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A comment on Is it true that "not everyone can be a programmer"?. Parent comment

Re:Is it true that "not everyone can be a programmer"? by seanmcdirmid on Sunday September 16, 2012 @06:52AM (#4528884)
Programming involves the ability to deal with abstraction, a lot of it. Just like most kids hit a wall in calculus (which is really their first exposure to abstraction), most kids hit a wall in programming. Those that can deal with abstraction well get programming.

Programming benefits from the ability to tell stories, but many programmers are not great story tellers (i.e. communicators), its a skill that you have to learn separately, then your programming improves because of it.

I'm sure many more people make a living programming than telling stories (journalism, authors, etc...), but if you have evidence otherwise, would like to see that. Anyways, that has more to do with demand (for programmers vs. authors) than supply (those able to program or write).

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Re:Is it true that "not everyone can be a programmer"? by ctdonath on Sunday September 16, 2012 @07:34AM (#4528956)
Programming is applied algebra. Some can't grasp "x=3"; that's a non-starter.
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Re:Is it true that "not everyone can be a programmer"? by lifeisstillgood on Sunday September 16, 2012 @08:26AM (#4529032)
I think that this is confusing domain applications of concepts (algebra, abstraction in mathematics) and the same concepts in everyday speech. Everyone gets Proper nouns as variables and understands stories where the two people get their brains swapped. (Identity of objects as behaviour, memory addressing or duck typing)

so, I think most people get writing and symbols involved and that stories carry most of the functions needed for even reasonably complex programming

and that's without teaching children lisp from an early age

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Re:Is it true that "not everyone can be a programmer"? by seanmcdirmid on Sunday September 16, 2012 @09:05AM (#4529073)
There are a class of programming models that exploit that, and they aren't very expressive. At best, they are suitable for casual programs who need to write some code to solve very specific problems, say writing something in Excel. However, serious programming (done by full time programmers) really requires the ability to create new functions.
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Re:Is it true that "not everyone can be a programmer"? by lifeisstillgood on Sunday September 16, 2012 @09:48AM (#4529133)
What's a new function if not "have a bath" or "bathe quickly in the river" - apart from math specific definitions ?
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