[beatgammit]

And there's an important point to it that I've heard from several other sources along the lines that expert performance happens when you combine interest and hard work. If you're interested in something, you'll do the type of work necessary to become an expert at it.

Too many people focus on aptitude/talent, thinking it's some kind of innate ability to perform better at a given task, but I take it as a tendency to enjoy a certain type of practice. For example, I really don't like drawing, but I forced myself to take a class, and I still suck. That's not because I'm naturally bad at drawing, but because I don't enjoy the process of getting better.

There's a huge difference between developers who have done programming for 10k hours but didn't enjoy it and someone who enjoys it. The first is unlikely to go any deeper than necessary and will always work in a similar role, whereas the latter will explore a variety of concepts and approaches and become capable of solving a wider array of problems. I don't think there's a great divide between good and bad programmers based on "talent", but quality of practice, which can usually be identified by enjoyment of that practice.