How smart are programmers?

Alex E

Colin^Davies wrote: All I can say is that over time I have seen the average programmer's intelligence lowered. That's exactly what I'm talking about. See my post below.

peterchen

Alex E. wrote: Everyone with high school diploma can go study in one of those "technical schools" for a year and be called "programmer" Everyone can juggle some HTML together and call himself a "Web programmer". 40 years ago, many programmers were top mathematicians, because the expensive computing time was used mostly solving tough math problems (cracking codes etc.) 20 years ago, people started tackling lesser problems, because an the cost/cycle rapidly dropped. 10 years ago, the cost/cycle dropped so low, it was economically sane to file your tax papers on a PC. The questions is where you place "programmers". there's a vast field between code monkeys, coding project managers, software designers, software developers - this field will probably rake between 0.6 and 0.9, and you didn#t include like Stroustrup and Knuth yet. [pc filter off] For the 0.6: just think how many women deem themselfes able to do the job. [/pc filter off]

One day I might find it quite amusing how touching tongues make life so confusing Anne Clark again [sighist]

Olli

Alex E. wrote: with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. But VB :confused: isn't a language, it is kind of defective condition.... X|

Olli Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot......
:suss: :rolleyes: :suss:

Pavel Klocek

Programmers (or developers rather) surely need some IQ, depending on the character of the job. There are more kinds of "IQ" - mathematical, analytical, team work ability, "social IQ". Different combination of them is optimal for different jobs. Pavel Sonork 100.15206

ColinDavies

Alex E. wrote: That's exactly what I'm talking about. See my post below. Yes we are in agreement. I'm surprised how many English speaking programmers don't understand what an algorithm is anymore. So many programmers are just users of the development tools and have no ability for real creativity. Regardz Colin J Davies

Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin

You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.

Christian Graus

I don't think that being a *good* programmer has changed much, although you're right that what a moron can achieve in terms of getting bad software to look good enough to go to market increases every year. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 Cats, and most other animals apart from mad cows can write fully functional vb code. - Simon Walton - 6-Aug-2002

Andrew Torrance

My IQ has gone down since I have been programming. The reason is that the IQ questions themselves seem to put a premium on being able to see an assumed link between various bits of data . Programming on the other hand teaches you never to assume anything and to test each assumption before you rely on it . Its not that you do not see the links , but you also see the myriad of other possibilities . Its got to the stage that I even have long conversations with myself while I am driving trying to think of how many possibilities there are when you toss a coin . Heads , tails , can't see , lost the coin , coin never came down , coin landed on edge , coin got destroyed by tossing , can't be arsed to check etc etc all real world possibilities that are ignored by simple maths and people who write IQ questions. Oh no, you can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Clause!

Paul Riley

As many people have pointed out, it depends what you define as a programmer. I spent about a year once working with a bunch of people who knew how to write code but couldn't find even a simple bug in their own code, or couldn't solve a simple problem if faced with it. They had the programming knowledge, but didn't have that warped kind of lateral / logical thinking mindset that I do. So for most of that year I didn't write a single line of code, I just wandered around helping people with theirs. Kinda fun really but ask yourself this: who was the programmer? The person writing code or the person telling them how? By your definition, I'd say (writing code: 0.3), (writing code well: 0.5), (debugging, problem solving: 0.8). The thing is that at one time, only the last category became programmers and thus were paid well for it. Now any idiot can get a programming job and are still paid well for it. Over the next few years people will be paid less well for it. Then all the people who are capable programmers will leave and do something else and no one will be there to carry the idiots who pump out useless code. Eventually business will figure out the difference between a programmer and someone who knows how to write C++ and the whole thing will sort itself out. Paul

Marc Clifton

Programming requires problem solving skills. Problem solving skills don't necessarily mean high intellectual capabilities, math or engineering skills. Problem solving skills do require that a person create a mental map between point A, the problem, and point B, the solution. Along the way, there may be a lot of other smaller problems to solve. Assuming all other things equal (same knowledge of the language, the problem domain, the customer requirements, etc) the difference between a good programmer and an average one is that the good programmer will know more of the sub-problems that need solving. Some of this comes from experience, some of it comes from better visualization skills. I don't think intellectual abilities for coding are lower than those required for engineering. Again, I think it has to do with open minded problem solving skills. For example, I think I'm a really good programmer. I also know next to nothing about satellite design. Yet, when I was asked to solve a problem that a particular satellite manufacturer hadn't been able to solve for 4 years (they had top notch mathematicians and engineers working on the problem), I solved their problem in a matter of weeks. Why? Because I have really good problem solving abilities, and most importantly, because I looked at the problem from outside of the mental framework (the visualization) that they were using without even realizing it. Comments? Marc

Richard Stringer

CoolDev wrote: Who is more 'intelligent': Michelangelo or Richard Feynman? I don't know but I would pay money just to set in on a converation with the two. Throw in Uncle Albert and Niels Bohr and Newton for the mother of all think tanks. I would add Wm. Shakesphere to the list to chronicle the event with Stephen Hawking as moderator. Richard We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty. Mark Twain- Foreign Critics speech, 1890

Richard Stringer

Paul Oss wrote: A programmer writing software to control, say, real time telemetry information for military aircraft Having done somrthing like this several (15) years ago ( not telementry but similar ) I must confess that it was so compartmentilized that it was not very challenging at all. The biggest problem was one of speed. With the aircrafts velocity approaching 1750 fps and closing speeds in excess of 3600 fps it behooves one to optomize the code as much as possible. Most of our time was spent on squeezing every bit of performance we could out of the machine while still writing maintainable code. The nuts and bolts were pretty much stated for us - we just had to make it work right. A lesson that was learned from the experience is "Nothing is impossible for someone who doesn't have to do it" Richard We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty. Mark Twain- Foreign Critics speech, 1890

David Crow

Chris Losinger wrote: however, i do think it's easier for a dummy to get into professional programming than into professional medicine, simply because programming doesn't require the 8 years of hard training that medical doctors get. but, that doesn't mean he'll be able to stay. I tend to agree with this. Do you suppose it has anything to do with the tools currently available (i.e., the tools make it too easy)?

Five birds are sitting on a fence. Three of them decide to fly off. How many are left?