

I Learned to Program... - jeanhsu
http://www.jeanhsu.com/2011/05/01/i-learned-to-program/

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angusgr
Hmm. I've just put "Unlocking the Clubhouse" on my list of books to read,
because this post is making me rethink one of my long-held assumptions about
computer programming ability. I've long held the opinion that computer
programming is something that some people are hardwired to "get" more than
others, and that the ability to "get it" is not really correlated with overall
intelligence.

Now I'm starting to wonder if this assumption is just a result of crummy
Computer Science teaching. In particular, I grounded a lot of that opinion on
my experience as a CS undergrad. Students seemed to fall into 3 buckets:

\- Could program when they came in (had been doing it since they were kids,
etc.) Did well, became good programmers.

\- Couldn't program when they came in, worked hard and came to "get it",
became good programmers.

\- Couldn't program when they came in, didn't really get it, most disliked
programming, graduated (!) and became mediocre programmers or technical
managers.

... I've always been inclined to see that split as a direct consequence of
"innate ability", given that category (3) contained some intelligent people
who just weren't programmers for whatever reason. Now I come to think about
it, though, our CS teaching program was not very good. Amusingly, a professor
told me that the CS department was consistently rated worse in the entire
university on student course assessments but "I think it's just because this
stuff is hard, and people don't like doing things which are hard. If we were
teaching something easy then they'd give good scores." (paraphrasing, but
that's very close.)

So maybe my perceived division is more an indictment of teaching practices and
programming culture than some ingrained difference. Time to read that book, I
think. :)

~~~
jdp23
Great point (and good story about the prof's reaction too). It's quite
possibly a combo: some people have innate ability and just "get it" no matter
how bad their teaching is; others get it by a combo of teaching and work.

And yes, time to read the book for this and other reasons!

------
da5e
<http://www.ilearnedtoprogram.com/>

