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Alright. Programming is like soccer. The barrier of entry is very low, but it doesn't mean every poor Brazilian kid will be a football genius. But they sure won

Alright. Programming is like soccer. The barrier of entry is very low, but it doesn't mean every poor Brazilian kid will be a football genius. But they sure won't be golf world champion. I grew up relatively poor in Hungary. Programming has been a great path to a good job for me, while it would have been more difficult to earn the same as a lawyer without connections. Programming levels the playing field compared to gatekept jobs where you must be born into a dynasty to really make it. In that sense it's easy. But it will still only be a part of the population who are well suited to do it.

leifg 6y ago
Fair point. It's all relative. By that definition it's much easier to become a programmer than to become a lawyer. 100% agree. Programming has a very appealing second property: there are tons of good paying jobs out there. And I think this combination of "you can get started super easy" and "you will earn above average" are two dangerous properties.
throw1234651234 6y ago
It's definitely the poor man's "good job" (I say that as a poor man) - med school is just not accessible to most people. At the very least, it's not accessible to the poor without laser-focus and being very lucky for about 15 years between about 15 and 30. Oh, and living on scraps.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> it doesn't mean every poor Brazilian kid will be a football genius This analogy always comes up in relation to programming, but I think it's not quite right: you don't have to be the equivalent of a "football genius" to be an effective programmer. If there was the same market for soccer players as there were for programmers, a lot more people would be professional soccer players - there are so few, and the ones that make it are so far ahead of everybody else, because there just aren't that many spots available.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Well, what regulates the amount of available spots in professional football? Why can't people create additional teams and play exciting matches that draw paying audiences? Is the bottleneck that spectator attention is already maxed out? But yes, the analogy is faulty if the bottleneck in football is the availability of the spots, because in programming the bottleneck is rather the availability of good enough new hires. We may be around the point where CS programmes have grown so much over the years that the marginal additional student may not have that good potential any more (out of a combination of motivation and talent). But a potential reserve talent to tap into could be women, but attracting them to programming has been an uphill battle and is a can-of-worms topic why.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    > what regulates the amount of available spots in professional football? You're only allowed 11 people on the pitch per side. Believe me, if it were possible to replace Ronaldo with a thousand less-skilled players paid a fraction of his wages, somebody would have tried it. You could even suggest hiring them for fractions of a match on an internet employment brokerage platform. Footballr.
    - bonoboTP 6y ago
      Okay, I agree it's not a perfect analogy but the football:golf = programming:law still holds I think. But I do agree that spectator sports are more winner-takes-all than programming jobs.
      - commandlinefan 6y ago
        To be clear - I agree that programming is hard (or else I'm REALLY stupid), but comparing programming ability to athletic ability always seemed wrong because the world needs WAY more programmers than it needs athletes. I'd guess that there are more professional programmers in the world than professional athletes of any kind. If the "market" for athletes were as broad as the market for programmers, you'd see a lot more comparatively mediocre athletes making a comfortable living at it.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Programming is not like soccer and golf, because people with great talent and skill for soccer and golf are all over the media. People who do not have major skill can look at them and compare their own skill level. But I think the OP (unintentionally) makes a telling point, which is that accessibility is confused with simplicity. We're seeing this in medicine now. Anyone can Google whatever so they're go to their doctors with Dunning Kruger on max and and say things that are really really stupid. Or they try to understand what's happening. And because they're spending hours on something the doctor spends a few minutes on, they - occasionally - manage to have an insight the doctor misses. Either way, medicine isn't quite the ineffably mysterious occupation it used to be. Of course it's not really any less complex, but the wall has been breached a little. The arts are similar. It's easy to buy some paint, so everyone has a go. It's easy to buy a guitar or synth and a DAW, so everyone has a go. The skill and learning required to be an expert becomes invisible because beginners try things, get unsophisticated results that make them happy but are a long way short of the real thing, and think "Well, that's not so hard." The problem isn't verbal gatekeeping, it's the lack of media representation of high levels of skill and professionalism. They're either portrayed as unimaginably mysterious, as soapy and trite (see most legal dramas), or as "And you can too..." There are few realistic depictions of the skill, knowledge, and practice required to be a professional in any field. Or of the insights and perceptions that professionals experience, but which untrained people don't.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  > There are few realistic depictions of the skill, knowledge, and practice required to be a professional in any field. YouTube is pretty good for this, both educational channels and edutainment (like Computerphile) and candid videos of people sharing their professional experience. Or code-alongs etc.

