While I do believe anyone can learn programing, thats not really the issue at hand. The question is how fast do most people take to it? I think programming is one of those things that only a certain type of person will take to it reasonably fast. This is important because there's a cost/benefit analysis people do when it comes to what's worth studying.
Abstract thinking, then using those abstractions to build new abstractions is a hard task. Programming at its basic level is simple. But its complexity grows exponentially to the point where managing complexity is the totality of programming. This is what people can't seem to do, even on a trivial level.
>The problem is more that the people who teach programming go at it in a very unfriendly, non-intuitive way for the majority of the population. Programmers aren't user-friendly.
They teach programming by asking you to program. Unfortunately this is impossible for some 60% of the people who take a programming course. We have yet to come up with a better way.
Abstract thinking, then using those abstractions to build new abstractions is a hard task. Programming at its basic level is simple. But its complexity grows exponentially to the point where managing complexity is the totality of programming. This is what people can't seem to do, even on a trivial level.
>The problem is more that the people who teach programming go at it in a very unfriendly, non-intuitive way for the majority of the population. Programmers aren't user-friendly.
They teach programming by asking you to program. Unfortunately this is impossible for some 60% of the people who take a programming course. We have yet to come up with a better way.