Are programmers born or made?

What's your take on this question?

My feeling is that it's a question about probability than yes/no. I believe majority of programmers are born with the talent to program.

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chrisone

i believe one learns how to be a programmer. As many programmers like only certain programming languages they "choose" to program. So "made" is my choice here

Forsaken_GA

i believe programmers are made through some sort of unholy pact with the devil to spread grief and sorrow amongst the rest of us.

mikej412

"Real Programmer" are born. Some people just seem to "understand" computers and have the natural talent to program.

But people can learn to become "good" programmers.

Webmaster

I was just browsing some (freelance) dev jobs before I read this post and it seems in some places they grow them in crop farms which makes me lean towards 'made', but...

Personally I started programming, well, typing code, when my age still had a single digit. It was the way to get games on my Atari.

This evolved into creating what we used to refer to as 'demos', which was stuff like showing my name in the screen shifting color, bouncing balls (pong without paddles), and attempts at star fields. On my first PC I tried to do similar stuff in Pascal but didn't get very far at it. A big difference with now is that programmers used to be more selfish and hardly share any code (as is now done so much on the web).

My first IT jobs did involve some programming (Access 2.0 Basic and Excel macros) but I got pulled into sys administration/support mainly because of the demand at that time (couple of years before the millennium when things got booming) and because programmer positions required more traditional education then I had. It wasn't till roughly a decade later that JD pointed out the Visual Studio Express edition and started programming again and quickly became convinced I was born as a programmer (which says nothing about my skill level but about how much I enjoy it).

That said, programming and a job like network designer or administrator doesn't require a totally different person/skillset imo. They both create problems (when a 'change' occurs) and solve problems. What I like (more) about programming is that most solutions create additional problems to solve, which imho makes it a more creative process and satisfies both halves of my brain.

Forsaken_GA

Webmaster wrote: »

This evolved into creating what we used to refer to as 'demos', which was stuff like showing my name in the screen shifting color, bouncing balls (pong without paddles), and attempts at star fields.

Now *that's* a blast from the past. I was a big fan of Future Crew in my BBS days. 2nd Reality got played over and over again!

nel

i believe they come from outer space and have been sent to take over the world!

Rootstonian

I would say 80% born, 20% made. I think there has to been some inborn talent there. For example, I'm not an artisit or a singer...never will be.

RobertKaucher

My take on this question is a little different... It's like asking if it is possible for an overweight elf to fit down a chimney, without first asking if the question even makes sense in the first place. There is no sense in asking a question if the questions premise is incorrect.

Why are these two options seen as mutually exclusive? Why should it be any different than any other art/craft/human endeavor?

I believe like anything that people do at the highest level talent is a requirement. But the old saying that hard work trumps talent, when talent doesn't work hard is applicable.

ally_uk

I'd say born, I know a quite alot of people who are either autistic or have asperger syndrome who lack social and people skills but put them in front of a computer can code until the cows come home. Not to stereotype every programmer out there.

My brain is wired differently I have a passion for I.T but programming and sitting in front of a box and tinkering with pages of code isn't my idea of fun. To put it blunt I wasn't made for programming lol i'm more of a hands on person myself like to break, tinker and fix stuff.

Last time I touched programming was In college I had a unit on Pascal, Prolog, C, Fotran and VB and that my freinds was enough for me.

Expressions, do loops, variables, Declarations it all makes my brain hurt lol

I know this one guy who has a obssession for Acorns and BBC's he refuses to use newer tech and can write pages and pages of BASIC like his writing a essay lol Ive even said to him why don't you learn a newer language but his reply was then I wouldn't enjoy it this is my hobby.

Credit to anyone who can program though

tiersten

You need to have a fairly logical train of thought. Apart from that, its all about what you need to get done. If you're born to be ditzy then you're not going to be a programmer or be a particularly good one.

Considering there are quite a few Microsoft and Cisco cert people in this thread already, I'd say most of you are programmers or will be at some point. If you don't know PowerShell or TCL then go learn it now :P

Kaminsky

binarysoul wrote: »

I believe majority of programmers are born with the talent to program.

Totally agree.

Anyone can write a program. The mark of a good programmer is not the code itself but the skill and experience spent in crafting it.

In the early days when I thought I wanted to be a programmer, I remember waking up in the middle of the night, jump onto the c64 and start writing something then went back to sleep. When I would see the coding the next day, a lot of I couldn't believe I had written it, it was that well streamlined.

RobertKaucher

Kaminsky wrote: »

Totally agree.

Anyone can write a program. The mark of a good programmer is not the code itself but the skill and experience spent in crafting it.

Ok, but neither skill nor experience are forged at conception in your genetic code.