leifg 6y ago

Fair point. It's all relative. By that definition it's much easier to become a programmer than to become a lawyer. 100% agree. Programming has a very appealing second property: there are tons of good paying jobs out there. And I think this combination of "you can get started super easy" and "you will earn above average" are two dangerous properties.

throw1234651234 6y ago

It's definitely the poor man's "good job" (I say that as a poor man) - med school is just not accessible to most people. At the very least, it's not accessible to the poor without laser-focus and being very lucky for about 15 years between about 15 and 30. Oh, and living on scraps.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> it doesn't mean every poor Brazilian kid will be a football genius This analogy always comes up in relation to programming, but I think it's not quite right: you don't have to be the equivalent of a "football genius" to be an effective programmer. If there was the same market for soccer players as there were for programmers, a lot more people would be professional soccer players - there are so few, and the ones that make it are so far ahead of everybody else, because there just aren't that many spots available.

bonoboTP 6y ago
Well, what regulates the amount of available spots in professional football? Why can't people create additional teams and play exciting matches that draw paying audiences? Is the bottleneck that spectator attention is already maxed out? But yes, the analogy is faulty if the bottleneck in football is the availability of the spots, because in programming the bottleneck is rather the availability of good enough new hires. We may be around the point where CS programmes have grown so much over the years that the marginal additional student may not have that good potential any more (out of a combination of motivation and talent). But a potential reserve talent to tap into could be women, but attracting them to programming has been an uphill battle and is a can-of-worms topic why.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > what regulates the amount of available spots in professional football? You're only allowed 11 people on the pitch per side. Believe me, if it were possible to replace Ronaldo with a thousand less-skilled players paid a fraction of his wages, somebody would have tried it. You could even suggest hiring them for fractions of a match on an internet employment brokerage platform. Footballr.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    Okay, I agree it's not a perfect analogy but the football:golf = programming:law still holds I think. But I do agree that spectator sports are more winner-takes-all than programming jobs.
    - commandlinefan 6y ago
      To be clear - I agree that programming is hard (or else I'm REALLY stupid), but comparing programming ability to athletic ability always seemed wrong because the world needs WAY more programmers than it needs athletes. I'd guess that there are more professional programmers in the world than professional athletes of any kind. If the "market" for athletes were as broad as the market for programmers, you'd see a lot more comparatively mediocre athletes making a comfortable living at it.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Programming is not like soccer and golf, because people with great talent and skill for soccer and golf are all over the media. People who do not have major skill can look at them and compare their own skill level. But I think the OP (unintentionally) makes a telling point, which is that accessibility is confused with simplicity. We're seeing this in medicine now. Anyone can Google whatever so they're go to their doctors with Dunning Kruger on max and and say things that are really really stupid. Or they try to understand what's happening. And because they're spending hours on something the doctor spends a few minutes on, they - occasionally - manage to have an insight the doctor misses. Either way, medicine isn't quite the ineffably mysterious occupation it used to be. Of course it's not really any less complex, but the wall has been breached a little. The arts are similar. It's easy to buy some paint, so everyone has a go. It's easy to buy a guitar or synth and a DAW, so everyone has a go. The skill and learning required to be an expert becomes invisible because beginners try things, get unsophisticated results that make them happy but are a long way short of the real thing, and think "Well, that's not so hard." The problem isn't verbal gatekeeping, it's the lack of media representation of high levels of skill and professionalism. They're either portrayed as unimaginably mysterious, as soapy and trite (see most legal dramas), or as "And you can too..." There are few realistic depictions of the skill, knowledge, and practice required to be a professional in any field. Or of the insights and perceptions that professionals experience, but which untrained people don't.

bonoboTP 6y ago
> There are few realistic depictions of the skill, knowledge, and practice required to be a professional in any field. YouTube is pretty good for this, both educational channels and edutainment (like Computerphile) and candid videos of people sharing their professional experience. Or code-alongs etc.