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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I think this "hacking since teenage" crap is overrated. I started programming C++ in middle school, but I don't think it makes me a better programmer than someone that took it up in college. I don't think it matters what girls did in high school. Every other mature industry favors formalized training over looking at what people do in their free time. If you said that the best bankers are the ones that did trading simulations as teenagers, instead of ones that received formal training at Morgan Stanley, or that the best engineers are people that built model rockets instead of those that received formal training at Lockheed, people would laugh at you. But the same sort of sentiment flies in the tech world. The industry fails to separate the profession from the cultural tendencies of people in the industry. I think its just a sign of the immaturity of the profession and will disappear in time.

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I think this "hacking since teenage" crap is overrated.

Wholehearted agreement. I didn't touch a computer, other than the ones in the typing lab in high school, until I got my own PC for college. Here I am, the better part of two decades later, doing rather well for myself, and with colleagues and management at my last three jobs all having said I'm the best at what I do of anyone they've ever worked with.

Yeah, yeah, anecdata, but one thing anecdata can legitimately do is provide an existence proof against a universal claim like pg's.

It's not a universal claim. It's an observation of tendencies. Given the choice between two fresh college graduates where one had been hacking since middle school and the other only started in college, who are you likely to choose all else being equal?

This isn't rocket science. People who start hacking at a young age and continue very likely have a passion toward the discipline. People who have a passion for programming likely care more about it. People who care more about it are probably better.

Does this mean that the guy who didn't start until later can't be better? Not at all.

I was a converted music major who took up programming sophomore year because I realized I was just not a very good musician, so I went to the career center at school, took some goofy test that asked things like "would you prefer to collect rocks, wood, or stamps?" And out of that the answer was "programmer". This from a guy who had to ask a lab monitor how to save my music history paper on a floppy the previous semester. It's worked out ok so those psychologists weren't totally full of it.

I think it's "AND" not "INSTEAD OF" that he's targetting.

There are many things where putting more time in productively will help you get better. Similarly, wide ranges of experience need time.

At 22, the fact that I programmed since 13 probably made me better than those that just had the BS I also had. Now, at 43, I don't those years from 13-18 are a differentiator.

Those people you mention may be great (skilled) at their job (profession) but they are no hacker. Are they enthusiastic enough to do it outside their standard hours? Maybe some.. and those will be the ones that grew up doing this since childhood.

What do I care if someone is enthusiastic enough to do it in their free time? Do other industries look for this?

Two 23 year olds. One has been programming for 10 years, the other one just 4 years.

Isn't it sort of obvious that the person with more experience is likely to have more skills?

My problem with this idea is that it puts too much emphasis on finding people who already have certain skills, instead of on who would be most effective if formally trained. I think this is a haphazard way for an industry to cultivate a workforce.

@rayiner the problem is you are assuming formal training is as useful or better than self-teaching in a case where the opposite is likely true. Tech moves fast, programming requires constant learning and updating of ones skill-set. The ability (and desire) to self teach is far more useful than rote memorization in a classroom spoon-fed environment. Self-education is a skill just like any other that needs practice. During those extra 10 years the child hackers are pecking away they aren't just getting a leg up on practicing the craft of programming they are also getting a leg up on practicing self-teaching.

Well I also disagree that tech moves fast. There is a lot of mindless churn, but software companies do themselves a lot of prejudice chasing buzzwords when computing and networking principles are in fact very stable and long lived. And in any case, it makes a lot more sense to formally train in relevant new technologies than to have ad hoc self learning.

> Isn't it sort of obvious that the person with more experience is likely to have more skills?

Of course not. The quality of their practice is rather important.

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