Subj : Re: Are programmers like this in the real world? To : comp.programming From : Randy Howard Date : Wed Jul 27 2005 11:06 pm Chris Sonnack wrote (in article ): > Charles Richmond writes: > >> Because computers are such common objects these days, I believe that >> the worth of the work of programmers has been devalued. > > It's got to be more than that. Human bodies are even more common than > computers, but we don't devalue the work of doctors. We want to, everyone complains about the cost of health care, (nevermind *why* it is so expensive). For obvious reasons, it's difficult to outsource your medical care to some 'doctor' in a third-world country. Reminds me of a Carlin joke (paraphrased): "somewhere today, some poor guy has an appointment with the worst doctor on the planet". > I suspect it's largely due to the infancy of this industry combined > with the fact that everyone knows some nine-year-old who "programs". Well, we use the term "program" far, far too loosely. > I believe that, as the industry matures, we'll recognize two things. > > 1. Programming will always be hard, because programming *IS* hard. Some is, some isn't, using current accepted meanings for the term. > 2. Good programmers are the intellectual equals of doctors and lawyers > on many counts: > * amount of study required to become skilled, > * amount of continued study to remain skilled, > * need to manage lots of information about a problem, > * largeness of the field resulting in specialties, > * required skills of research and self-learning, > * need to break new ground in solving a problem, > * interconnectedness of problem/solution domains, > * and so on. The one item missing, that separates the two groups notably is responsibility for screwups within their work output. When real "professional programmers" (or whatever they are called) take out malpractice insurance we may see the bar raised, if by nobody other than the insurance carriers. There is no current generally useful certification that *proves* a programmer is competent akin to being a doctor or passing a bar exam. That is partly because there are so many radically different actual jobs in which someone might be called a 'programmer' and partly because the industry isn't prepared to hire people having such a skillset anyway. They'd much rather hire 10,000 people slightly more competent (if you're lucky) than a script kiddie for a rate below US minimum wage than worry about getting far fewer extremely competent people and having to pay them. Not having the skillset in HR and hiring managers to actually interview such people is also a problem. Of course there are exceptions, some companies have hard programming work to do, and hire people competent to do it, but most companies requiring "some programming work" can get by with the wannabes, and never notice the difference. The problem is, there are several orders of magnitude more jobs available for wannabes than pros. There are considerably more people wanting to be employed as pros (at pro wage levels) than actually have the skillset also, which makes it doubly hard to find such a job, especially in the US, thanks to the degree mills pumping people out that are theoretically capable during the .com craze. I suspect that it will gradually balance itself out, but will take a long time to do so, with a few whipsaws in both directions along the way before it stabilizes. >> I object to the notion that Microsoft "builds for quality", unless you >> are referring to *poor* quality. I have been around for all the decades >> that Microsoft built its empire, and I am aware of how the fortune was >> made. > > Nevertheless, many of their products have no real equal. Perhaps, but that is less due to competence than other factors, such as companies not being willing to invest in technology creation that competes with them, due to knowledge of their trade practices. Somehow the Justice Department has other fish to fry now, but it's obvious to everyone else that MS still exerts a lot of monopolistic horsepower and runs off (or buys if you are lucky) anybody that goes after any of their product offerings with a commercial offering. -- Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR) .