I think I’m over it, but back in college (the 70s), I understood most of the linguistic limitations of computers, but I resented having to accomodate the hardware, and I really hated having to declare variables in advance.
To some extent, I was anticipating the future. There’s a huge amount of programming these days where you don’t have to think about the hardware (I wish I could remember the specific thing that got on my nerves) and I don’t think there are modern languages where you have to declare that something is a variable before you use it.
Of course, hating something isn’t the same thing as not being able to understand that you need to do it.
Not graduating with a Computer Science degree isn’t the same thing as not having a programming gear. What fraction of that 50% get degrees in other fields that require programming? What proportion drop out of college, probably for other reasons? What proportion can program, but hate doing it?
In my opinion, almost all of that 50% (that drop out) could program, to some extent, if sufficiently motivated.
A great deal of Computer Science students (half? more than half?) love programming and hit a wall when they come to the theoretical side of computer science. Many of them force themselves through it, graduate, and become successful programmers. Many switch majors to Information Technology, and for better or for worse will end up doing mostly system administration work for their career. Some switch majors entirely, and become engineers. I actually think we do ourselves a disservice by failing to segment Computer Science from Software Engineering; a distinction made at very few institutions, and when made, often to the detriment of Software Engineers, regrettably.
So to answer your question; of the 50% that drop out, I think most end up as sub-par programmers, but 80% of that 50% “have programming gear”, to the extent that such a thing exists.
I think I’m over it, but back in college (the 70s), I understood most of the linguistic limitations of computers, but I resented having to accomodate the hardware, and I really hated having to declare variables in advance.
To some extent, I was anticipating the future. There’s a huge amount of programming these days where you don’t have to think about the hardware (I wish I could remember the specific thing that got on my nerves) and I don’t think there are modern languages where you have to declare that something is a variable before you use it.
Of course, hating something isn’t the same thing as not being able to understand that you need to do it.
Not graduating with a Computer Science degree isn’t the same thing as not having a programming gear. What fraction of that 50% get degrees in other fields that require programming? What proportion drop out of college, probably for other reasons? What proportion can program, but hate doing it?
In my opinion, almost all of that 50% (that drop out) could program, to some extent, if sufficiently motivated.
A great deal of Computer Science students (half? more than half?) love programming and hit a wall when they come to the theoretical side of computer science. Many of them force themselves through it, graduate, and become successful programmers. Many switch majors to Information Technology, and for better or for worse will end up doing mostly system administration work for their career. Some switch majors entirely, and become engineers. I actually think we do ourselves a disservice by failing to segment Computer Science from Software Engineering; a distinction made at very few institutions, and when made, often to the detriment of Software Engineers, regrettably.
So to answer your question; of the 50% that drop out, I think most end up as sub-par programmers, but 80% of that 50% “have programming gear”, to the extent that such a thing exists.