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At the same time, programming isn't some noble rigorous science. Computer science is. Most jobs require slapjack programming. Physics, mathematics, chemistry, t

At the same time, programming isn't some noble rigorous science. Computer science is. Most jobs require slapjack programming. Physics, mathematics, chemistry, those jobs could benefit from the employee having an academic interest. But your 10 year+ experienced programmer is not going to benefit from having a "blazing passion." The best they'll do is learn how to use a new framework to make the code less arduous - they already know design patterns. Think about what you are saying.. Most programming jobs require very little actual rigor, it's more experience than anything.

andrewstuart 10y ago
>> it's more experience than anything. I don't buy this at all. I have encountered hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who have a very large amount of experience but really can't be said to be any good at their job. Experience is important in making a great programmer but experience does not make a great programmer. And equally I know great programmers who are very experienced who do themselves a great disservice by resting on their laurels and not actively pursuing new and fresh interests in the latest software technology. >> 10 year+ experienced programmer is not going to benefit from having a "blazing passion." Could not be more wrong on this point. Both highly experienced and juniors all need to work extremely hard to learn - if you want to be extremely good at programming - then you have to be driven by a blazing passion to learn more. The field is rapidly evolving and there are constantly entirely new ways of thinking about programming being developed. If you sit around and think "I've got 10 years experience and there's nothing new under the sun" then you are falling behind. What is true is that if you have 10 years experience then yes you can probably ride that to the end of your career. You know an adequate amount - enough to bluff your way through most new situations. But if you want to be good - really good - at programming, then 1, 10, 20 or 30 years experience all need to work equally hard at learning and advancing their expertise.
- 98129129 10y ago
  The field isn't rapidly evolving. It's about cramming new pointless APIs and frameworks that are pushed by $company in order to dominate some market segment.
  - andrewstuart 10y ago
    Not evolving? Maybe you're just not learning enough to know what the newest evolutions are. Are you one of the people who see new technology as pointless fashion?
    - 0012983802 10y ago
      Maybe you are a recruiter who does not know the history of computer science. But you seem to have voting backup here, which, given your opinions, looks a bit odd.
    - goldenkey 10y ago
      You already told us you were a recruiter. Now you are just making yourself look vindictive and naive. Most new frameworks aren't grand high tech innovation. The most significant thing in web dev in the last 5 years has been creating GUIs with dependency trees or chains to have elegant interfaces that update instantly. There are a ton of different interpretations of this single idea, that's why React, Angular, Ember, Knockout, etc.. all exist. But they individually don't do much more than the others - just differences in heaviness of the framework and how opinionated the defaults / options are. I wouldn't want you to be my recruiter with the attitude you're showing here in this open forum...
    - dkrich 10y ago
      Care to elaborate on what some of these "newest evolutions" are? I studied cs as an undergrad and in grad school and have worked professionally as a software developer for ten years, so I feel qualified to weigh in on this. I can count on one hand the core principles someone really needs to understand to be a great developer and valuable employee and few of those have changed in my career. Once you know those things, picking up the latest flavor of the month is not all that difficult. Sure there are specific applications that require a lot of specialized experience. I'm talking about the other 95% of programming jobs that one could find today. Give me someone who is smart, has a fundamental understanding of oo programming principles, database design, and perhaps a bit of server architecture knowledge and I'll take that over somebody who doesn't but obsessively attends meet ups on the latest front end js framework. Everyone is different. I've worked with great developers who coded outside work because they wanted to and they could. I've worked with others who didn't but we're just very, very smart. The best developer I ever worked with was over 40, had a wife and two kids and rarely coded outside work. He just had different priorities. It didn't hold him back in his career I can assure you and if you had the chance to hire him you'd be making a mistake by just applying some arbitrary measurement of your judgement of his passion for his work. Perhaps your theory should be revisited.
- chris_7 10y ago
  How much of your free time do you spend recruiting?
  - andrewstuart 10y ago
    Not much, but recruiting is not a craft that particularly benefits from being honed with long hours of practice and learning - software development is.
    - chris_7 10y ago
      Long hours of software development leads to burnout and depression. People need to exercise and see their friends.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  Yeah but that's the rub. Having passion for something that isn't even rigorous is a catch 22. Passion for computer science makes a hell of a lot more sense than passion for learning node.js specific APIs like the back of your hand, or whatever flavor tool is hot that year. I never said there's nothing new under the sun -- I said what is valuable use of time for a junior dev is going to be quite the bore for someone who's been programming for 20 years. Learning new frameworks is somewhat like worshipping an actor because you love the art of cinema. The art is computer science. The paintbrush is engineering. And well, having a passion for one doesn't translate to the other. I'm not saying that building apps in the newest and greatest frameworks is a waste of time. I'm saying that it takes a naive individual to spend all their time mastering eclectic knowledge rather than formless knowledge. A smart individual is going to want knowledge that has permanence. As a recruiter you should just go for the sheep, so stick to what you're doing.

