As with learning a language, I suspect that both inborn ability and determination are overrated as determinants of eventual programming success, and having the right experiences (opportunity to participate, and social encouragement to engage, and positive feedback for success) early in life -- when the brains ability to learn patterns of thought is at its peak -- related to the kind of symbolic reasoning that applies in the field (whether its just mathematics, or whether its programming directly, or whether its something else that fits the same pattern, or a combination) is underrated.