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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 lik

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.