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By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be

By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Imagine asking a prospective medical resident "did you treat any diseases in high school?" or "how much surgery do you do in your spare time?" I think we should take it as a positive sign that people are approaching software and computer technology as a professional career that they can professionally pursue. That approach can produce great work too, and a growing field means a greater diversity in how people find and display their passion. Getting a CS degree is not easy, and requires some base level of interest and commitment to complete. Even a bootcamp is not free, and takes some focus and work. Anyone above a certain age (like me) came into the industry sideways, as it was developing, as a result of personal passion and interest. Let's not mistake that for an inherent property of a good tech employee... every industry on Earth started that way at some point. Computer technology industries are maturing, just like railroads, oil development, aviation, telecommunications, and dozens of other industries have over time. That's not bad, and we will have to take it into account as we consider the model employee. Hiring people who are "not proven" might also mean hiring people who are well trained, but maybe have not yet proven their passion in a way you recognize.

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ghaff 8y ago
CS/programming is almost unique in this regard in that there's a significant school of thought out there that, if you haven't been programming as a hobby since you were a kid, that's a disqualification. As you say, there is pretty much zero expectation in any other STEM field that you did much more than take some science classes in high school and liked them. (In STEM. Obviously you presumably don't apply to Juilliard because you decided you might want to give this music thing a try.)
- deleted 8y ago
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- wrs 8y ago
  It’s messed up in the other direction too, though. There’s no other STEM field where you attend a six week “boot camp” and expect to get a job. Or where people with two years of experience are “senior”.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Exactly. The standards are incredibly low. This can be a good and a bad thing.
    - TheTrotters 8y ago
      Barriers to entry are very low which is great.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I suspect some of it is the terminology. If your job is mostly routine tasks in a lot of fields, you're usually called a technician (well, or a "genius" if you work at an Apple store). In Silicon Valley-style tech, computer scientist/programmer/developer have all been sort of munged together. There are other areas where "engineer" is thrown around pretty liberally as well in the US. But title inflation in software is probably more pronounced than just about anywhere else.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Senior is ten years +/- a year depending on what they accomplished in my opinion.
    - jiveturkey 8y ago
      Your opinion is not the established nomenclature. Senior is widely understood to be 4 yr degree + 5 yrs experience. This means you have all the technical training plus enough professional experience to be considered fluent. At ten years you should be absolutely expert in the areas you've worked in. This is staff or senior staff level, if you also have some business acumen, ie the ability to see beyond engineering requirements.
wiradikusuma 8y ago
I don't think it's a good analogy. Good programmers (esp. the ones OP referring to) are usually curious, like to tinker. So it's a valid check whether they like hacking since young age (I'm not saying those who don't are not good, but those who do most likely are). Maybe a better analogy is an inventor (is this even a job?).
- busterarm 8y ago
  And one of the best hackers that I've ever met didn't even care or know anything about computers until his second year of university. And he's only two years out of school...
- analog31 8y ago
  It's my job. ;-) With all the caveats about dividing people into types, I think you need the curious / tinkerer types, and also the solid / bureaucrat types. At least, this is true if your business has reached a size where scaling is an issue. I'm of the curious / tinkerer type, but putting a bunch of people like me on a project where the customer expects a 20 year service life, and operations expects to maintain their sanity, is not recommended. In my view, starting from scratch in college and learning programming in a classroom may be harder than learning it by trial and error in your spare time.
dieterrams 8y ago
To be fair, GP didn't say they wouldn't hire someone who didn't code for fun in high school, or whatever. Just that hiring was more difficult if you're trying to hire people who actually care about their craft.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Yes, this is true. I took the opportunity to make a broader point but I did not mean to attack or impugn the comment I replied to.
microtherion 8y ago
> But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Yeah, for some reason, when you're interviewing as a forensic pathologist, mentioning that you're cutting up partially decomposed bodies in your spare time does NOT count as a positive. I still think there is value in looking for passion in people, but maybe passion for craftsmanship in a field other than software should count equally well.
- dev_dull 8y ago
  Everybody looks for someone passionate for the job. Why would CS be any different?
  - ymlaree 8y ago
    IMO Everybody should be looking for skilled and dedicated professionals (+ OK social traits etc). Passionate != quality
  - ergothus 8y ago
