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The real problem is that coding is more like being a great musician than a traditional engineer. It's like telling Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, George Benson, o

by belter 2y ago

The real problem is that coding is more like being a great musician than a traditional engineer. It's like telling Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, George Benson, or Wes Montgomery that they're not qualified to teach at a music conservatory because they lack formal diplomas. Sure, technically they're not "certified," but put them next to your average conservatory professor and they'll play circles around 99.99% of them. Same goes for brilliant coders versus formal engineers.

WillAdams 2y ago
Trying to think of the coding analogues to those folks. The only ones I can think of are folks who are self-taught, e.g., Bill Gates, but he famously noted that he had read the three (then extant) volumes of Knuth's _The Art of Computer Programming_, sometimes taking an entire day to contemplate a single page/idea/exercise (and doing all the exercises) and then going on to say that anyone who had read all three volumes (and with the unspoken caveat of "also done all the exercises") should send him a Résumé. My best friend in high school was a self-taught guitarist, incredibly talented, he also had perfect pitch, and a wonderful insight into what a given piece of music was expressing. All? of the original self-taught programmers were in an academic context, no? Even those who aren't have either read or researched a great deal, or they have laboriously re-created algorithms and coding concepts from first principles. Maybe this is just another example of how society has not yet mastered the concept of education?
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Or, to channel an old martial arts conceit: >There are masters of a thing, and then there are masters of a thing. Where the difference is, some folks can do, but can't teach/communicate what they do or how they do it, while other folks have both mastered a skill, and are able to raise others up in how to also learn that skill. My guitar-playing friend also would wear out cassette tapes and records playing back specific sequences working out how they had been played, and perfecting his technique....

by belter 2y ago

WillAdams 2y ago

Trying to think of the coding analogues to those folks. The only ones I can think of are folks who are self-taught, e.g., Bill Gates, but he famously noted that he had read the three (then extant) volumes of Knuth's _The Art of Computer Programming_, sometimes taking an entire day to contemplate a single page/idea/exercise (and doing all the exercises) and then going on to say that anyone who had read all three volumes (and with the unspoken caveat of "also done all the exercises") should send him a Résumé. My best friend in high school was a self-taught guitarist, incredibly talented, he also had perfect pitch, and a wonderful insight into what a given piece of music was expressing. All? of the original self-taught programmers were in an academic context, no? Even those who aren't have either read or researched a great deal, or they have laboriously re-created algorithms and coding concepts from first principles. Maybe this is just another example of how society has not yet mastered the concept of education?

WillAdams 2y ago
Or, to channel an old martial arts conceit: >There are masters of a thing, and then there are masters of a thing. Where the difference is, some folks can do, but can't teach/communicate what they do or how they do it, while other folks have both mastered a skill, and are able to raise others up in how to also learn that skill. My guitar-playing friend also would wear out cassette tapes and records playing back specific sequences working out how they had been played, and perfecting his technique....