Is the ability to solve euler questions based on IQ, experience, both or what?

I can only solve about 40 questions intuitively, although the programs I write to solve them take a while (still relatively new at programming)
The rest take me a long time to think of solutions, sometimes even hours.. does this mean I'm not fit to be a great programmer or are project euler questions not a good standard to test myself?

Currently I'm taking a discrete structures (or discrete math) class with logical topics like induction, recursion, relations, counting, etc. I learn these concepts intuitively and quicker than my classmates (pretty sure half of them won't ever find a programming job)
But on project euler there are over 10,000 people per question that can solve problems that I'm not able to.

I have a lot of fun doing them, and I program for fun unlike the people in my class who only program for an assignment.


tldr; is my inability to think of algorithms for most project euler questions a sign of being an inferior programmer?

Dude, stop stressing

Problems like these take time, I bet you could solve most of them if you devoted as much time to them as you devote to school (a foolish thing to do, IMO).

Not at all.

You are a disgrace to programmers and, dare I say it, humans everywhere if you can't solve all of them within minutes. You should wear a dunce cap with a scarlet D from now on.

Seriously though, you realize 10,000 people is a very small percent of the human population right?

Guess that means OP is not Grandmaster in the Programming division. :-(
I wonder if those 10,000 people are coding on Korean, US or European ladder.

This post was edited by eagl3s1ght on Oct 9 2013 03:46pm