A lot of effort has gone into trying to invent ways of teaching programming to complete newbies. If really no-one has succeeded at all,
That seems like rather a strong claim. Everyone who can program now was a complete newbie at some point. Presumably they did not learn by a bolt of divine inspiration out of the blue sky.
The sources linked above claim that some can be taught, and some (probably most of the population) can’t, no matter what you do. And of those who can learn, many become autodidacts in a suitable environment.
Of course they don’t reinvent programming themselves, they do learn it from others, but the same could be said of any skill or knowledge. And yet there are skills which clearly have very strong inborn dispositions. It’s being claimed that programming is such a skill, and an extreme one at that, with a sharply bimodal distribution.
That seems like rather a strong claim. Everyone who can program now was a complete newbie at some point. Presumably they did not learn by a bolt of divine inspiration out of the blue sky.
The sources linked above claim that some can be taught, and some (probably most of the population) can’t, no matter what you do. And of those who can learn, many become autodidacts in a suitable environment.
Of course they don’t reinvent programming themselves, they do learn it from others, but the same could be said of any skill or knowledge. And yet there are skills which clearly have very strong inborn dispositions. It’s being claimed that programming is such a skill, and an extreme one at that, with a sharply bimodal distribution.