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I'm just exploring an idea here but I wonder if the point is that practicing language skills (writing, reading, presenting) are as important as practicing techn
by givehimagun 8y ago
I'm just exploring an idea here but I wonder if the point is that practicing language skills (writing, reading, presenting) are as important as practicing technical skills (computer science, chemistry, math). I might argue that in the business world, we call those language skills soft skills and that they are VERY important in the success of software developers. A great developer who can't communicate or express their ideas thoughtfully struggles more than a less technically inclined developer who communicates more effectively.
One of my favorite interactions to see is when my developers have a thoughtful conversation on a pull request and come up with a creative solution together using a combination of their language and technical skills. Maybe we need people to do both?
- sanderjd 8y agoYep, I (easily) spend less than half my time programming. The rest is writing and talking, sometimes to relate facts and sometimes to persuade. I think these skills are more important than just knowing how to write code after a relatively small number of years of experience (maybe 5 to 10). (Unfortunately we don't know how to interview for this and still give people at this level the same coding focused interviews, but that's a whole different discussion...)
- contextfree 8y agoTaking this back to academic subjects, I wonder if studying philosophy might be some of the best academic training for this side of programming work.