Software Development: The Great Equalizer
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I don't think you can go that route today, there is too much focus on qualifications and too many get rich quick brats. I had a similar route except I am mentally eminently stable and grounded despite running away from a dysfunctional family at 15, working approx 20 different jobs till I discovered software in my 30s (in the late 80s). Worked as a consultant (quote, build and chase the invoices) till I worked out that contracting you did not have to do the fucking paperwork involved in running your own business. Ended my career as a highly paid and valued developer at one of Asia's top banks. Today that path is not possible. Have not coded in 2 years, it turns out I was a tart (please forgive the gender reference), only into it for the money.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
hah it's fine. I'm not sure. The last four clients I've had didn't even ask for a resume. One of them scouted me from my articles here. Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but I think if you have talent and a little luck you can maybe still pull it off, even if the culture has changed. You may not be able to work at Microsoft anymore without a serious CV but I don't know - i'd like to think they'd still hire anyone that had the endurance for a 4 hour panel interview with whiteboarding. I've done that.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I don't think you can go that route today, there is too much focus on qualifications and too many get rich quick brats. I had a similar route except I am mentally eminently stable and grounded despite running away from a dysfunctional family at 15, working approx 20 different jobs till I discovered software in my 30s (in the late 80s). Worked as a consultant (quote, build and chase the invoices) till I worked out that contracting you did not have to do the fucking paperwork involved in running your own business. Ended my career as a highly paid and valued developer at one of Asia's top banks. Today that path is not possible. Have not coded in 2 years, it turns out I was a tart (please forgive the gender reference), only into it for the money.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
My first software job was 40 years ago. Curiously, my take is that it's easier to get a job without "qualifications" these days, though there's a lot of "certification" horseshite. But in 1981, everyone expected a degree. It might not be in computer science, because there weren't enough of us. But engineering, mathematics, or physics would do, especially if you'd done a bit of programming. I used to say that the problem with our software was that we had too many straight engineers, and it was comparable to someone landing a job designing circuits because they'd played around building speaker systems in their garage.
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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
The last time someone asked me to defend my lack of a degree was in an interview. I asked him to defend him getting one, given the way IT is taught in uni. Because it was at that point that I decided I really didn't want to work at Expedia. Gee, glad I didn't. They don't exist anymore. And I'm okay with that. When people have degrees, I am that much more careful about screening them for experience if I'm in charge of putting together a team, because I've had a lot problems with people coming straight out of college totally unprepared for working on a professional software team. They might know algorithms, but they don't necessarily understand all the coding techniques that you just pick up organically. With the self taught ones, after a few questions, the only thing I had to worry about was if they could work on a team. Problem is, they usually couldn't, so it became a matter of how quickly they could learn. Experience at the end of the day is what it all comes down to. Each path has its downsides, and I have my biases. I'm a black sheep developer. I'm creative, but not methodical. I'm not a math whiz, but I love language. I'm kinda a weirdo in any given dev house in terms of the sort of code I am good at and what sort of direction a project will take if I'm leading it. I like other black sheep. But there needs to be very few of them on a team for the team to be successful. The black sheep may or may not have went to school, but in terms of programming, they learned most of it themselves, and they don't do it like other people do. I value the "white sheep" professionally, especially when I'm putting a team together because they work well on teams and their work is reliable and consistent. Their creations are more easily understood by others as well, but my heart is not with them, if I'm being honest. More of them I've found, have come up in CS through academia. Now, those are just broadly general observations. People are complicated, and any attempt to boil them down is going to be silly on some level, but the above way of looking at things has served me professionally, so I stick with it. :)
Real programmers use butterflies
honey the codewitch wrote:
The last time someone asked me to defend my lack of a degree was in an interview.
