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If surgeons were able to begin honing their craft at 13, they’d probably be better than the ones who started in their twenties. Programming’s low barrier to ent

If surgeons were able to begin honing their craft at 13, they’d probably be better than the ones who started in their twenties. Programming’s low barrier to entry creates issues that don’t apply to other professions. How many virtuoso pianists didn’t start playing until adulthood?

lapcat 4y ago
> If surgeons were able to begin honing their craft at 13, they’d probably be better than the ones who started in their twenties. If you don't count the dead bodies they leave behind on the way. > How many virtuoso pianists didn’t start playing until adulthood? How many virtuoso pianists are there in the world? How many professional programmers are "virtuosos"? How many companies even need virtuoso programmers, and how many companies could afford to pay them? I don't think it's a useful comparison. It's also important to recognize that a ton of kids learn how to play musical instruments, but very few end up as virtuosos. Hacking around with computers as a teenager means very little by itself.
- rustybelt 4y ago
  I agree with you on the first point. I will not be signing up to have a seventh grader remove my gallbladder. Regarding pianists, I think you can replace “virtuoso” with “professional” and the point still stands.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Regarding pianists, I think you can replace “virtuoso” with “professional” and the point still stands. Does it? Professional piano playing doesn't seem to be a particularly large or lucrative profession compared to others such as tech. If you're Elton John or Billy Joel, then great, but otherwise not so much. It makes sense that the music industry is populated largely by people naturally attracted to music, because the route to financial stability, much less financial success, is very precarious.
    - rustybelt 4y ago
      I’m just talking about skill level. People with the skill to be a professional musician almost certainly began playing as child.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        Depends on what you mean by "skill". There are songwriters, indeed famous songwriters, who are not particularly skilled technically. Is songwriting a skill? Is it inspiration? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - erik_seaberg 4y ago
      Computing also wasn’t a large, lucrative profession before the Web. Anyone involved in hiring knows how many more marginal candidates there are now.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        The earliest historical opportunity for 13 year olds to program computers was likely with the release of the Apple II in 1977. Born in 1964, 22 years old in 1986, 58 years old today. This is at the very earliest. The supply of previous 13 year old "hackers" would have still likely been extremely low for the entire decade of 1986-1996. Mostly a non-factor, I'd say. For the older generation of programmers, their first access to computers at all would have been in college, not in junior high school.
        erik_seaberg 4y ago
        I agree there was a generation who had to wait for timesharing, but there were something like six million Apple IIs and twelve million Commodore 64s out there (counting mine) by the mid-80s, and users who filtered into the profession had different motivations than the people who grew up on stories of dot-com IPO millionaires.
        lapcat 4y ago
- civilized 4y ago
  I don't understand what point you're trying to make here. It seems like nitpicking on points that no one was making in the first place. If people are interested in something and can start practicing early, you can see big differences in skill early on that affect who is found in the occupation later and how successful they are. Professional musicians and programmers are both examples of this. Surgeons aren't. What are you disputing about this thesis?
  - lapcat 4y ago
    1) Starting early is no guarantee of anything. You see big differences in skills from different kids who start at the same age. 2) To become a virtuoso, you do have to practice obsessively, many hours a day every day. (I remember Steve Vai saying he practiced 10+ hours a day.) Again, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to achieve virtuosity. 3) Do virtuoso musicians have start young? I don't know. Kids have the most free time and the fewest responsibilities and other distractions. (It probably helps to start before you're old enough to date.) Few adults have the time or inclination to practice to the obsessive level required. 4) Most "teenage hackers" do not practice obsessively at the level of virtuoso musicians. 5) Most professional programmers are not virtuosos. 6) The music industry is not like the tech industry. And anyway, most of the money is made by songwriting, not by virtuoso performances. The analogy between tech and music (or between tech and sports for that matter) is not a good or useful one. The music industry is practically speaking a bad career choice. Only a lucky few do well. There's a reason it's filled with people who have no life except for music.
    - civilized 4y ago
      Okay. It seems to me that you've provided a list of differences between tech and music and on this basis say it's a bad analogy. But analogies are by definition a partial resemblance. The point of an analogy is to make a comparison on a relevant dimension. The relevant dimension here is what my GP post tried to explain. Phrases like "no guarantee" also seem beside the point. Nothing is a guarantee of anything in this context. We're talking about factors that influence things.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > How many professional programmers are "virtuosos"? Technically speaking, I believe that "virtuoso programmer" is the next level up in skill above "rock star programmer", who's typically someone who only learned to code in their rebellious teenage years. So, about 10X less common perhaps.

