Software Development: The Great Equalizer
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Started programming at 13 (1984) and never considered that my goal, which was computer engineering. Dropped out of engineering school 3 times, then lived for four years just wearing different hats. Went back to school to do Computer Science after doing web development from 94 to 96. Learned the fundamentals and left school in 2000 without a degree and have had a very successful career thereafter. But its hard emotionally, I think this profession tends to chew people up with the hours and mind games some people play.
I hear you. I've found working for myself to be the only way I can do it anymore.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I work over in Yakima (mid-Washington state). there is a lot of software dev jobs around if you know where to look; they are just not software companies. The fruit and produce companies and supporting industry do have uses for developers. I never finished collage, when my first job offer came around, my wife and I were pretty hurting on income and took what I could. fast forward: now I'm 45, been developing software professionally for 23 years, but this year I'm going back to collage (WGU) to get a degree and be able to move up in my career a bit
honey the codewitch wrote:
I can't tell you how grateful I am that this industry values talent over credentials.
This really is a great industry to be in. and for the most part pretty forgiving on formal education, although we all have to constantly be learning something new to keep up to date.
Yeah, I live in the western half, and I've had contracts from florida to canada but never local. *shrug* There's some IT, but there's not enough demand and I think most of the positions like you speak of are filled by Roger, the same software guy that worked there since 1992 and put their page on geocities.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I have degrees, but most of the top notch programmers I know do not. Being self taught does wonders for your confidence and although coding styles, standards and protocols are often missing, the skills and understanding are what matter most. When I interview, most of the interviewers are impressed enough by a degree to call you in, but the questions fall along lines of what you know and what you can bring. They are most often concerned with key things in the technologies they consider tough to do and less on what lies behind the paper. Only Chemical Abstracts demanded a degree and then only because they advertise their degrees as a way of selling their product. Truth be told, I would rather have someone easy to work with and go to lunch with than a degree in the cubical next to me. Sometimes a second set of eyes is all you need. Other times, you need to share technical expertise or receive technical expertise, but it works better if the person is a good communicator. Having a degree got me the opportunities, but I don't even think about it when working. Unless someone hung their shingle in their cube, I wouldn't know or care.
Rusty Bullet wrote:
Having a degree got me the opportunities, but I don't even think about it when working.
That sounds sensible. :) I had to learn styles and standards on the job, and it took me awhile. Since I haven't been working on teams so much my style has drifted more back to my natural form. But my natural form is almost what I'm stuck with now. It doesn't help that I code without thinking half the time these days, and the stuff even works sometimes. :laugh: Not sure if that's a feature or a bug, but ever since early 2017 I've been able to hold conversations while coding. That was about the same time I went over the high wall and had a massive psychotic event, and I think they might be related since I haven't been the same since. My routines got longer. My comments fewer. My code tighter. My designs better. So it's good and bad.
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
My first reaction was, "Oh great. Another software developer with untreated mental illness." But about being only suited to develop software, I feel ya'. I frequently wonder what I would have done to feed myself if there was no software development. Even today, when I sit down in front of a computer, I feel powerful and effective. When I try to do anything that touches the real world, it's like I'm stuck in syrup, slow and clumsy.
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My first reaction was, "Oh great. Another software developer with untreated mental illness." But about being only suited to develop software, I feel ya'. I frequently wonder what I would have done to feed myself if there was no software development. Even today, when I sit down in front of a computer, I feel powerful and effective. When I try to do anything that touches the real world, it's like I'm stuck in syrup, slow and clumsy.
I'm treated now, but I didn't know for most of my life, and even after I realized how ill I was it was hard to find someone that knew enough to diagnose me (my condition is tricky to diagnose but serious) much less treat me. I had a great support network at the time, and I can't imagine how hard/impossible it must be for someone in that position who doesn't have that. And relatable content. I'm a fish out of water unless you put a computer in front of me.
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 had a great and supportive family. My father was a genius, master engineer (metal kind), master carpenter and inventor. My mother was a first class cook/chef, opera singer, history and geography expert and all round genius. They didn't push me at all but encouraged me in whatever I wanted to do. I had a great childhood, went to university to study Law, decided I didn't like lawyers and switched to a combined sciences degree, stuck with Computer Science through to a PhD and then became a professor of same. Quit after three years to get a real job programming for fighter jet development, invented an expert system (a version of which was still partly used 25 years later) and just generally had fun. ;) I used to lie about my qualifications on my CV, leaving out the PhD and the professorship after I found out it had actually cost me a job! :sigh: Since then, nearly all interviews have been exclusively about what projects I have done, not which pieces of paper I held. The PhD I did, the thesis was on computer game development back when min-computers were the smallest machines available and before the internet effectively existed, is basically useless as far as paper is concern and most of the tech I learned for it is obsolete. :|
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Yeah, I live in the western half, and I've had contracts from florida to canada but never local. *shrug* There's some IT, but there's not enough demand and I think most of the positions like you speak of are filled by Roger, the same software guy that worked there since 1992 and put their page on geocities.
Real programmers use butterflies
In some situations, yes the same guy stays with the company forever, but when you do get an opening, it's total job security. programmers are very rare around here, but there is a demand. I can think of 4 companies currently looking for someone. I've had way too many job offers in the last year, but I'm very happy where I'm at currently and plan to retire from here if possible; so I end up telling them that I'll keep an open eye for other devs looking. My first job was with an industrial controls company, to automate the fruit warehouses, went everywhere from Canada, to Mexico, to Pennsylvania, but mostly in the Nortwest for 18 years. It was great work, and I could have worked there forever, but it got dull after awhile and had to move on. It was about that time that I discovered how much the industry was hurting for more good devs on everything from embedded, to desktop, to Web. They just don't tend to advertise on most job boards, always looking for someone local to hire.