An interviewer who asked me to defend anything about my professional background would get to watch my ass sashay out the door. That's unprofessional in the least and possibly illegal depending upon how the question is phrased.
honey the codewitch wrote:
When people have degrees, I am that much more careful about screening them for experience
We've had something of a hiring boom lately. After almost ten years of our team shrinking from 17 down to 5, we're finally starting to build back up. Our first hire was a graduate from 2018 with two years experience at a couple of jobs. We ignored it. Our interview was centered around the questions "was he teachable?" and "could we work with him?". The answer was yes to both. We've thrown him into the pool, and he's been given responsibility for a couple parts of the product, one simple, one fairly critical. The critical part he's taking over from a guy who's retiring in June, so there's some time for knowledge transfer. The youngster may be useful in six months or so. We're also looking to hire someone as a backup for me, largely they can take some of my workload. I tend to be an easy choice for a lot of the oddball jobs, because everyone else is on a critical path item. While this makes me look oh so valuable :rolleyes: it annoys the shit out of me because, like Harry Callahan, I get every dirty job that comes along. This person we'll look especially hard at the experience because we're looking for a skill set. Academic background for this is almost immaterial. For the entry-level guy, the experience wasn't important because we assumed he wouldn't have any that was relevant. The academic background gave us a certain assurance that he/she was familiar with important concepts, but that was all. My backup guy on the other hand it's all experience. We're looking for certain skills, and those are only acquired by doing the job. Technical hiring's a PITA. In my case we write job requirements, they get sent to an agency, they filter and send us resumes that match, we pick the ones that are interesting (if any), round and round we go. There's something of an art to specifying the requirements so that you're specific enough to get those that might be useful, but not so particular that there are never any matches. There's a company a
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honey the codewitch wrote:
The last time someone asked me to defend my lack of a degree was in an interview.
An interviewer who asked me to defend anything about my professional background would get to watch my ass sashay out the door. That's unprofessional in the least and possibly illegal depending upon how the question is phrased.
honey the codewitch wrote:
When people have degrees, I am that much more careful about screening them for experience
We've had something of a hiring boom lately. After almost ten years of our team shrinking from 17 down to 5, we're finally starting to build back up. Our first hire was a graduate from 2018 with two years experience at a couple of jobs. We ignored it. Our interview was centered around the questions "was he teachable?" and "could we work with him?". The answer was yes to both. We've thrown him into the pool, and he's been given responsibility for a couple parts of the product, one simple, one fairly critical. The critical part he's taking over from a guy who's retiring in June, so there's some time for knowledge transfer. The youngster may be useful in six months or so. We're also looking to hire someone as a backup for me, largely they can take some of my workload. I tend to be an easy choice for a lot of the oddball jobs, because everyone else is on a critical path item. While this makes me look oh so valuable :rolleyes: it annoys the shit out of me because, like Harry Callahan, I get every dirty job that comes along. This person we'll look especially hard at the experience because we're looking for a skill set. Academic background for this is almost immaterial. For the entry-level guy, the experience wasn't important because we assumed he wouldn't have any that was relevant. The academic background gave us a certain assurance that he/she was familiar with important concepts, but that was all. My backup guy on the other hand it's all experience. We're looking for certain skills, and those are only acquired by doing the job. Technical hiring's a PITA. In my case we write job requirements, they get sent to an agency, they filter and send us resumes that match, we pick the ones that are interesting (if any), round and round we go. There's something of an art to specifying the requirements so that you're specific enough to get those that might be useful, but not so particular that there are never any matches. There's a company a
Wow the formatting on your message is broken. I had to read it through email. I'm laughing at the last sentence though. :laugh:
Real programmers use butterflies
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I grew up kinda hard, with untreated mental illness and spent some time on the streets as a homeless teen, got my GED as a result and never went to college. But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old. When I was 18 I went from being homeless to moving in with my b/f in seattle and from there straight to Microsoft. I started taking senior and lead positions before I was 20. Outside of software development, for example when I moved from Seattle to rural Washington state where there were not development jobs I drove a cab, jockeyed cash registers, and even worked on a farm. I'm not qualified to do anything skilled but write software. I can't tell you how grateful I am that this industry values talent over credentials. I'd be in a very different position today if it weren't for that. I have a friend I grew up with who never launched into a software career despite us programming together but his primary interest is language so I guess I understand - I learned C++, he learned Latin. I have another friend who I came up with together and helped him get into development, and then he moved to NYC and got rich, and he has a similar background as me, except not crazy. None of these people have degrees. Both are ridiculously intelligent. But it makes me think, you know? I count myself fortunate, and I am grateful not just for me, but for anyone like me who found their way despite lack of opportunities and access to "white collar" work generally.