andrewstuart 10y ago

>> it's more experience than anything. I don't buy this at all. I have encountered hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who have a very large amount of experience but really can't be said to be any good at their job. Experience is important in making a great programmer but experience does not make a great programmer. And equally I know great programmers who are very experienced who do themselves a great disservice by resting on their laurels and not actively pursuing new and fresh interests in the latest software technology. >> 10 year+ experienced programmer is not going to benefit from having a "blazing passion." Could not be more wrong on this point. Both highly experienced and juniors all need to work extremely hard to learn - if you want to be extremely good at programming - then you have to be driven by a blazing passion to learn more. The field is rapidly evolving and there are constantly entirely new ways of thinking about programming being developed. If you sit around and think "I've got 10 years experience and there's nothing new under the sun" then you are falling behind. What is true is that if you have 10 years experience then yes you can probably ride that to the end of your career. You know an adequate amount - enough to bluff your way through most new situations. But if you want to be good - really good - at programming, then 1, 10, 20 or 30 years experience all need to work equally hard at learning and advancing their expertise.

98129129 10y ago
The field isn't rapidly evolving. It's about cramming new pointless APIs and frameworks that are pushed by $company in order to dominate some market segment.
- andrewstuart 10y ago
  Not evolving? Maybe you're just not learning enough to know what the newest evolutions are. Are you one of the people who see new technology as pointless fashion?
  - 0012983802 10y ago
    Maybe you are a recruiter who does not know the history of computer science. But you seem to have voting backup here, which, given your opinions, looks a bit odd.
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    You already told us you were a recruiter. Now you are just making yourself look vindictive and naive. Most new frameworks aren't grand high tech innovation. The most significant thing in web dev in the last 5 years has been creating GUIs with dependency trees or chains to have elegant interfaces that update instantly. There are a ton of different interpretations of this single idea, that's why React, Angular, Ember, Knockout, etc.. all exist. But they individually don't do much more than the others - just differences in heaviness of the framework and how opinionated the defaults / options are. I wouldn't want you to be my recruiter with the attitude you're showing here in this open forum...
  - dkrich 10y ago
    Care to elaborate on what some of these "newest evolutions" are? I studied cs as an undergrad and in grad school and have worked professionally as a software developer for ten years, so I feel qualified to weigh in on this. I can count on one hand the core principles someone really needs to understand to be a great developer and valuable employee and few of those have changed in my career. Once you know those things, picking up the latest flavor of the month is not all that difficult. Sure there are specific applications that require a lot of specialized experience. I'm talking about the other 95% of programming jobs that one could find today. Give me someone who is smart, has a fundamental understanding of oo programming principles, database design, and perhaps a bit of server architecture knowledge and I'll take that over somebody who doesn't but obsessively attends meet ups on the latest front end js framework. Everyone is different. I've worked with great developers who coded outside work because they wanted to and they could. I've worked with others who didn't but we're just very, very smart. The best developer I ever worked with was over 40, had a wife and two kids and rarely coded outside work. He just had different priorities. It didn't hold him back in his career I can assure you and if you had the chance to hire him you'd be making a mistake by just applying some arbitrary measurement of your judgement of his passion for his work. Perhaps your theory should be revisited.
chris_7 10y ago
How much of your free time do you spend recruiting?
- andrewstuart 10y ago
  Not much, but recruiting is not a craft that particularly benefits from being honed with long hours of practice and learning - software development is.
  - chris_7 10y ago
    Long hours of software development leads to burnout and depression. People need to exercise and see their friends.
goldenkey 10y ago
Yeah but that's the rub. Having passion for something that isn't even rigorous is a catch 22. Passion for computer science makes a hell of a lot more sense than passion for learning node.js specific APIs like the back of your hand, or whatever flavor tool is hot that year. I never said there's nothing new under the sun -- I said what is valuable use of time for a junior dev is going to be quite the bore for someone who's been programming for 20 years. Learning new frameworks is somewhat like worshipping an actor because you love the art of cinema. The art is computer science. The paintbrush is engineering. And well, having a passion for one doesn't translate to the other. I'm not saying that building apps in the newest and greatest frameworks is a waste of time. I'm saying that it takes a naive individual to spend all their time mastering eclectic knowledge rather than formless knowledge. A smart individual is going to want knowledge that has permanence. As a recruiter you should just go for the sheep, so stick to what you're doing.