Why did we ever think a student's first programming language didn't matter?

Re:Why did we ever think a student's first programming langu... by dfabulich on Sunday June 27, 2021 @03:52AM (#27649517)

The author of "The Camel Has Two Humps" has retracted it. https://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have...

"That document was very misleading and, in the way of web documents, it continues to mislead to this day. I need to make an explicit retraction of what it claimed. Dehnadi didn’t discover a programming aptitude test. He didn’t ﬁnd a way of dividing programming sheep from non-programming goats. We hadn’t shown that nature trumps nurture. Just a phenomenon and a prediction."

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Re:Why did we ever think a student's first programming langu... by zozbot234 on Sunday June 27, 2021 @08:19AM (#27650991)

That's too bad, then. A good paper should not be retracted simply because of so many misinterpreting what it's talking about and creating some pointless controversy about it. The underlying "phenomenon and prediction" (namely, the bimodal distribution of proficiency in basic CS) stands up to scrutiny.

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