5 ms·

I agree, but you can apply your second hypothesis to pretty much any pursuit or career. "It's not brilliance that defines a professional artist; it's a willingn

I agree, but you can apply your second hypothesis to pretty much any pursuit or career. "It's not brilliance that defines a professional artist; it's a willingness to draw constantly for very little compensation." "It's not brilliance that defines a professional athlete; it's a willingness to be bored, exercise a lot, grind out drills, and play many games." "It's not brilliance that defines a professional programmer..." Everything in life boils down to perspiration at some point.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
Professional programmers actually receive quite a lot of compensation, though.
- ps4fanboy 12y ago
  Only the top tier do, takes some low pay grinding to get there
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    By the standards of academia, that is completely untrue. When I graduated with a BSc Computer Science degree in 2011, the median starting salary for CS grads going to industry was $65k. For comparison, that's roughly the starting salary for someone who just got a tenure-track position in academia (source: http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyID=24 http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyI...). So compare: in one field, you start earning a median $65k at age 22 with only a bachelor's degree, and in the other, you start earning $65k in your mid to late thirties, after a bachelor's, a PhD, and often at least one post-doc. Everything before that is "low-pay grinding", except that the academic definition of "low-pay" ranges from lower-middle class ($25k-$30k for the better-paid grad-students and worse-paid post-docs) to taking on debt (the humanities).
    - wavefunction 12y ago
      >>So compare: in one field, you start earning a median $65k at age 22 A median means that half the CS grads made less than 65k. Tenure track also comes with some eventual benefits you won't receive with a bachelor's in CS. Let's be clear about what we're actually comparing.
      - 8557056 12y ago
        >> A median means that half the CS grads made less than 65k. This is false. For example, X% could make exactly 65k and only the lower ((100 - X) / 2)% would make less. ...where X \in (0, 100]
        Crito 12y ago
        I doubt many people at all are making exactly $65k. However I also doubt that many CS grads at all are making significantly less than $65k. Those that are making appreciably less than that are almost certainly not working in the field, or they are not working in the US. I wager that the salary distribution of CS grads working in the field in the US is pretty damn tight.
        Retric 12y ago
        My first programming job in northern VA in 2002 paid 38k and I had a CS degree. I suspect most people make less than 65k because the few at 120+k take many people at 40k to balance things out. Granted, the job market was crap and I make 6 figures now, but there are still plenty of sub 40k programming jobs out there and people happy to take them.
        im2w1l 12y ago
        > I suspect most people make less than 65k because the few at 120+k take many people at 40k to balance things out. That's not how medians work
        12y ago
  - steven2012 12y ago
    Not in Silicon Valley. If you're a good programmer straight out of college, you're offered 90-100k at least these days and within 3 years you're making > 120k.
    - ohquu 12y ago
      Isn't that not very much in the Bay Area (since the cost of living is extraordinary)?
      - steven2012 12y ago
        For a single, fresh-grad it is a lot of money, considering they will probably get roommates, not have a lot of obligations, etc.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      The median I gave was nationwide rather than specific to the Bay Area.
- ANTSANTS 12y ago
  Hence the ellipsis ;)
- collyw 12y ago
  Not in many countries.
nagrom 12y ago
Hm. I'm not convinced - there are plenty of professional programmers (who make maybe $60k, which is a good salary) working at Java shops who do 8am-5pm and think a monad is an itinerant who lives in the desert. There are loads of professional teachers, professional medics, professional sanitation workers, etc. who just turn up, do the job and go home. Some may and do work long hours for little reward, but a lot don't. There is a culture in academia that you may, sometimes, when you really need to, you may take the weekend off. Or Sunday, at least.
- ANTSANTS 12y ago
  You're right, I didn't choose my words well. I should have dropped "career" from the statement and just left "pursuit," something you do in a large part for its own sake. And maybe I should say "It's not brilliance that defines a good X," because clearly you can be a subpar artist/programmer/teacher/etc. and get by on some combination of luck, connections, politics, organizational apathy, and so on, but if you really want to be the best damn X you can be, it's going to involve a lot of elbow grease no matter what that X is.
- yen223 12y ago
  Both of you are right - perspiration is necessary but not sufficient.
- hyperbovine 12y ago
  A lot of people are in academia precisely because grinding out Java for 9 hours a day, or what have you, sounds like their own personal version of hell. The work can be all-consuming but if you're doing it right, it's fascinating. The intangible value of not being bored is something I see glossed over again and again by outsiders.
johnminter 12y ago
I tend to agree. I would frame the key traits as persistence and a view for the long term payoff. I did a stint as an Industrial Fellow in an NSF-funded center at U. of Minn. in the early '90s. My sponsor was chair of the Chem. E. dept. They had enough B. S. graduates to have a dept. graduation. They had the department valedictorian speak. She mentioned that along the way she questioned whether it would be worth it - especially on evenings walking home after yet another study session working on a problem set from hell. She would see her friends enjoying themselves in one of the local diners or pubs. But at the end, she realized that she had opportunities they would never have. Here both the persistence and the long term view paid off. That said, we are producing far more Ph. D.s than we can employee. I have had a 30+ year career in industry. I have watched margins tighten and good friends get laid off as more and more is offshored. I doubt that this will end well for the next generation. Not everyone will be a "winner." But those who invest in developing their skills will, on average, do much better than those who do not.
- NotOscarWilde 12y ago
  > That said, we are producing far more Ph. D.s than we can employee. I think one cause might be that "the enterprise" has very little to offer in terms of ideals. Those jobs that actually change the world and help a lot of people usually are out of your reach if you choose the wrong education (like computer science). Being "the man that uncovers the truth" (a scientist) seems much more appealing than "earn a lot of money being a cog in a machine that competes with other machines". I admit, it's just anecdotal. When I see my friends who work at Microsoft, it doesn't seem like the fact that they're working at such a large, influential company excites them. After all, the "up or out" system either drags them out of the company or to some managerial position where there's even more of the "cog in a process" feeling as you spend most of your time presenting your team's results to your superior and the other way around.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

