The Daily Parker

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Blue-collar coders? Um, no

Via a longtime reader, LinkedIn software engineer David Max responds to Wired article with "no, coders aren't assembly-line workers:"

The implication is that one can learn enough coding skills to get a job writing easy code, and then settle into a long stable career writing more of the same. Maybe, but I doubt it.

The world of software development changes rapidly. Even if we need a lot more developers, that won’t change the fact that keeping up is a continuous effort. Even if the barriers to entry are getting lower such that there are programming jobs that do not require a four year computer science degree, that is still just the foot in the door. Once on the job, you will need to keep actively improving to keep up like the rest of us.

To put it another way, there may be more entry level positions open to people with less training, but that training will likely grow stale. A boot camp program might prepare you for a job, but what you learn today in a boot camp will almost certainly be different from what you would learn two years from now.

This is one reason why I prefer to hire developers with liberal arts degrees. And why I give a very straightforward problem to solve in interviews. And why I ask what books the candidates read.

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