    "Passionate" in programming is shorthand for "cares for quality" AND "will improve on their own". Companies are unwilling or unable to train on the job (because it requires tech mentor resources they dont have /wont spare) so they are looking for people they can drop in and see payout for without further investment (particularly in time). I think it is a shortsighted strategy, but not one without basis. The supply problem is real.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      When hiring managers talk about “passion” what they usually mean is that they want to hire a geek who is willing to work crazy hours because of a love of programming and won’t dare negotiate for higher pay or leave for a job that will pay them more.
      - Loughla 8y ago
        You just 100% nailed it. Saying that you shouldn't hire people because they're only in it for a paycheck and not passion is just shorthand for I want you to make this your life, but not pay you to make it your life. Subsequently, what I've seen is that most problems in the field of k-12 education in the states can be tied to this sentiment.
dsajames 8y ago
You don't have to code in high school to prove passion. I just ask about their favorite project.
closeparen 8y ago
Because CS education is in its infancy and the material changes so fast, we can’t expect college to be comprehensive. Rather than structured learning, we rely on people who are peripherally exposed to various topics to have the “spark” to become curious about them and go deeper. To a first order approximation, someone who has been into computers their whole life has that “spark” as second nature. Someone who sees programming as “just a job” is probably not going to explore any more than necessary to fulfill the requirements of the task at hand. Sometimes less. This makes the curious more effective at approaching harder problems, and puts them in a position to spot potential improvements even on mundane problems. I see this firsthand at work. My careerist colleagues are lovely people and capable of doing the work assigned to them, but it’s the lifelong computer nerds who solve the really knobby problems and push us forward.
- krinchan 8y ago
  Yet a lifelong computer nerd with that structured learning foundation will leave a non-passionate CS degree holder and a degreeless lifelong computer nerd in the dust. People want to scream about CS degrees being trash and yet all the passion in the world doesn't seem to convey an understanding of memory leaks, garbage collection, and VM/bytecode/etc. hijinks (like JVM, MRI, etc.) to the degreeless people in my team. A CS degree program worth its salt will dip you into enough low level OS programming that you can bring with you to any language. It also should expose you to multiple programming languages so you can quickly separate universal ideas (pointers, references, pass-by-value, pass-by-reference, various models of multithreading) from syntax. Meanwhile, degreeless bootcamp people just think Ruby Symbols are nifty immutable strings and have no idea why symbolizing dynamic string keys in hashes results in a memory leak. I'm not against bootcamps, but polyglot is still my primary requirement for hiring for this exact reason. Bootcamps need to at least integrate a week of Computer Org and a week of doing what they just did in another language into the curriculum to really be a valid way to bypass CS degree programs.
  - recraft 8y ago
    As a degreeless completely self-taught programmer with a strong interest in vm implementations and garbage collection (eg I found the MLKit paper to be super exciting and at the time an incredible innovation (and then rust came along shortly after that)), I feel obligated to inform you that since ruby 2.2 (which is required by Rails 5+), symbols are in fact garbage collected, and are thus now effectively the same as string interning with #freeze.
namanyayg 8y ago
Doing software development in high school requires a computer (even a ~$400 that is shared with the family is sufficient), interest, and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos). Basically, nothing too much out of the reach of your average teenager -- with the exception of interest/dedication to the art. Doctors, and most other professions, cannot be practiced without a lot more investment. If we lived in a society where access to resources required for practicing those careers would be easily available to teenagers, we would see young high school students do that too. I don't think you're making a fair analogy here, there is basically no way a high schooler could even _attempt_ treating diseases but it's very possible for a high schooler to program 6-8h a day and learn.
- Xylakant 8y ago
  > and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos) This is maybe not out of reach for an average teenager, but it is definitely out of reach for quite a substantial portion of the population, the poorest percentile might just not have the time to dabble in programming. They might have to take care of siblings, work for a living or to pay for college later.
  - namanyayg 8y ago
    I agree, and I was trying to phrase my comment in a way that makes it clear (but failed!). You are right, doing CS in high school requires some amount of privilege.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    Right, looking for signals of "passion" has to be done carefully so it doesn't become just a proxy for socioeconomic class. This is also true when thinking about "cultural fit" within a company.
    - munificent 8y ago
      This is an interesting case where the laws around interviewing may make this harder. What you want to measure in the interview is passion. What you can see is their accomplishment. But accomplishment is roughly passion × means. A rich person can accomplish more for the same effort because they have more power at their disposal. But you can't easily cancel out means in the interview because you sure as hell can't ask any direct questions about their socioeconomic level, for good reason.
whiddershins 8y ago
Most high end professional fields have some sort of certification process, the difficulty of which roughly corresponds to the level of damage a bad professional can do. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, and engineers can easily destroy or end lives in the course of their work and the certification process tends to weed out people who are in it for the money but not actually capable. I really don’t think your average CS grad can be said to be filtered in the same way.
