"I’m very skeptical of results that claim that some large fraction of the population is incapable of some mental feat like programming. 500 years ago the same was thought of reading, writing, and arithmetic."
Yeah and the reason was that 500 years ago reading and writing was college level material. Now they start teaching the alphabet at what age 5? Then again most print material is targeted to a pretty low reading level. So even if learning programing early becomes more common that still doesn't make it easy because chances are the majority won't be very good at it just like many aren't good with the written word.
Two illiterates can have a conversation a writer could transcribe. I'm pretty sure I couldn't represent the behavior or thought process of a computer-illiterate in code.
"I couldn't represent the behavior or thought process of a computer-illiterate in code."
That's what the job of a computer scientist is, translate from real world process to computer program. Maybe it isn't a one to one correspondence like spoken to written English but if someone tells you they need a program to track employee time and they need to sign in and sign out you can write that right?
A human and a computer are equally good at clocking one person into work on time.
A computer is probably much better at tracking the hours of 500 people, using this to estimate the probability of various inconvenient person-mixes (the foreman and backup foreman are both sick!), and using this to generate schedules.
A person is probably better than a computer at deciding whether or not it's better to clock out of work eight minutes early to surprise the wife with flowers.
Computers and people differ pretty wildly in their thought processes and abilities.
No, but I've used Taleo and Peoplesoft, so I know where you're coming from. Taleo is so egregiously bad that I want to start a company specifically to wipe them out.
Yeah and the reason was that 500 years ago reading and writing was college level material. Now they start teaching the alphabet at what age 5? Then again most print material is targeted to a pretty low reading level. So even if learning programing early becomes more common that still doesn't make it easy because chances are the majority won't be very good at it just like many aren't good with the written word.