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i don't mean to be harsh. But it seems like everyone thinks they can easily become a programmer no matter their background. We don't have these kinds of beliefs

i don't mean to be harsh. But it seems like everyone thinks they can easily become a programmer no matter their background. We don't have these kinds of beliefs for doctors/lawyers or enginners but we falsely believe anyone can become a programmer in a couple of months. If you are homeless, learn programming. If you're just out of Jail, learn programming. If you drop out of middle school and is afraid of math, learn programming. Programmers belittle their own professions. Perhaps it is because programming is permissionless , so people believe it is easier. But just because everyone can start a youtube channel doesn't mean you can easily become an influencer. Same for programmers.

vector_spaces 3y ago
We don't have those kinds of beliefs for doctors and lawyers in part because the stakes are different -- a mistake in our profession usually means something breaks silently and nobody ever notices or is worse for it. Or maybe a site goes down or a user sees a strange error message or an app is slow. On the other hand, mistakes from doctors and lawyers can ruin or destroy lives and cause actual suffering. There are exceptions in our industry where the stakes are that high, but even in those settings there are often technical and operational controls to minimize risk and allow newer folks to gain experience safely And it does seem that programming and some actionable amount of CS can be learned in some months. Maybe the same is true for lawyering and medical practice but I doubt it Anyway, I find this attitude mostly to be condescending and pointless gatekeeping. It turns out that a CS degree doesn't imply that someone is a strong problem solver, architect, communicator, leader or has deep technical skills, as a college dropout who barely graduated from high school who has now mentored lots of folks with CS degrees
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
It's kind of awesome & amazing how much better coders work as a team. Doctors are on the line for dealing with patients: they don't consult or make a Patient Treatment Request for every thing they do. Lawyers don't get everything vetter. But in software we work in teams, and most lines of code get checked over. Most companies expect to be hiring juniors, who, even if they have 4 years undergrad, still have no idea how actually to build software in practice. It's a team effort. And frankly, at most places, the CS has only a minor bit of overlap with the day to day. I spend more time with juniors flailing trying to understand how Kong and Docker relate than I do with people writing O(N^2) algorithms. Tech has infinite minutia, has endless tech-specific problems we run into. We don't have to train people to be able to take care of anything, to be able to stand alone: we just need to support & guide people who are set up to learn & explore. There's so much twiddling bits until the things start working as desired that experts and novices both have to go through, and just pounding into people's head the idea that it's a journey, that you have to keep going, that you need to look for data (and showing them new ways to read data out) counts more than background, in my view. It's worth noting that while doctors and lawyers have a long amount of training expected, it's possible to become a registered nurse or any of a variety of paralegal roles in under a year. Unlike these professions, we rarely expect devs to emerge into the professional world fully formed & capable of autonomously leading.

vector_spaces 3y ago

We don't have those kinds of beliefs for doctors and lawyers in part because the stakes are different -- a mistake in our profession usually means something breaks silently and nobody ever notices or is worse for it. Or maybe a site goes down or a user sees a strange error message or an app is slow. On the other hand, mistakes from doctors and lawyers can ruin or destroy lives and cause actual suffering. There are exceptions in our industry where the stakes are that high, but even in those settings there are often technical and operational controls to minimize risk and allow newer folks to gain experience safely And it does seem that programming and some actionable amount of CS can be learned in some months. Maybe the same is true for lawyering and medical practice but I doubt it Anyway, I find this attitude mostly to be condescending and pointless gatekeeping. It turns out that a CS degree doesn't imply that someone is a strong problem solver, architect, communicator, leader or has deep technical skills, as a college dropout who barely graduated from high school who has now mentored lots of folks with CS degrees

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

It's kind of awesome & amazing how much better coders work as a team. Doctors are on the line for dealing with patients: they don't consult or make a Patient Treatment Request for every thing they do. Lawyers don't get everything vetter. But in software we work in teams, and most lines of code get checked over. Most companies expect to be hiring juniors, who, even if they have 4 years undergrad, still have no idea how actually to build software in practice. It's a team effort. And frankly, at most places, the CS has only a minor bit of overlap with the day to day. I spend more time with juniors flailing trying to understand how Kong and Docker relate than I do with people writing O(N^2) algorithms. Tech has infinite minutia, has endless tech-specific problems we run into. We don't have to train people to be able to take care of anything, to be able to stand alone: we just need to support & guide people who are set up to learn & explore. There's so much twiddling bits until the things start working as desired that experts and novices both have to go through, and just pounding into people's head the idea that it's a journey, that you have to keep going, that you need to look for data (and showing them new ways to read data out) counts more than background, in my view. It's worth noting that while doctors and lawyers have a long amount of training expected, it's possible to become a registered nurse or any of a variety of paralegal roles in under a year. Unlike these professions, we rarely expect devs to emerge into the professional world fully formed & capable of autonomously leading.