Re:The camel has two humps. A test for programming aptitude.
by rms on Wednesday June 11, 2008 @10:07PM
(#215563)
Some people aren't cut out for the particular style of thought needed to write algorithms in a programming language, yes. Or at least some people require disproportionately more instruction to succeed and thus are likely to always fail in a college intro programming course.
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Re:The camel has two humps. A test for programming aptitude.
by justindz on Thursday June 12, 2008 @12:21PM
(#216049)
Agreed. Some people just aren't as effective at abstract symbol manipulation. I've found that people who can pick up programming languages can pick up other human languages and vice versa.
This doesn't mean that they can't learn programming. It means that they would be much better off focusing on their strengths instead. There's a difference between "can't do it" and "fails course" as you rightly suggest.