allthecode's blog

Are you born with good programmer skills or you acquire them?
By allthecode, 12 years ago, In English

I have heard some opinions but I still can't decide. What do you think?

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12 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +27 Vote: I do not like it

It is important when someone discovers you.

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12 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

I think you are born with this ability. Programming (in pascal) is taught at my school. After first few lessons it was clearly visible who is talented and who is hopeless. I think it is because programming in general requires good logical reasoning. Similarly, not everyone can become an artist or singer.

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    12 years ago, # ^ |
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    'After first few lessons it was clearly visible who is talented and who is hopeless.'

    It depends on teacher. When I was studing in 8-th class, my programming teacher was so cool that I didn't undersrand what cycle for is. But after lessons with an adequate teacher my results had become better.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      No doubt that teacher plays a significant role. But I guess everyone in OVR's class had the same teacher. So there is something what make somebody do better and somebody worse under the same circumstances.

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12 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

I strongly hope think there is no thing like talent xD

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12 years ago, # |
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I Think it's all about Practice !

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12 years ago, # |
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when human born he knows nothing.

but he learn everything during his life

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12 years ago, # |
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I see some people who can achieve great things with less effort than others. This is the talent, i think. But if someone can really work hard, the difference may be disappear.

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12 years ago, # |
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The question surely has no simple correct answer. But I think that the best of simple answers is "result is not sum, but product of talent and efforts".

When any of the factors (either talent or efforts) is zero or very near to zero, no one can get big product (great results) by only another factor.

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12 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

I can say in my years teaching computer science at university, I've definitely noticed a very strong correlation between the ones who do well and the ones who go to classes and do exercises. You can even see this trend yourself by looking at the "most solved problems" charts on online judges and seeing how many people you recognise that do well in competitions.

You should read the Topcoder High School spotlight session interviews with many high rated Topcoders, there's a persistent theme of people spending many hours practicing. It's interesting to see ACRush say "it's at least 80% due to practice" and SnapDragon say "it's 90% due to practice".

Of course natural ability plays a part, but far less than you might think.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    I hope u are right

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    If that is true, then why doesn't this user have the highest rating? https://codeforces.net/profile/tenkei

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      Less number of contests

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        2 years ago, # ^ |
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        I still believe that talent plays a much bigger factor in success than what cruise believed. tourist has been at the top of CodeForces for 10 years. You would think that someone would have already supplanted him by now.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      Usually for those types of profile (many problems solved for a long period of time without stopping) make me think the person jumped to the editorial too quickly, was solving problems that were too easy for that person or simply copied solutions to fill up the grid.

      Not saying he did that, but I also won't verify if he did or not.

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2 years ago, # |
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I was born Master.

Marinush

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    Sir are you de-aging?

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      Success makes you change your point of view over years. After I felt that IOI is too easy for me, I decided to unbecome master.

      Marinush

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2 years ago, # |
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As a newbie who has seen people with way less practice in coding, surpass me, I can confirm that talent is a real thing. You can take the high-end example of a person like tourist or the countless newbies on codeforces who have been grey for a very long time. This is my second account otherwise I fell to as low as 750 in CF rating (when a new account began with 1500 rating by default). I have seen my friends who are now experts/candidate masters and who started out in college just like I did but almost 2.5 years down the line, I truly suck and it is because of lack of talent. In my heart, I know that I did work hard, I have solved more problems on Leetcode and CF but I can only solve the first two on CF and so people think that I do easy questions.This is a general scenario with all newbies..

TLDR: TALENT IS REALLY NEEDED............

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    Then i think you should have worked harder, sorry I dont believe that you have commited to cp your maximum level.

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2 years ago, # |
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money doesn't matter ~ rich people

looks dont matter ~ good looking people

talent doesnt't matter ~ talented people

I think we all should stop for a second and count till 12 ref: "Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda

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