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- Path: camelot.dsccc.com!not-for-mail
- From: kcline@sun132.spd.dsccc.com (Kevin Cline)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
- Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: Vacant Job Positions
- Date: 11 Feb 1996 11:56:31 -0600
- Organization: DSC Communications Corporation Switch Products Division
- Message-ID: <4flakf$s7p@sun132.spd.dsccc.com>
- References: <AMCHAVAN.96Jan25112007@ac2.hq.eso.org> <311B828B.2102@crl.com> <4fg14l$ifm@news.asu.edu> <311CDB81.7479@computek.net>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: sun132.spd.dsccc.com
-
- In article <311CDB81.7479@computek.net>,
- Greg Eaton <geaton@computek.net> wrote:
- >cpearson@$IMAPSERVER wrote:
- >[snip]
- >>
- >> I'm sure that there ARE many people who can out "program" me who don't
- >> have degrees, but there are many, many more who are wandering around
- >> thinking that all there is to programming is "hacking" together code
- >> in a few hours.......
- >>
- >Unfortunately most of the hackers that I know have MSCS or PhDs.
-
- In what field?
-
- >This makes it very difficult to impress them with the concept of
- >maintenance on large projects (>100 files and >10 developers).
-
- >And speaking of maintenance,
- >the "college grads" apparently have never had to understand a large software
- >system (written by someone else) and modify it to meet new requirements.
- >
-
- This is an unfortunate fact of life; universities are not in the
- business of training professional programmers, although they often
- lead their students into believin they are.
-
- >Most big corporations have a better "software development" training program
- >for new hires, than the colleges provide in their "theory" classes.
-
- Most large corporations have defined software development practices.
- These practices let them do application maintainence in a predictable
- way. But teaching these practices will not produce programmers who
- can readily understand and apply (or invent) new technology to produce
- applications substantially different from those already in place.
-
- I also doubt that the graduates of these training programs thoroughly
- understand the issues involved in writing software that is easily
- maintainable as opposed to merely understanding how to manage and
- thoroughly test rather poor code. Perhaps I am mistaken, and
- somewhere inside IBM or EDS there is a pool of programmers vastly more
- skilled than those I have met in my career producing software for the
- defense, airline, and telecommunication industries. Programmers who
- understand data structures, maintainability issues, algorithm
- analysis, and object-oriented design. Programmers who know several
- languages, operating systems, and databases and are able to make
- informed decisions about which to apply to a problem. Maybe there are
- lots of programmers like that somewhere and I just haven't worked for
- the right company yet. But I doubt it.
-
- >My work experience tells me that a college degree only means that the
- >individual is trainable.
-
- My work experience tells me that a college degree only means that the
- individual was able to raise the $20,000 or more needed to pay for it,
- and was disciplined enough to show up for most of the exams.
-
- >Yes, I have a degree (Math and Physics) and I am a software engineer
- >(corporate trained) with 11 years of experience (5 as a systems
- >engineer).
-
- Perhaps you could give us some idea what areas your corporate
- training has covered.
- --
- Kevin Cline
-