For an arguments sake: Perhaps what could be changed here is the scale of time from months to years and a shift in the chosen solution space from harvesting to

For an arguments sake: Perhaps what could be changed here is the scale of time from months to years and a shift in the chosen solution space from harvesting to nurturing? PG requests more star quality programmers right now. Perhaps a more fruitfull approach would be to figure out what makes great programmers great and figure out how to teach people to be more like them. I.e. hunter gathering for roots versus figuring out how to plant a vegetable garden. What is so great about good programmers? Love of quality, learning by doing - beyond a certain ability of concentration and verbal acuteness I'm fairly confident these could be taught to people in structured form far better than how the current institutions manage. Universities were created first and foremost to train people in complex but established and repetitive procedures - not to be crafting shops even though the latter would benefit learning the art of programming far better. Why not pour the funds required for lobbing into attempts at improving programmer education, I'm sure the ROI in the latter would far outpace the former in the long run.