Professional programmers actually receive quite a lot of compensation, though.

ps4fanboy 12y ago
Only the top tier do, takes some low pay grinding to get there
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  By the standards of academia, that is completely untrue. When I graduated with a BSc Computer Science degree in 2011, the median starting salary for CS grads going to industry was $65k. For comparison, that's roughly the starting salary for someone who just got a tenure-track position in academia (source: http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyID=24 http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyI...). So compare: in one field, you start earning a median $65k at age 22 with only a bachelor's degree, and in the other, you start earning $65k in your mid to late thirties, after a bachelor's, a PhD, and often at least one post-doc. Everything before that is "low-pay grinding", except that the academic definition of "low-pay" ranges from lower-middle class ($25k-$30k for the better-paid grad-students and worse-paid post-docs) to taking on debt (the humanities).
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    >>So compare: in one field, you start earning a median $65k at age 22 A median means that half the CS grads made less than 65k. Tenure track also comes with some eventual benefits you won't receive with a bachelor's in CS. Let's be clear about what we're actually comparing.
    - 8557056 12y ago
      >> A median means that half the CS grads made less than 65k. This is false. For example, X% could make exactly 65k and only the lower ((100 - X) / 2)% would make less. ...where X \in (0, 100]
      - Crito 12y ago
        I doubt many people at all are making exactly $65k. However I also doubt that many CS grads at all are making significantly less than $65k. Those that are making appreciably less than that are almost certainly not working in the field, or they are not working in the US. I wager that the salary distribution of CS grads working in the field in the US is pretty damn tight.
        Retric 12y ago
        My first programming job in northern VA in 2002 paid 38k and I had a CS degree. I suspect most people make less than 65k because the few at 120+k take many people at 40k to balance things out. Granted, the job market was crap and I make 6 figures now, but there are still plenty of sub 40k programming jobs out there and people happy to take them.
        im2w1l 12y ago
        > I suspect most people make less than 65k because the few at 120+k take many people at 40k to balance things out. That's not how medians work
        12y ago
- steven2012 12y ago
  Not in Silicon Valley. If you're a good programmer straight out of college, you're offered 90-100k at least these days and within 3 years you're making > 120k.
  - ohquu 12y ago
    Isn't that not very much in the Bay Area (since the cost of living is extraordinary)?
    - steven2012 12y ago
      For a single, fresh-grad it is a lot of money, considering they will probably get roommates, not have a lot of obligations, etc.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    The median I gave was nationwide rather than specific to the Bay Area.
ANTSANTS 12y ago
Hence the ellipsis ;)
collyw 12y ago
Not in many countries.

nagrom 12y ago

Hm. I'm not convinced - there are plenty of professional programmers (who make maybe $60k, which is a good salary) working at Java shops who do 8am-5pm and think a monad is an itinerant who lives in the desert. There are loads of professional teachers, professional medics, professional sanitation workers, etc. who just turn up, do the job and go home. Some may and do work long hours for little reward, but a lot don't. There is a culture in academia that you may, sometimes, when you really need to, you may take the weekend off. Or Sunday, at least.

ANTSANTS 12y ago
You're right, I didn't choose my words well. I should have dropped "career" from the statement and just left "pursuit," something you do in a large part for its own sake. And maybe I should say "It's not brilliance that defines a good X," because clearly you can be a subpar artist/programmer/teacher/etc. and get by on some combination of luck, connections, politics, organizational apathy, and so on, but if you really want to be the best damn X you can be, it's going to involve a lot of elbow grease no matter what that X is.
yen223 12y ago
Both of you are right - perspiration is necessary but not sufficient.
hyperbovine 12y ago
A lot of people are in academia precisely because grinding out Java for 9 hours a day, or what have you, sounds like their own personal version of hell. The work can be all-consuming but if you're doing it right, it's fascinating. The intangible value of not being bored is something I see glossed over again and again by outsiders.

johnminter 12y ago

I tend to agree. I would frame the key traits as persistence and a view for the long term payoff. I did a stint as an Industrial Fellow in an NSF-funded center at U. of Minn. in the early '90s. My sponsor was chair of the Chem. E. dept. They had enough B. S. graduates to have a dept. graduation. They had the department valedictorian speak. She mentioned that along the way she questioned whether it would be worth it - especially on evenings walking home after yet another study session working on a problem set from hell. She would see her friends enjoying themselves in one of the local diners or pubs. But at the end, she realized that she had opportunities they would never have. Here both the persistence and the long term view paid off. That said, we are producing far more Ph. D.s than we can employee. I have had a 30+ year career in industry. I have watched margins tighten and good friends get laid off as more and more is offshored. I doubt that this will end well for the next generation. Not everyone will be a "winner." But those who invest in developing their skills will, on average, do much better than those who do not.

NotOscarWilde 12y ago
> That said, we are producing far more Ph. D.s than we can employee. I think one cause might be that "the enterprise" has very little to offer in terms of ideals. Those jobs that actually change the world and help a lot of people usually are out of your reach if you choose the wrong education (like computer science). Being "the man that uncovers the truth" (a scientist) seems much more appealing than "earn a lot of money being a cog in a machine that competes with other machines". I admit, it's just anecdotal. When I see my friends who work at Microsoft, it doesn't seem like the fact that they're working at such a large, influential company excites them. After all, the "up or out" system either drags them out of the company or to some managerial position where there's even more of the "cog in a process" feeling as you spend most of your time presenting your team's results to your superior and the other way around.