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Weightlifting isn't football. But if you get huge enough, your size from weightlifting predicts success in football. Even if CS doesn't directly translate, if

Weightlifting isn't football. But if you get huge enough, your size from weightlifting predicts success in football. Even if CS doesn't directly translate, if you can jump through the mental hoops, it likely predicts success in software engineering. You will likely do well in S/W Engineering if you have a high IQ and you have attention to detail. Since it is illegal to filter people by IQ in the USA, you have to jump through an expensive hoop to prove you have a high IQ, which also happens to vet for attention to detail and ability to focus on tasks. There is no reason that s/w engineering couldn't be taught using an apprenticeship model after doing an IQ test, but the later is illegal.

novok 5y ago
A lot of software writing jobs don’t require a degree although in the the usa.
- Mastermindy2g 5y ago
  Those tend to be primarily web development roles (i.e HTML/CSS) or doing some basic scripting not for "full stack" devs creating complex web applications. I do agree though that somebody wanting to enter a software development role might as well skip the CS degree and learn the basics to enter these 'entry level' dev jobs while learning the more complex stuff in parallel to level up
dml2135 5y ago
I'm not aware of it being illegal to use IQ as criteria in hiring in the USA, do you have a source for that? I'm sure the reason it's not done is because it would be an extremely bad predictor of success in a job, not because it isn't legal.
- bumbledraven 5y ago
  https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-j... : > … in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) [1], … the Supreme Court ruled that intelligence tests, because they were not shown to be directly related to job performance, could not be used in hiring since blacks scored lower on them, and it did not matter whether there was any intent to discriminate. > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
- ldiracdelta 5y ago
  For some reason, there are a few parallel IQ tests that are allowed to continue, despite the Supreme Court ruling against IQ tests. The NFL still uses the Wonderlic test and the US military has IQ tests. If the Wonderlic test did nothing, might not the NFL drop it? As a single number, the IQ test has indeed been found to be a fantastic predictor of the success of a person, despite objections. People hate on it all day long, and perhaps their reasons to hate it are correct, but it remains an extremely useful as a _heuristic_, if you're allowed to measure it. The alternative seems to be 4 years of schooling that saddles the student with crushing and increasingly-crushing amounts of debt. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_General_Classification_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_General_Classification_Te... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
jl2718 5y ago
Off-topic, but I've known a few people that went pro, and in all cases, the causality definitely went in the opposite direction. They all hardly ever touched weights until they were told they'd have to for the combine. And then they got very good at it, but I'm not sure it made them any better. We also had a guy that set a youth world record in the deadlift. He was pretty good, but no pro. The agility tests are supposed to be better, but I've never seen an instance of anybody getting a whole lot better at them through training. The basketball combine is even harder to analyze. One thing that stood out as predictive was the slope of the unweighting curve prior to motion. Good luck training that. They lift weights mostly for injury prevention. Not saying there's any relevant analogy to CS.
- ambicapter 5y ago
  > the slope of the unweighting curve prior to motion What in the dickens is that? A graph of instantaneous force production?
  - jl2718 5y ago
    At rest the player exerts force (weight) on the ground. When the player begins to jump or pivot, they have to pull their feet upward to either move them, or lower their center of gravity. This can be measured as a decrease in weight (force) exerted on the ground.
- i_haz_rabies 5y ago
  This is almost universally true in hockey. Promising prospect makes the NHL, disappoints in his first season, hits the gym and packs on 20lbs, comes back and lights it up.
  - jl2718 5y ago
    I know very little about what actually happens post-draft, but I’ll admit that many superstar players seem to add supraphysiological muscle mass over their careers.
kbenson 5y ago
> Weightlifting isn't football. But if you get huge enough, your size from weightlifting predicts success in football. Yes, but I imagine most people that got (some theoretical) degree in weight lifting or physical science wouldn't lament that it didn't teach them all the things they expected it to about being a good football player, but that's exactly what we get with Computer Science and Software Engineering. A good foundation helps with some aspects of good software engineering, or helps steer some decisions, but by no means does it necessarily teach good software engineering (some programs might have some classes). I doubt that keeps the students from complaining about how they aren't actually being taught specifically to program, just like they did when I was in a CS program a couple decades ago. I wonder if the training colleges that teach programming actually focus more on good software engineering practices? If so, they might actually come out of those institutions better prepared for the low end of the market than CS grads. For the middle of the market, a CS degree might give a leg up. For the high end, I imagine personal drive to learn and aptitude has long surpassed whatever advantage a CS degree gave. From what I've seen, the most knowledgeable and respected and accomplished people don't seem all that heavily weighted towards having a CS degree over another one.
- ldiracdelta 5y ago
  My first undergrad degree was in another engineering major that wasn't CS -- you can guess which from my name. Wall Street was heavily recruiting from my major, despite us being taught absolutely nothing about finance or even business and only having the basics of CS teaching. The reason they were doing this is because we were smart and knew how to decompose really hard problems. We basically knew nothing about financial tech, but they wanted us because if you can do X, then you can probably do Y. Even in my other engineering major, the complaints were the same. Everybody complained that You Aint Gonna Need It (YAGNI) for many classes and that _real_ industry wouldn't use it. However, if you can learn and use these really hard concepts, you can probably learn and use these _other_ really hard concepts in industry.
politician 5y ago
> There is no reason that s/w engineering couldn't be taught using an apprenticeship model after doing an IQ test, but the later is illegal. This is literally how Software Engineering is taught. The IQ test is the brain teaser questions that you get from the interviewers, and the apprenticeship is the 2-3 years of work that you do for the company before you bounce to the next place for the pay raise.

novok 5y ago

A lot of software writing jobs don’t require a degree although in the the usa.

