| Hate to say it, but that seems like a rather arrogant thing to say. I'm great believer that anyone can get to be _reasonably_ good at something if they invest enough time and effort into it. It's the classic logarithm curve; when you have no skills in a field, you can learn a few skills really easily (steap curve). Then, as you get better, your progress for effort-expended goes down until you're basically a domain expect (flat line; no matter what you do you basically dont get any better). This applies to ANYONE on ANY field; the curves are just different; and I'd argue the steep part of the curve is pretty long for programming (compared to say, I dunno; learning differential equations). Despite the great them-and-us divide that geeks (and here I generalize based on the geeks that _I_ know personally) seem to have to 'other people' who are 'dumb' ... people are, in my experience, generally smarter than you'd expect. I'd rather encourage people to learn a little bit, than tell them to go away because they're probably not smart enough. <-- This is arrogant as f*, and if I see someone do it, it makes me angry... although, I realize you weren't directly saying that, so please, take this as a general comment, not as a criticism of you personally. :) |
It's not that people are 'dumb' or 'smart'. It's just that some people have an easier time with some topics than others. I have seen people who really struggeled with the basic concepts after three courses (not my courses ;)). Others understood it far quicker and with much less work.
I'm not saying that these people were dumb. They usually excelled in other areas, just like I am seriously unable to keep a plant alive for more than a few months (believe me, I tried!).
As I said, to some people some topics are an exercise in frustration. It's not that hey can't learn it. It would just be really painful and boring to them.