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While I agree with some of the premise of the article (you can't become a great developer in a few weeks), it tries almost too hard to scare people away from pr

While I agree with some of the premise of the article (you can't become a great developer in a few weeks), it tries almost too hard to scare people away from programming. >Would I like to type text files for hours a day? The bulk of my time is spent thinking, not typing. >Am I comfortable being a digital construction worker? Programming is a creative job that the author is trying to sound so mundane and boring. Yes, it might not be for everyone, but showing people screenshots of GameSalad Creator, which looks quite scary is not really representative of the vast number of easy-to-use game creators we have today [0]. The fact is that programming is a highly rewarding job (both financially and mentally). As long as there is a demand-supply gap in the industry, people will try to bridge that gap, by whatever methods. Coding academies are just one such method. If we ever reach parity on the demand/supply situation (or if Universities start training students better), these will be left redundant and new methods would evolve. [0]: http://www.pixelsham.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/indie-games-indie-statik-rpg-maker-xp.png http://www.pixelsham.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/indie-ga...

discordance 11y ago
Agreed. Also, if a code academy is that stepping stone that provides enough impetus or motivation for someone to take their development efforts further, then I can't see how that as a bad thing.
bjwbell 11y ago
I like to think programming is about being creative...but reality has stared at me too long. The large majority of it IS mundane and boring. I just looked at the commit log for my current project, https://github.com/bjwbell/gensimd/commits/master https://github.com/bjwbell/gensimd/commits/master (SIMD in Go), and ~90% of the commits are boring. I still feel very excited about it, perhaps I'm unbalanced.
- vegabook 11y ago
  I don't think there is any creative endeavour in life that does not contain very large proportions of mundane work. What gets you through the mundanity is the creative spirit - the idea that the final product will be amazing / different / inspiring, that makes all the work worthwhile. "Unbalanced" is often a description of someone who is inordinately passionate about a project, and inevitably is applied to creative types without whom such projects would never come to fruition.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  The majority of any creative endeavour is mundane and boring, we do it for those small moments of inspiration and insight that break up the periods of drudgery.
- captn3m0 11y ago
  For me, even if the smaller portions might be mundane, its the whole itself that is a creation by me. Look at that website: I made that. That tiny wiggle animation that brings a smile to your face: I made that happen. Sure, it took me 10 minutes of googling and hunting stack-overflow to workaround some weird browser issue, but the end result is definitely creative. Its not about programming as an activity, but the end-result of the activity, which is a creation.
- abustamam 11y ago
  Yes, there are very few careers and/or hobbies that are _not_ mundane. I like to make paper figurines in my spare time. I like seeing how the designs work together. However, about 90% of the time is spent either cutting the figure out, or folding/creasing the figure out. I really hate those parts, but I know that it's necessary for me to make the figure I want. It's 90% mundane, but the 10% I spend actually putting it together, as well as the finished product, makes it worth the monotony, in my opinion. And I think that's where passion lies--in a person's ability to trudge through the monotony because of the end goal.
SneakerXZ 11y ago
We are digital construction workers because only a few of us are in a position of designers. Most of us are told by product teams what to do and if we have leads and architects in the hiearchy we are limited even more. If you find that creative then you can find anything in your life creative, even shopping. And I must agree 90% time tasks are mundane but for the 10%, it is worth doing.
JDiculous 11y ago
Programming by and large is NOT creative. As a software engineer, I don't understand where this idea comes from. Sure if you're coming up with cutting edge machine algorithms or coming up with the product features or designs that you're then going to implement, there might be a great deal of creativity involved. But most programmers are simply solving technical problems assigned to them by a product manager. There is nothing "creative" about fixing a bug, adding a new feature to a website (that you didn't design yourself), streamlining your deployment process, or reducing the latency on your server. As a software engineer, the one thing I dislike about my job is the lack of creativity, which is why I find myself pursuing arts in my free time (eg. video game design, music).
- nstart 11y ago
  > But most programmers are simply solving technical problems assigned to them by a product manager. Solving technical problems is a creative process. No technical problem that I have ever come across requires the exact same solution for it. You have to think about how you want to express the solution to a given problem. How complex or verbose do you want it to be? Sure there are patterns, but what design patterns can you use to solve this? How do you modify a design pattern to really suit the given problem. Programming IS a creative process. It's a process where you cannot ever document how something must be done in a step by step manner which is applicable in every given situation that the document refers to. If one's job feels like a job dependent on rote, then that's an issue with the job. The software industry does not encourage creative process in many ways, and that holds true even for the design industry. It's why so many people break away to become independent designers or developers. It's why there are so many sites and comics dedicated to highlighting the absurdities of clients. The discipline of programming or design both require creativity. We are however surrounded by corporations and people that believes that developers and designers should be moved to a factory line type process whereby any creativity you can express is effectively reduced to nil. I totally get this. My day to day programming at work doesn't get me feeling like I'm truly exercising my brains. It's mostly handling instructions handed down to me. But when I get home and fire up my editor. Ah. It feels like I've just donned a superhero's cape and I'm embarking on an adventure. A superhero who can look at a problem, and with some lines in a text file can hopefully connect with another person in making their life better. If that isn't art, I don't know what it is. PS - If someone wants to make a comic around superhero devs, do make a husband and wife one. "Dev Dave and Dev Dana: Adventures in 4D"
jseliger 11y ago
While I agree with some of the premise of the article (you can't become a great developer in a few weeks), I don't think coding academies or the people in them would argue that you could become a great developer in a few weeks or even a year. The other day I was talking to a friend who is doing one of the better reputation coding academies in NYC. She's learned a lot but also realizes how much more there is to learn, and she's also gone from knowing very little to understanding that coding academies operate primarily in one, high-level part of the tech stack. Over time she'll keep learning but she does have a job as a junior developer—which means someone, somewhere thinks she knows enough to be productive. AFAICT, that's what coding academies offer. Which is, I suppose, what you say here: The fact is that programming is a highly rewarding job (both financially and mentally). As long as there is a demand-supply gap in the industry, people will try to bridge that gap, by whatever methods. Coding academies are just one such method.

