I’ve been interviewing a lot of candidates recently for AMS Pilot. And I’m getting repeatedly amazed by how much programmer’s beliefs are rooted not in reality. This is not good.
While I agree that most programmers are like this I do not agree that it's a generational problem. It's people problem. Most people want to learn just enough to do their job somehow OK. People have been like this since the beginning of the world. You're just seeing the manifestation of this mindset in the programmers population. Most people think programmers are smarter. Well maybe programmers have higher IQ but this does not make them "people who want to understand the world" nor does it make them -curious- people automatically. It doesn't make them hard working or goal oriented either! Programmers are just people who found out they can do programming for a living (and maybe applied some effort to start doing it). Then we can proceed to find out the other qualities they have.
So basically you're looking for a subset of experienced people who are able and willing to think for themselves in the direction of their work. That's rare, actually. Quite rare.
While I agree with general observation that being a programmer doesn't make you more curious automatically.
But, there is a shift that happened when people realised that programming made a good living, and then mass-product info courses and bootcamps lowered barrier to entry.
My observation is that, before this shift, it was hard to get into programming. And now it's a lot easier and all kinds of people started becoming programmers.
Yes. Before that programming was "open" pretty much only to people with the "scientific" kind of mind who are open to reading manuals for hours on end daily. Most programmers are not like that (for different reasons)
Being able to spend such time was a barrier to entry that has been lowered indeed. However I don't think that being able to put yourself through the effort/torture makes you a good fit for a programmer. Programmers need to be able to think in terms of systems, what goes in, where it goes, where it goes out. Nothing to do with reading manuals. If anything manuals are very linear and programming is very spatial/pattern recognition oriented.
Videos and bootcamps make it easy for talented people to get on board too. The barrier is lowered for everyone now.
While I agree that most programmers are like this I do not agree that it's a generational problem. It's people problem. Most people want to learn just enough to do their job somehow OK. People have been like this since the beginning of the world. You're just seeing the manifestation of this mindset in the programmers population. Most people think programmers are smarter. Well maybe programmers have higher IQ but this does not make them "people who want to understand the world" nor does it make them -curious- people automatically. It doesn't make them hard working or goal oriented either! Programmers are just people who found out they can do programming for a living (and maybe applied some effort to start doing it). Then we can proceed to find out the other qualities they have.
So basically you're looking for a subset of experienced people who are able and willing to think for themselves in the direction of their work. That's rare, actually. Quite rare.
While I agree with general observation that being a programmer doesn't make you more curious automatically.
But, there is a shift that happened when people realised that programming made a good living, and then mass-product info courses and bootcamps lowered barrier to entry.
My observation is that, before this shift, it was hard to get into programming. And now it's a lot easier and all kinds of people started becoming programmers.
Yes. Before that programming was "open" pretty much only to people with the "scientific" kind of mind who are open to reading manuals for hours on end daily. Most programmers are not like that (for different reasons)
Being able to spend such time was a barrier to entry that has been lowered indeed. However I don't think that being able to put yourself through the effort/torture makes you a good fit for a programmer. Programmers need to be able to think in terms of systems, what goes in, where it goes, where it goes out. Nothing to do with reading manuals. If anything manuals are very linear and programming is very spatial/pattern recognition oriented.
Videos and bootcamps make it easy for talented people to get on board too. The barrier is lowered for everyone now.
I think that's generally for the better.