61–70 of 354 posts
My own experience just does not agree with this at all. First, I think we have to distinguish between two ideas here: * The first is the question of whether anyone can learn to program. I think that for the most part everybody can, just like for the most part everybody can learn high school calculus. * The second is the question of whether programming ability is bimodal. This is not related to the first question, and…
>>Part of the problem there is the lack of a way to even measure coding ability. "We are infants in figuring out how to measure our ability to produce software", he said. What are our metrics? Lines of code—what does that measure? Story points? "What even is a story point?", he wondered. Indeed, what is programming talent? What is a 'good' programmer? What is a 10x rock star? These notions are similarly ill defined.…
I suspect it will always be a largely subjective measure mostly determined by the respect or accolades of one's peers or the satisfaction of one's target audience/customers. I think StackExchange's "reputation" system is probably the most accurate discrete measure available.
I would be very hesitant to rely on any metrics coming out of SE. Consider their great programming survey this year, they say the average age of a programmer is 29. The US Department of Labor says it's 49.
There are a vast number of people out there, well over 90% of the programming industry I'll wager, who come into work at 9am, do good, solid work all day, on applications that run the real world, then go home at 5pm and get on with their lives, who never interact with SE et al at all.
Some people can refactor a messy chunk of code into something more organized. Some can create a rough sketch of a large system that is well-organized and loosely-coupled, others can optimize an algorithm for efficiency.
Some can write code that is easy to read and understand. And some can write code that is extremely abstract and expressive.
It's rare to find all of these skills in one person. Depending on the project goal, some of the above are crucial and some are nice to have.
All of the above can be learned, and for some experience is the best teacher, while for others a CS background helps a lot.
Subscriber-only content. Does anyone feel a bit guilty for reading it without a subscription?
(I'm the lead editor of LWN.net).
That programming is a talent is not a myth, and while my life is currently devoted to developing a platform to encourage more people to learn the basics of computer science, I will certainly never say "anyone can learn how to code" any more than I'd say "anyone can become a concert pianist" or "anyone can become a master painter." Good programming is an art, and requires talent on the part of the programmer. There's…
That programming is a talent is not a myth, and while my life is currently devoted to developing a platform to encourage more people to learn the basics of computer science, I will certainly never say "anyone can learn how to code" any more than I'd say "anyone can become a concert pianist" or "anyone can become a master painter." Good programming is an art, and requires talent on the part of the programmer. There's…
Most things are not like that. In fact very few programmers even pursue that. Most science is not even like that. If you are a zoologist studying marsupial reproduction, you are not in a winner take all contest, you are in a 'do thew job' situation. You don't have thousands of eager marsupial reproduction researchers biting at your heels. There are plenty of marsupials to go around.
Most things are like this. Even pianists once needed to attain an achievable level of mastery in order to be pianists professionally and entertain aristocrats before the invention of the Zune. The availability of aristocrats did fluctuate and so did (I imagine) their interest in music, but it's not the same as trying to be the best pianist on earth.
The realistic version of this is that output, especially creative output varies by person. Also throughout ones life, by context (is this fun for me today?) and lots of other ways.
Some kids hat math. Some of them wouldn't if the teacher or method was different. Most can do pretty well.
My own experience just does not agree with this at all. First, I think we have to distinguish between two ideas here: * The first is the question of whether anyone can learn to program. I think that for the most part everybody can, just like for the most part everybody can learn high school calculus. * The second is the question of whether programming ability is bimodal. This is not related to the first question, and…
Is speed really the most important metric?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This cuts to two important points. First, you will be hiring as if it was bimodal. The second point, though, is more whether or not it actually is bimodal, or it is just taught into a bimodal distribution? That is, is it intrinsically this way, or is that a biproduct of how society values and teaches it?
Yes, I will be hiring bimodal and it's worked very well for me. Whenever I relax my process and hire someone I'm not sure is a great developer I always regret it later when they can't perform and their work brings down others. The more experience I have, the more I stick to working with the best people I can. There are just too many ways to fail and having a team of experts is the best mitigation you can have against…
More, I think something like this can not really be attacked at the point where we are looking at people being hired for a job. The causes for a bimodal distribution in ability will likely stem much farther back than that and will have to be addressed as such.
Consider the mythical patient that says it hurts to bend their knee. First, yeah, stop bending your knee in a way that hurts it. Second, lets find out why you can't bend your knee that way.