- cmorgan31 8y ago
  Do you believe that computer engineers/scientists/developers could have just as much impact on someone's life? I personally feel like the field is too broad to say yes to that above question but in some domains of our field, it is definitely a yes. We might need a more regimented continuing education requirement similar to the legal field's CLE requirements to remain part of the state bar. As we see more profound effects from software we as an industry will eventually become a target.
freewilly1040 8y ago
While I agree with your point, the medical resident example is a poor one. Prospective medical _students_ are expected to basically devote their extra curricular free time to demonstrating their passion for medicine via volunteering, etc.
daveslash 8y ago
I agree with you, but I'd like to add to the "did you treat any diseases in high school". I knew someone in high school who wanted to be a doctor. She didn't cure any diseases or perform surgery, but she did read all that she could and was fascinated by medical-themed tv & movies. She had been inspired by her pediatrician when she was young. She did't treat people before becoming a doctor, but from early on she had the inspiration, passion, and drive. She became a doctor. She did it for the love of the profession, not solely because it was a "good paying job" (though, I'm sure that helped). I think coding in high school is the expression of having passion -- it's the passion that you should really be looking for, however that is expressed for profession X.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Sure, I didn't mean to imply that there aren't people who are passionate from a young age about being doctors--there certainly are! But, I think it's not taken as a necessary attribute within the medical field. There are a lot of great doctors who didn't decide to pursue medicine until college, or maybe even later, and as a whole the field seems fine with that.
  - arkades 8y ago
    > There are a lot of great doctors who didn't decide to pursue medicine until college, or maybe even later, and as a whole the field seems fine with that. Med schools are increasingly selecting for that, in fact. Second careerists tend to do better (because they're adults), and have less burnout (because they're more likely to have made a knowledgeable adult decision about what they're getting into, rather than being disappointed reality didn't live up to fantasy.)
    - walshemj 8y ago
      One of the pioneers in the Pc business Ed Roberts (invented the altair 8800) did that. Eventually became a GP (family doctor) in Georgia
- freehunter 8y ago
morgante 8y ago
> But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Many of the top people in other fields also have a strong passion for the field, which came early. Ex. top lawyers usually love the law and many had experience with related areas (ex. debate) from high school. I know plenty of high school students who are very excited about medicine and do things like volunteering at a local hospital or helping a professor with research. Early passion shouldn't be a requirement, but it's certainly a good indicator. I've never found someone who is only in tech for the money to be particularly good at it.
- projektir 8y ago
  > I've never found someone who is only in tech for the money to be particularly good at it. Those people certainly exist, so this just sounds like a bias on your part.
  - my_usernam3 8y ago
    I agree, antidotally of course. I know plenty of people who are very intelligent (by most measurable ways) so they could do any profession they like. CS is a good profession right now so they picked it. Definitely no passion, but given their high functioning brains or what not, they are good at whatever they do. Don't get me wrong, I believe most who pick this profession due to its perks, tend to be worse then their computer inclined counterparts; but there are lots of examples of this just not being true.
Spooky23 8y ago
Higher end professional fields have more clear educational paths and job roles. Talk to 100 lawyers/doctors and you'll hear 4-5 similar job roles. Technology is totally different, 100 tech people will describe 20 roles. My professional career has been mostly engaged in implementation, customization, solution design and administration. I'm not a practitioner of Computer Science, I'm more like a hybrid of an engineer and a tradesman. I define an engineer as someone who applies known knowledge/methods and a scientist as someone seeking novel knowledge/methods. There's a spectrum between scientist, engineer, tradesman, technician, etc. Technology is different because you can enter as a tech or even a finance person and move into some engineering roles without formal education. Only a few corners of tech are off limits without formal knowledge.
akiselev 8y ago
Medicine may be more mature as an industry where education takes a little longer but it is not much different from software. Many of the best doctors (that I've had and know of) started out helping their parents with labwork as kids or interning at university labs in high school, helping with real research into biology or medicine. Likewise, there is a significant gulf between the doctors who chose the career because they are passionate about helping people and those who do it for the money or because of cultural pressure. There's so much work to do in both fields and we need all kinds of people, but there is certainly a difference in work environment when the team is dominated by one type or the other.
tayo42 8y ago
> "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. In a way it might be a way to weed out people who are reluctant to try something new. someone who only coded in highschool, a somewhat antisocial hobby, went through college and still only wants to code maybe didn't try anything new.
- ivanche 8y ago
  Have I understood correctly? Somebody who found his passion early in life and wants to pursue it further should be penalized for that?
