Current Events > Apparently 0.5% of the global population has programming skills.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Id say that about 99% of those people are ass at it, so a very very small number of people can produce quality software.

Sad.

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nice

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I am not one of the good programmers.

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Define skills. I can write an if statement on python

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I can write a loop in Java that can print hello world infinite times

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There's a disproportionally large amount of trans women who do computer engineering or programming.

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Programming is still relatively new too though

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I'm competent at what I need it for

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It's a niche skill that the average person never needs to learn. Expected less.

Freakin nerds.

Jk. I wish I had some programming skills. Seems pretty cool. But I don't have the time or the dedication to learn something like that.

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I learned Java pretty well in HS. I even took AP CS and got a 4 on the AP test. I programmed some games too. I started getting more into webdesign in HS and learned things like javascript, php, mysql, etc.

Even though I use 0% of that actual knowledge today, learning to think like a programmer has most certainly helped me throughout my life in terms of breaking down complex problems, problem solving, and organization.

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Will said skills pay the bills?

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The problem is that knowing how to program and knowing how to engineer a program are vastly different but tightly coupled skills. There are lots of people who know how to write a class, but not nearly enough people who understand how to organize a software system to be efficient or tune algorithms to increase performance. It's an ever-growing pool of people who just use whatever framework is in vogue without understanding it, which is how you get stuff like Ionic that compiles down to react or angular which ITSELF just compiles down to javascript, or how you get software that takes 10GB to install because it's bloated with unnecessary packages nobody bothered to cull and runs like shit because nobody bothered to optimize it.

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I spend 95% of my time writing code but I couldn't write production code to save my life.

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s0nicfan posted...

The problem is that knowing how to program and knowing how to engineer a program are vastly different but tightly coupled skills. There are lots of people who know how to write a class, but not nearly enough people who understand how to organize a software system to be efficient or tune algorithms to increase performance. It's an ever-growing pool of people who just use whatever framework is in vogue without understanding it, which is how you get stuff like Ionic that compiles down to react or angular which ITSELF just compiles down to javascript, or how you get software that takes 10GB to install because it's bloated with unnecessary packages nobody bothered to cull and runs like shit because nobody bothered to optimize it.

Is this because engineers are gate keepers that keep certain classes outside of CS depts?

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

Is this because engineers are gate keepers that keep certain classes outside of CS depts?

I don't think so, if only because everything I mentioned would be taught as part of a reputable CS or SE program anyway. Part of the problem is simple academic rigor: you learn to optimize in all those algorithms classes that people want to just skip because it's hard. Another part is companies not appreciating or even understanding what a programmer is supposed to do, so you get your "Dilbert" situations where a boss is setting deadlines without knowing the amount of work required.

That being said, I don't know enough about what a CS degree looks like at a community college or state college, so it's also possible what you suggested is true. It's just not in my experience.

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I really sould learn wordpress and some basic web dev to set up shitty websites for business local to me for like $5000 a pop

I dunno if I ever saw elegant code in my life.

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