[Kisil]

I agree that we are too slow to point the blame at ourselves. It's healthy to be self-critical.

That said, there are programmers who are legitimately lacking both in basic skills and desire to attain those skills. It's orthogonal to the problem you're talking about, but these people do exist, and they're not as uncommon as one might hope. I can teach the difference between pointers and references; I can't teach you to care.

[dodecaphonic]

This. I have ascended to a managerial position a couple of years ago, rising from the ranks to steer what used to by a group of my peers. A lot of cruft had been ailing the team for years, but one guy stood out: he had been fired, rehired and now acted as if there was nothing he could do to damage his standing in the team. When we were peers, it bothered me; when I became his boss, I really tried to sway his attention into the product, into learning, into becoming more than a "drag this out of the component box" programmer.

Needless to say, it failed. The guy was irreparably lazy, and trying to get him excited about building the things we are fortunate enough to get paid to build only made him try to put me under a bus when he got the chance. I had to let him go, and have slept better ever since.