  - tayo42 8y ago
    I had a feeling this would be misinterpreted. I wasn't sure how to word it but no. It's possible to find your passion at a young age. I'm skeptical though. I think it would be a question to branch off of if your discussing it with someone. At 13 how much do you really know, or even really experienced. Lately I have been thinking that passion is something learned.
EthanHeilman 8y ago
> Imagine asking a prospective medical resident "did you treat any diseases in high school?" or "how much surgery do you do in your spare time?" I think software engineering is more like writing than medicine. Most writers, wrote in high school. Many writers write in their spare time. They have blogs, zines and long posts on facebook. I agree that not everyone has a opportunity to code in high school, nor should jobs exclude people who leaned later in life, however I think as the field matures more people will have more opportunities to code earlier in life.
ConcernedCoder 8y ago
Say what you will, but who would you rather have take out your appendix? The doctor who worked nights and weekends to put him/herself through medical school because it was the love of their life and their dream to help people?... or the guy/gal who only chose the same career path for the money?
- emilfihlman 8y ago
  Both are probably just as qualified because of standards. Also, those in it for the money have to do extremely well to earn that money. They can't just hand waive stuff regarding surgery.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    Exactly. For someone to call themself a doctor, they had to at least go to medical school and pass the board exam. Even the worst lawyer passed the bar. Anyone who is a pilot has passed their FAA examination and check ride. Yet, anyone can call themself a “Software Engineer” with zero formal qualification and zero evidence of passing even a basic competence hurdle.
  - ConcernedCoder 8y ago
    It seems pretty weird to have to argue the point that just like anything else in this life, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, cheese, wine, and toilet paper, there are good quality and bad quality... you get what you pay for, etc... why would this be any different?
- rpedela 8y ago
  How could you tell the difference?
  - ConcernedCoder 8y ago
    How can you tell the difference between products/services made by someone who makes said things out of the sheer love of making them vs. someone who only makes said things when compensated properly? -- one word: QUALITY
Thu27Sep 8y ago
The medical resident analogy can't be used as an umbrella example proving that it's absurd to look for passion on a personal level. There are other professions where passion is almost always expected. Car mechanics are all about cars; plane pilots are all about planes; academics are all about whatever their subject is; architects are all about buildings and houses; anyone on the artistry side is all about their art. I believe that most engineers also have quite passion about their craft. Don't get a civil engineer started on how bridges stand unless your afternoon is free. In a sense I feel that this current trend of promoting software development as "just a job" is yet another step in the ditch that is forming between the ideal of "software engineering" and the reality of "software development". It's the way things are going and I have no strong feeling about it one way or another, but it seems obvious to me that employers would be more attracted to someone with passion for the craft, as well as fellow passionate wanting to work among a crowd like them.
Joeri 8y ago
Asking if they programmed in high school doesn’t necessarily gage their current passion anyway, just their one time passion. Perhaps it’s better to just ask directly: “can you give examples of how you’re passionate about programming?”
maxxxxx 8y ago
"But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. " Just to be clear: That's not what I meant with "caring".
vhbit 8y ago
What you are referring to sounds more like "passion" than "care" and those are 2 different things which express in different personal traits. Passion is nice, but as author above I'd prefer to have a person who cares about what they're doing over just a passionate person. Unfortunately to find a "caring" person is even harder than to find a passionate person.
thereare5lights 8y ago
> "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. This just makes the same kind of mistakes that the article is saying to avoid.
enraged_camel 8y ago
>>But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Imagine asking a prospective medical resident "did you treat any diseases in high school?" or "how much surgery do you do in your spare time?" Not a fair comparison because the practice of medicine is not accessible anywhere to the same extent as the practice of programming. You need a license to practice medicine. You don't need one for programming. Similarly, surgeons need facilities and equipment to perform surgeries. The only thing programmers need is a computer. I think the OP has a point. I know several brilliant mechanical engineers for instance, and every single one of them used to tinker with cars and gadgets and whatever else they could get their hands on when growing up. Indeed, such a background is a strong signal for curiosity, which is an important factor in success and professional growth.
derefr 8y ago
Illustration, music and dance have been studied for thousands of years, but you can still tell who’s passionate about them from an early age: they do unskilled {drawing, singing, dancing} for fun. Even though there is basically no chance of their work having an impact on anyone at their skill level, they still do it. Mostly because their parents and teachers tell them nothing about how their work measures up by objective standards, instead encouraging them and appreciating anything that demonstrates growth in their skills compared to previous pieces. I don’t see why programming is any different. There’s not much difference between a crude drawing of a house in crayon, and a crude Pong clone in Scratch.

