talent myth

#268

Post by krylon »

kazinator wrote: post #217

Programming benefits from dogged perseverance. If you have lots this trait, it can overcome other shortcomings. It also benefits from being thorough and detailed: analyzing all the cases that may occur, forming all the conceivable hypotheses and so on. It doesn't matter if it takes you five hours of hacking on something to finally see a solution that some brilliant programmer came to in 45 minutes of hacking. Maybe i…

Thank you!

This is pretty much what I wanted to say, but I only realized this when reading your comment.

Re: The programming talent myth

#269

Post by ta0967 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #250
SNvD7vEJ wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He wrote them like math formulas, and didn't understand that they got executed in order." So he had a talent for functional programming, then?

Cute, but not quite. Those are still executed in some order. Not like algebra which is a set of expressions that are all true over all time.

Those are still executed in some order.

in all languages? i don't think so.

    def x = y where
      y = a * b
      a = 21
      b = x

Re: The programming talent myth

#270

Post by [deleted] »

gnaritas wrote: post #75
gaius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of the software that actually matters - medical devices, air traffic control, credit card processing, phone switches, you name it - is written by people who work 9-5 and don't think about their jobs outside work. If all the websites programmed by "rock stars" shutdown overnight, the next week everyone would have forgotten they ever existed.

> 99% of the software that actually matters - medical devices, air traffic control, credit card processing, phone switches, you name it - is written by people who work 9-5 and don't think about their jobs outside work. I don't believe that, you have some evidence for this claim?

[deleted]
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