lapcat 4y ago

> If surgeons were able to begin honing their craft at 13, they’d probably be better than the ones who started in their twenties. If you don't count the dead bodies they leave behind on the way. > How many virtuoso pianists didn’t start playing until adulthood? How many virtuoso pianists are there in the world? How many professional programmers are "virtuosos"? How many companies even need virtuoso programmers, and how many companies could afford to pay them? I don't think it's a useful comparison. It's also important to recognize that a ton of kids learn how to play musical instruments, but very few end up as virtuosos. Hacking around with computers as a teenager means very little by itself.

rustybelt 4y ago
I agree with you on the first point. I will not be signing up to have a seventh grader remove my gallbladder. Regarding pianists, I think you can replace “virtuoso” with “professional” and the point still stands.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Regarding pianists, I think you can replace “virtuoso” with “professional” and the point still stands. Does it? Professional piano playing doesn't seem to be a particularly large or lucrative profession compared to others such as tech. If you're Elton John or Billy Joel, then great, but otherwise not so much. It makes sense that the music industry is populated largely by people naturally attracted to music, because the route to financial stability, much less financial success, is very precarious.
  - rustybelt 4y ago
    I’m just talking about skill level. People with the skill to be a professional musician almost certainly began playing as child.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      Depends on what you mean by "skill". There are songwriters, indeed famous songwriters, who are not particularly skilled technically. Is songwriting a skill? Is it inspiration? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - erik_seaberg 4y ago
    Computing also wasn’t a large, lucrative profession before the Web. Anyone involved in hiring knows how many more marginal candidates there are now.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      The earliest historical opportunity for 13 year olds to program computers was likely with the release of the Apple II in 1977. Born in 1964, 22 years old in 1986, 58 years old today. This is at the very earliest. The supply of previous 13 year old "hackers" would have still likely been extremely low for the entire decade of 1986-1996. Mostly a non-factor, I'd say. For the older generation of programmers, their first access to computers at all would have been in college, not in junior high school.
      - erik_seaberg 4y ago
        I agree there was a generation who had to wait for timesharing, but there were something like six million Apple IIs and twelve million Commodore 64s out there (counting mine) by the mid-80s, and users who filtered into the profession had different motivations than the people who grew up on stories of dot-com IPO millionaires.
        lapcat 4y ago
civilized 4y ago
I don't understand what point you're trying to make here. It seems like nitpicking on points that no one was making in the first place. If people are interested in something and can start practicing early, you can see big differences in skill early on that affect who is found in the occupation later and how successful they are. Professional musicians and programmers are both examples of this. Surgeons aren't. What are you disputing about this thesis?
- lapcat 4y ago
  1) Starting early is no guarantee of anything. You see big differences in skills from different kids who start at the same age. 2) To become a virtuoso, you do have to practice obsessively, many hours a day every day. (I remember Steve Vai saying he practiced 10+ hours a day.) Again, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to achieve virtuosity. 3) Do virtuoso musicians have start young? I don't know. Kids have the most free time and the fewest responsibilities and other distractions. (It probably helps to start before you're old enough to date.) Few adults have the time or inclination to practice to the obsessive level required. 4) Most "teenage hackers" do not practice obsessively at the level of virtuoso musicians. 5) Most professional programmers are not virtuosos. 6) The music industry is not like the tech industry. And anyway, most of the money is made by songwriting, not by virtuoso performances. The analogy between tech and music (or between tech and sports for that matter) is not a good or useful one. The music industry is practically speaking a bad career choice. Only a lucky few do well. There's a reason it's filled with people who have no life except for music.
  - civilized 4y ago
    Okay. It seems to me that you've provided a list of differences between tech and music and on this basis say it's a bad analogy. But analogies are by definition a partial resemblance. The point of an analogy is to make a comparison on a relevant dimension. The relevant dimension here is what my GP post tried to explain. Phrases like "no guarantee" also seem beside the point. Nothing is a guarantee of anything in this context. We're talking about factors that influence things.
zozbot234 4y ago
> How many professional programmers are "virtuosos"? Technically speaking, I believe that "virtuoso programmer" is the next level up in skill above "rock star programmer", who's typically someone who only learned to code in their rebellious teenage years. So, about 10X less common perhaps.