Ran across an interesting article on Raganwald, Why do we resist the idea that programming is hard? Here’s one of the lead-in quotes, by Edsger Dijkstra:

“Don’t blame me for the fact that competent programming, as I view it as an intellectual possibility, will be too difficult for ‘the average programmer’, you must not fall into the trap of rejecting a surgical technique because it is beyond the capabilities of the barber in his shop around the corner.”

It’s a good read, as is its sister article, How to make programming hard for yourself. And I agree: while practice can make someone be pretty good at using the tools, true masterhood of a craft does require innate talent. Practice makes perfect only when the potential is there. Someone who’s practically tone-deaf, for example, will never be a Beethoven no matter how hard they practice.

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Posted in Coding
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