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The trouble isn't in making new 8 year old programmers. The trouble is what happens when programmers reach their 30's and find there is a glass ceiling for advancement. This just doesn't work for a white collar career.

Entrepreneurship may be an answer for 5% of them, but there's no real answer for the rest. Half of my developer friends are getting MBA degrees or otherwise switching careers.

We need new models for software careers: either professionalization as seen in other engineering disciplines, or a kind of blue-collarization that looks for alternative answers.

>We need new models for software careers: either professionalization as seen in other engineering disciplines,
>or a kind of blue-collarization that looks for alternative answers.

I've often thought about this. Programming is unusual in that it is currently such an art (rather than a science) that many of the best programmers are self-taught rather than products of a strong uni education. It's the wild west out there, to a large extent. I've often envied surgeons, with their strong professional associations and the emphasis on ten years of more of specialised learning and mentoring. And after ten years (and this is on top of medical school) they are still "hands on".

I wonder if advanced specialisation would remove some of the chaff from the industry. People would have to demonstrate productivity as well as best practice, and continuous learning. I've watched the game industry with some interest as programming has formed a progressively smaller part of each game (with modeling, design and art taking up much more of the effort).

Andrew