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ghaff 8y ago

CS/programming is almost unique in this regard in that there's a significant school of thought out there that, if you haven't been programming as a hobby since you were a kid, that's a disqualification. As you say, there is pretty much zero expectation in any other STEM field that you did much more than take some science classes in high school and liked them. (In STEM. Obviously you presumably don't apply to Juilliard because you decided you might want to give this music thing a try.)

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wrs 8y ago
It’s messed up in the other direction too, though. There’s no other STEM field where you attend a six week “boot camp” and expect to get a job. Or where people with two years of experience are “senior”.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Exactly. The standards are incredibly low. This can be a good and a bad thing.
  - TheTrotters 8y ago
    Barriers to entry are very low which is great.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I suspect some of it is the terminology. If your job is mostly routine tasks in a lot of fields, you're usually called a technician (well, or a "genius" if you work at an Apple store). In Silicon Valley-style tech, computer scientist/programmer/developer have all been sort of munged together. There are other areas where "engineer" is thrown around pretty liberally as well in the US. But title inflation in software is probably more pronounced than just about anywhere else.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Senior is ten years +/- a year depending on what they accomplished in my opinion.
  - jiveturkey 8y ago
    Your opinion is not the established nomenclature. Senior is widely understood to be 4 yr degree + 5 yrs experience. This means you have all the technical training plus enough professional experience to be considered fluent. At ten years you should be absolutely expert in the areas you've worked in. This is staff or senior staff level, if you also have some business acumen, ie the ability to see beyond engineering requirements.

wiradikusuma 8y ago

I don't think it's a good analogy. Good programmers (esp. the ones OP referring to) are usually curious, like to tinker. So it's a valid check whether they like hacking since young age (I'm not saying those who don't are not good, but those who do most likely are). Maybe a better analogy is an inventor (is this even a job?).

busterarm 8y ago
And one of the best hackers that I've ever met didn't even care or know anything about computers until his second year of university. And he's only two years out of school...
analog31 8y ago
It's my job. ;-) With all the caveats about dividing people into types, I think you need the curious / tinkerer types, and also the solid / bureaucrat types. At least, this is true if your business has reached a size where scaling is an issue. I'm of the curious / tinkerer type, but putting a bunch of people like me on a project where the customer expects a 20 year service life, and operations expects to maintain their sanity, is not recommended. In my view, starting from scratch in college and learning programming in a classroom may be harder than learning it by trial and error in your spare time.

dieterrams 8y ago

To be fair, GP didn't say they wouldn't hire someone who didn't code for fun in high school, or whatever. Just that hiring was more difficult if you're trying to hire people who actually care about their craft.

snowwrestler 8y ago
Yes, this is true. I took the opportunity to make a broader point but I did not mean to attack or impugn the comment I replied to.

microtherion 8y ago

> But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Yeah, for some reason, when you're interviewing as a forensic pathologist, mentioning that you're cutting up partially decomposed bodies in your spare time does NOT count as a positive. I still think there is value in looking for passion in people, but maybe passion for craftsmanship in a field other than software should count equally well.

dev_dull 8y ago
Everybody looks for someone passionate for the job. Why would CS be any different?
- ymlaree 8y ago
  IMO Everybody should be looking for skilled and dedicated professionals (+ OK social traits etc). Passionate != quality
- ergothus 8y ago
  "Passionate" in programming is shorthand for "cares for quality" AND "will improve on their own". Companies are unwilling or unable to train on the job (because it requires tech mentor resources they dont have /wont spare) so they are looking for people they can drop in and see payout for without further investment (particularly in time). I think it is a shortsighted strategy, but not one without basis. The supply problem is real.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    When hiring managers talk about “passion” what they usually mean is that they want to hire a geek who is willing to work crazy hours because of a love of programming and won’t dare negotiate for higher pay or leave for a job that will pay them more.
    - Loughla 8y ago
      You just 100% nailed it. Saying that you shouldn't hire people because they're only in it for a paycheck and not passion is just shorthand for I want you to make this your life, but not pay you to make it your life. Subsequently, what I've seen is that most problems in the field of k-12 education in the states can be tied to this sentiment.

