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Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

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Re: Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

#41

Post by cafard »

specialist wrote: post #37

Years ago, on a tour of public K-12 schools, a principle asked me why software developers were such bad writers. I said "au contraire", all the great developers I know are also great writers. In fact, if a person can't write well, I believe they probably can't code well either. I explained to the tour group that programming is just like writing an essay. Organize your thoughts, logical, clarity, etc. Some of the best…

Djikstra thought that programmers needed mathematical maturity and the ability to write well in one's native language.

Re: Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

#42

Post by codewright »

16s wrote: post #39

Larry Wall has a bachelor's degree in "Natural and Artificial Languages". He wrote Perl for all you youngsters out there ;)

The influence of Wall's linguistics background on Perl is pretty profound and obvious. He referenced it often.

>He wrote Perl for all you youngsters out there

I don't know what's young for you, but I'm 24 and was perfectly familiar with Wall's work and background.

Re: Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

#43

Post by nicholas73 »

As an electrical engineer teaching himself to code, I found programming to be a lot more comparable to writing than engineering. Coding is at the same time a logical and creative process, and a lot like juggling how pieces of an essay or story fit together to a chosen goal for your audience. Engineering seems a lot more rigid - you have a set problem and a known best practice solution. In that sense it is more like solving a list of math problems. Yes I know the best math (and engineering) problems require creativity and an intuitive feel, but by and large that kind of work is only available to the top of the field. But, you can code and write whatever you like and ship it at zero cost.

Re: Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

#44

Post by jgj »

wallflower wrote: post #17

In my opinion, writing good software is less like writing (the analogy of copy-and-paste holds to coding as well as writing) and more like weaving. Writing, at least, in the chapter format, isn't tightly coupled in terms of chapters as program modules. Yes, most books have an overarching plot - but how many programs are stories? They are more like buildings. The infrastructure (HVAC, electrical) must be in place befo…

Interesting that you use the term "weave" which is so often associated with the construction of a good plot in writing/storytelling.

That said, I think maybe you haven't read good enough fiction :)

Re: Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

#45

Post by edderly »

timfrietas wrote: post #13

English major here. Leader of a tech team at a leading company. Derrida and David Foster Wallace were technically more challenging to my intelligence than what I do now. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, and it is not easy! But it is pretty entertaining (bordering on insulting) to see engineers huff and gruff that no one but engineers can be engineers. There's this weird rift in the developer world where only CS deg…

It is sad that degrees have become 'character classes'. I think people lose perspective that a degree is at worst a piece of paper describing what you may have been studying for a very brief part of your life.

It cuts both ways too. It's laughable that an English literature degree would somehow make you more empathetic than an electronics student.

Re: Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

#47

Post by wallflower »

jgj wrote: post #44
wallflower wrote: post #17

In my opinion, writing good software is less like writing (the analogy of copy-and-paste holds to coding as well as writing) and more like weaving. Writing, at least, in the chapter format, isn't tightly coupled in terms of chapters as program modules. Yes, most books have an overarching plot - but how many programs are stories? They are more like buildings. The infrastructure (HVAC, electrical) must be in place befo…

Interesting that you use the term "weave" which is so often associated with the construction of a good plot in writing/storytelling. That said, I think maybe you haven't read good enough fiction :)

Recommend any fiction authors off the top of your head? I read more non-fiction, definitely.

Last fiction author I read was Alice Munro ("For the love of a good woman")

Re: Can English Majors Be Good Developers?

#50

Post by adekok »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #19
adekok wrote: post #16

The best predictor of university physics scores is high school English scores. Why? Physics is about relationships. Sure, there's math. But it's about understanding the big picture, and the relationships between the pieces. It's about how to convince the math to solve the physics problem. I suspect the same thing is true for programming. People who randomly type until it compiles can get programming jobs. They can ev…

Do you have any evidence that this is true? Particularly that this is the 'best' indicator?

No evidence with me. This is recollection from my degrees ~20 years ago.
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