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The programming talent myth

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Re: The programming talent myth

#281

Post by cafard »

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.

I have programming dreams from time to time. But I'm not sure that "programmer" is the first word I'd find for somebody dreaming about debugging his children.

Re: The programming talent myth

#282

Post by 67726e »

vpeters25 wrote: post #161
67726e wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been screwing with computers since 9 or so, and programming since 11 or so. I'm now about 4 years into my professional career and usually get the typical "amazing programmer" remarks, that I'm fast, smart, good code, beyond my years, etc. I think that a lot of things go into it. First, practice, practice, practice. I spent waaaaay too much time in high school writing/designing/building projects. By the time I hit uni…

That's pretty much my story too, although I didn't dig too deep because I got bored. Programming was so "trivial" for me I skipped on a Computer Science major and went with Electrical Engineering so I could learn something I didn't already know. You think folks who can't solve "trivial" problems are afraid. I disagree. They just "don't see it" the way we do. It's the difference having talent gives you.

That's funny, I'd considered going EE for the same reason but had a scholarship for CS so just went with the path of least resistance...

The reason I think it's fear, and maybe I'm just projecting, is that anytime I didn't do something it was out of fear. Hell, that still happens in life sometimes now. I won't touch that car repair because "What if", or I won't buy that girl a drink because I suck a conversing with normal people and "What if". To add to the anecdotes, my father is a blue-collar worker, smart, very capable man who dropped out in the 9th grade. He won't touch a computer to save his life, he's of the notion that he'll irreparably break something important. Maybe folks just don't care, or don't believe in themselves, but fear stops a lot of folks from trying a lot of things. Like anything in life, it's not going to be black -and-white.

Re: The programming talent myth

#283

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cafard wrote: post #281
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have programming dreams from time to time. But I'm not sure that "programmer" is the first word I'd find for somebody dreaming about debugging his children.

I think its a good word for somebody that has a head so full of programming, that it leaks over into other parts of their thinking. Like musicians that see a rainstorm and think of music.

Re: The programming talent myth

#284

Post by mod »

bps4484 wrote: post #267
mod wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly!

I remember very well the painful process of my dad trying to teach me to drive stick shift (on his new truck). He never mentioned that the clutch had a catch point (that wasn't all the way at the floor), but gave instructions that really hinged on that fact (give it gas, let it out slowly at first, etc). After an hour of us being very frusrated, I went out alone and taught myself.

I later taught two friends, explaining the clutch's catch point, and they were 'getting it' within a couple of minutes. A few accidental stalls, sure, but they understood why. 20 minutes or so and they were legitimately ready to drive on the road (both had been driving automatics for years).

My dad had already been driving for 40 years, he totally forgot the catch point even exists.

Re: The programming talent myth

#285

Post by sqeaky »

hikz wrote: post #221

That means we need to be doing something to get more people into our industry. Why? What's in it for me? The EU has published similar numbers, 1.2 million in 2018—three years I am a first-year CS student in Denmark and I hope you don't succeed in getting more people into the industry to fill those jobs before I graduate. The lack of (talented) programmers is going to put young CS/CE grads in an advantageous position…

This is such a backward view of how the programming job market works that I am not really sure how to approach it.

You can't really have too many programmers. Every field needs some degree of computer automation. As more gets automated innovations are made that will show us how to automate something that hasn't been automated in other fields. Until everything in every field is automated more programmers create more opportunity for even more programmers.

I also think it is messed up to be selfish enough to hope your whole country suffers until you can secure a job.

Re: The programming talent myth

#286

Post by JoeAltmaier »

scotchmi_st wrote: post #265
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Yet people think different ways. Its easy for a musician to think "everybody knows how music works; its easy for me so its possible for everyone". The evidence suggests otherwise.

I think we may all want to rethink our attitudes.

Re: The programming talent myth

#287

Post by bpyne »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #242
brookside wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I agree it's easier as you get older. Our brains seem to be wired to pick up new languages & skills most rapidly when in youth.

Folks say that, but I think its mainly immersion. We are reluctant to spend the time/energy to immerse ourselves in a new thing when we're older.

I'm not thoroughly sold on the "too old to learn" adage either. I think it has more to do with time and focus. Since moving into the stage of life in which I have a family and more responsibility in my job, I have considerably less time to focus on learning a new instrument or music theory or ______.

I have no doubt that there is an age, beyond which, your brain has degenerated too much to learn. But, I'm not convinced it's as early as 50's or 60's. Hopefully, with better awareness about nutrition, exercise, and stress, we can see people learning music instruments well into their 80's.

Re: The programming talent myth

#288

Post by zaphar »

samspot wrote: post #186
zaphar wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A measure of the elegance and cleanliness of code is so arbitrary in our industry that it's useless as a metric. Faster is concrete enough to be useful though.

How do you measure speed though? Speed to hit the done button or speed to get to production bug-free? You aren't really measuring speed accurately until you account for all the downstream time, and even include time for problems found in production. After all that, you need to account for any technical debt that was accrued as a result of going too fast to get this specific task done. Almost every day I run into a 1…

I was actually referring to the runtime performance of the code not time to completion.

Re: The programming talent myth

#289

Post by hckr1292 »

cdelsolar wrote: post #256
dusklight wrote: post #191

If you started programming when you were 12 and you've been programming for fun more than 4 hours a day every day since then, you are going to be drastically better than someone who starts programming in their first year of college and only does it to graduate. It feels like a bimodal distribution because you then get both kinds of programmers interviewing for jobs at the same age when they graduate from college and…

I don't know, I've been programming since I was 8 (on my brother's calculator) and I still write horrendous code pretty frequently.

upvoted for honesty :-)

Re: The programming talent myth

#290

Post by geoelectric »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #260
halflings wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then declarative programming, maybe? You don't care as much about execution order when doing declarative programming like Prolog. (unless you're writing code "procedural-style")

That's it! He could have found a niche there.

Given that I have a hell of a time wrapping my own (algorithmic-oriented) mind around that kind of programming, that's not necessarily a weakness. It is an interesting contrast in ability though.
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