I’ve always flunked at math; and knowing how intertwined programming is with math, I’m skeptical of my ability to learn how to code. Can someone be too dumb to learn programming? If it helps, I’m mostly interested in learning Common Lisp.

  • NostraDavid
    8•11 months ago

    Have too low IQ? Yeah sure, I guess.

    Be slower at it than the norm? Absolutely.

    I only learned Algebra by learning programming and through that I learned how to think abstractly (abstract just mean “hiding details” - think of how a child draws a car. You can’t tell it’s colour, brand, model, etc, yet you can tell it’s a car, even though all those details are hidden). Once I got that, I was able to follow videos from MIT that taught me more of the maths, giving me a theoretic foundation for programming. Now I’m doing an Algorithm course (also MIT) and feel like an “actual programmer” (because I felt like a “fake programmer” before that - though that still sometimes returns). After that I intend to learn more about SQL because I’m painfully lacking in that regard.

    Anyway, I’ve been at it since 2005 when I was a 20-something kid, and there’s always something new to learn.

    FYI: I made a dependency graph of a bunch of freely available MIT courses, left is a dependency for stuff on the right: https://thaumatorium.com/articles/mit-courses/