Oh, by the way...

A while ago, Mark Guzdial wrote:
>[...] If we're agreed that there is no "geek gene," 

I don't agree with that contention at all, in the
sense that I believe that some people have a knack
for technology that others don't, that that knack is
as much a part of their make up as their height or
gender, and that picking up geeky stuff (including
programming) is noticeably easier for those with
that knack than for those without it.

I'm perfectly happy to offer myself as a data point in
favour of my claim, since I have a pretty good idea of
how I got to be a programmer, and it wasn't because of
the concerted efforts of others (including teachers and
parents and friends) to push me in this direction.

(I realize that one data point doesn't make a trend, even
for vociferous values of 'data point', but it's a start.)

Rather than being some post-modern development, I think
'geekiness' is apparent throughout history, and has a
clear social value, especially since the inventions of
the division of labour and written language.  It just so
happens that our headlong hurtle into a shiny, robot-cluttered
future has changed the social evolutionary pressure on us
to favour our geeky side more than ever, with a consequent,
and strangely satisfying, increase in the whining from the
non-geek contingent.

(I also happen to think that most of the advances of
civilization have been down to geekiness prevailing over
brute force and ignorance, but then I would think that.)

So I would be, frankly, astonished if it could be shown
that *everyone* is equally trainable in programming to a
professional standard, any more than it could be shown that
everyone could learn to be a professional golfer or
a professional artist or a professional mathematician
or a professional teacher.

Now, where's that shiny robot waiter with my gadget cocktail?
-- 
Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
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