5 ms·

<<until [they are] specialized>> Hate to be a stickler here, but one of the reasons people are encouraged to specialize later rather than earlier is so that

by Jd 19y ago

<<until [they are] specialized>> Hate to be a stickler here, but one of the reasons people are encouraged to specialize later rather than earlier is so that they get broader exposure and education in all fundamental fields - including (ahem) the English language.

mynameishere 19y ago
<<the English language>> I also hate to be a stickler, but I would distinguish between "the English language" as such, and orthography. The (grammar of the) former is learned all-but-completely by the age of 8 or 9. The latter is arbitrary and mostly meaningless. Shakespeare spelled his name numerous different ways. Is he uneducated in the language? ... So: Would any companies be willing to take on 13 year olds for 4 year periods ("apprenticeships"), receiving a modest tuition in the process? That is: For 40,000 dollars over 4 years, would a company like Microsoft be willing to train up teenagers into professionals? There is no doubt that such a system would educate more fully, and more broadly, than high school.
- palish 19y ago
  For what it's worth, it worked for me. I dropped out of high school (I was failing anyway) and "apprenticed" at my place of work when I was 17, two years ago. For about 8 months I wasn't paid, then I was hired. Over the last 6 months I feel I've contributed very nicely to the company's project. The problem is a lot of employers aren't as nice as mine was. In fact, I doubt he would have let me come on had he known the full extent of what he was getting into. I asked questions like mad about the project until I had a knowledge base wide enough to really sit down and figure things out for myself. This translated directly into lost time for one employee (My mentor, Andy. He's an awesome guy). But in the end they have another productive employee. I'd say the company's happiness with me strongly resembles this graph, minus the falloff at the end: http://www.tylerreed.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/the-ebb-and-flow-of-social-networking.png http://www.tylerreed.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/the-eb... So a company would have to be extremely patient to do something like that. And the downside for me is that I don't have a degree. That doesn't matter in terms of raw ability, but it does matter for salary and other employment options.
  - Jd 19y ago
    I suppose the question comes down to what you want to do later in life. If you are happy doing what you are doing what you are doing for the rest of your life, I'd say you've made a great choice. If you say, hit 30 and start wondering about what life would be like doing something other than coding you may be shit-out-of-luck, possibly having no skills with which to change careers. All I can say is what you are doing would not work for me personally. I'm the kind of person who likes doing a lot of different things. I was just working doing economics consulting. Now I am managing a large Ruby on Rails development project. I like the change and challenge of shifting rapidly from one industry to another, picking up things as I go along and adding to my overall database of skills & knowledge.
- Jd 19y ago
  <<The latter is arbitrary and mostly meaningless>> Although I'm a terrible speller myself, often arbitrary conventions are important for communication w/ both humans and machines. Why does lisp use parens instead of brackets? Arbitrary, but your code won't work if you change it. Why should a spoken/written language be otherwise? <There is no doubt that such a system would educate more fully, and more broadly, than high school.>> Speak for yourself. I certainly would not entrust the education of my children to Microsoft.
  - jimbokun 19y ago
    I suspect the use of italics indicate sarcasm.
    - mynameishere 19y ago
      No. But I did intend the word "microsoft" to be a placeholder for any given company. Maybe that was unwise given the ms-hatred around here. Really--high school is all but worthless, and learning software design + 0..n domain-related topics at a company would be...immeasurably...more valuable than sitting in social studies class.
      - Jd 19y ago
        I agree high school may be mostly worthless for people who are set on one particular career path. My brother wanted to be a cook - dropped out of HS - and now attends the Culinary Institute of America. Should graduate at 19 w/ a degree & mucho work exp. Still, this seems to come back to PG's hackers & painters essay. I agree w/ him that the best people in any given field are those that don't stay entirely w/in that field. Living completely w/in the realm of domain specific knowledge is like living in a fishbowl. There are other waters & aquariums - if you swim in them a little bit you can learn enough so you can decorate yours a little better. At least that's my two bits. Also, doesn't look like you got down-modded for your MS comment so I don't think you can claim to be on the receiving end of any hatred. For my part, if you said google/yahoo/ibm my response would be the same. I just don't want that for my kids.
- Darmani 19y ago
  Spelling was phonetic around Shakespeare's time, and, thus, the most common words had many different acceptable spellings. Nowadays, if you don't conform to dictionary spelling, you'll look like an idiot, and your sentences may require a few extra deciseconds of mental head-scratching to read. As for the rules of proper English, while it is completely arbitrary whether split infinitives are proper English, if you constantly comma-splice, have improper capitalization, or even omit punctuation, then many will have trouble understanding you, and you'll really look like an idiot. The moral of the story is that those who speak "the English language" have difficulty understanding those who speak "teh inglish langwidge."

