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"You can learn how to be a lawyer in a few months in your spare time if you're cut out for it" would be considered a ridiculous statement. Perhaps you could lea

"You can learn how to be a lawyer in a few months in your spare time if you're cut out for it" would be considered a ridiculous statement. Perhaps you could learn enough to be an assistant to a legal secretary. The same applies to programming.

jimmaswell 7y ago
They're not the same thing at all. Being a lawyer involves cramming in an enormous volume of rote information over many years and passing an exhaustive exam; programming is just a combination of problem solving, being able to deal with abstract concepts and how computers work, and learning a relatively small amount of syntax and general concepts. You can easily get a grip on all that in a few months if it's your thing.
- johnsimer 7y ago
  I disagree that it takes just a few months. I'd say there are tons of hidden dependencies you have to learn in writing programs. Stuff that the tutorials and books often leave out. And that most developers take a few years to learn these dependencies, because there currently is no widely-known easy way to learn all this "tribal knowledge". And when universities try to systematize ways to learn this tribal knowledge, they come up with a curriculum that takes most people 4 years to get through. (Yes there are many smart developers who could learn the curriculum faster.)
- yawaramin 7y ago
  > learning a relatively small amount of syntax and general concepts In what programming job?! Junior frontend dev churning out React components? Even there you're dealing with a dizzying array of HTML, CSS, and ever-changing JavaScript/Babel/Webpack/etc. insanity. In a few months you can barely produce some simple, low-quality code. It takes a lot longer for the concepts of good quality code to sink in.
  - pas 7y ago
    junior PHP dev. basically on the job training. it's always very costly, because it requires a very involved supervisor.
povertyworld 7y ago
There was a time when it was possible to sit for the bar exam without having to pay rent to a law school, but naturally the law schools lobbied to change this.
1123581321 7y ago
Law is similar to programming in that you can learn a lot of the principles in a few months, and you can also learn how to do a lot of the day-to-day work in a specialty area. Learning large volumes of case law is analogous to learning the details of low level programming; both fields require years to master. But those details are not required for a lot of work in either field.

jimmaswell 7y ago

They're not the same thing at all. Being a lawyer involves cramming in an enormous volume of rote information over many years and passing an exhaustive exam; programming is just a combination of problem solving, being able to deal with abstract concepts and how computers work, and learning a relatively small amount of syntax and general concepts. You can easily get a grip on all that in a few months if it's your thing.

johnsimer 7y ago
I disagree that it takes just a few months. I'd say there are tons of hidden dependencies you have to learn in writing programs. Stuff that the tutorials and books often leave out. And that most developers take a few years to learn these dependencies, because there currently is no widely-known easy way to learn all this "tribal knowledge". And when universities try to systematize ways to learn this tribal knowledge, they come up with a curriculum that takes most people 4 years to get through. (Yes there are many smart developers who could learn the curriculum faster.)
yawaramin 7y ago
> learning a relatively small amount of syntax and general concepts In what programming job?! Junior frontend dev churning out React components? Even there you're dealing with a dizzying array of HTML, CSS, and ever-changing JavaScript/Babel/Webpack/etc. insanity. In a few months you can barely produce some simple, low-quality code. It takes a lot longer for the concepts of good quality code to sink in.
- pas 7y ago
  junior PHP dev. basically on the job training. it's always very costly, because it requires a very involved supervisor.

povertyworld 7y ago

There was a time when it was possible to sit for the bar exam without having to pay rent to a law school, but naturally the law schools lobbied to change this.

1123581321 7y ago

Law is similar to programming in that you can learn a lot of the principles in a few months, and you can also learn how to do a lot of the day-to-day work in a specialty area. Learning large volumes of case law is analogous to learning the details of low level programming; both fields require years to master. But those details are not required for a lot of work in either field.