Re: OT: The Geek defense



"Howard Brazee" <howard@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:83jds3lc8rgeq2qlhsgq414nkalubfc2od@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:43:17 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
<dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There MAY be certain personalities who do NOT make good programmers...
people who have limited attention spans, lack self discipline, and are
generally "flighty" , for example. Having trained programmers in various
companies and had a wide cross section of ethnicities, cultures, and
"personalities" to work with, I have arrived at the conclusion stated
above.
almost ANYONE of reasonable intelligence and suitably motivated, can learn
to program a computer, particularly in COBOL. Some will argue that knowing
the language doesn't make a programmer, and I would agree. My response to
that would be: given time and practice, programming is a skill that can be
learned. It has always puzzled me why so many (particularly COBOL) people
hesitate to make the leap to a different language, when "programming
ability" is an underlying skill, that really shouldn't be language
dependent...

I've seen the argument that partial autistic people are more likely to
be productive in programming than in, say, sales.

I suspect our stereotypes are often created by leading edge
personalities. In most any field, those on the leading edge get
there by being relatively obsessed with what they are interested in.
This could be the Olympic figure skater, the musician, the Coen
Brothers type movie maker, or the programmer.

But most programming today isn't being done by leading edge people,
obsessed with their computers. It's done by people doing jobs then
going home to their families and other interests. Sort of like
salesmen and bankers and barristas.

Amen to that... :-)

When I first decided to try and make a career in computers (1965), it really
annoyed me that there was such a barrier between people who understood the
technology and those who didn't.

Programmers were like sorcerers, cavorting and chanting in a mystic tongue
to invoke the demons in the machine into doing things that affected
EVERYBODY. There were some pretty big egos around the emerging "profession"
of "computer programming". I remember being at a party and hearing some
pompous ass discoursing on politics and prefacing his thoughts with
...."Well, speaking as a computer programmer,..." as if that somehow gave
more credence to his pronouncements :-).

The fact was that what we did had HUGE impact on the community at large, yet
most of them had no idea what we did and regarded it with mistrust and
suspicion. (And most of us did nothing to change that or reasssure them, or
make computers more acceptable, because it was cool to be on our side of the
fence.)

I remember writing a program to pick racehorses (based on analysing form
trends... nothing too clever) and making it available to all staff in the
company. Horseracing is second only to Rugby and Cricket (first equal...) in
New Zealand and most of us enjoy a day at the races. It went down very well
(especially when the picks came in :-)), and people used to look forward to
seeing what the computer was picking for the weekend.

I got to thinking about the technocracy that was emerging and wondering if
anything could be done about it.

I dreamed of a day when ANYBODY could sit down with a computer and use it as
easily as we use a hammer or a power drill.

Why couldn't we harness this increasing power, for the good of all and make
it available to all?

It makes me very glad that I have lived through an era where I saw the
possibility of this become a reality.

Today, we have technologies that were undreamed of then; the Internet has
changed our lives for ever, cell phone networks mean we are always in touch,
and we have information at our fingertips. Computer technology has been
shrunk so it is accessible by everyone. Now we have new techniques and tools
that cut development time; applications can be built and deployed in a few
hours, where it used to take weeks or even months. The day when it will be
pssible to create an application by simply interacting with a friendly user
interface will probably happen within my lifetime. (It already has, in some
limited and exploratory visual applications...)

More and more of the population are growing up with and embracing computer
technology. There are 18 year olds who are more "computer literate" in
today's technology, than many of us who have worked with computers for
decades. We can honestly claim we have forgetten more about computer
programming than they will ever learn... they simply don't need to know
what we needed to know. I reckon that is right and proper.

From the stumbling foundations of hardware and software that our generation
laid down, the next generation is building something of beauty and elegance
that will surpass and eclipse things we could only dream of in terms of
computer technology.

Power to the people! :-)

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."



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