[jghn]

Speaking for myself, I was the person Joel described except that I didn't switch majors. The pointer wall first struck at the tail end of my HS years and then crushed me early on my Freshman year of college. It took me a couple of years but I finally wrapped my head around pointers. It could be that I really do fall into your half-way camp, but I don't think that's the case.

I was a terrible student more interested in playing games than doing any actual work, so that I'm sure was a large part in the problem being "years" instead of "months", but either way it was something I learned and not something I was just born with.

I do agree that for any person there will be things that they get right away and things that they'll never get. But I think those vary more than people realize.