6 ms·

In other words, universities are still not good at producing the code monkeys that Mr. Nayar requires to run his body shops. Now if someone could explain to me

In other words, universities are still not good at producing the code monkeys that Mr. Nayar requires to run his body shops. Now if someone could explain to me why that is a bad thing?

vinutheraj 17y ago
Exactly !! The process of college education is not to make drones out of people but to imbibe the culture of learning.
- redrobot5050 17y ago
  According to my co-workers, its so they can get a sweet ass job and get paid.
zaidf 17y ago
Fair enough. Do you think it's better to not be a code monkey and be unemployed than be a code monkey and have a boring-ass job?
- tybris 17y ago
  I bet that for every unemployed MSc/PhD from a respectable CS department you can find >100 unemployed code monkies.
  - zaidf 17y ago
    I think that is the possible flaw in your interpretation of what this guy said: he's not asking people so much to not do PhDs as he is asking people who are neither PhDs nor code monkeys to become code monkeys. I may not agree to the guy's agenda. But I see nothing wrong in encouraging more Americans to become programmers. Whether they are code monkeys or PhDs is a personal choice folks make and nothing is stopping current code monkeys to become PhDs.
    - voidpointer 17y ago
      You are right. The guy runs a business and he is looking for a certain type of worker. What I take issue with is the view that it is the responsibility of academic institutions to provide the type of workers that he needs. If he finds that people from an academic background are not willing to submit to his requirements I would assume that they wont submit because they can find more fulfilling work elsewhere. Furthermore, it's not how methodologies are called at these places, it is how they are used: an excuse for middle management to look at charts and metrics without having to deal with the human aspect of their team.
      - zaidf 17y ago
        I would assume that they wont submit because they can find more fulfilling work elsewhere. Again, I don't think he is addressing people who already have a job. Think about why he was even asked this question: apparently because there is this popular notion that America does not have enough IT workers and therefore needs to get 'em from India etc. I am not sure how true or untrue that notion is. But it is widely accepted. I do see your point and think it is valid: the current American compsci grads and engineers usually can find a job. What this guy should be talking about is EXPANDING the total size of the engineering/compsci grads so even folks not necessarily very inclined can come in and do tedious but decent paying jobs. The end result is more money goes to Americans and fewer importation of labor from India etc.
        voidpointer 17y ago
        Well, since there is the need for this work to be done, it makes sense that someone gets trained to do that work. I remain skeptical though whether a university is the right provider for such a kind of education. I'm from Germany and we do not really have an equivalent to US college education. Secondary education is partially integrated in our equivalent to a high school and you go to university after that. Alternatively, there is another path of secondary education/apprenticeship where you split your time between working for a company to get hands-on experience in your chosen line of work and attend classes the rest of the time. Such apprenticeships are also available for IT and software development related work. Nevertheless, a lot of people believe that programming a computer is a sufficiently complex activity which only people that have attended university are capable of. That may be a part of the problem that the guy in the original article was complaining about: although people can acquire the skills needed to be a programmer elsewhere, they still go to universities in order to secure some credentials that will increase their chances of employment.
- alexgartrell 17y ago
  Yes - College Student
ig1 17y ago
If you read the article he doesn't say those things should be taught as CS degrees. The exact phrase is "They're far less inclined ... to spend their time" which implies what they're doing above and beyond their formal education. Would you hire a graduate who wasn't inclined to spend their time learning about version control, bug tracking or release management systems (all of which are part of the ITIL standard) ? A lot of ITIL isn't that much different from what you find in Code Complete or the Pragmatic Programmer books on deployment. Just because you prefer your buzzword to their buzzword, doesn't mean it's any more important.

In other words, universities are still not good at producing the code monkeys that Mr. Nayar requires to run his body shops. Now if someone could explain to me why that is a bad thing?

vinutheraj 17y ago

Exactly !! The process of college education is not to make drones out of people but to imbibe the culture of learning.

redrobot5050 17y ago
According to my co-workers, its so they can get a sweet ass job and get paid.

zaidf 17y ago

Fair enough. Do you think it's better to not be a code monkey and be unemployed than be a code monkey and have a boring-ass job?

tybris 17y ago
I bet that for every unemployed MSc/PhD from a respectable CS department you can find >100 unemployed code monkies.
- zaidf 17y ago
  I think that is the possible flaw in your interpretation of what this guy said: he's not asking people so much to not do PhDs as he is asking people who are neither PhDs nor code monkeys to become code monkeys. I may not agree to the guy's agenda. But I see nothing wrong in encouraging more Americans to become programmers. Whether they are code monkeys or PhDs is a personal choice folks make and nothing is stopping current code monkeys to become PhDs.
  - voidpointer 17y ago
    You are right. The guy runs a business and he is looking for a certain type of worker. What I take issue with is the view that it is the responsibility of academic institutions to provide the type of workers that he needs. If he finds that people from an academic background are not willing to submit to his requirements I would assume that they wont submit because they can find more fulfilling work elsewhere. Furthermore, it's not how methodologies are called at these places, it is how they are used: an excuse for middle management to look at charts and metrics without having to deal with the human aspect of their team.
    - zaidf 17y ago
      I would assume that they wont submit because they can find more fulfilling work elsewhere. Again, I don't think he is addressing people who already have a job. Think about why he was even asked this question: apparently because there is this popular notion that America does not have enough IT workers and therefore needs to get 'em from India etc. I am not sure how true or untrue that notion is. But it is widely accepted. I do see your point and think it is valid: the current American compsci grads and engineers usually can find a job. What this guy should be talking about is EXPANDING the total size of the engineering/compsci grads so even folks not necessarily very inclined can come in and do tedious but decent paying jobs. The end result is more money goes to Americans and fewer importation of labor from India etc.
      - voidpointer 17y ago
        Well, since there is the need for this work to be done, it makes sense that someone gets trained to do that work. I remain skeptical though whether a university is the right provider for such a kind of education. I'm from Germany and we do not really have an equivalent to US college education. Secondary education is partially integrated in our equivalent to a high school and you go to university after that. Alternatively, there is another path of secondary education/apprenticeship where you split your time between working for a company to get hands-on experience in your chosen line of work and attend classes the rest of the time. Such apprenticeships are also available for IT and software development related work. Nevertheless, a lot of people believe that programming a computer is a sufficiently complex activity which only people that have attended university are capable of. That may be a part of the problem that the guy in the original article was complaining about: although people can acquire the skills needed to be a programmer elsewhere, they still go to universities in order to secure some credentials that will increase their chances of employment.
alexgartrell 17y ago
Yes - College Student

ig1 17y ago

If you read the article he doesn't say those things should be taught as CS degrees. The exact phrase is "They're far less inclined ... to spend their time" which implies what they're doing above and beyond their formal education. Would you hire a graduate who wasn't inclined to spend their time learning about version control, bug tracking or release management systems (all of which are part of the ITIL standard) ? A lot of ITIL isn't that much different from what you find in Code Complete or the Pragmatic Programmer books on deployment. Just because you prefer your buzzword to their buzzword, doesn't mean it's any more important.