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The comparison is apt with regard to unemployed individuals seeking to break into the software industry. My point is that a non-trivial amount of sacrifice is r

The comparison is apt with regard to unemployed individuals seeking to break into the software industry. My point is that a non-trivial amount of sacrifice is required to hone these skills; no, it's not back breaking labor, but most people aren't inclined to spend 6-10 hours a day sitting at a PC working through fake problems in an effort to understand how one authors software. That's the world we live in now. This doesn't mean those inclined to do so are smarter, excluding the outliers, they simply fall into a category of individual that is comfortable banging their head against a compiler for hours. These people read code, they ask questions, they scour google, they devour books, blogs, mailing lists and error logs and in time a solid understanding inevitably ensues. Most people aren't inclined or cannot afford to work on something for extended periods of time without the explicit promise of compensation. There are a lot of dreamers who aspire to the rockstar lifestyle but for most of them guitar hero is about as far as it goes.

dclowd9901 13y ago
You are exactly right. My boss is one of these self-loathing software developers that constantly sees it fit to remind me that we're all privileged sissies who get to play on computers and get paid obscenely well for it. I don't buy that. He may feel that way, but I didn't start off in software development. I worked my way into it before there was ever a coursera or any other "become a developer quick" program. I did this by working a full time job to pay bills, then coming home and spending another 8 hours a day (and entire weekends) learning and honing. It would take 2 years of these 100-hour weeks to get to a point where I could actually begin doing this work at a professional level. So I don't buy it. I hit a lot of walls and wanted to give up many times. And I've always loved computers! It still takes a special person to do the work we do. It wasn't like that for auto manufacturing.
deleted 13y ago
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dclowd9901 13y ago

You are exactly right. My boss is one of these self-loathing software developers that constantly sees it fit to remind me that we're all privileged sissies who get to play on computers and get paid obscenely well for it. I don't buy that. He may feel that way, but I didn't start off in software development. I worked my way into it before there was ever a coursera or any other "become a developer quick" program. I did this by working a full time job to pay bills, then coming home and spending another 8 hours a day (and entire weekends) learning and honing. It would take 2 years of these 100-hour weeks to get to a point where I could actually begin doing this work at a professional level. So I don't buy it. I hit a lot of walls and wanted to give up many times. And I've always loved computers! It still takes a special person to do the work we do. It wasn't like that for auto manufacturing.

deleted 13y ago

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