I had sent the following comments on learning Ada to Les after his
original post.  Since there has been so much interest on this subject,
here it is for the rest of you to read...

> I don't know about this "you either have it or don't" business, but
> here are some skills/interests IMHO that will help make you successful:
>
> 1) problem solving - this may be why many programmers are also puzzle
>    and game fans
>
> 2) ability to synthesize and be creative
>
> 3) attention to detail
>
> 4) oral and written communication skills
>
> 5) patience - most any program will come together after a couple
>    30-hour debugging sessions (sorry, can't remember who first
>    said that, so no attribution)
>
> 6) desire to keep learning new things: tools, programming languages,
>    programs, architectures, etc.
>
> --
> Terry J. Westley, Principal Engineer
> Calspan, An operation of Veridian
> P.O. Box 400, Buffalo, NY 14225
> [log in to unmask]   http://www.calspan.com