The truth is that programming isn't a passion or a talent, says Edge, it is just a bunch of skills that can be learned.

Yes and no. I'd argue it depends on how you define "programming". If you're talking about "can code up basic solutions to relatively straightforward problems" then yes, with enough time, most people can probably learn to do that. Considerably fewer ever reach the point where the code they produce is (usually) elegant. Where they're capable of troubleshooting the most elusive bugs. Where they fairly quickly identify solutions that are orders of magnitude more efficient than the naive approach to a given problem.

I tend to think the folks who reach that level are able to do so by a combination of experience and some inherent traits that you can't just pick up in a programming class. An example from my current job:

My employer makes apps. Our app downloads some images over the network when it launches. It caches them so unless something changes there's not much going over the wire, but the initial download can take a while. Up to 30 seconds where the user is stuck watching a progress indicator on the splash screen. At least two different developers had worked on this app. Then the company hired a new guy (not me). One of the first things he did was refactor the image download code to use multiple threads and transfer the images concurrently instead of in serial. With 8 threads the speedup was approximately 5x. His key insight was that most of the images were very small, so much of the total time was latency and not lack of bandwidth. Especially since latency is so high on mobile networks.

Now the previous developers were not right out of school. They had years of experience. They could "program". But they didn't recognize an enhancement with significant implications for users when it was right there in front of their faces. It's possible that if they had been specifically instructed to optimize the image loading logic they would have come up with a similar solution. Maybe, maybe not. But why did the third guy immediately recognize the problem (and put in place a very effective solution) without being prompted? Was that a "skill" he learned in a programming class?

On multiple occasions this same guy has identified long-standing bugs in our app that I'm almost positive no other member of our team would have ever been able to figure out even with infinite time.

This isn't "evolution".

If the previous owners and/or their neighbors don't have service then assume you can't get it. Especially if you're livelihood depends on having broadband at home.

That is my experience as well. If you look at app development from the perspective of "I'm going to do this for an employer and get paid more than I was being paid to do {some other type of development}" and not "I'm going to create the next Angry Birds and get rich overnight" then it's a lot more satisfying.

Hardly slave labor consider developers are creating the apps voluntarily.

I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't give a crap about what 99% of developers do or say.

I will say that Postgres's command-line tool "psql" is about a million times better than Oracle's "sqlplus". It's been a while since I used MySQL's command-line tool, but I remember not liking it as much as psql.

...they accept older phones and this works to mitigate Android's OS fragmentation problem.

"Things Only Slashdot (and maybe io9) Readers Worry About".

I've worked as a developer for the past 15 years. In that time, I'd break down the quality level as follows (roughly):

10%: Absolutely terrible; should be fired even if they were willing to work for free
40%: Not absolutely terrible, but also not someone I'd hire if I were building my own team (even if they came cheap)
40%: Someone who does decent work but isn't going to blow you away; I'd consider hiring someone in this group, but wouldn't pay a premium to bring them on board
10%: Exceptional. Not only would I hire someone in in this group, I'd be willing to pay "above market" to get them

The numbers are, obviously, rough (no to mention subject to personal bias and totally anecdotal).

One problem: plenty of people in the first two groups interview like they're in the third group. Also, some of the people in the 4th group interview like they're in the 3rd group. I submit that some of the most successful teams are successful not because they have great ideas (although that never hurts), but because they have an interview process that's able to sort people into the right "bin" more accurately than their competition can.

Maybe I'm crazy, but 20% yearly revenue growth for a company Google's size seems pretty healthy.

At least all the unvaccinated kids would be confined to a ghetto, of sorts. Maybe more outbreaks (and, consequently, more dead kids) would motivate more parents to vaccinate.

Why? It's not like infections only happen in schools. Or that students spend 100% of their time at school. Look at the Disneyland outbreak.

The main reason to require vaccination in public schools is that they're a resource that's supposedly available to everyone. I shouldn't have to expose my kid to other kids who haven't been vaccinated in order to access the public school system. So we require vaccinations there. Private schools are private. That's why you can send your kid to a school that teaches young earth creationism if you want. Likewise, you could elect to send your kid to a school that doesn't require vaccinations. I would support a reporting requirement, though, obligating private schools to publicize in their promotional materials whether they allow un-vaccinated students to enroll. That way parents can make an informed decision.

I think that you are under the impression that it is ONLY transmitted via sex or needles.

Not really. It's transmitted by blood, or bodily fluids containing blood. That can happen without sex or needles but, outside of mother-to-child transmission during delivery, its more rare. I would be much less concerned about sending my kids to a school where some of the students weren't vaccinated against HepB than I would be about sending my kids to a school where some of the students weren't vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, etc.

Primarily from mother to child during delivery. The likelihood of an child who hasn't been vaccinated both 1) contracting HepB and 2) passing it to someone else at school are fairly low. Much lower than, say, measles.

I'm cool with the public schools only admitting kids who're vaccinated. Imposing the same approach on private schools seems like overreach. Also, HepB shouldn't be in the schedule of required vaccines to enter kindergarten given its method of transmission.