[adjkant]

And for others it goes quite quickly! There is no doubt that programming can be helped with a natural aptitude and that it won't make sense to everyone no matter how smart they are, but that is true of many fields.

I'd also argue it's often a teaching problem. I'd highly recommend this essay that goes into the flaws in particular with introductory CS education:

https://felleisen.org/matthias/Thoughts/Developing_Developer...

[majewsky]

Thanks for that link! That six-step design process appears to be a formalization of what I've learned to do subconsciously from years of experience. I've been struggling with mentoring junior colleagues wrt the software design process, and I'll be trying that six-step approach as part of my mentoring.