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I had a great and supportive family. My father was a genius, master engineer (metal kind), master carpenter and inventor. My mother was a first class cook/chef, opera singer, history and geography expert and all round genius. They didn't push me at all but encouraged me in whatever I wanted to do. I had a great childhood, went to university to study Law, decided I didn't like lawyers and switched to a combined sciences degree, stuck with Computer Science through to a PhD and then became a professor of same. Quit after three years to get a real job programming for fighter jet development, invented an expert system (a version of which was still partly used 25 years later) and just generally had fun. ;) I used to lie about my qualifications on my CV, leaving out the PhD and the professorship after I found out it had actually cost me a job! :sigh: Since then, nearly all interviews have been exclusively about what projects I have done, not which pieces of paper I held. The PhD I did, the thesis was on computer game development back when min-computers were the smallest machines available and before the internet effectively existed, is basically useless as far as paper is concern and most of the tech I learned for it is obsolete. :|
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Sounds like you lucked out in the parental department. And good for you for making the most of it. :)
Real programmers use butterflies
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Hmm. At the risk of being flamed, I'm going to comment here. I ran the traditional route. I majored in computer engineering at Wright State[^], graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1984. While I was a sophomore in early 1980, I started working as a part-time programmer. I also filled slots during that period as a system manager (VAXen) and as a technical writer. In the ensuing 40 years I have worked with all kinds of folks with different backgrounds. One of the best programmers I ever worked for had a degree in physics. Another guy didn't have a degree but was a phenomenal embedded developer with a meticulous style that, ten years after he retired, makes his code still some of the easiest to maintain I've ever seen. I worked with a college-trained programmer who had enviable credentials, but wrote the sloppiest, most bug-ridden sh!t code I've ever seen. After he left, I spent over a year rewriting everything he wrote on my product, as I got tired and pissed off over the constant bug reports. Another college grad wrote decent code but was an elitist and couldn't be bothered to document it or make it easy to use. Based on my experiences, I can make the following observations: A college education does not guarantee that you'll be a great developer. What is does is give you a broader and deeper skill set than you're likely to have if you're self-trained. As an example, the fantastic embedded guy I mentioned? His only data structure was an array. He knew about linked lists, trees, and all sorts of other things, but they weren't tools he could use comfortably. College educated folks think that grants them a certain level of expertise, often over the self-trained developer, that may or may not be warranted. Practical experience obtained through self-training is great, because you don't have preconceived notions about how something's going to go while you're learning it. Since you're self-motivated you tend to work harder when learning something new, and pay more attention to the nitty-gritty details. That said, it also means that there can be potholes in the road that you might know intuitively from the education that you'll miss entirely if your experience hasn't included it. Many self-trained folks also have a chip on their shoulder about it, and disparage the education as needless academic fluff. My point is that both paths to expertise have value. Choosing one over the other is a mi
Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
wrote the sloppiest, most bug-ridden sh!t code I've ever seen.
I once worked with a guy like that. He was otherwise brilliant. Fortunately, he knew his code was crap and would turn his proofs-of-concept-algorithms over to others to rewrite.
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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
🤗
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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.
Certainly understand and agree: "However, I wouldn't want to be treated by a physician who didn't have a Medical degree OTOH, those EMTs coming to pick up you or your loved ones after an auto accident or a stroke or a heart attack or gun shot may have a few hundred hours of state training. If you're lucky the EMT may have military experience too. These people are very skill just in a limited field of first aid.
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
wrote the sloppiest, most bug-ridden sh!t code I've ever seen.
I once worked with a guy like that. He was otherwise brilliant. Fortunately, he knew his code was crap and would turn his proofs-of-concept-algorithms over to others to rewrite.
This guy was easy to get along with. Unfortunately, he really wanted to be doing Apple development, and we are a Windows house. I think he just didn't care.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
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
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I don't think you give yourself enough credit - the great equaliser is your strength, not what you do. I live in a country where you would have been encouraged to depend on the state so people's strength is eroded from their government.
I still needed someone to give me a shot, without credentials. You just don't find that everywhere. I've found it a lot in software. If you can demonstrate technical proficiency they don't mind the lack of degree. I won't say it's exclusive to development, but I think it's more common in development than many other professions.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Greg Utas wrote:
I've never worked on defense contracts, but this still comes as a total shock
The last three years I worked as a contractor would appall you. One project, two years worth, developed a simulation that at completion was run for two weeks to accumulate some data and then shelved. A second project which took 18 months never ran at all, but delivery was accepted anyway. A third project I wrote a final report which was disseminated to interested parties and that ended it. While commercial development has its downsides, at least my stuff now gets used.
Greg Utas wrote:
Tell me I'm missing something here.
This was back in the 1980's so things may be different now. At the time though I read a report that claimed less than 2% of software created for the DoD (based on dollars spent for development) was still in active use 12 months later. Most of that was in deployed weapons systems and avionics. The rest of it was spent on hopeless MIS projects that tried to automate processes in a 'business' (e.g. defense) that deliberately let experienced employees leave, either at the 4 or 20 year mark. My running joke at the time was "I may be a whore, but at least I ain't cheap."
Software Zen:
delete this;Nope, still the same. I worked in government contracting (DoD) on may projects. Most were to develop simulations and research software. Once the contract ended, the check cleared, the development was over and the software shelved. I got back into commercial, because I know that the software I write will evolve, or at least, dismantled and re-used in some other projects.
"When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others; same thing when you are stupid." Ignorant - An individual without knowledge, but is willing to learn. Stupid - An individual without knowledge and is incapable of learning. Idiot - An individual without knowledge and allows social media to do the thinking for them.