My sainted bride is working at home today, but I have a secret about her. (The genius is to the left in this picture, the hack writer to the right.)

She's brilliant. Really. Not only can she program in COBOL, Assembler, and anything else you want to throw at her, she can explain what she's doing, and what her programs are doing, in clear, concise English. She understands not just how her programs work, but how they can work better. (She types fast, too.)

This makes her, in terms of the software business, a quintessential American. That's the conclusion of a recent MIT research report on software development, which indicates that America still holds its lead in this area. (Warning. That's a big honking PDF file in the last link.)

(We'll now pause while some in the crowd thump chests and shout U.S.A.! at one another very loudly.)

Americans are still better than anyone else at conceiving software, of imagining it, and of describing it in a functional specification that other people can work on.

The report divides the software development world into two camps -- developers and coders. Those who can conceive of software, the developers, have rare, rich skills. Anyone can learn to code.

Of course, this is not an immortal advantage. It's not something genetic. It's just that we have lots and lots of people who've been brought up through many generations of hardware. Our schools still turn out people with imagination, and a high degree of proficiency in real languages, not just software languages. We also have a history of thinking "outside the box."

These are skills that can be learned by others, but it takes time. A lot of time.

I think I'll take that girl out to dinner...