Hacker News Reader

Just "to be a programmer"? Frustration tolerance. Thats pretty much it.

To be a good programmer: very much depends on your area of expertise. Most of them need good communication skills, some machine-level understanding, some math or algorithm skills, some require high velocity / long hours... It really is a very diverse field.

But like for most jobs, frustration tolerance gets you surprisingly far.

View on HN

Gladwell's book Outliers held this theory that the people who learned to be good at math are the ones who sat down long enough to see it through. It took about 22 minutes for someone to learn a basic fundamental of math. Most people give up by 2-5 minutes. Programming is a lot like that. Arguably those with good algorithm skills and such have even higher frustration tolerance.

I successfully turned my mom from someone who often needed computer help, into someone who was pretty self-sufficient, when I told her that "The solution to any technology problem will only have two ingredients: Google and pain. If you have access to the first, you can solve anything provided you're willing to endure enough of the second."

Outstanding move.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com