discordance 11y ago

Agreed. Also, if a code academy is that stepping stone that provides enough impetus or motivation for someone to take their development efforts further, then I can't see how that as a bad thing.

bjwbell 11y ago

I like to think programming is about being creative...but reality has stared at me too long. The large majority of it IS mundane and boring. I just looked at the commit log for my current project, https://github.com/bjwbell/gensimd/commits/master https://github.com/bjwbell/gensimd/commits/master (SIMD in Go), and ~90% of the commits are boring. I still feel very excited about it, perhaps I'm unbalanced.

vegabook 11y ago
I don't think there is any creative endeavour in life that does not contain very large proportions of mundane work. What gets you through the mundanity is the creative spirit - the idea that the final product will be amazing / different / inspiring, that makes all the work worthwhile. "Unbalanced" is often a description of someone who is inordinately passionate about a project, and inevitably is applied to creative types without whom such projects would never come to fruition.
tonyedgecombe 11y ago
The majority of any creative endeavour is mundane and boring, we do it for those small moments of inspiration and insight that break up the periods of drudgery.
captn3m0 11y ago
For me, even if the smaller portions might be mundane, its the whole itself that is a creation by me. Look at that website: I made that. That tiny wiggle animation that brings a smile to your face: I made that happen. Sure, it took me 10 minutes of googling and hunting stack-overflow to workaround some weird browser issue, but the end result is definitely creative. Its not about programming as an activity, but the end-result of the activity, which is a creation.
abustamam 11y ago
Yes, there are very few careers and/or hobbies that are _not_ mundane. I like to make paper figurines in my spare time. I like seeing how the designs work together. However, about 90% of the time is spent either cutting the figure out, or folding/creasing the figure out. I really hate those parts, but I know that it's necessary for me to make the figure I want. It's 90% mundane, but the 10% I spend actually putting it together, as well as the finished product, makes it worth the monotony, in my opinion. And I think that's where passion lies--in a person's ability to trudge through the monotony because of the end goal.

SneakerXZ 11y ago

We are digital construction workers because only a few of us are in a position of designers. Most of us are told by product teams what to do and if we have leads and architects in the hiearchy we are limited even more. If you find that creative then you can find anything in your life creative, even shopping. And I must agree 90% time tasks are mundane but for the 10%, it is worth doing.

JDiculous 11y ago

Programming by and large is NOT creative. As a software engineer, I don't understand where this idea comes from. Sure if you're coming up with cutting edge machine algorithms or coming up with the product features or designs that you're then going to implement, there might be a great deal of creativity involved. But most programmers are simply solving technical problems assigned to them by a product manager. There is nothing "creative" about fixing a bug, adding a new feature to a website (that you didn't design yourself), streamlining your deployment process, or reducing the latency on your server. As a software engineer, the one thing I dislike about my job is the lack of creativity, which is why I find myself pursuing arts in my free time (eg. video game design, music).

nstart 11y ago
> But most programmers are simply solving technical problems assigned to them by a product manager. Solving technical problems is a creative process. No technical problem that I have ever come across requires the exact same solution for it. You have to think about how you want to express the solution to a given problem. How complex or verbose do you want it to be? Sure there are patterns, but what design patterns can you use to solve this? How do you modify a design pattern to really suit the given problem. Programming IS a creative process. It's a process where you cannot ever document how something must be done in a step by step manner which is applicable in every given situation that the document refers to. If one's job feels like a job dependent on rote, then that's an issue with the job. The software industry does not encourage creative process in many ways, and that holds true even for the design industry. It's why so many people break away to become independent designers or developers. It's why there are so many sites and comics dedicated to highlighting the absurdities of clients. The discipline of programming or design both require creativity. We are however surrounded by corporations and people that believes that developers and designers should be moved to a factory line type process whereby any creativity you can express is effectively reduced to nil. I totally get this. My day to day programming at work doesn't get me feeling like I'm truly exercising my brains. It's mostly handling instructions handed down to me. But when I get home and fire up my editor. Ah. It feels like I've just donned a superhero's cape and I'm embarking on an adventure. A superhero who can look at a problem, and with some lines in a text file can hopefully connect with another person in making their life better. If that isn't art, I don't know what it is. PS - If someone wants to make a comic around superhero devs, do make a husband and wife one. "Dev Dave and Dev Dana: Adventures in 4D"

jseliger 11y ago

While I agree with some of the premise of the article (you can't become a great developer in a few weeks), I don't think coding academies or the people in them would argue that you could become a great developer in a few weeks or even a year. The other day I was talking to a friend who is doing one of the better reputation coding academies in NYC. She's learned a lot but also realizes how much more there is to learn, and she's also gone from knowing very little to understanding that coding academies operate primarily in one, high-level part of the tech stack. Over time she'll keep learning but she does have a job as a junior developer—which means someone, somewhere thinks she knows enough to be productive. AFAICT, that's what coding academies offer. Which is, I suppose, what you say here: The fact is that programming is a highly rewarding job (both financially and mentally). As long as there is a demand-supply gap in the industry, people will try to bridge that gap, by whatever methods. Coding academies are just one such method.