dsajames 8y ago

You don't have to code in high school to prove passion. I just ask about their favorite project.

closeparen 8y ago

Because CS education is in its infancy and the material changes so fast, we can’t expect college to be comprehensive. Rather than structured learning, we rely on people who are peripherally exposed to various topics to have the “spark” to become curious about them and go deeper. To a first order approximation, someone who has been into computers their whole life has that “spark” as second nature. Someone who sees programming as “just a job” is probably not going to explore any more than necessary to fulfill the requirements of the task at hand. Sometimes less. This makes the curious more effective at approaching harder problems, and puts them in a position to spot potential improvements even on mundane problems. I see this firsthand at work. My careerist colleagues are lovely people and capable of doing the work assigned to them, but it’s the lifelong computer nerds who solve the really knobby problems and push us forward.

krinchan 8y ago
Yet a lifelong computer nerd with that structured learning foundation will leave a non-passionate CS degree holder and a degreeless lifelong computer nerd in the dust. People want to scream about CS degrees being trash and yet all the passion in the world doesn't seem to convey an understanding of memory leaks, garbage collection, and VM/bytecode/etc. hijinks (like JVM, MRI, etc.) to the degreeless people in my team. A CS degree program worth its salt will dip you into enough low level OS programming that you can bring with you to any language. It also should expose you to multiple programming languages so you can quickly separate universal ideas (pointers, references, pass-by-value, pass-by-reference, various models of multithreading) from syntax. Meanwhile, degreeless bootcamp people just think Ruby Symbols are nifty immutable strings and have no idea why symbolizing dynamic string keys in hashes results in a memory leak. I'm not against bootcamps, but polyglot is still my primary requirement for hiring for this exact reason. Bootcamps need to at least integrate a week of Computer Org and a week of doing what they just did in another language into the curriculum to really be a valid way to bypass CS degree programs.
- recraft 8y ago
  As a degreeless completely self-taught programmer with a strong interest in vm implementations and garbage collection (eg I found the MLKit paper to be super exciting and at the time an incredible innovation (and then rust came along shortly after that)), I feel obligated to inform you that since ruby 2.2 (which is required by Rails 5+), symbols are in fact garbage collected, and are thus now effectively the same as string interning with #freeze.

namanyayg 8y ago

Doing software development in high school requires a computer (even a ~$400 that is shared with the family is sufficient), interest, and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos). Basically, nothing too much out of the reach of your average teenager -- with the exception of interest/dedication to the art. Doctors, and most other professions, cannot be practiced without a lot more investment. If we lived in a society where access to resources required for practicing those careers would be easily available to teenagers, we would see young high school students do that too. I don't think you're making a fair analogy here, there is basically no way a high schooler could even _attempt_ treating diseases but it's very possible for a high schooler to program 6-8h a day and learn.

Xylakant 8y ago
> and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos) This is maybe not out of reach for an average teenager, but it is definitely out of reach for quite a substantial portion of the population, the poorest percentile might just not have the time to dabble in programming. They might have to take care of siblings, work for a living or to pay for college later.
- namanyayg 8y ago
  I agree, and I was trying to phrase my comment in a way that makes it clear (but failed!). You are right, doing CS in high school requires some amount of privilege.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Right, looking for signals of "passion" has to be done carefully so it doesn't become just a proxy for socioeconomic class. This is also true when thinking about "cultural fit" within a company.
  - munificent 8y ago
    This is an interesting case where the laws around interviewing may make this harder. What you want to measure in the interview is passion. What you can see is their accomplishment. But accomplishment is roughly passion × means. A rich person can accomplish more for the same effort because they have more power at their disposal. But you can't easily cancel out means in the interview because you sure as hell can't ask any direct questions about their socioeconomic level, for good reason.

whiddershins 8y ago

Most high end professional fields have some sort of certification process, the difficulty of which roughly corresponds to the level of damage a bad professional can do. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, and engineers can easily destroy or end lives in the course of their work and the certification process tends to weed out people who are in it for the money but not actually capable. I really don’t think your average CS grad can be said to be filtered in the same way.

