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

Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

No

Re:Answer

[Deep Esophagus]

If you had what it takes to be a real programmer, your answer would have been:
0

Re:Answer

[Kergan]

10 as in two, or ten?

Re:Answer

[tsa]

I asked but they don't understand what you mean.

Re:Answer

[man_of_mr_e]

Anyone can become a programmer. Not everyone can become a GOOD programmer, or even a competent one.

Even fewer can become an exceptional programmer.

It's not just practice. I've put far more than the 10,000 hours required to master a skill into learning to play Guitar, but I still suck. The reasons are probably many, but I've also come to understand I'm just not talented in this regard.

Just like some people are natural artists, some people are natural programmers. Some people aren't natural programmers, but can become proficient with a lot of practice. Some people can't get it not matter how much or how long they practice.

Some people think logically. Some people think intuitively. The former can become competent programmers. The latter, not so much.. because computer languages just don't make intuitive sense.

The REALLY good programmers are ones that can both think logically AND intuitively. They can use logic and still intuitively jump to conclusions that would take far longer with logic alone.

Now, whether or not you can change your way of thinking, or whether or not you are born with a certain way of thinking is unclear. Certainly, I think how a child is raised affects the way they will think as an adult, but it also requires aptitude.

Re:Answer

[benlwilson]

There is an important difference between
- People who have no motivation and don't want to be a programmer so never find out if they're any good at it.
- People who believe they're not smart enough to do programming.
- People who don't not have the mental capacity necessary to follow logic.

I reckon if you took a random sample of say 1000 people and put them through a decent 2 year programming course with the legit promise of 1 million dollars at the end if they pass you would find a pretty large percentage of them would be able to code reasonably by the end and get the money.
After they got the money however, most of them would go back to their normal jobs since they wouldn't actually enjoy or want to do computer program as a career.

Re:Answer

[man_of_mr_e]

That's simply not true.

Speaking of auto mechanics. There's this thing called "Mechanical Aptitude", which good auto mechanics have. They can visualize how the machinery operates in their head. Not everyone can do that.

Having knowledge does not make one good at their job. Having failed 200 times doesn't mean you won't fail on the 201st time. Some people fail to learn from experience.

I'm not saying you need to be a genius. I'm not saying you need to be a genius to be good at programming... But some people do not have an aptitude for logical and critical thinking.

You accuse me of being an egomaniac, but you are guilty of the opposite. You expect everyone to be like you.

I think you will find yourself constantly disappointed in others.

Re:Answer

[arth1]

The mental capacity to follow logic does not mean you can be a good programmer. Codemonkey, perhaps, but not programmer. You need to be innovative too, and be able to make leaps of logic, not just follow logic.

Absolutely not.

[mark_reh]

Some people do not have the logical thinking skills that are required to be a successful programmer.

Re:Absolutely not.

[Designersa]

Most people also want to have romantic relationships in their lives, so becoming a programmer is a very bad choice for them.

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.

Re:Absolutely not.

[jc42]

There's something else that's a significant barrier for most people: Pretty much every successful programmer will tell you about their first lesson when trying to write some small programs, and their discovery that no matter how hard they tried, their first efforts always had bugs. They quickly discovered that this was a permanent part of programming, accepted it, and studied debugging techniques.

But most people can't get past this problem, because they can't admit to themselves that they will never be able to write a significant chunk of code without error. The good programmers are the people who can admit that they're hopelessly fallible, face the fact, and learn how to deal with it.

Also, the good programmers tend to have a sense of humor about it all. One explanation I heard years ago from someone who was a very good programmer is that programming is actually a sort of computer game. The way the scoring works is that, every time you write something and the computer does what you wanted it to do, you get a point. But when something inside one of the many libraries in the computer finds a way to interpret something you wrote in a way that's different than what you expected, the programmer who wrote that chunk of code gets a point. A good programmer is one who can maintain a score that is usually positive in this game.

