Can Anyone Become a Programmer?

another random user writes "A Q&A on Ars Technica asks about an old adage that many programmers stick to: 'It takes a certain type of mind to learn programming, and not everyone can do it.' Users at Stack Exchange are wading in with their answers, but what do Slashdot users think?"

Comments

Re:Absolutely not.

[Designersa]

IQ isn't exactly an exact science but as an off hand estimate the average IQ is ~100.

It's not freaking estimate. The average is fixed at 100. Sigh. And you complain about people being stupid. Sigh. SIGH.

Re:Absolutely not.

[AK Marc]

No, it is not. It is arbitrarily stated to be 100, but the re-balance of the IQ is not consistent across populations, nor time. So the defined mean is not absolute.

Also, if you knew about how they actually set it, they set it based on the middle people, with assumptions about the tails. As there is an absolute minimum, and no maximum, the long tail effect will push the "average" (mean) above 100. If it were actually a true normal curve as asserted, the mean and median would coincide at 100. As it is, the mean is, by definition, above 100, while the median is what's set to 100. But if you set the test based on middle aged white males in the US, then the world average is somewhere around 90-95, as was done with the first tests. 100 is, at best, an estimate, due to the problems of what it is and how it's set.