[fylox]

Just yesterday I was thinking about this issue. I think the article takes the biscuit.In my opinion, this is the main reason for why people who start out early are that good.

I partly relearned this skill when I started out with Taekwondo. Desperately, I was trying to memorize the motion sequences. Whenever I asked a question concerning which angle my right leg should have, which direction I should turn to ... the master would always say: "Don't think or talk. Watch & do it!"

Surprisingly, you get a lot better in no time. Don't get me wrong I still suck but at least what I do now is worlds apart from my first humble attempts.

Now I think that I could become a decent programmer with a more child-like attitude (like the one I had when I discovered DOS & Win 3.11 at the age of 5 - no adult taught me anything, I couldn't even understand the English menus ;-))

But unfortunately we get older. Whilst it is never too late to learn something for the joy of it I'd like to have a halfway-decent paid job within the next 10 years. At the moment I am 23. I could quit university, devote myself to open source software & hack the hell out of the day. Hopefully, I'll someday know enough to have paid work. However, if I'd fail I wouldn't even have a degree & my perspectives would be quite bleak. With that in mind programming is only a (way too little) hobby for me.