Using this understanding, one way of explaining why I and many other programmers like unix-type systems is that we can usually win at the programming game. Things in such systems tend to (mostly) work the way the documentation says they work -- and the documentation exists. I've worked on a lot of other kinds of computer systems, and on all the others, I constantly lose points to things that work differently than I expected, but often what I expected was just a guess, because the documentation is so sketchy or 17 releases out of date ;-).

Even this sort of humor is just an acknowledgement of the fact that the deck is stacked against us, we'll never get it right the first try, and the people who built the computers systems we're using like it that way. But I was willing to face my limitations in the face of a game that's biased against me from the start and has grown to be so complex that I know I can't keep track of all the gotchas in my conscious mind. Most people can't admit their own fallibility in this way, so they will never be good programmers.

Re:Absolutely not.

[rgbatduke]

And don't forget the Flynn Effect. It isn't even a constant 100, so 100 this decade doesn't mean what 100 meant last decade.

But still, no, it is not true that my brother (with Down's Syndrome) could have ever become a programmer, whereas I, with an IQ (FWIW) several standard deviations over the mean have gigabytes of source in my source directory, a rather large fraction of which I actually wrote, in several languages.

So the question is still a stupid question, as the answer is obviously no. Worse, it is basically trollbait BEYOND being a stupid question, as somebody of "normal" intelligence can probably write "a program" in a sufficiently simple environment without ever in their lifetime being capable of writing a 50,000 line program with 100 functional modules written on top of various APIs (some of which they created) running over the network on top of UDP socket layer code. Actually, a lot of fairly ABOVE average intelligence well-trained programmers might fail there, or do a poor job if they succeeded.

So the proper answer is "No, to be a good programmer you have to be smarter than the average human, and probably better educated too. Propensity to skip showers and live on Jolt Cola optional. Troll."

rgb

Re:Absolutely not.

[rgbatduke]

Actually, programming is more like writing a cookbook. Lots of people who cook can't write a cookbook. For example, illiterate ones. Similarly, it helps to be literate in a computer language in order to be able to program, which in turn requires an above average ability to deal with a peculiar kind of metaphor and an above average understanding of tools far more demanding than a source of heat, a knife, and some ingredients. The thing that prevents old women or old men or old monkeys or old dogs from moving from food to programming is a mix of intelligence, interest, and motivation.

It is, for example, fairly common belief that programmers make an income that is well above average. It's a common belief because it is true. Yet you don't see teen-age fry cooks piling in to programming to multiply their minimum wage income by close to an order of magnitude. Why not? Because programming is difficult, and you have to be both smart enough to do it and inclined to WANT to do it, regardless of the obvious rewards of working in an air conditioned environment sitting on your ass while making $60K/year or more with benefits compared to slinging greasy burgers at possibly armed and dangerous clients in a Burger King late at night for $200 a week on a good week -- ooo, and then there are those pesky social security deductions and a manager that laughs hysterically if you mention the word "benefits" right before he fires you.

rgb

Re:Absolutely not.

[pla]

Your joke aside, I don't think you've really missed the mark by much, here...

I firmly believe that somewhere around half (possibly much higher) the population cannot ever learn programming to any meaningful level. Perhaps really simple Excel formulas, but they learn them more by rote than through any true understanding of what really goes on to make the magic happen.

Of the other half of the population, who have a sufficient grasp of logic and can grasp the idea of breaking a problem down into tiny steps to solve it methodically - The vast majority, well over 95%, hate doing so. Hate it. They would rather have a root canal than do that for a living. They might have managed to suffer through an intro-to-programming course or two in college, but they really would go completely bonkers if you asked them to program on any regular basis.


Programmers, on the other hand, tend to view our art almost as a form of meditation - The real "skill" of our art doesn't involve the ability to handle boolean logic or memorize APIs (those just count as a sort of prerequisite), but rather, the ability to go into a deep alpha state and stay there for hours at a time.


So... No. Not anyone can become a programmer. And of those who can - Most don't want to, not for any amount of money.

Re:Absolutely not.

[wierd_w]

I believe that the parent confused "cooking", with "Gastronomy".

Being a good cook, has several potential paths: 1) you are REALLY good at following directions, 2) You can consistently reproduce the results of others from directions, and 3) you can spot when an error has been made.

