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If doctors were interviewed like software developers

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Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#111

Post by pwinnski »

user5994461 wrote: post #63
Dumblydorr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of the incredibly successful people we know of in the industry were drop outs? I can think of quite a few, and I know of other engineers who thought their CS program was vastly inferior to devoting 100% attention to their company, which they could give maybe 33% to due to classes and undergrad life.

To be fair, you should do the exercice, write down the names and check if they had a formal education. You will probably find out that they all do. The common figures (google/facebook for examples) are typical college graduates from a very top school, who happened to drop in the last year of bachelor or master to found a company, sponsored by their university network and connections. By the way I was talking having h…

So 3.5 years meets your standard. Good to know.

What about three years?

Two?

One?

We know zero higher education doesn't meet your standard, and 3.5 years does, so I'm trying to figure out where you draw the line.

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#112

Post by tpmx »

TwistedWeasel wrote: post #105
tpmx wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at a house built [100, 50, 25] years ago. Compare it to a house built today. Then do the same exercise with some piece of software.

yep, both are significantly different in many way, houses built 50 years ago have a lot of differences to modern houses. Software from 50 years ago, is also significantly different but the fundamentals of both are the same, foundations, walls, roof trusses, siding, filesystems, operating systems, processes, threads, data structures etc. We may use Go instead of C and we may use engineered lumber instead of Douglas Fi…

Go vs C: That's 50 years.

Wooden house building fundementals: That's like 200-500 years.

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#113

Post by pwinnski »

user5994461 wrote: post #70
hpen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you love if software required a degree? Would it make you feel more special? I recently got a job as a software engineer without a degree. And I can get plenty of interviews.

It would make it much easier to find a job and the salaries would be a higher (assuming one has a degree). Developers really don't realize how bad they have it. If you have friends who passed to be doctors, nurses, lawyers, they can all have a much easier and longer career. You will see what are your prospects after 15 years of development, if you were not driven out of the industry, it's grim.

I'm sorry your observation leads you to have such a negative view of things. Clearly your lived experience must be radically different from mine.

I've been a software developer for 30 years now, and never got a degree. I do have friends that are doctors and lawyers, and I prefer my career path to theirs. I started working and earning at 18, rather than going through 8 years of expensive schooling. All these years later (your 15 years doubled), I'm still in-demand, still earning reasonably well, and don't experience the levels of stress or work the long hours my doctor and lawyer friends do.

But hey, when I was young, it was just doctors and lawyers who earned big money. Now it's doctors, lawyers, and software developers, so that's a huge gain for software! And still, only about 75% or so of software developers have degrees at all, let alone eight years of school and two degrees like are required to be a doctor or lawyer.

I've spent the last month interviewing for new "Senior Java Developer" positions, and I can assure you, having a degree does not mean one's prospects are automatically good. Or that one know what one is doing, even.

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#114

Post by TwistedWeasel »

tpmx wrote: post #112
TwistedWeasel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, both are significantly different in many way, houses built 50 years ago have a lot of differences to modern houses. Software from 50 years ago, is also significantly different but the fundamentals of both are the same, foundations, walls, roof trusses, siding, filesystems, operating systems, processes, threads, data structures etc. We may use Go instead of C and we may use engineered lumber instead of Douglas Fi…

Go vs C: That's 50 years. Wooden house building fundementals: That's like 200-500 years.

last 50 years of change includes modern nail guns, engineered lumber, hurricane anchors, plywood roof sheathing, vapor barriers, and countless other differences in how homes are built and the tools we use to do it. There is nothing special about software, other industries also evolve and grow their methods and tools. We just change software with reckless abandon and little regard for the reasons we started down any given path in the first place.

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#115

Post by b20000 »

bigwavedave wrote: post #84
user5994461 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to citizens who can't register for unemployment or fill their taxes because the callback hell doesn't work as it should.

Again, the typical programmer doesn't kill someone when they write a bug. Judging from the backlogs of each company I've worked at, not a single PaaS, SaaS, BaaS, CaaS, DaaS, FaaS, GaaS, HaaS, JaaS, KaaS, LaaS, MaaS, NaaS, QaaS, RaaS, TaaS, VaaS, WaaS, XaaS, YaaS, ZaaS, or other would have a living customer base if one bug == one death. There are edge cases and there are certainly plenty of times when software bugs c…

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/36552174/wow-we-got-...

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#116

Post by pseudalopex »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #98
isochronous wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between job interviews and school interviews/oral exams, though.

Somehow I feel like you're right, but when I think about it I can't really think of why. What is actually different? The only major distinction I can come up with is that part of a job interview is seeing if you fit well with the culture of the company.

School interviews and licensing exams stop early in your career.

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#117

Post by Kaze404 »

user5994461 wrote: post #28
lacker wrote: post #7

On the other hand, if software engineers were interviewed like doctors, anyone who didn’t have a U.S. graduate degree would be immediately rejected. Anyone with great experience in another country would be immediately rejected. That is most of the good doctors in the world! The doctor interviewing process is simplified by rejecting the vast majority of qualified candidates before even interviewing them. I think the f…

I'd love if software required a degree. I have a degree and pretty much everybody I ever worked with has a degree. Looking around the entire floor there's only one person without a degree I am aware of. It's a myth that you can work without a degree, you'd never get a job interview in the first place. Seems to be mostly a US myth by the way, makes sense because degrees are crazy expensive there.

4 years going strong without a degree here. Not in the US either.

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#118

Post by pjmlp »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #110
pjmlp wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't invalidate the point that it isn't Software Engineering, unless you own the accreditation that validates your knowledge across Software Engineering domains and practice, with a degree taken in a certified university.

Why is that the only way to validate my knowledge?

It isn't, but then one isn't entitled to call themselves Engineer, just like a village "doctor" isn't one.

There is no proof that the person in question would fair well in all domains that get taught during 5 years of engineering school, and follow up experience on the field, without a proper assessment from the engineer board.

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#119

Post by angelmass »

sys_64738 wrote: post #96
lacker wrote: post #7

On the other hand, if software engineers were interviewed like doctors, anyone who didn’t have a U.S. graduate degree would be immediately rejected. Anyone with great experience in another country would be immediately rejected. That is most of the good doctors in the world! The doctor interviewing process is simplified by rejecting the vast majority of qualified candidates before even interviewing them. I think the f…

Software developers would also need malpractice insurance to protect them from bugs. This is the difference. What real engineering and medical disciplines enforce is personal responsibility for their actions. If you screw up then you're going to be sued big time. Software always claims zero liability. It's why software development is not real engineering.

Maybe in some industries there is no liability, but I’m in biotech and there is certainly a large amount of software issues that would qualify for litigation

Re: If doctors were interviewed like software developers

#120

Post by calciphus »

angelmass wrote: post #119
sys_64738 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software developers would also need malpractice insurance to protect them from bugs. This is the difference. What real engineering and medical disciplines enforce is personal responsibility for their actions. If you screw up then you're going to be sued big time. Software always claims zero liability. It's why software development is not real engineering.

Maybe in some industries there is no liability, but I’m in biotech and there is certainly a large amount of software issues that would qualify for litigation

But is that for you personally as a developer, or your company?
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