cmorgan31 8y ago
Do you believe that computer engineers/scientists/developers could have just as much impact on someone's life? I personally feel like the field is too broad to say yes to that above question but in some domains of our field, it is definitely a yes. We might need a more regimented continuing education requirement similar to the legal field's CLE requirements to remain part of the state bar. As we see more profound effects from software we as an industry will eventually become a target.

freewilly1040 8y ago

While I agree with your point, the medical resident example is a poor one. Prospective medical _students_ are expected to basically devote their extra curricular free time to demonstrating their passion for medicine via volunteering, etc.

daveslash 8y ago

I agree with you, but I'd like to add to the "did you treat any diseases in high school". I knew someone in high school who wanted to be a doctor. She didn't cure any diseases or perform surgery, but she did read all that she could and was fascinated by medical-themed tv & movies. She had been inspired by her pediatrician when she was young. She did't treat people before becoming a doctor, but from early on she had the inspiration, passion, and drive. She became a doctor. She did it for the love of the profession, not solely because it was a "good paying job" (though, I'm sure that helped). I think coding in high school is the expression of having passion -- it's the passion that you should really be looking for, however that is expressed for profession X.

snowwrestler 8y ago
Sure, I didn't mean to imply that there aren't people who are passionate from a young age about being doctors--there certainly are! But, I think it's not taken as a necessary attribute within the medical field. There are a lot of great doctors who didn't decide to pursue medicine until college, or maybe even later, and as a whole the field seems fine with that.
- arkades 8y ago
  > There are a lot of great doctors who didn't decide to pursue medicine until college, or maybe even later, and as a whole the field seems fine with that. Med schools are increasingly selecting for that, in fact. Second careerists tend to do better (because they're adults), and have less burnout (because they're more likely to have made a knowledgeable adult decision about what they're getting into, rather than being disappointed reality didn't live up to fantasy.)
  - walshemj 8y ago
    One of the pioneers in the Pc business Ed Roberts (invented the altair 8800) did that. Eventually became a GP (family doctor) in Georgia
freehunter 8y ago

morgante 8y ago

> But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Many of the top people in other fields also have a strong passion for the field, which came early. Ex. top lawyers usually love the law and many had experience with related areas (ex. debate) from high school. I know plenty of high school students who are very excited about medicine and do things like volunteering at a local hospital or helping a professor with research. Early passion shouldn't be a requirement, but it's certainly a good indicator. I've never found someone who is only in tech for the money to be particularly good at it.

projektir 8y ago
> I've never found someone who is only in tech for the money to be particularly good at it. Those people certainly exist, so this just sounds like a bias on your part.
- my_usernam3 8y ago
  I agree, antidotally of course. I know plenty of people who are very intelligent (by most measurable ways) so they could do any profession they like. CS is a good profession right now so they picked it. Definitely no passion, but given their high functioning brains or what not, they are good at whatever they do. Don't get me wrong, I believe most who pick this profession due to its perks, tend to be worse then their computer inclined counterparts; but there are lots of examples of this just not being true.

Spooky23 8y ago

Higher end professional fields have more clear educational paths and job roles. Talk to 100 lawyers/doctors and you'll hear 4-5 similar job roles. Technology is totally different, 100 tech people will describe 20 roles. My professional career has been mostly engaged in implementation, customization, solution design and administration. I'm not a practitioner of Computer Science, I'm more like a hybrid of an engineer and a tradesman. I define an engineer as someone who applies known knowledge/methods and a scientist as someone seeking novel knowledge/methods. There's a spectrum between scientist, engineer, tradesman, technician, etc. Technology is different because you can enter as a tech or even a finance person and move into some engineering roles without formal education. Only a few corners of tech are off limits without formal knowledge.

akiselev 8y ago

Medicine may be more mature as an industry where education takes a little longer but it is not much different from software. Many of the best doctors (that I've had and know of) started out helping their parents with labwork as kids or interning at university labs in high school, helping with real research into biology or medicine. Likewise, there is a significant gulf between the doctors who chose the career because they are passionate about helping people and those who do it for the money or because of cultural pressure. There's so much work to do in both fields and we need all kinds of people, but there is certainly a difference in work environment when the team is dominated by one type or the other.

tayo42 8y ago

> "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. In a way it might be a way to weed out people who are reluctant to try something new. someone who only coded in highschool, a somewhat antisocial hobby, went through college and still only wants to code maybe didn't try anything new.

ivanche 8y ago
Have I understood correctly? Somebody who found his passion early in life and wants to pursue it further should be penalized for that?
- tayo42 8y ago
  I had a feeling this would be misinterpreted. I wasn't sure how to word it but no. It's possible to find your passion at a young age. I'm skeptical though. I think it would be a question to branch off of if your discussing it with someone. At 13 how much do you really know, or even really experienced. Lately I have been thinking that passion is something learned.

