The programming talent myth

> It's a U-shaped curve... with two bell curves at each end. Programming is an art

Whatever this curve is measuring (talent, code quality, all-round ability etc.) it seems pretty unlikely that people aren't distributed in a bell curve. Of course people who are 3 standard deviations from the median will be insanely better/worse - isn't that the equivalent of your U curve?

I really doubt most people are actually incredibly good or incredibly bad. A typical person might produce code that is "OK" (good/bad in parts) for a problem of average complexity. It seems strange that people are talking about how good rock star programmers are but offering no reason why their usefulness disproves the assertion it's a bell curve.

It's notable that many people think of programming as art (I agree). But maybe it also means we judge other people's code (or our own) like an art or film critic i.e. savagely. Just like programming, there are so many facets by which films can be judged - direction, acting, story, lighting, music, editing etc. I don't think films are on a U-shaped curve either.

This seems the same idea that YouTube videos which no longer have ratings, because people give 1 stars or 5. That doesn't make mathematical sense, some videos must reasonably be 3 stars. Judging programmers is the same kind of judging towards the outlier, everything is awesome or terrible. I have definitely been guilty of this.