by Jd 19y ago

mynameishere 19y ago

<<the English language>> I also hate to be a stickler, but I would distinguish between "the English language" as such, and orthography. The (grammar of the) former is learned all-but-completely by the age of 8 or 9. The latter is arbitrary and mostly meaningless. Shakespeare spelled his name numerous different ways. Is he uneducated in the language? ... So: Would any companies be willing to take on 13 year olds for 4 year periods ("apprenticeships"), receiving a modest tuition in the process? That is: For 40,000 dollars over 4 years, would a company like Microsoft be willing to train up teenagers into professionals? There is no doubt that such a system would educate more fully, and more broadly, than high school.

palish 19y ago
For what it's worth, it worked for me. I dropped out of high school (I was failing anyway) and "apprenticed" at my place of work when I was 17, two years ago. For about 8 months I wasn't paid, then I was hired. Over the last 6 months I feel I've contributed very nicely to the company's project. The problem is a lot of employers aren't as nice as mine was. In fact, I doubt he would have let me come on had he known the full extent of what he was getting into. I asked questions like mad about the project until I had a knowledge base wide enough to really sit down and figure things out for myself. This translated directly into lost time for one employee (My mentor, Andy. He's an awesome guy). But in the end they have another productive employee. I'd say the company's happiness with me strongly resembles this graph, minus the falloff at the end: http://www.tylerreed.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/the-ebb-and-flow-of-social-networking.png http://www.tylerreed.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/the-eb... So a company would have to be extremely patient to do something like that. And the downside for me is that I don't have a degree. That doesn't matter in terms of raw ability, but it does matter for salary and other employment options.
- Jd 19y ago
  I suppose the question comes down to what you want to do later in life. If you are happy doing what you are doing what you are doing for the rest of your life, I'd say you've made a great choice. If you say, hit 30 and start wondering about what life would be like doing something other than coding you may be shit-out-of-luck, possibly having no skills with which to change careers. All I can say is what you are doing would not work for me personally. I'm the kind of person who likes doing a lot of different things. I was just working doing economics consulting. Now I am managing a large Ruby on Rails development project. I like the change and challenge of shifting rapidly from one industry to another, picking up things as I go along and adding to my overall database of skills & knowledge.
Jd 19y ago
<<The latter is arbitrary and mostly meaningless>> Although I'm a terrible speller myself, often arbitrary conventions are important for communication w/ both humans and machines. Why does lisp use parens instead of brackets? Arbitrary, but your code won't work if you change it. Why should a spoken/written language be otherwise? <There is no doubt that such a system would educate more fully, and more broadly, than high school.>> Speak for yourself. I certainly would not entrust the education of my children to Microsoft.
- jimbokun 19y ago
  I suspect the use of italics indicate sarcasm.
  - mynameishere 19y ago
    No. But I did intend the word "microsoft" to be a placeholder for any given company. Maybe that was unwise given the ms-hatred around here. Really--high school is all but worthless, and learning software design + 0..n domain-related topics at a company would be...immeasurably...more valuable than sitting in social studies class.
    - Jd 19y ago
      I agree high school may be mostly worthless for people who are set on one particular career path. My brother wanted to be a cook - dropped out of HS - and now attends the Culinary Institute of America. Should graduate at 19 w/ a degree & mucho work exp. Still, this seems to come back to PG's hackers & painters essay. I agree w/ him that the best people in any given field are those that don't stay entirely w/in that field. Living completely w/in the realm of domain specific knowledge is like living in a fishbowl. There are other waters & aquariums - if you swim in them a little bit you can learn enough so you can decorate yours a little better. At least that's my two bits. Also, doesn't look like you got down-modded for your MS comment so I don't think you can claim to be on the receiving end of any hatred. For my part, if you said google/yahoo/ibm my response would be the same. I just don't want that for my kids.
Darmani 19y ago
Spelling was phonetic around Shakespeare's time, and, thus, the most common words had many different acceptable spellings. Nowadays, if you don't conform to dictionary spelling, you'll look like an idiot, and your sentences may require a few extra deciseconds of mental head-scratching to read. As for the rules of proper English, while it is completely arbitrary whether split infinitives are proper English, if you constantly comma-splice, have improper capitalization, or even omit punctuation, then many will have trouble understanding you, and you'll really look like an idiot. The moral of the story is that those who speak "the English language" have difficulty understanding those who speak "teh inglish langwidge."