Commentary On How To Make Novice Programmers More Professional (slashdot.org)

Over the weekend, my colleague David ran a story that sought people's suggestion on how to make (force, encourage, advice) a novice programmer to be more professional. Several people have shared their insightful comment on the topic. One such comment, which has received an unusual support on not just Slashdot but elsewhere, is from William Woody, owner of Glenview Software (and who has previously worked as CTO at Cartifact, architect at AT&T Interactive). He writes: The problem is that our industry, unlike every other single industry except acting and modeling (and note neither are known for "intelligence") worship at the altar of youth. I don't know the number of people I've encountered who tell me that by being older, my experience is worthless since all the stuff I've learned has become obsolete. This, despite the fact that the dominant operating systems used in most systems is based on an operating system that is nearly 50 years old, the "new" features being added to many "modern" languages are really concepts from languages that are between 50 and 60 years old or older, and most of the concepts we bandy about as cutting edge were developed from 20 to 50 years ago. It also doesn't help that the youth whose accomplishments we worship usually get concepts wrong. I don't know the number of times I've seen someone claim code was refactored along some new-fangled "improvement" over an "outdated" design pattern who wrote objects that bear no resemblance to the pattern they claim to be following. And when I indicate that the "massive view controller" problem often represents a misunderstanding as to what constitutes a model and what constitutes a view, I'm told that I have no idea what I'm talking about -- despite having more experience than the critic has been alive, and despite graduating from Caltech -- meaning I'm probably not a complete idiot.) Our industry is rife with arrogance, and often the arrogance of the young and inexperienced. Our industry seems to value "cowboys" despite doing everything it can (with the management technique "flavor of the month") to stop "cowboys." Our industry is agist, sexist, one where the blind leads the blind, and seminal works attempting to understand the problem of development go ignored. You can read the full comment here or here.

Comments

Re:The commentary has a major flaw

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup.

I'm always fascinated by the enormous scale of the disasters that young 'uns manage to create.

They tend to want to create giant structures from toothpicks made of green wood.

However, if you put them on small projects, with minimal impact, it can make it worth it.

They may be cheap, but you get what you pay for.

That said, lots and lots of folks feel they don't want to pay for quality and robustness. They would prefer to pay, for example, $1000 every two years for complete site redesigns by crappy Indian McSite companies than $5,000 for a high-quality site that will need a $2,000 redesign in three years anyway.

The numbers support their view, so they can't actually be blamed.

It just sucks.

Re:The commentary has a major flaw

[Dissenter]

Been there, done that and I agree. Having spent 15 years in the industry, I learned that it isn't worth the fight. Basic developer roles are, today, entry level positions. People that don't move up are despised for their "seniority" if they don't graduate to architecture or some other so-called more important role. Went that path, spent a few years running a consultancy for more experienced folks and learned that the experience actually made me want to leave programming all together. Sure, I'll still hack together a few things for fun and play with the latest trends in development, but I'm not doing that for my job anymore for two reasons. One, I don't want to deal with the kids, and two, once you get over the initial hump, it pays better to have that background and then get out! I'm not saying money is everything, but now I'm grown up, have a family and a kid to send to college so, the money sure helps. I am, however, giving back to the "community" by teaching my kid how to code like a professional and how NOT to be "one of those programmers".