Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 655 posts

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#281

Post by fsloth »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #233
fsloth wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basically saying that programming is not engineering but a (highly technical) craft and the best way to foster talent in it is to utilize the age old master/apprentice relationship? If so I agree. Universities do give the necessary theoretical muscles for a lots of things but they surely do not prepare for the craftmanship aspects (beyond informal cultural indoctrination, if any). I wonder if there could be a…

I never really did academia so I wouldn't know. To be honest, I think the age of academia is over. I have more against these institutions than I see value in them. I say get rid of them, we can do better. Why can't we teach "theoretical muscle" outside of universities? Wait, was the purpose of universities to maintain the state's control of education? Have they been putting thoughts in chains? Kept science away from…

I suppose one of the values academia has is providing a garden for information from past generations to persist and be understood. The stuff that got invented in the early industrial revolution could have been produced in the antique greece. Or perhaps wollops of it was - we will not know because what passed for academia then were basically a bunch of mystery cults who guarded their insights with murderous zeal (pythagoreans etc).*

In the pre-internet age, without international academia, there would have been no community with whom to share discoveries so they would benefit all. Einstein would have been a historical nobody without people to understand him, etc.

So to me, you will have to suggest other at least somewhat curated and open mechanisms for living information to persist. Perhaps internet and mans curiosity alone is sufficient to provide this but I don't know...

*From what I remember from one popular historical source or another

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#283

Post by khyryk »

Chronic30 wrote: post #263
rifung wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's extremely difficult to identify whether someone will excel at a job just through an interview. Even if someone really impresses everyone during the interview phase, it's totally possible that once they get hired they'll hate whatever you have them do and just do a mediocre job at it.

Well then the interview process seems to be the problem then.

Something some have been saying for decades.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#284

Post by vezzy-fnord »

mrrrgn wrote: post #135

This concept of a "great programmer" is something I find very suspicious. A competently trained engineer who works with distributed systems may implement a trivial fix and save her company tens of thousands of dollars in AWS bills. Someone with a strong background in programming languages might implement a PHP -> C++ cross-compiler and double the throughput of her company's web servers. The capability to recognize th…

Exactly.

This is a very important distinction that a lot of people don't seem to make: you have the language, but you also have the domain. Someone who is skilled in front-end web development is not necessarily knowledgeable in, let's say, digital signal processing, so it's a safe bet that they won't be writing the next FFmpeg.

If someone told you that by merely learning Chinese, you'd be able to give out lectures on fluid mechanics in the language, that would rightfully be a laughable statement. Yet it seems to be a common belief in tech circles that if we teach kids to write some JavaScript, great things will happen and people become technically literate just like that.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#285

Post by cottonseed »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #167

What I take away from the HN/Startup/Recruiting drama: * Companies don't know how find good people (they think they know how to attract them, but honestly, how can they tell? They don't notice the ones they fail to attract, which I'd argue is most people) * Companies are unable to produce (e.g. educate) good people * They want to solve their failures by increasing the search space of people I have no sympathy at all…

> Companies are unable to produce (e.g. educate) good people

It's really nice to hear someone say this. I've been out of the tech industry for a while (went back to school) and it is hard to put my finger on it but it feels like there is a trend to shift training and mentorship costs from companies to prospective employees. An example: Data science boot camps. Take smart, highly skilled and educated people, pay them nothing for 1-3m to teach them the concrete skills companies are hiring for, and split the cost savings with the company for hires.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#286

Post by winter_blue »

volkadav wrote: post #26

We already have visas specifically targeted at letting in exceptional talent: the O (temporary) and E (permanent) series. Of course, the tech industry lobbying is not generally speaking around those visas, but rather H1-B. So I don't think it is entirely correct to assert that industry wants more "genius visa" types, they want more journeymen (gender-neutral; the kind of staff that are competent but not exceptional,…

The O visa for all practical purposes is impossible to get. It can take years to get an EB visa. Most talented/skilled workers come here on an H1 or L1, and eventually get permanent residency via the EB visa.

For a company that's hiring and unable to find good programmers, the H1 is really the only visa available to them.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#287

Post by hacknat »

andrewmutz wrote: post #276

I have a quick question for those arguing against PG's position: Do you genuinely believe that increasing the number of talented software engineers emigrating to the United States is bad for the United States? Or bad for you ? In the same way that I would argue for public policy that benefits us all (not just me), I think we should have immigration policies that benefit everyone, not just Software Engineers.

It could be bad for me and the US, no? Not saying it is, but it is an option. I'm skeptical a sane immigration bill can get passed. The current H1 visas are incredibly generous to the companies that get to sponsor them over the workers. I'd be in favor of a policy that was company agnostic and gave the workers a lot more freedom, such a bill would be good for me, the immigrants, and the U.S., but I sincerely doubt such a bill would ever get passed.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#289

Post by sago »

tdicola wrote: post #228

Why can't this argument be flipped on its side, if 95% of the best programmers are outside the US then why aren't the venture capitalists investing in and building companies outside the US? Surely we should see 95% of their portfolio companies are outside the US too...

This. I thought that all the way through too. Why is it not reprehensible to be advocating a policy that sucks the talent out of the rest of the world for the glory of Uncle Sam? There are exceptionally talented people all over the world, VCs need to get on planes more.
Post reply on HN