5 ms·

> They were simply unprepared for the torrent of proofs, deductions, tautologies, De Morgan's laws, etc. All of which I never see used in a professional capaci

> They were simply unprepared for the torrent of proofs, deductions, tautologies, De Morgan's laws, etc. All of which I never see used in a professional capacity for the vast majority of software developers. What I do see used quite often is the ability to communicate to customers or other engineers in a clear, succinct and enjoyable manner using the English language.

mathetic 12y ago
That is simply because the top of the stack in our field is full of application developers and not computer architects. I fail to see how quantity becomes more important than quality.
- thathonkey 12y ago
  What is your point exactly? It sounds like what you're suggesting is simply not practical (that all developers should be well-versed in all facets of software development, even those skills only employed by a minority of developers).
lloeki 12y ago
> All of which I never see used in a professional capacity for the vast majority of software developers. Anecdotal irony: not 24 hours ago a colleague and I had to reverse engineer a hairy mess of deeply nested if/then/else clauses that should not exist that turned out to be composed mostly of tautologies. I definitely wish to throw books at some people, preferably of the steel-bound, razor sharp edged kind. Conclusion: you're not drawing Karnaugh tables daily in front of you, but having manipulated the fundamental rules of logic has trained your neural net and makes you much more effective at solving logic problems in a wink and not write crap code, and also simply able to debug stuff efficiently, if at all. I am regularly aghast at people drawing completely invalid conclusions from broken "common sense" logic propositions (A=>B therefore B=>A, or various other syllogisms).
- godzilla82 12y ago
  I feel, that no amount of manipulation of fundamental rules of logic can help the people you are aghast at. The ones who infer the broken "common sense" logic propositions(a=>b implies b=>a). Also, I know a lot more of non CS people who have excellent analytical skills than the ones with a CS background.
radmuzom 12y ago
Technical people often underestimate the value of good communication. Technical does not necessarily refer to programming, but also to other fields like statistical financial modelling (which I do). And complain about the fact that people less qualified than them are in management. I'm not suggesting that communication should be the sole criteria for management - a lot of software companies need programmers at the helm (as advocated by Joel Spolsky), but there are situations where an analytical liberal arts major with maturity and leadership skills will do much better than someone whose primary skills is technology.
- smtddr 12y ago
  >>Technical people often underestimate the value of good communication. Not just underestimate, even outright condemn. Like the people who defend Linus's form of "communication" on the kernel mailing list as "to the point" or "efficient". Anyone who thinks that's an acceptable style of communication from/to any human being is wrong and a perfect example of why the tech companies in general should probably make their engineers attend a speech and/or social relationships class. Somewhere along the line, "engineering culture" decided any communication protocols outside of TCP, UDP and syscalls are a waste of time.
  - philwelch 12y ago
    Linus excels at communication. He makes it crystal clear what he's trying to convey and the standard he's setting, and has coordinated the development of the most widely-deployed kernel on earth entirely via email for decades. He communicates perfectly well. He's an asshole on occasion, but that's not the same as communicating poorly.
    - smtddr 12y ago
      Completely disagree. I don't care how popular his kernel is; his communication style is ridiculous and the fact that there are so many devs that have no problem working for him isn't a sign that his communication is good.... it's a sign all the people working with him don't realize, or ignore, or accept his ridiculous behavior and is just an example of why the tech industry needs a communications/social relations course for a lot of engineers.
philwelch 12y ago
It's easier to find CS majors who can communicate effectively than English majors who have the logic skills to read, write, and debug code. Especially at the level demanded by a company like Google. If you're a consultancy that writes CRUD apps I can see emphasizing communication skills over technical skills but you're not Google.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  > It's easier to find CS majors who can communicate effectively than English majors who have the logic skills to read, write, and debug code. Is it? I've met quite a lot of coders who think they're good communicators but really, really aren't.
  - dkuntz2 12y ago
    Great, but they're not the ones evaluating if they have good communications skills, the people hiring them are...
  - philwelch 12y ago
    And I've met--and work with--many developers who do communicate effectively. The only English majors I've met with any technical chops were CS double majors though.