Being good at gastronomy is different. You can look at a recipe, and see glaring problems. You can look at a recipe, and make arbitrary modifications to improve some characteristic of the finished product. (Fluffier muffins, tangier sauces, whatever.) You can find novel ways to combine foods for novel arrangements of flavors and textures.

The former requires you to follow directions, to produce something that other people consider tasty. The latter requires you to know what your ingredients actually taste LIKE, and imagine how they will taste together, and how they will behave together.

Programming is not like cooking, unless you are doing the most boring of code-grinding tasks. Programming is more like the latter. You can spot areas that clearly could be improved, and suggest ways to improve them, without throwing off the finished product. You can understand the finished product sufficiently to know what you need to get there, and how different parts of that product work with each other sufficiently to know how to change or improve those components without bringing the whole thing down. (An example, would be knowing and understanding how the ingredients in puff pastry interact, and why you have to use the proscribed method, and if it needs to be modified, that deep understanding allows you to make successful modifications, and not sugary glueballs.)

A person who creates brand new foods, and modifies existing ones in new and novel ways is a gastronomist. A person with a book of cookery and is good at following directions is a cook.

For clarity, I *can* program, but I am not a programmer, and do not claim to be. I could possibly become a decent programmer if I had the incentive to code for more than personal pleasure and one-off problem resolution, but I dont. Not like I have drive for cookery. :D I can look at a recipie for cake, and suggest a laundry list of modifications for different textures and flavors without ruining the base, and it is easy and fun for me. Not everyone can do that, nor should they. The same is true for programming, and I can clearly see that.

I can program, but I am not a programmer.

unfortunately

[circletimessquare]

the only answers you will find in this thread will answer a different question:

"what prejudicial preconceptions of yours about the field of programming tweaks your ego?"

Re:unfortunately

[Zero__Kelvin]

Bullshit. I am aware that not everyone has what it takes to be a car mechanic. In fact a relatively small part of the population has what it takes. Does that mean you think I hero-worship car mechanics?

so true!

[joocemann]

Being into computers since 1990, I had thought coding may be a career. In 1999, my first shot at college, and coding, I came to see it was not for me.

I aced the C Programming course, but it wasn't the technicalities of the language that repelled me... it was the environment.

I realized a day's work of coding meant sitting in one spot, staring at chars/text, thinking, and then more of the same. Even the 2-3 hours of coding "lab" was absurd, to me. I was NOT ok with this style of work.

I realized the CS path was clearly for someone else and moved on.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[wdef]

I think it requires a certain level of intelligence as a minimum. Nothing incredibly special but above average and an interest in learning how to control that box. Interest can drive aptitude. But a low IQ is going to hamper working in, say, C. Object-oriented and the workings of inheritance in C++ are going to be hard to work with if you're plain dumb.

Documentation for libraries is not infrequently poor or even wrong and there seems to be some tacit assumption that programmers will work out how things work anyway, even if that just means knowing where to get help.

And it depends what you call "programming". If that includes designing solutions to complex or novel (hence no off-the-shelf libraries) solutions, then you have to design complex algorithms, which requires creativity. You need to be able to evaluate and select the right solution, too, something even very smart programmers get wrong.

Programmer vs Good Programmer

[ryen]

I think a distinction should be made between a programmer and a *good* programmer. My CS program had a number of *really* smart kids - 1600 SAT scores and the like - but many of them really struggled at the concepts and barely made it through the curriculum. I think a good programmer takes 1. Creativity to think about problems from different angles 2. Drive to hunker down and get through hard problems (be it starting a new language, that pesky compile error, starting a large project from scratch). 3. I'm sure fellow slashdotters can think of many more

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[TheRealMindChild]

Your whole post left my mouth agape. The standpoint that you are coming from, all programming can be simplified into dragging and dropping visual widgets and throwing in a bit of high-level platform code to tie it all together. If that is your view of what programming is, no wonder you think it isn't special. You aren't always programming on Windows. You don't always have desktop-sized amounts of memory. Sometimes YOU need to write one of those libraries that are NOT "already coded".

