Does the 'Hacker Ethic' Harm Today's Developers?

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions whether the 'hacker ethic' synonymous with computer programing in American society is enough for developers to succeed in today's economy. To be sure, self-taught 'cowboy coders' — the hallmark of today's programming generation in America — are technically proficient, McAllister writes, 'but their code is less likely to be maintainable in the long term, and they're less likely to conform to organizational development processes and coding standards.' And though HTC's Vineet Nayar's proclamation that American programmers are 'unemployable' is overblown, there may be wisdom in offering a new kind of computer engineering degree targeted toward the student who is more interested in succeeding in industry than exploring computing theory. 'American software development managers often complain that Indian programmers are too literal-minded,' McAllister writes, but perhaps Americans have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. In other words, are we 'too in love with the hacker ideal of the 1980s to produce programmers who are truly prepared for today's real-life business environment?'"

Comments

Re:Hackers vs Designers - Hackers Loose every time

[itsybitsy]

Hacker:

* someone who plays golf poorly.

* a programmer who breaks into computer systems in order to steal or change or destroy information as a form of cyber-terrorism.

* a person who hacks a tree down with an axe.

* a person with too much time on their hands.

* someone who can't design software.

Re:Software engineering is not a new concept.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I made $60K living outside the DC in NoVA suburbs and I got along just fine.

So did I. In 2000, when you could get a house for under 200k. Good luck with that now.