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[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 11 May 2011 22:53:45 -0500, harrismh777 wrote:

> alex23 wrote:
>>> through intuitive language skills.  Why not?
>> Because the vast majority of them don't seem to want to be bothered?
>>
>>
> That could very well be... but I have a hope for them. I honestly think
> its not because they don't want to be bothered, rather they just think
> its too far past them...   and not do-able.

An admirable hope, but there is a significant amount of research into 
teaching computer programming that suggests that learning to program is 
simply beyond a large portion of the population, no matter what you do or 
what language you teach. Some 30-60% of people barely get past "Hello 
World".

(That's not to imply that they're dumb, just that whatever mental skills 
are needed for programming is beyond them, just as whatever mental skills 
are needed for writing poetry are beyond me.)

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html

Shorter version: it seems that programming aptitude is a bimodal 
distribution, with very little migration from the "can't program" hump 
into the "can program" hump. There does seem to be a simple predictor for 
which hump you fall into: those who intuitively develop a consistent 
model of assignment (right or wrong, it doesn't matter, so long as it is 
consistent) can learn to program. Those who don't, can't.



-- 
Steven