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Do you need a science degree to scaffold a bunch of Rails routes and copy and paste from SO? How many of us are actually pushing the state of the art vs being t

Do you need a science degree to scaffold a bunch of Rails routes and copy and paste from SO? How many of us are actually pushing the state of the art vs being technicians with the tools we're given? How many of you are optimizing data structure algorithms, implementing new crypto, optimizing networking stacks, or conceiving and proving new distributed consensus logic? And even if you are, how much of it will end up in production for your company rather than stay as a fun weekend toy project? I'd venture to say that's it's something that far less than 1% of the developer population has to bother with.

walshemj 11y ago
Err can we not belittle technicians here as some one at my first Job said its the technicians who still remembers how ohms law goes :-) A few years ago I had to correct some bridge calculations that the Engineer had done :-)
- Mandatum 11y ago
  Great. You're smart. You're probably a great dev. But let's face it, we're the builder's, they're the architects. They're the researchers, we're the lab assistants. I'm OK with that because I like building. Occasionally I'll try to plan and design my own house, but I'm certainly not as effective as those who've gone to study this. Maybe after 5 (YMMV) years I will be with self-study, but they'll have 5 years more experience by that point. (Don't take that "you're smart" comment as an insult, I genuinely meant it.)
  - walshemj 11y ago
    Having worked at a top 5 Civil consultancy I think our "Engineers" might have seen "Architect" as a bit of an insult. A case in point is the wobbly bridge across the Thames designed by a high profile Uk architect - that had to have a lot a rework done.
- slavik81 11y ago
  As an engineering student, I was told that technicians often have a better grasp of their domain than the engineers. It's the result of a narrower focus than the engineers get. Actually, the shop floor often can have valuable feedback as well. They know more about the actual assembly than the engineers. Sometimes the engineers make things unnecessarily difficult to assemble simply because they don't know that something simple on the wiring diagrams is hard in real life. Like thick cables that can't bend easily.
deleted 11y ago
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lgleason 11y ago
Nope, and these skills are slowly losing their value in the market. Rails isn't as lucrative as it was a few years ago as a engineer.
- BadassFractal 11y ago
  I'd argue these people will train themselves to be technicians in another stack and continue that cycle.
golergka 11y ago
Well, you might want to know a little bit about database normalization and algorithm complexity if you want this scaffolded up not to completely break down when it appears on the front page of TC. But having CS degree has usually very little to do with it.

walshemj 11y ago

Err can we not belittle technicians here as some one at my first Job said its the technicians who still remembers how ohms law goes :-) A few years ago I had to correct some bridge calculations that the Engineer had done :-)

Mandatum 11y ago
Great. You're smart. You're probably a great dev. But let's face it, we're the builder's, they're the architects. They're the researchers, we're the lab assistants. I'm OK with that because I like building. Occasionally I'll try to plan and design my own house, but I'm certainly not as effective as those who've gone to study this. Maybe after 5 (YMMV) years I will be with self-study, but they'll have 5 years more experience by that point. (Don't take that "you're smart" comment as an insult, I genuinely meant it.)
- walshemj 11y ago
  Having worked at a top 5 Civil consultancy I think our "Engineers" might have seen "Architect" as a bit of an insult. A case in point is the wobbly bridge across the Thames designed by a high profile Uk architect - that had to have a lot a rework done.
slavik81 11y ago
As an engineering student, I was told that technicians often have a better grasp of their domain than the engineers. It's the result of a narrower focus than the engineers get. Actually, the shop floor often can have valuable feedback as well. They know more about the actual assembly than the engineers. Sometimes the engineers make things unnecessarily difficult to assemble simply because they don't know that something simple on the wiring diagrams is hard in real life. Like thick cables that can't bend easily.

deleted 11y ago

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lgleason 11y ago

Nope, and these skills are slowly losing their value in the market. Rails isn't as lucrative as it was a few years ago as a engineer.

BadassFractal 11y ago
I'd argue these people will train themselves to be technicians in another stack and continue that cycle.

golergka 11y ago

Well, you might want to know a little bit about database normalization and algorithm complexity if you want this scaffolded up not to completely break down when it appears on the front page of TC. But having CS degree has usually very little to do with it.