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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?'"
And though HTC's Vineet Nayar's proclamation that American programmers are 'unemployable'...
Flamebait. The article goes on to say that Americans are all prima donnas who are out of touch with reality and want to start with 80K a year and whatnot. Besides that being a bad stereotype and not always true, and when it is true it also applies to math or engineering or whatever grads whose parents buttercupped them with promises of the American dream when they finished school. It is their fault for not anticipating reality just as it will be the Indians' fault if they refuse to anticipate their jobs going somewhere cheaper.
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.
They're already here, usually called "Software Engineering. The coursework is usually half business, half programming and IT. If you can survive rolling your eyes at all the buzzwords and colored charts, it's decent preparation for becoming a Dilbertian drone. Plus, you won't have to sweat learning the vector calculus you'll never use outside of school.
HTC is a Taiwanese electronics firm. The CEO in question is (according to the previous summary) running HCL Technologies. Of course if the previous summary is inaccurate as well, this is also wrong. But that's slashdot - they should replace the /. logo with a box of chocolates ...
So your solution to a made up problem is that everyone should use Notepad? Ok, maybe you'll make an exception for vi, what if I fall on the emacs side of that holy war?
I think you need to think this through again, as you've obviously let something obvious slide by...
Vineet Nayar does not 'belong' to HTC. he is the CEO of HCL Technologies. HTC is a Taiwan-based mobile handset manufacturer (among other things), and a pretty good one at that.
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I can't understand why anyone is surprised that people trained in computer science are ill equipped to develop
business software.
How many computer science graduates typically have the slightest clue what accounting is, or how it works?
How many computer science undergraduate programs deal with the customary and legal environment of
business?
How many computer science programs deal with the realities of designing and maintaining a datacenter,
in theory and/or practice?
Computer science is a theoretical self-serving discipline designed to produce more computer science
graduate students. Anyone who learns practical, appropriate, and customary reality does so more
often despite rather than because of their education.
Time for a radical reassessment.
Cost of living varies wildly across America. Thus how much you need to make to have a good life does as well. Where I live, housing is cheap. I have a condo where principal + interest + taxes + insurance + HOA fees is less than $1000/month. Obviously you can live pretty cheap here. Rentals are, of course, less than that. What's more, that's in the city so I can (and do) bike to work, saving on transportation costs. Now compare that to when my cousin went to school in California. His parents rented him a place that they then sublet to more kids. It was 4 people each paying $1000/month in rent. We are talking literally over 4 times the cost, and not as nice a place.
That isn't to mention other cost of living things. The old bank rule is take your gross monthly income by 3, 1/3rd for taxes 1/3rd for house 1/3rd for everything else (that is how to determine if you can afford a mortgage or not). The reason for that is because it is easy, but also rather accurate. As housing costs go up, so do other costs normally. Thus if your place is running you $4,000/month, you can expect that your other expenses (including setting aside money and such) will run you around $4,000/month.
Then there's kids, and that is a whole different situation. What works fine for a single person does not work fine when you are supporting children, who are rather costly and generate no income.
As such while $80,000 where I live is plenty, you can have a good life with children on that or much less, that's not the case in, say, New York City. Have a look at costs of living there sometime. Then consider that with a family, a little studio apartment isn't an option, you need a larger place.
There are indeed places where $80k is barely enough to do ok on.
What branch of physics do Computer Science graduates work in? Where does philosophy fit in?
I suspect that most CS graduates can be divided into 3 groups: 1) Those who debase themselves in the eyes of their professors by "merely" performing software development. 2) Those who preserve their purity by staying in academia and thus propagate the meme that CS isn't about programming. 3) Those who are unemployed.
Hey, I moved from NY because apartment prices were going too far up. But you can get very nice apartments - say two good bedrooms in a fashionable part of Brownstone Brooklyn, in the $2000-$3000 a month range. Granted, 15 years back those same apartments were $800-$1200. Still, it's more like $30,000 a year for a very nice NY apartment, including in some of the better parts of Manhattan these days.
That's still steep. But you can eat out better and cheaper in Brooklyn and Manhattan than about anywhere else in the country. And there's no need to own a car. It's all a matter of where your priorities are.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
In point of fact mechanical engineers graduate college ready to take the E.I.T. (in the USA all 'real' engineers can take the test)
That's the Engineer In Training (E.I.T.) test.
Only after a number of years working under the supervision of a professional engineer (P.E.) can you take the PE test.
I believe being a structural engineer is a further certification beyond PE. I could be remembering incorrectly.
(If you missed the point of this: it is horribly horribly stupid for Lord Ender to think all things can be taught in school.)
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The GP was apparently talking about PERL, which is a joke programming language in which it's impossible to write maintainable code. You're thinking of the Perl programming language, which allows untrained novices to do useful things while not preventing diligent and careful programmers from writing effective and maintainable code.
You can safely ignore the opinion of anyone who spells the latter PERL.
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