And no, an astronaut doesn't just "drive the shuttle"

Anyone...

[Wattos]

Anyone can become a programmer, just like anyone can become a painter.

It does not mean that the person would be a good programmer though. I could be an artists, but I would not be a good painter if my life dependent on it.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[kelemvor4]

Your whole post left my mouth agape. The standpoint that you are coming from, all programming can be simplified into dragging and dropping visual widgets and throwing in a bit of high-level platform code to tie it all together. If that is your view of what programming is, no wonder you think it isn't special. You aren't always programming on Windows. You don't always have desktop-sized amounts of memory. Sometimes YOU need to write one of those libraries that are NOT "already coded". And no, an astronaut doesn't just "drive the shuttle"

You have to keep in mind, the post seems to have come from a designer. It just sounds like a lot of sour grapes to me.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[rolfwind]

Just like anybody can learn to draw. Or to swim.

But that doesn't mean anybody can be the next John Carmack, Leonardo Da Vinci, or Michael Phelps.

Even if we reduce it to the nonphysical work and remove the naturally talented aspect, there is the simple matter of time and drive -- which few people have.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about sour grapes, since it is a reasonable a priori position, but it is wrong as far as I can tell from the literature.

Abstract. A test was designed that apparently examined a student’s knowledge of assignment
and sequence before a first course in programming but in fact was designed to capture their rea-
soning strategies. An experiment found two distinct populations of students: one could build and
consistently apply a mental model of program execution; the other appeared either unable to build
a model or to apply one consistently. The first group performed very much better in their end-of-
course examination than the second in terms of success or failure. The test does not very accurately
predict levels of performance, but by combining the result of six replications of the experiment,
five in UK and one in Australia. we show that consistency does have a strong effect on success in
early learning to program but background programming experience, on the other hand, has little
or no effect.

What type of programmer?

[TrumpetPower!]

I like to think I'm a more-than-competent SQL programmer, and I don't hurt myself too badly at Web and Windows Forms programming.

I work with somebody who does some great stuff in C# who can't warp his head 'round set theory and therefore has real problems with SQL.

I know somebody else who's a real monster with Cisco stuff (a Cisco employee with certifications coming out his ears), and I'd argue that creating networking and firewall rulesets is every bit a form of programming as anything I do...but he'd need some serious handholding just to do a "Hello World" program in Visual Studio.

I know another guy who can make COBOL sing and is not bad at SQL (though he prefers to write his SQL with more procedural code and less set theory than is good), but he wouldn't have much luck doing more than tweaking a Web form.

We're all programmers, all of us good at what we do, some of us great at what we do...and, yet, making any one of us look like rank amateurs at huge swaths of basic programming tasks wouldn't be hard at all.

Could we become good programmers outside our areas of expertise? Probably. But it took me quite a while to figure out how to truly think in set theory, and I'm not sure I'm capable of more than a handful such masteries in any given field in my lifetime.

Cheers,

b&

Of Course!

[PatDev]

Based on my experience as a professional software developer dealing with many other programmers, I have to say yes! Anyone can become a programmer. You don't even have to learn how to program!

Re:Bent of mind

[Tyler Durden]

They're usually not. In fact, mathematicians can be the worst: they think computer science is a subset of math and it really isn't.

Computer science is, practically by definition, a subset of math. But there are many branches of mathematics out there, and being great at one doesn't necessarily mean a person is great at all of them.

Also, just because someone happens to be a great computer scientist doesn't mean they must also be a great programmer.

Re:You have removed all doubt

[fwarren]

Can anyone learn to play the piano? What about playing the piano compently? What about playing it excelently? Can you read sheet music? Can you read sheet music in one key and tranpose it to another while you play? That last part is easy. All you have to do is teach yourself to read sheet music in such a way that you say "Oh this is in the key of C, so this note is the 3rd intreval in C" and tell your hands "you are playing in G, play the third intreval in G".

