Doesn't this go against the 10,000 hours thing? Sure, taking someone who is smarter and has more experience than other students and putting them in front of a computer will yield these results. However, someone who is solely smarter and does not normally program will not likely produce good code. Expertise is much more about practice than raw ability. Most of the really good programmers out there are really good because they're both smart and well versed, not just smart.