Funny, I know a few years back IBM was hiring up college graduates and training them on Cobol. Apparently a ton of Cobol systems are out there and not going anywhere so they found they needed to train people on the language for support/maintenance.
On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:35 AM, charlie arehart < [email protected]> wrote: > Yeah, the author is showing some age-ism. :-) He wrote, “in my > experience most average or poor programmers start programming at university, > for their Computer Science course. Most good programmers started programming > long before, and the degree was just a natural continuation of their hobby.” > > > > Like Angeli, some of us were already in (or out of) college when personal > computers came out. His assertions reflect the natural tendency for us to > assume most are “in our boat”. :-) > > > > One might assert that he should have referred instead to years of > experience, but even that’s not as useful as it may seem. Someone who did > learn 10-20 years ago but who has not kept up is likely to be stuck in > procedural programming, and like an old dog having a hard time learning new > tricks, they may well struggle mightily in the new world of OO, frameworks, > ORMs, etc. It’s not that they can’t make the leap, but it’s harder. > > > > Still, and thankfully, the author didn’t really discuss OO as significant > to being a “good programmer”. Some commenters did. I realize that some would > think it’s vital and an absolute, but the truth is that there are plenty of > apps out there still in need of tender loving care from someone who won’t be > compelled to rewrite it (many orgs or bosses just won’t be ready for that > yet). For them, the folks who haven’t yet made the leap to OO have a role to > fill. Heck, there are still people making a living as Cobol programmers. Not > something everyone would aspire to, but the bottom line is that a good > programmer is a good programmer, regardless of language, and I think those > are the points he was trying to convey. > > > > /charlie > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Angeli Wahlstedt > *Sent:* Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:56 PM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* [houcfug] Re: Are you a good programmer? > > > > This is gonna date me, but computer camps didn’t exist when I was 9. > Neither did personal computers, come to think of it. J > > > > n Angeli > > > > -- Aaron Rouse http://www.happyhacker.com/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the "Houston ColdFusion Users' Group" discussion list. To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit http://groups.google.com/group/houcfug?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
