Re:Hamming: "dubious that great programmers can be trained.."
by gmkoliver on Sunday December 23, 2012 @11:38AM
(#4959834)
The writing example isn't that sound. First he asks if you can teach 'good' programming, but then expects 'great' programmers to come of it. Rhetoric like that smells a little fishy. Then he rests his conclusion, that great programmers can't be trained, on the point that we have perfect knowledge of every great writer that ever wrote? I don't buy it.
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Re:Hamming: "dubious that great programmers can be trained.."
by thirdtruck on Sunday December 23, 2012 @07:23PM
(#4961266)
Agreed. While someone who saw my writing as a college freshman might have thought they had discovered a "natural", that would have ignored the years spent unwittingly honing my craft in online roleplaying environments.
Until we find a very proficient author with a demonstrable lack of writing experience, we have to assume they received direct or indirect training of some kind. The burden of that disproof lies with the proponents of the "natural/gifted" hypothesis.