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The fact that programmers tend to not get better has little to do with programmers' inherent worth or talent. It has everything to do with how programmers are t
by jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
The fact that programmers tend to not get better has little to do with programmers' inherent worth or talent. It has everything to do with how programmers are trained. Employers are doing less and less to train their technical staffs, which has fostered a generation of programmers who believe that the right way to learn something is by Googling it or experimenting randomly on their own. Of course you're not going to get better this way.
- cloudhead 15y agoPart of talent is knowing how to learn the right way.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y agoMaybe true, but "knowing how to learn" doesn't completely cover it. It's absolutely possible to make middle-of-the-road developers into good developers through training and mentorship. It's just that many (possibly most) developers don't get opportunities for good training. They're expected to use their "talent" to figure things out on their own, which in most cases means Googling or trial-and-error experimentation. These are among the poorest, least efficient ways to learn.
- cloudhead 15y agoI agree, it's sad that not everyone gets the opportunity to have a great mentor. But somehow, when it's meant to be, most will still push through.
- Morcane 15y agoYou sound like my manager, refusing all requests for training, and saying 'HANG IN THERE BUD' all the time.
- davidjnelson 15y agoI think it comes down to drive. If you want it bad enough you'll figure it out. Don't understand the difference between the stack and the heap? Read about it for 4 hours after work, etc. etc. etc.