EthanHeilman 8y ago

> Imagine asking a prospective medical resident "did you treat any diseases in high school?" or "how much surgery do you do in your spare time?" I think software engineering is more like writing than medicine. Most writers, wrote in high school. Many writers write in their spare time. They have blogs, zines and long posts on facebook. I agree that not everyone has a opportunity to code in high school, nor should jobs exclude people who leaned later in life, however I think as the field matures more people will have more opportunities to code earlier in life.

ConcernedCoder 8y ago

Say what you will, but who would you rather have take out your appendix? The doctor who worked nights and weekends to put him/herself through medical school because it was the love of their life and their dream to help people?... or the guy/gal who only chose the same career path for the money?

emilfihlman 8y ago
Both are probably just as qualified because of standards. Also, those in it for the money have to do extremely well to earn that money. They can't just hand waive stuff regarding surgery.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Exactly. For someone to call themself a doctor, they had to at least go to medical school and pass the board exam. Even the worst lawyer passed the bar. Anyone who is a pilot has passed their FAA examination and check ride. Yet, anyone can call themself a “Software Engineer” with zero formal qualification and zero evidence of passing even a basic competence hurdle.
- ConcernedCoder 8y ago
  It seems pretty weird to have to argue the point that just like anything else in this life, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, cheese, wine, and toilet paper, there are good quality and bad quality... you get what you pay for, etc... why would this be any different?
rpedela 8y ago
How could you tell the difference?
- ConcernedCoder 8y ago
  How can you tell the difference between products/services made by someone who makes said things out of the sheer love of making them vs. someone who only makes said things when compensated properly? -- one word: QUALITY

Thu27Sep 8y ago

The medical resident analogy can't be used as an umbrella example proving that it's absurd to look for passion on a personal level. There are other professions where passion is almost always expected. Car mechanics are all about cars; plane pilots are all about planes; academics are all about whatever their subject is; architects are all about buildings and houses; anyone on the artistry side is all about their art. I believe that most engineers also have quite passion about their craft. Don't get a civil engineer started on how bridges stand unless your afternoon is free. In a sense I feel that this current trend of promoting software development as "just a job" is yet another step in the ditch that is forming between the ideal of "software engineering" and the reality of "software development". It's the way things are going and I have no strong feeling about it one way or another, but it seems obvious to me that employers would be more attracted to someone with passion for the craft, as well as fellow passionate wanting to work among a crowd like them.

Joeri 8y ago

Asking if they programmed in high school doesn’t necessarily gage their current passion anyway, just their one time passion. Perhaps it’s better to just ask directly: “can you give examples of how you’re passionate about programming?”

maxxxxx 8y ago

"But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. " Just to be clear: That's not what I meant with "caring".

vhbit 8y ago

What you are referring to sounds more like "passion" than "care" and those are 2 different things which express in different personal traits. Passion is nice, but as author above I'd prefer to have a person who cares about what they're doing over just a passionate person. Unfortunately to find a "caring" person is even harder than to find a passionate person.

thereare5lights 8y ago

enraged_camel 8y ago

>>But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Imagine asking a prospective medical resident "did you treat any diseases in high school?" or "how much surgery do you do in your spare time?" Not a fair comparison because the practice of medicine is not accessible anywhere to the same extent as the practice of programming. You need a license to practice medicine. You don't need one for programming. Similarly, surgeons need facilities and equipment to perform surgeries. The only thing programmers need is a computer. I think the OP has a point. I know several brilliant mechanical engineers for instance, and every single one of them used to tinker with cars and gadgets and whatever else they could get their hands on when growing up. Indeed, such a background is a strong signal for curiosity, which is an important factor in success and professional growth.

derefr 8y ago

Illustration, music and dance have been studied for thousands of years, but you can still tell who’s passionate about them from an early age: they do unskilled {drawing, singing, dancing} for fun. Even though there is basically no chance of their work having an impact on anyone at their skill level, they still do it. Mostly because their parents and teachers tell them nothing about how their work measures up by objective standards, instead encouraging them and appreciating anything that demonstrates growth in their skills compared to previous pieces. I don’t see why programming is any different. There’s not much difference between a crude drawing of a house in crayon, and a crude Pong clone in Scratch.