I have a very decent amount of artistic ability that I was born with. But I have no desire at all to be in the art field. My mother constantly laments the waste of my talent, as she sees it. I have no desire to put in the work to take me from a talented hobbiest to a good professional artist. I just don't have the passion for it. If you take a person who does have the passion for art that I lack, but who lacks the natural born talent, they will quickly surpass me as the years of experience sharpen their skill and ability. The same is true with programming. If you take a person who lacks the natural talent for programming but is passionate about it she will eventually force herself to begin to think like a programmer and surpass her more tallented, less passionate colegues. To be elite, though, I think it requires the perfet storm of talent and passion. If something comes easy to you and you are passionate about it you can quickly increase your skills. So I really believe that looking at this as an either born or made equation is far too simplistic.

ilcram19-2

no one is born everyone is made on the person they become, the enviroment definds you

dynamik

mikej412 wrote: »

"Real Programmer" are born. Some people just seem to "understand" computers and have the natural talent to program.

But people can learn to become "good" programmers.

This.

People obviously can obviously have some innate abilities that make programming come more naturally to them, but I don't think it's out of reach of anyone.

Plus, resources (CPU, memory, etc.) have gotten ridiculously powerful for most tasks, and unless you're working on something where you need to perform some sort of insane optimization (i.e. game programming), even a poorly-written program will run just fine. You don't need to be an expert and be able to code "perfectly" in order to end up with a solid program.

Rootstonian

Tell you what, I lost my programming job of 13 years Oct. 2009. A.A.B. & B.S. in Computer Science. I was a late bloomer and by then, I knew I wanted to write code.

I took a LOT of classes. Some of the advanced ones would start with 35 or 40 students and end up with 10 or 15!

Ergo, my therory on a priori knowledge (ah, I did listen in Classics 101 too) LOL

I almost hate to say it, but programming is really quite easy...or I just hit a level where it was no more than typing this message. I could "see" thousands of lines of code in my head and could feel how the program flowed.

The worst part was working on the old COBOL stuff. Some of these systems had 100's of programs running them (e.g. General Ledger/Budgets). And these old-school coders had no problem using GOTO's every other statement. I think the last COBOL program I retired/replaced was originally coded in 1976 and was still running in 2009!

To be honest, towards the end, I was quite bored with it (and why I'm here working on MCITP).

I still think it's a lot "pre-ordained" My step-son has a degree in Mechanical Polymer Engineering. I used to watch him do 5, 7 pages of a Calculus or Engineering problem. But when he had to write a 100 line FORTRAN program, he was ready to quit college

Rootstonian

phoeneous wrote: »

Are you implying that people that arent born with a naturally good signing voice or singing talent can eventually become good singers?

Yes. I will PM you my phone # and I will sing for you! ROFL

Or just watch the next American Idol tryouts

RobertKaucher

Rootstonian wrote: »

Yes. I will PM you my phone # and I will sing for you! ROFL

Or just watch the next American Idol tryouts

No, you might not be a great singer but take some classes and practice and you would be good enough for a church choir or a middle aged dad garage band...

While I do believe there are certain limitations that cannot be changed, age, physical condition, genes, etc there are too many people who consider these things to be stopping blocks and not hurdles. Except in extreme cases (Stephen Hawking will not become a Nascar driver, Helen Keller could not have been a great singer) things like a lack of natural talent can be overcome with hard work and determination.

"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself king of infinite space."

Kaminsky

Rootstonian wrote: »

But when he had to write a 100 line FORTRAN program, he was ready to quit college

hehehehe I had to do Fortran on a CS course back in the day and I don't blame him at all.

I do have a natural talent for programming. That's what got me into IT in the first place. Before that it was just a hobby on the Vic 20 and C64 whilst I was trying all sorts of real jobs and failing miserably at them. I know I am awfull at fixing cars as I went to college to learn to be a mechanic in the early days. Gave us a block of steal and we had to turn it into a cylindar with just a hammer and chissel. We could finish it off at the end with a bit of filing. By day 3 I had almost done 2 edges and had a hand the size of a football from my misses. Day 3, a new guy joined late and given the same task and had the whole thing done just after lunch the same day. He was destined to be a mechanic type and although I could have soldiered on, I would not be a patch on him.

A logical mind is what I had and the ability to order things that needed doing in a process. This is the same thing anyone in the IT support field can do so I am not some undiscovered coding wiz. I also learnt how to program properly at university so that you were independant of language. Even then, there were those 1st years that stood out with their programming skills and those that struggled to even get their head around what they had to first, second, etc.

I left uni and never worked as a programmer. Horror stories of sitting in a cubicle day in day out really went against my need to mix with all sorts of people whilst doing my job and I found IT support and have loved it ever since. Even now though, writing a program is just a matter of learning syntax. The ability to write nice utility programs is still there.

Yes I believe you can learn to be a very good programmer, absolutely you can but there are those that have a nack for it which is what the OP asked. Same as anything.