[eof]

That might be overly cynical. IF it's true that there is some fundamental way-of-thinking or personality trait that is both in a large minority of people, and necessary to be a proficient programmer; it is extremely valuable to know about it.

A lot of people in the field, myself included, get a hint of intuition that some people either have it or they don't.

If we could get at (or closer to) some basic principle, we could both help people focus on their strengths (by identifying those who show this trait, and being transparent with ones who don't).. and hopefully learn how to cultivate the underlying trait itself.

Wouldn't it be funny/cute/useful if just practicing a bunch of algebra word problems made proficient programmers even better?