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Comment by ericsink | Hacker News Reader

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ericsink·

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?

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> 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.

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.

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