11–20 of 53 posts
I think he's making the common mistake University is not there to teach specific skills but to teach you the broad elements of a field. That's why other engineering disciplines have CPD and it takes several years to get to full chartered status.
That said, I personally know several academics who argue that it is simply not a university's responsibility to follow the demands of industry. While a bit extreme, I see the point they are trying to make.
I enjoy building hardware using microcontrollers and FPGA's. and have several open source projects on Github.
Companies put too much emphasis on credentials, and not enough emphasis on recruiting and mentoring people who build electronics and programming for fun. It is these people who build things which change the world.
There is a real disconnect between the skills taught in college to the skills needed in the work environment. If you're going to college to learn coding so you can get a job, then you're being done a disservice by being taught things you'll never need.
I wonder how effective these "hacker" schools are. The ones I investigated didn't seem interested in best practices, it was a real focus on getting code on the screen. That can be a hugely damaging mindset working on large, complicated software.
For those that don't want to register, just delete the http://url and then search for the rest. Click the link from Google or whatever and the page will load without the register popup. SEO baby.
Yet another example of someone mixing the concepts of scientist, engineer, and technician in the computing world. You wouldn't hire a food scientist to control and feed the machines that produce the bread in an industrial bakery, or even to design and build that production line. Producing code is not as closely related as one might think to the science that leads to the algorithms and design patterns that underscore…
The problem is that even if you understand those concepts well, you're not necessarily able to apply them after most programs. If your startup is in the business of crating new algorithms to solve various problems, that's one thing, but what most want is someone who knows what existing algorithm should be used to solve a problem in the best (or at least an acceptable) way, and do so in a manner that's both expandable and maintainable. Ideally, they're looking for a craftsman, not a scientist. These roles can occasionally be found in the same person, but it's extremely rare in my experience.
The thrust of Daniel Gelernter's argument here is that there is a shortage of programmers with a certain kind of skill set suitable for working in startups, because large businesses that grew up as successful startups have bid up the price of programmers with those skill sets. "Part of the problem is that startups have to compete with hegemons like Google and Facebook that offer extraordinary salaries for the best talent." My oldest son began working at Google a month ago, so for the last couple months family conversation has included discussion of Google's hiring process and how working for Google compares to working for other startups (my son's previous employment). The programmer job market has a lot of interesting features, but one of those features is indeed a fairly high premium on software engineers who have a love of coding (who are self-motivated, whether or not the job market rewards the motivation, in learning more and more about coding every day) and who have good problem-solving skills, a business orientation to doing work that meets customer needs and builds a profitable company, and good written and oral communication skills. There is a severe shortage at all levels of employment of software engineers who meet those other requirements.
The author's other comment to note is "The thing I don’t look for in a developer is a degree in computer science." It's empirically true that young people can get great jobs as software engineers at the most selective employers even if they don't have degrees in computer science--as long as they can handle a tough series of technical interviews. I've seen it done. Many other commenters on Hacker News have noted that software engineering, more than most occupations in the United States, has processes for finding people with actual technical skill irrespective of whether those people have college degrees. If you are looking for work, having a college degree may provide many benefits (among those the ability to gain a visa to move to another country where you would rather live), but the main thing to gain is the knowledge and experience that helps you solve actual problems in industry with code that works. Some people gain that knowledge and experience through a computer science degree program (or at least DURING a computer science degree program), but others gain it through other channels, and the smartest companies look for worker performance more than they look for degrees.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-gelernter/11/a57/251
[3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023032815045792222...
For a split second, I misread the name of the author of the article as "David Gelernter"[1] a professor of computer science at Yale who perhaps is so famous that he needs no introduction here, but on a closer reading I see that the author is Daniel Gelernter,[2] who I think must be David Gelernter's son.[3] The author Daniel is part of three generations in the Gelernter family who have thought deeply about computer s…
"[... people] who have good problem-solving skills, a business orientation to doing work that meets customer needs and builds a profitable company, and good written and oral communication skills."
Your following sentence is also true with the modification I've made in brackets:
"There is a severe shortage at all levels of employment of [people] who meet those other requirements."
With programming skills or not, people with these characteristics have always been rare. We can gather lots of them for a while for massive nation efforts like the Manhattan Project (something I've been studying in detail for the last few months), but in normal times all organizations, from Google to just another startup, have trouble finding these people who will make or break their ventures.
A computer science degree in "iPhone or Android development" isn't a degree in computer science. I've work with people ranging from self-taught dropout coders to CS and CompE PhDs, and I would say that the very best of the bunch had solid backgrounds in computing fundamentals and theory. Personally I favor CompE's with a love of both coding and embedded. Working within a constrained environment close to or at the bar…
On a related note I strongly believe that taking a 12-week course or a bootcamp in [insert latest flavor of the day here] does not allow you to call yourself a software engineer or a computer scientist. Anecdotally, I've noticed a marked increase in that attitude (and another term I intensely dislike - IT) since moving to New York. This attitude grossly misrepresents what it means to be a software engineer or a computer scientist, which is much more about an approach to analyzing and solving problems using a combination of experience and first principles in face of tradeoffs, than using specific tools or languages.
Rant over.