Real programmers use butterflies
It makes me sad for the rest of the world... We developer have it easy, but the rest of the world is struggling. And here, in Australia, most good job is government related... I wish the world were better for everyone! Nay, sometimes I wonder why it is not already... We are a long way from 1600 BC! :O
A new .NET Serializer All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar Taking over the world since 1371!
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I grew up kinda hard, with untreated mental illness and spent some time on the streets as a homeless teen, got my GED as a result and never went to college. But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old. When I was 18 I went from being homeless to moving in with my b/f in seattle and from there straight to Microsoft. I started taking senior and lead positions before I was 20. Outside of software development, for example when I moved from Seattle to rural Washington state where there were not development jobs I drove a cab, jockeyed cash registers, and even worked on a farm. I'm not qualified to do anything skilled but write software. I can't tell you how grateful I am that this industry values talent over credentials. I'd be in a very different position today if it weren't for that. I have a friend I grew up with who never launched into a software career despite us programming together but his primary interest is language so I guess I understand - I learned C++, he learned Latin. I have another friend who I came up with together and helped him get into development, and then he moved to NYC and got rich, and he has a similar background as me, except not crazy. None of these people have degrees. Both are ridiculously intelligent. But it makes me think, you know? I count myself fortunate, and I am grateful not just for me, but for anyone like me who found their way despite lack of opportunities and access to "white collar" work generally.
Real programmers use butterflies
honey the codewitch wrote:
But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old.
"You find that that fire is passion and there's a door up ahead not a wall" -- Lou Reed - Magic and Loss
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?" -- Rigoletto
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honey the codewitch wrote:
But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old.
"You find that that fire is passion and there's a door up ahead not a wall" -- Lou Reed - Magic and Loss
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?" -- Rigoletto
+1 for the Lou Reed reference.
Real programmers use butterflies
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+1 for the Lou Reed reference.
Real programmers use butterflies
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It's a high school equivalency "diploma" you can get via exam in lieu of finishing school. Part of the problem with me staying in school is there was a truancy law on the books which would have landed me in juvenile detention a lot because I wasn't able to show up for all of my classes every day because I had to worry food and a place to sleep. So to avoid jail, I dropped out. Basically it's a way to test out of high school so you're not quite as bad off as if you had just stopped going.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I grew up kinda hard, with untreated mental illness and spent some time on the streets as a homeless teen, got my GED as a result and never went to college. But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old. When I was 18 I went from being homeless to moving in with my b/f in seattle and from there straight to Microsoft. I started taking senior and lead positions before I was 20. Outside of software development, for example when I moved from Seattle to rural Washington state where there were not development jobs I drove a cab, jockeyed cash registers, and even worked on a farm. I'm not qualified to do anything skilled but write software. I can't tell you how grateful I am that this industry values talent over credentials. I'd be in a very different position today if it weren't for that. I have a friend I grew up with who never launched into a software career despite us programming together but his primary interest is language so I guess I understand - I learned C++, he learned Latin. I have another friend who I came up with together and helped him get into development, and then he moved to NYC and got rich, and he has a similar background as me, except not crazy. None of these people have degrees. Both are ridiculously intelligent. But it makes me think, you know? I count myself fortunate, and I am grateful not just for me, but for anyone like me who found their way despite lack of opportunities and access to "white collar" work generally.
Real programmers use butterflies
I grew up in a home (family, not foster), but I surely do have a heap lot of emotional baggage (including having spent a couple weeks of my life in a psychosomatic clinic and a couple years more with regular counseling to get to gripes with life). I managed to finish school & university, but I've studied physics, not informatics. I work as a programmer now and one of the dudes at the company once told me that they didn't really want to hire me (for not having the right field they're looking for), but they were really desperate. On the other hand, some educated-in-informatics co-workers of mine are way worse learners, than I am. That kind of guy who say "I've learned to do it like that half a century ago", utterly ignoring all the progress made in said half century. I love programming for, among other reasons, similar to yours: you can do that stuff self-taught. I never needed a single cent to get into it, IDEs are free, learning resources are free, all that's left is the own will to learn and to think.
