On Wed, 11 May 2011 22:53:45 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: > alex23 wrote: >>> through intuitive language skills. Why not? >> Because the vast majority of them don't seem to want to be bothered? >> >> > That could very well be... but I have a hope for them. I honestly think > its not because they don't want to be bothered, rather they just think > its too far past them... and not do-able.
An admirable hope, but there is a significant amount of research into teaching computer programming that suggests that learning to program is simply beyond a large portion of the population, no matter what you do or what language you teach. Some 30-60% of people barely get past "Hello World". (That's not to imply that they're dumb, just that whatever mental skills are needed for programming is beyond them, just as whatever mental skills are needed for writing poetry are beyond me.) http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html Shorter version: it seems that programming aptitude is a bimodal distribution, with very little migration from the "can't program" hump into the "can program" hump. There does seem to be a simple predictor for which hump you fall into: those who intuitively develop a consistent model of assignment (right or wrong, it doesn't matter, so long as it is consistent) can learn to program. Those who don't, can't. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
