Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

AC21 portability (as it's called) allows for an employee to maintain their pending immigration status if they have filed an I-485 and it has been pending for at least 180 days.

Thing is, the I-485 is the last 10% of the process. The biggest hurdle is getting the Labor Certification, which is the part that can (and does) take years.

So an employee technically has H1B portability under the AC21 provisions but they must start all over again if they aren't in the last 5-10% of the immigration process.

The charitable reading about the "qualities that make someone a great programmer" is the raw human potential/talent - obviously it is currently not the case that 95% of great programmers are not from the US, due to various factors. But his point is that, since humans everywhere likely have the same potential ranges, the ratio of US to Non-US programmers is going to trend toward the population ratio as remaining countries are brought up to speed, and we should prepare for that. Wouldn't you agree?

> Is it not Graham's responsibility to provide reasonable detail as to how the United States could actually accomplish what he proposes?

Really, no. He's allowed to talk about this without being irresponsible even if he doesn't outline the implementation of the solution.

PG chose to appy the phrase "anti-immigrant" to the people he disagrees with.

Keep in mind, there are people who support high levels of immigration (the US currently takes 1.2+ million immigrants a year), support a path to legalization for people already living here illegally, even support general skilled immigration. They simply don't see evidence for a specific shortage of high tech workers, and, as a result, oppose tinkering with the immigration system in a way designed to specifically increase the percentage of programmers who are immigrants. In my opinion, it's pretty appalling to call people like this "anti-immigrant". They should bristle at the accusation.

Also - the principle of charity is important, but you've got to admit that calling someone "anti-immigrant" is a serious accusation, kind of a smear.

Do we only let people in because of the skills they have? What about the next set of skills that will become more important in the future? What specific set of skills do we let in, which ones do we keep out? What about people who have the potential, but currently lack the skills? How do we find those people?

I don't believe in exceptional programmers, I believe in exceptional thinkers. Programming is a skill, just like any other skill. Some people will be better at it than others. But it's a skill that can be taught. People who are more capable of being the "great thinkers," are more likely to be a better programmer than not, not because of the programming language they know, but because they're able to solve problems. If I ran a company, these are the people I want.

But then we come full circle, who are these people, and do I only let them in because they're "special?"

I also think that way too much attention is paid to what Paul Graham says. Yes, he was successful with certain things, but that doesn't mean he's all knowing and all wise.

As to my biases, I'm all for immigration, but not so much for the H1B program (for ethical reasons, I'm not a big fan of the whole "he has skills that no one else has, so he gets the golden ticket to the chocolate factory. To me, that just means that he/she had a more privileged upbringing than 60-80% of the world. ie, access to clean water, food, education, electricity, computers.)