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I grew up kinda hard, with untreated mental illness and spent some time on the streets as a homeless teen, got my GED as a result and never went to college. But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old. When I was 18 I went from being homeless to moving in with my b/f in seattle and from there straight to Microsoft. I started taking senior and lead positions before I was 20. Outside of software development, for example when I moved from Seattle to rural Washington state where there were not development jobs I drove a cab, jockeyed cash registers, and even worked on a farm. I'm not qualified to do anything skilled but write software. I can't tell you how grateful I am that this industry values talent over credentials. I'd be in a very different position today if it weren't for that. I have a friend I grew up with who never launched into a software career despite us programming together but his primary interest is language so I guess I understand - I learned C++, he learned Latin. I have another friend who I came up with together and helped him get into development, and then he moved to NYC and got rich, and he has a similar background as me, except not crazy. None of these people have degrees. Both are ridiculously intelligent. But it makes me think, you know? I count myself fortunate, and I am grateful not just for me, but for anyone like me who found their way despite lack of opportunities and access to "white collar" work generally.
Real programmers use butterflies
honey the codewitch wrote:
and got rich
Consider this beyond wealth, but to include family/friends/vocation/recreation/everything, you may wish to consider something I read off of one of the front wall in a house-of-worship I attended many years ago. "Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his portion."
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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I don't know. My FIL is a master electrician. Union man. Never had a degree either. He worked in a wonderbread factory before apprenticing, and then busted his behind until he got where he was at. I'm here for trades. And frankly, I'm a member of an industrial union myself, though I work for myself, not a union shop since I don't employ anyone. That's all I'll say on that, for fear of turning this further into a political discussion. I'm in the distinct political minority here.
Real programmers use butterflies
I was young, raw, and cocky. Being in a union helped me smooth those edges out and gave me the training I needed to move forward. Eventually I moved into a position that was no longer union backed, but I'm grateful that being in a union allowed me the chance to grow.
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I grew up kinda hard, with untreated mental illness and spent some time on the streets as a homeless teen, got my GED as a result and never went to college. But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old. When I was 18 I went from being homeless to moving in with my b/f in seattle and from there straight to Microsoft. I started taking senior and lead positions before I was 20. Outside of software development, for example when I moved from Seattle to rural Washington state where there were not development jobs I drove a cab, jockeyed cash registers, and even worked on a farm. I'm not qualified to do anything skilled but write software. I can't tell you how grateful I am that this industry values talent over credentials. I'd be in a very different position today if it weren't for that. I have a friend I grew up with who never launched into a software career despite us programming together but his primary interest is language so I guess I understand - I learned C++, he learned Latin. I have another friend who I came up with together and helped him get into development, and then he moved to NYC and got rich, and he has a similar background as me, except not crazy. None of these people have degrees. Both are ridiculously intelligent. But it makes me think, you know? I count myself fortunate, and I am grateful not just for me, but for anyone like me who found their way despite lack of opportunities and access to "white collar" work generally.
Real programmers use butterflies
Yes me too. My issues were more family related, but I get it. :thumbsup::thumbsup: I did have a one semester class in basic when I was in college. But after that my career went OK. :java::java::java::java: Have made a good living from that one course ever since.:cool:
You go girl.
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I grew up kinda hard, with untreated mental illness and spent some time on the streets as a homeless teen, got my GED as a result and never went to college. But I had hacked around on computers, programming since I was 8 years old. When I was 18 I went from being homeless to moving in with my b/f in seattle and from there straight to Microsoft. I started taking senior and lead positions before I was 20. Outside of software development, for example when I moved from Seattle to rural Washington state where there were not development jobs I drove a cab, jockeyed cash registers, and even worked on a farm. I'm not qualified to do anything skilled but write software. I can't tell you how grateful I am that this industry values talent over credentials. I'd be in a very different position today if it weren't for that. I have a friend I grew up with who never launched into a software career despite us programming together but his primary interest is language so I guess I understand - I learned C++, he learned Latin. I have another friend who I came up with together and helped him get into development, and then he moved to NYC and got rich, and he has a similar background as me, except not crazy. None of these people have degrees. Both are ridiculously intelligent. But it makes me think, you know? I count myself fortunate, and I am grateful not just for me, but for anyone like me who found their way despite lack of opportunities and access to "white collar" work generally.
