It's worth keeping in mind that the travelling carpenters are a souvenir from dark times in Europe, when economic progress remained extremely slow because craftsmen were evaluated by their belonging to a guild and would not compete.
The traveling German carpenters
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#12Did anyone else read that title as "time traveling German carpenters?" Does the internet make this less relevant for those in the software field?
well, one can certainly wander the internet, working with various people on open source projects; dunno about the not paying for food or housing part though :P
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#13Yeah I experienced this growing up as a kid in Germany. I remember these people from other towns in their "strange" outfits. Over the years they got less and less but you can still find a few. Now living here in the U.S. I wonder how something like this would maybe translate over to coders and designers in startups. Seeing that we have these startup heavy areas across the country. Why not have people work a year in t…
The software craftsmanship movement is starting to get this sort of thing going. At least the idea of apprentice, journeyman and master are taking shape, and a number of software development companies have done craftsman swaps.
Corey Haines http://www.coreyhaines.com/ in particular has done a lot to actually live like the software equivalent of these carpenter journeymen.
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#14Back when I was in undergrad, I met a German exchange student who mentioned something about this. He may have been part of it at some point. They have a special belt buckle or something which identifies them and he said it was almost a status symbol (the belt buckle). I believe he was a roof-shingler and not a general carpenter though.
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#15It's worth keeping in mind that the travelling carpenters are a souvenir from dark times in Europe, when economic progress remained extremely slow because craftsmen were evaluated by their belonging to a guild and would not compete.
Onerous labour rules restricting economic progress in Europe?
I for one am glad we've moved on.
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#16I really wanted to see those beer-giving sticks, and found that the magic google word for more pictures is 'Wanderschaft': http://www.google.com/images?q=Wanderschaft
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#17It's worth keeping in mind that the travelling carpenters are a souvenir from dark times in Europe, when economic progress remained extremely slow because craftsmen were evaluated by their belonging to a guild and would not compete.
It's worth noting that those 'dark times' were periods of perfectly ordinary economic growth compared to the rest of the world and all the millenniums previous.
Comparing those times to the Industrial Revolution that came shortly after is a little unfair - no tradition or souvenir compares well.
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#18This article talks only about journeymen and women who are truly exotic and rare but it doesn't really emphasize that vocational training — the alternative to college — still is alive and well in Germany. You usually don't got to college if you want to become a hairdresser or a mechatronic engineer.
After they finish school, the apprentices work three or four days per week at some company and go to a vocational school the rest of the time.
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#19This article talks only about journeymen and women who are truly exotic and rare but it doesn't really emphasize that vocational training — the alternative to college — still is alive and well in Germany. You usually don't got to college if you want to become a hairdresser or a mechatronic engineer. After they finish school, the apprentices work three or four days per week at some company and go to a vocational schoo…
[deleted]
Re: The traveling German carpenters
#20This article talks only about journeymen and women who are truly exotic and rare but it doesn't really emphasize that vocational training — the alternative to college — still is alive and well in Germany. You usually don't got to college if you want to become a hairdresser or a mechatronic engineer. After they finish school, the apprentices work three or four days per week at some company and go to a vocational schoo…
[deleted]