You make DZone different! Login and vote now.
By rlamarch
via knowing.net
Published: May 01 2008 / 08:17
Larry O'Brien sounds off on how common it is that he encounters people who have no respect for the activity (software development) that he loves. Some people suggested that the language involved might have something to do with it, and others suggested that it might have to do with the increasing amount of hand-holding in modern development environments. I still tend towards my feeling that global commodification has something to do with it; more and more people applying for jobs in the field of software development did not enter that field due to a love of computers or software, they entered it because there's demand. There have always been developers for whom programming is "just a job."
Comments
Umberto Zappia replied ago:
There is a high % of programmers/developers who couldn't care less of their job, do 8 hours as careless as possible and off they go, when I asked one of .net developer what design patterns, closures or even threads meant for him he had no clue what I was talking about
jtheory replied ago:
Well, when the demand for *any* programmers is high enough, that equals *some* demand for shitty programmers. Of course, if they imagine they'll soar to fame and fortune, perhaps they should be discouraged. In some ways, simple higher numbers of people trying it out is good, as some of those will find themselves actually suited to it.
Better compsci education would help some of the problem (students shouldn't be allowed all the way through a program without getting the basics down!); also, though, these kinds of things go in waves... if there's a surge of just-for-the-money programmers, it's followed by a backlash of this-is-harder-than-I-thought-don't-do-it sentiment, or even it's-stressful-to-be-incompetent-but-held-responsible.
Voters For This Link (18)
Voters Against This Link (2)