Real programmers use butterflies
Well, my story is a little boring, I also grew up, went to school and university. I am always glad that I learned at University a lot about mathematics, I am using Fourier transforms quite often and even Laplace. Wrt computers (computer science?) I learned about the PDP-8 and PDP-9, programming in assembler code, using DECtapes for storage. While I am not using PDP-8 or PDP-9 instruction sets nowadays, I really believe that it helps me in my programming. What I further learned was some language theory (type X grammars, 2VW grammars, attribute grammars etc etc), typical things you best learn when you are young. Now from time to time I even use these formalisms to structure my programs. I am fully aware of the fact that after my university education I could write programs but essentially could not program. In the early 70-ties I wrote some parser generators (LL and LALR) and a few compilers (one for Algol 60) and to put it mildly: with my current experience I would have written it differently. Nevertheless, for writing these programs I needed some math, though not calculus. But these programs had a size such that one starts to think about structuring the code and the development process (the language of the 70-ies was for me BCPL). After the 80-ties with Unix and C, I ended up as manager. The last 20 years of my working career I was involved in management, and there were days that I did not use a fourier or Laplace transform of though about formal verification of program (fragments) :-D . After my retirement I started programming again at a level that - at least what I think - would have been impossible without some formal training and some experience in my younger years. My current domain is software defined radio, and there is quite some math in my programs. Summarizing, writing good code is not something you learn from a book, but a slightly more formal training may make it easier to understand what code is good, why it is good, and what code smells
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I don't know. My FIL is a master electrician. Union man. Never had a degree either. He worked in a wonderbread factory before apprenticing, and then busted his behind until he got where he was at. I'm here for trades. And frankly, I'm a member of an industrial union myself, though I work for myself, not a union shop since I don't employ anyone. That's all I'll say on that, for fear of turning this further into a political discussion. I'm in the distinct political minority here.
Real programmers use butterflies
honey the codewitch wrote:
I'm in the distinct political minority here.
That's possible, but you aren't alone either. :)
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I think having worked on a farm is an important skill! Any industry with common sense values talent over credentials. The ones that don't are typically licensed or unionized, which is primarily a way to reduce competition and make it more lucrative for those who are allowed in.
Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.One of the problems with today's business environment is the emphasis on pieces of paper rather than demonstrated skills and knowledge. However, I wouldn't want to be treated by a physician who didn't have a Medical degree and a license! For the lay person, the pieces of paper provide at least some assurance that the person holding him/herself out as an expert really is.
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One of the problems with today's business environment is the emphasis on pieces of paper rather than demonstrated skills and knowledge. However, I wouldn't want to be treated by a physician who didn't have a Medical degree and a license! For the lay person, the pieces of paper provide at least some assurance that the person holding him/herself out as an expert really is.
If he didn't have a license, you could ask to see his his degree (most of them have it on the wall anyway) or proof of malpractice insurance, which someone unqualified would find rather hard to obtain.
Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
Wow the formatting on your message is broken. I had to read it through email. I'm laughing at the last sentence though. :laugh:
Real programmers use butterflies
Oops. Fixed. When I want to use a bad word, one that Chris' filter edits, I put a <nobr></nobr> in the middle. I forgot the closing tag. It's tough being a salty old salt in these modern times :laugh: .
Software Zen:
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honey the codewitch wrote:
and got rich
Consider this beyond wealth, but to include family/friends/vocation/recreation/everything, you may wish to consider something I read off of one of the front wall in a house-of-worship I attended many years ago. "Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his portion."
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
I totally agree with that. I'm much happier wanting what I have than what I don't. My friend didn't pursue material wealth either. It landed in his lap by way of a software contract with Mastercard.
Real programmers use butterflies
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sorry I get emotional with certain things.
mov ax, [feelings]
xor ax,axThere. :laugh:
Real programmers use butterflies
