
Programming Doesn't Require Talent or Passion - signa11
https://medium.com/@WordcorpGlobal/programming-doesnt-require-talent-or-even-passion-11422270e1e4
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warcode
I'd say programming requires skill and passion.

The only way to become a good programmer is through hard work and learning new
things. To keep on going forward while learning something hard, or while
debugging problems that seem impossible, or while making countless mistakes
requires passion.

Maybe not passion for programming itself, but for solving problems or creating
something from nothing. Without any kind of passion to drive me I'd be burned
out and miserable by now.

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k__
Yes. Nothing requires "talent"

Yes. Passion is not required, but makes things easier.

Talent is a myth.

Skills come from training.

Training is done if you want or have to do it.

Passion can make you want to train.

And yes, there is a huge amount of programmers who have passion but are simply
bad. Because they like to program, but they don't train.

It's like learning new songs or techniques on guitar vs just playing the stuff
you already know. The last makes fun in its own, so many people just don't
learn to play better.

~~~
collyw
Passion usually means you are willing to / enjoy putting in the hours of
training, no?

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loco5niner
Passion CAN lead you there, but not necessarily. Training is usually "doing
the hard parts", and its easy to just "do the fun parts" even if you are
passionate about something.

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stray
Translation:

"I asked a few extremely talented programmers -- programmers so talented that
they're blind to how talented they are -- and they said talent doesn't
matter."

Programming doesn't require talent or passion. __Good __programming otoh,
requires both plus compassion and a good work ethic.

I have two of the four...

~~~
zer00eyz
Here is the thing:

You want to be a good programer, you need a brain, a time investment (a bad
work ethic slows this down) and a thick skin. If you can't take criticism of
your work, your never going to get better.

Once programing becomes something you can "just do" then your going to need
another set of skills: Understanding users and understanding business. Here
again the hard work comes into play, and a bit of social skill and empathy.

Tallent and passion are an accelerator. Name someone GREAT in anything and
they probably have both of those for what ever it is they are great at.

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dgreensp
I would instead phrase it as, the following types of programmers are all
capable of writing successful software:

* Programmers with imposter syndrome

* Programmers who insist they aren't smart (but are pretty darn smart)

* Programmers who've reached the middle of the Dunning-Kruger curve, where one underestimates one's own skill (rather than overestimating it as in the low-experience part of the curve)

* Programmers who sometimes get stumped over something simple (which is all programmers)

* Programmers who will never as be as good as someone else at some aspect or area of programming (which is all programmers)

* Programmers who haven't been programming since childhood

* Programmers who have had other careers and may have other careers again

* Bad programmers (see PHP)

~~~
gunshigh
IMO, the main connection between all of these is that humans are really bad at
estimating our own skill. And even if we can estimate our own skill, we would
need to compare it to a programmer with the same number of hours, rather than
to all programmers. (E.g. a programmer doesn't need to understand templates or
multithreading in their first week.)

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riebschlager
It's definitely time to stop deifying programmers, but I'd stop short of
saying that it doesn't require talent. Every skill or trade requires some
measure of talent.

I pay my bills by being a perfectly average software developer. Luckily I was
naive enough to dive into it even though I didn't have a CS degree.

I'd hate to think that anyone getting started today would be discouraged by
this attitude that programming is a skill bequeathed at birth to a lucky few.

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mywittyname
>>Rasmus Lerdorf (Creator of PHP)

>> I’m not a real programmer. I throw together things until it works then I
move on. The real programmers will say “Yeah it works but you’re leaking
memory everywhere. Perhaps we should fix that.” I’ll just restart Apache every
10 requests.

At least now I understand why PHP is such a miserable language. It's not
incompetence, just apathy.

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raister
This is really a lame excuse to be a lazy and bad programmer.

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shadow68
I would say programming requires either natural talent or passion. Even so
with natural talent and without passion the chances of burnout in programming
are high.

I believe that talent can be learnt through hard work and an individual is
only likely to give forward the amount of hard work needed if they are
passionate about it. Also, by hard work I mean coding on your own time, either
for work or personal projects.

If I didn't have a passion for software development, I would have stayed in
the investment industry where the work is significantly less challenging and
the pay is also higher.

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justanotherbody
My success at programming congress from a fundamental desire to write better
code tomorrow than I did today.

Some may call that passion, but it can come from any number of places. It's
not very important why you choose this path, or really how you accomplish it,
just that the attitude and (to a lesser extent) outcome are present.

I'm sure others have found success by different means, but this has been a
common thread in the small part of the programming community that I've
observed

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MollyR
Talent and Passion will help you avoid burnout from the development process
madness like lack of specs, ever changing specs, unrealistic requirements, and
super tight deadlines.

