Re: Industry versus academia

[David Farber <address@hidden>]

At 03:17 PM 2/21/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Here is where we run into another problem.  Many developers are sadly
>incapable of developing software.  In part, this is because too many
>organizations do not think of "programming" as a viable career and
>structure their environments to reflect that. The result is that
>people get out of school, write code for five years or so, and then
>move into management.  The problem is that studies have shown that to
>get really good at anything complex -- like speaking a foreign
>language fluently, mastering an instrument, or being a skilled
>programmer -- takes ten years.  So we have people writing code --
>sometimes even "senior programmers" who really should still be the
>apprentice of a more skilled master.  The result is that the code
>sucks.  It's not that they're (necessarily) stupid; they just don't
>have the skills they need to do what they need to do given the
>resources and time available to them.

Yep. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman argue this exact point in their book "First, Break All The Rules": the only career that organizations truly believe in is management. You can be the greatest programmer, salesman, graphic artist, account manager, or whatever, but if you want to move up--both in terms of pay and prestige--you have to move into management.

david

--
David Farber
dfarber@numenor.com