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Agreed. Tech has a built-in gatekeeping mechanism due to the steep learning curve most people hit right at the beginning. No one is getting taught the fundament

Agreed. Tech has a built-in gatekeeping mechanism due to the steep learning curve most people hit right at the beginning. No one is getting taught the fundamentals in school and it can be very hard to wrap your mind around it at first. Meanwhile, many other skills that are dismissed are ones where we got over the initial hump as children in school and the curve gets steeper much later, once you're trying to become a professional.

asdff 6y ago
Once high schools actually start offering programming classes, and CS departments open their courses to the rest of the college, this gate keeping will evaporate overnight. A lot of 'coder-first' programmers might see themselves at a disadvantage in job prospects in the future, especially compared to a math, stats, engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, history, geography, accounting, business, or any other majors really, who not only know how to code well enough for most jobs, but most importantly, how to apply their knowledge of programming to unique problems in their complex field. A lot of other fields do a great job at training you to be an independent investigator first and foremost, specific knowledge second. This is one of the shortcomings mentioned to me from my friends who graduated with CS degrees: a lack of solid reinforcement on hypothesis driven analytical thinking especially, and too much emphasis on algorithms they never used again once they passed that particular exam. A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github.
- growlist 6y ago
  > A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github. Sadly not my experience in the UK - it's all top grades in maths/physics/comp sci, x years experience on x ridiculously long and highly specific list of technical skills.

asdff 6y ago

Once high schools actually start offering programming classes, and CS departments open their courses to the rest of the college, this gate keeping will evaporate overnight. A lot of 'coder-first' programmers might see themselves at a disadvantage in job prospects in the future, especially compared to a math, stats, engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, history, geography, accounting, business, or any other majors really, who not only know how to code well enough for most jobs, but most importantly, how to apply their knowledge of programming to unique problems in their complex field. A lot of other fields do a great job at training you to be an independent investigator first and foremost, specific knowledge second. This is one of the shortcomings mentioned to me from my friends who graduated with CS degrees: a lack of solid reinforcement on hypothesis driven analytical thinking especially, and too much emphasis on algorithms they never used again once they passed that particular exam. A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github.

growlist 6y ago
> A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github. Sadly not my experience in the UK - it's all top grades in maths/physics/comp sci, x years experience on x ridiculously long and highly specific list of technical skills.