It takes dedication, undestandeing, and practice. Oh and natural ability. How good is your ear? How much dexterity do you posess? How well can you listen to other things, read sheet music, conrtol your hands and maintain a tempo? Each person has limits. You might always suck, maybe you can be acceptable. Even then, somone who has many limitations but lots of dedication undertandind and pactice can outdo someone with a natural nack, but does not apply themselves.

Most people don't apply themselves to learn to play the piano or to program.

How much self import should someone have who has learned to play the piano, crack a safe, walk a hiwire, dircet air-traffic, put out an oil rig fire, implode a building, cut a diamond or progam have? Be a little nicer to the 80+ percent of us who have invested enough to have the chops to do this kind of work.

Yes.

[ddt]

I believe everyone can code, but obviously some people are going to be intrinsically better at it.

A few weeks ago, in less than half an hour, I taught about 20 2nd grade kids (generally 7-8 years old) how to count in binary as well as add any length of binary number.

Wondering whether I could beat that, I repeated the feat last week by teaching about 20 1st grade kids (6-7 years old) exactly the same thing. The 1st graders had more trouble keeping their attention than the 2nd graders, but they were all the more enthusiastic to learn.

In case you're wondering how to teach kids of an arbitrarily young age how to learn binary, here was how I did it in three rounds of kids raising their hands to answer my questions:

1. Raise your hand if you like to play video games.
2. How many of you would like to make a video game?
3. Who would like to know the three secrets to making a great video game?

By the third question, I think I could have staged a coup with the eager little mobs.

I've got my eyes on a local pre-school next.

That came out wrong.

PS. Teaching kids how to count and do math in binary is way, way easier than teaching them how to do it in decimal. It should come first IMHO.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[sycodon]

one could build and consistently apply a mental model of program execution; the other appeared either unable to build a model or to apply one consistently

So..Programmers and Managers.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[WoLpH]

I agree. Everyone can learn to write basic programs. That isn't to say that everyone can become a good programmer.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[narcc]

I think it requires a certain level of intelligence as a minimum. Nothing incredibly special but above average

There you have it. You think being able to program makes you special in some way or indicates that you're above average.

Here's the truth: Any idiot can write code. Hell, half of Slashdot taught themselves to program when they were between the ages of 8-13.

All it takes is the will to learn something new. It's no different than learning to work on cars. Do you think auto-mechanics have these same discussions? No. They're more emotionally stable, apparently, than the average developer.

Yeah, just about anyone can learn to write computer programs. Just like every who has ever learned to write code, they'll get better and better as they gain experience

Being able to write computer programs does not make you special. Get over yourself.

programming is like art.

[jellomizer]

Anyone can draw, most people can draw pictures, the really good ones make art.

Nearly anyone can be taught to code. Most of the coders can make programs to solve problems, but a few of them can make software.

A lot of the skills are similar to art, a lot of touchy feely stuff learned thru skill and practice. We can learn the skills but it takes real practice to be good at it.

Re:Obligatory

[synaptik]

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

That joke ceased being funny, 10 years ago...

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[ryanw]

I think it requires a certain level of intelligence as a minimum. Nothing incredibly special but above average

There you have it. You think being able to program makes you special in some way or indicates that you're above average.

Here's the truth: Any idiot can write code. Hell, half of Slashdot taught themselves to program when they were between the ages of 8-13.

All it takes is the will to learn something new. It's no different than learning to work on cars. Do you think auto-mechanics have these same discussions? No. They're more emotionally stable, apparently, than the average developer.

Yeah, just about anyone can learn to write computer programs. Just like every who has ever learned to write code, they'll get better and better as they gain experience

Being able to write computer programs does not make you special. Get over yourself.

I think the problem is that people are trying to answer the question with a "one size fits all" approach to answering the question. Sure anybody who can make toast can program. But not everybody can make a toaster.

What I mean by that is you mentioned that the average joe mechanics don't have these conversations, but you have to consider that the average mechanic is not making the advancements or creating the car from pouring casts and machining the parts. They're assembling or disassembling. There is creativity in finding a problem with a car before taking the whole thing apart but otherwise it's fairly laid out.

Programmers, the big daddy programmers are special and unique. Just like the engineers who created a ferrari or any other major achievement. Any body can program, but not everybody has the patience, confidence or desire to take on massive tasks by themselves.