Mastermindy2g 5y ago
Those tend to be primarily web development roles (i.e HTML/CSS) or doing some basic scripting not for "full stack" devs creating complex web applications. I do agree though that somebody wanting to enter a software development role might as well skip the CS degree and learn the basics to enter these 'entry level' dev jobs while learning the more complex stuff in parallel to level up

dml2135 5y ago

I'm not aware of it being illegal to use IQ as criteria in hiring in the USA, do you have a source for that? I'm sure the reason it's not done is because it would be an extremely bad predictor of success in a job, not because it isn't legal.

bumbledraven 5y ago
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-j... : > … in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) [1], … the Supreme Court ruled that intelligence tests, because they were not shown to be directly related to job performance, could not be used in hiring since blacks scored lower on them, and it did not matter whether there was any intent to discriminate. > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
ldiracdelta 5y ago
For some reason, there are a few parallel IQ tests that are allowed to continue, despite the Supreme Court ruling against IQ tests. The NFL still uses the Wonderlic test and the US military has IQ tests. If the Wonderlic test did nothing, might not the NFL drop it? As a single number, the IQ test has indeed been found to be a fantastic predictor of the success of a person, despite objections. People hate on it all day long, and perhaps their reasons to hate it are correct, but it remains an extremely useful as a _heuristic_, if you're allowed to measure it. The alternative seems to be 4 years of schooling that saddles the student with crushing and increasingly-crushing amounts of debt. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_General_Classification_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_General_Classification_Te... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jl2718 5y ago

Off-topic, but I've known a few people that went pro, and in all cases, the causality definitely went in the opposite direction. They all hardly ever touched weights until they were told they'd have to for the combine. And then they got very good at it, but I'm not sure it made them any better. We also had a guy that set a youth world record in the deadlift. He was pretty good, but no pro. The agility tests are supposed to be better, but I've never seen an instance of anybody getting a whole lot better at them through training. The basketball combine is even harder to analyze. One thing that stood out as predictive was the slope of the unweighting curve prior to motion. Good luck training that. They lift weights mostly for injury prevention. Not saying there's any relevant analogy to CS.

ambicapter 5y ago
> the slope of the unweighting curve prior to motion What in the dickens is that? A graph of instantaneous force production?
- jl2718 5y ago
  At rest the player exerts force (weight) on the ground. When the player begins to jump or pivot, they have to pull their feet upward to either move them, or lower their center of gravity. This can be measured as a decrease in weight (force) exerted on the ground.
i_haz_rabies 5y ago
This is almost universally true in hockey. Promising prospect makes the NHL, disappoints in his first season, hits the gym and packs on 20lbs, comes back and lights it up.
- jl2718 5y ago
  I know very little about what actually happens post-draft, but I’ll admit that many superstar players seem to add supraphysiological muscle mass over their careers.

kbenson 5y ago

> Weightlifting isn't football. But if you get huge enough, your size from weightlifting predicts success in football. Yes, but I imagine most people that got (some theoretical) degree in weight lifting or physical science wouldn't lament that it didn't teach them all the things they expected it to about being a good football player, but that's exactly what we get with Computer Science and Software Engineering. A good foundation helps with some aspects of good software engineering, or helps steer some decisions, but by no means does it necessarily teach good software engineering (some programs might have some classes). I doubt that keeps the students from complaining about how they aren't actually being taught specifically to program, just like they did when I was in a CS program a couple decades ago. I wonder if the training colleges that teach programming actually focus more on good software engineering practices? If so, they might actually come out of those institutions better prepared for the low end of the market than CS grads. For the middle of the market, a CS degree might give a leg up. For the high end, I imagine personal drive to learn and aptitude has long surpassed whatever advantage a CS degree gave. From what I've seen, the most knowledgeable and respected and accomplished people don't seem all that heavily weighted towards having a CS degree over another one.

ldiracdelta 5y ago
My first undergrad degree was in another engineering major that wasn't CS -- you can guess which from my name. Wall Street was heavily recruiting from my major, despite us being taught absolutely nothing about finance or even business and only having the basics of CS teaching. The reason they were doing this is because we were smart and knew how to decompose really hard problems. We basically knew nothing about financial tech, but they wanted us because if you can do X, then you can probably do Y. Even in my other engineering major, the complaints were the same. Everybody complained that You Aint Gonna Need It (YAGNI) for many classes and that _real_ industry wouldn't use it. However, if you can learn and use these really hard concepts, you can probably learn and use these _other_ really hard concepts in industry.

politician 5y ago

> There is no reason that s/w engineering couldn't be taught using an apprenticeship model after doing an IQ test, but the later is illegal. This is literally how Software Engineering is taught. The IQ test is the brain teaser questions that you get from the interviewers, and the apprenticeship is the 2-3 years of work that you do for the company before you bounce to the next place for the pay raise.