[spam score 2/10 -pobox] [TriLUG] Linux Support Position (OT)

[William W. Ward]

Tanner,

On the topic of devs, I think otherwise:

While I agree developing software requires logical, ordered and creative
thinking - I don't think this is something enhanced by college-level
education.  Rather, I find through my experience in both grade school and
college (and vicariously through my social circle,) that this sort of
thinking is settled in grade school, usually much earlier than high school.

Lets drill down a little for the sake of entertainment:
Software development envelopes a number of components:  Programming, Project
Management, Marketing, Technical Writing, Interface Design and Functional
Design.  Each component has its own collection of subcomponents, like
art/graphics, software patent compliance, human perception and more.
Whether you're an individual or a small group or a major company, each one
of these areas is addressed by some one at some point in the life cycle of
your code.  Obviously you make decisions on how your program speaks to the
world even if all you code are device drivers, in which case you probably
choose only to write to a syslog or perhaps not communicate with the user at
all.

While the uneducated kid who spends his hours hacking together a program to
decode DVDs with his buddies may have a less organized or lower-quality
software product than a paid developer working for a group with clear goals
and experience, the factors affecting the code are the management of the
project.

And my point?  If you have 10 PFYs fresh out of grade school (since they'll
be able to spend the full balance of their waking hours on coding, rather
than schooling,) working in a small company headed by a team of software
project managers, the fact that the PFY's have no formal education is less
of a concern than if they are connected with experienced and effective
leaders.  On the other hand, the most experienced and learned programmer is
at the mercy of the leadership of his project.  If he is tasked with writing
a module that makes up a larger program and his leadership is unable to
coordinate the monkeys in the other cages to write to a common
specification, the quality of his code will make little difference to the
end-user coping with a stack smash exploit from one of the other bits of
code in the program.

And that is why I believe that if college education was maintained as an
elitist organization with high entry barriers and a high standard of quality
(and no remedial nonsense for those who didn't pick up algebra in high
school, as I did not,) than the quality of the diploma would be
significantly greater.

And then, perhaps there would be fewer pointy-haired bosses in positions of
software development that really do not know the difference between managing
software development and soap.

I hope that makes coherent sense.  You know, I'm very focused on my DLT
library.  I just received the bar code labels for my 15 cartridges and I'm
eagerly awaiting the inventory completion.  Its a slow Friday.

-b-




----- Original Message -----
From: "Tanner Lovelace" <lovelace at wayfarer.org>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 2:33 PM
Subject: Re: [spam score 2/10 -pobox] [TriLUG] Linux Support Position (OT)


> On Fri, 2002-06-28 at 14:09, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> > Every society has its caste system.  This is ours.
>
> I disagree.  While for some positions a college degree may not
> make that much of a difference for some it does, quite a bit.
> For developers, I believe it makes an enormous difference.
> Developing software takes extremely logical, ordered and creative
> thinking.  While some exceptional people can do this without
> benefit of a college degree, the vast majority simply cannot
> (witness the vast amount of software on Source Forge that is
> simply crap).  To say otherwise shows a lack of understanding
> of the discipline of programming.
>
> System administration, on the other hand, can easily be learned
> in apprenticeship fashion.  While I believe a good system administrator
> will benefit from a college degree, I believe they will benefit
> more from experience (even experience administering a linux
> box at home).  Note that this does not mean I believe Sys
> Admins are any less competent than programmers, just that
> they are in different fields.
>
> Tanner
> --
> Tanner Lovelace | lovelace at wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
> --*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--
> GPG Fingerprint = A66C 8660 924F 5F8C 71DA  BDD0 CE09 4F8E DE76 39D4
> GPG Key can be found at http://wtl.wayfarer.org/lovelace.gpg.asc
> --*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--
> Don't move! Or I'll fill ya full of... little yellow bolts of light!
>                                 Commander John Crichton (Farscape)
>
> _______________________________________________
> TriLUG mailing list
>     http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
> TriLUG Organizational FAQ:
>     http://www.trilug.org/~lovelace/faq/TriLUG-faq.html
>
>