I have programmed for many years and I have never found a good workflow of working with a large team of developers to create a specific product. So far what I have seen is one or two highly motivated individuals to create the bulk of the product and the rest become break/fix contributors or continuing development after the product is well underway.

It's just what I have seen. And those examples could make me an exception not the rule but that's what I've seen.

Were projects like MySQL or PostgreSQL initially effects of one or two highly motivated and focused individuals? I know that unix was and about evey project I have ever seen at the early stages.

Being that these efforts are largely surrounded by individual contributors I think it enables these individual's to feel special and different. And to be honesty, anyone who takes on these massive feats and succeeds is unique and different. The rest are "programmers".

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[narcc]

No, they won't. They will, however, be a competent and skilled musician.

The problem with developers who think themselves exceptional because they can program is that they all fancy themselves a Mozart.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[Maxmin]

Here's the truth

"Listen up, maggots."

Being able to write computer programs does not make you special.

"You are not special."

Any idiot can write code.

"You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake."

Get over yourself.

"You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."

-narcc (412956)

-Tyler Durden

Re:Obligatory

[BronsCon]

Actually, there are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who can't recognize a base-3 joke when the see it.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[arth1]

No one is born with a natural ability to write code or design car engines.

No, but a great many people have a natural inability. In the case of car engines, the resulting products will never hit the road. In the case of programs, they do, as we all witness every day.

Programming skill isn't the same as an ability to string small pieces of code together, any more than writing skill is the ability to touch type. It takes both perception andperspiration to be a decent programmer or decent author. Having an English literature grade may be useful, but it doesn't impart the ability to captivate your audience with your words. And taking programming classes won't hurt, but also won't make you come up with new elegant and efficient algorithms.
At best, you can become a codemonkey, who is to programming as an assembly man is to an engineer, or a typist is to an author.

Disclaimer: I am a senior sysadmin. I deal with both programmers and codemonkeys on a daily basis. In my long experience, there are hard-working and otherwise smart individuals who will never produce good code, and there are naturals who could, but are too lazy or careless. And there are a few who both have the ability and the drive to do so. Those are programmers, and I respect their profession.

Re:There is nothing special about programming

[serviscope_minor]

Why would this be different with coding?

Quite so. This kind of comment seems to be missing from the thread.

Being good at programming does make you special in as much as you can sell that skill for money, and the better you are the more you can sell it for.

I don't think there's much wrong with many slashdot residents claiming to be skilled at programming. It is a tech forum after all.

I claim to be skilled at programming. There's nothing wrong with that and without arrogance I am happy claiming that most people (not most programmers) simply won't be as good as me because I have a natural aptitude and a natural drive which makes putting in the requisite 10,000 hours pretty much effortless.

But that's OK. I would bet that almost everyone is better than average at something.

I'm a terrible musician. I'm a terrible writer---I could never write a novel. I would suck as a politician. I can't dance. I would be a terrible administrator, organiser or logistics kind of person. I could never teach school below 16 and even then only good, motivated students, without flipping out or giving up. I probably could run a marathon if I trained, but I would never be good at it. I suck at chess despite a fair amount of playing. I'm a poor actor. I'm bad with kids.

I can never be good at any of those things above. I lack the innate talent and I lack the ability to make myself work at them enough.

I don't claim this makes me better than other people (except of course at programming) because clearly programming isn't the be-all and end-all of things.

So, I think that almost anyone could learn to assemble a few statements of code together. But programming is more than that, and I don't think many people could be programmers, much like most people can't be artists even though splatting down paint from a brush is trivial.

Saxophone amost same story

[Dareth]

I played saxophone in the band for 6 years. I have no special musical ability. I played alto sax with the regular band and tenor sax with the jazz ensemble. I was much better at the "jazz" than the regular band music. The difference was that I really enjoyed the jazz ensemble's music selection and I practiced it a couple hours a day, much to the dismay of my neighbors. If you find an interest and practice you can be okay. If someone has an interest in coding/programming they can practice and be okay even if minimally talented.