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Comment by sbov | Hacker News Reader

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sbov·

There's a dirtier secret:

A load of professional programmers are not able to make new programs.

A load of professional programmers are not able to modify existing programs.

And a load of professional programmers are not able to finish programs.

Almost no-one is good at all 3. Most are extremely bad at least one of these.

Lots of people who are "good" at making new programs are actually pretty bad.

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It's not a secret when you know how to code but you are an end user. Knowing how to code and knowing how to learn to code makes this widespread incompetence masquerading as competence and even "professionalism" radiate from every bit of software you ever come in contact with, as an end user. Seeing the source code just drives home the message even more. You become a more discerning end user.

> And a load of professional programmers are not able to finish programs.

I'm bad at this. I'm not sure if this is caused by a lack of programming skills or a lack of project management skills.

Does HR know this? I'm afraid not.

If HR is doing something other than providing expertise on managing relationships (particularly, the formal and compliance-related aspects of those relationships) for supervisory/management staff that are the domain experts providing knowledge related to the skill sets needed for the staff which are or will be reporting to them, then the organization has a fundamental (though, to be sure, distressingly common) design flaw.

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