Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest. But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language. If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't ge…
>If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. china and russia beg to differ?
I could read advanced academic papers written in English (not just technical, also philosophy and economics) well before my speaking fluency was good enough to make "live conversation" well.
Of course, there is a horrible side to it: coming from Eastern Europe and living in Western Europe, I need to "dumb down" my English a lot, and to force myself to talk slower in English when speaking with French/Italian/Spanish (French are the worse btw - never met people harder to communicate efficiently with than them... even when their language skills are ok they sprinkle that "context dependency" and "nonobviousness" into everything) people that speak "English" but are actually only fluent in a lifeless subset of "standard international business English"...