mathetic 12y ago

That is simply because the top of the stack in our field is full of application developers and not computer architects. I fail to see how quantity becomes more important than quality.

thathonkey 12y ago
What is your point exactly? It sounds like what you're suggesting is simply not practical (that all developers should be well-versed in all facets of software development, even those skills only employed by a minority of developers).

lloeki 12y ago

> All of which I never see used in a professional capacity for the vast majority of software developers. Anecdotal irony: not 24 hours ago a colleague and I had to reverse engineer a hairy mess of deeply nested if/then/else clauses that should not exist that turned out to be composed mostly of tautologies. I definitely wish to throw books at some people, preferably of the steel-bound, razor sharp edged kind. Conclusion: you're not drawing Karnaugh tables daily in front of you, but having manipulated the fundamental rules of logic has trained your neural net and makes you much more effective at solving logic problems in a wink and not write crap code, and also simply able to debug stuff efficiently, if at all. I am regularly aghast at people drawing completely invalid conclusions from broken "common sense" logic propositions (A=>B therefore B=>A, or various other syllogisms).

godzilla82 12y ago
I feel, that no amount of manipulation of fundamental rules of logic can help the people you are aghast at. The ones who infer the broken "common sense" logic propositions(a=>b implies b=>a). Also, I know a lot more of non CS people who have excellent analytical skills than the ones with a CS background.

radmuzom 12y ago

Technical people often underestimate the value of good communication. Technical does not necessarily refer to programming, but also to other fields like statistical financial modelling (which I do). And complain about the fact that people less qualified than them are in management. I'm not suggesting that communication should be the sole criteria for management - a lot of software companies need programmers at the helm (as advocated by Joel Spolsky), but there are situations where an analytical liberal arts major with maturity and leadership skills will do much better than someone whose primary skills is technology.

smtddr 12y ago
>>Technical people often underestimate the value of good communication. Not just underestimate, even outright condemn. Like the people who defend Linus's form of "communication" on the kernel mailing list as "to the point" or "efficient". Anyone who thinks that's an acceptable style of communication from/to any human being is wrong and a perfect example of why the tech companies in general should probably make their engineers attend a speech and/or social relationships class. Somewhere along the line, "engineering culture" decided any communication protocols outside of TCP, UDP and syscalls are a waste of time.
- philwelch 12y ago
  Linus excels at communication. He makes it crystal clear what he's trying to convey and the standard he's setting, and has coordinated the development of the most widely-deployed kernel on earth entirely via email for decades. He communicates perfectly well. He's an asshole on occasion, but that's not the same as communicating poorly.
  - smtddr 12y ago
    Completely disagree. I don't care how popular his kernel is; his communication style is ridiculous and the fact that there are so many devs that have no problem working for him isn't a sign that his communication is good.... it's a sign all the people working with him don't realize, or ignore, or accept his ridiculous behavior and is just an example of why the tech industry needs a communications/social relations course for a lot of engineers.

philwelch 12y ago

It's easier to find CS majors who can communicate effectively than English majors who have the logic skills to read, write, and debug code. Especially at the level demanded by a company like Google. If you're a consultancy that writes CRUD apps I can see emphasizing communication skills over technical skills but you're not Google.

PhasmaFelis 12y ago
> It's easier to find CS majors who can communicate effectively than English majors who have the logic skills to read, write, and debug code. Is it? I've met quite a lot of coders who think they're good communicators but really, really aren't.
- dkuntz2 12y ago
  Great, but they're not the ones evaluating if they have good communications skills, the people hiring them are...
- philwelch 12y ago
  And I've met--and work with--many developers who do communicate effectively. The only English majors I've met with any technical chops were CS double majors though.