Re: Fifty years' experience in C programming; 20 in VB...

It is true that many people are very effective without degrees in computer science, but these people tend to be in fields closely related to math or computer science, such as physics.

Everyone reading this list can probably find anecdotal exceptions where someone with a liberal arts degree or no degree at all has turned out to be an outstanding programmer, dba or other techie. However, these people invariably have large gaps in their backgrounds unless they have spent an incredible amount of time engaged in self-study. No CS people tend to be weakest when it comes to optimization and performance analysis.

I have heard CS students whine about the seeming lack of connection between industry job skills and things like complexity analysis, algorithms, etc. However, the people who seem to have the firmest grasp of these fundamentals also tend to come up with the best solutions to tough problems. In my experience, the further up the ladder you go in the problems and systems you work on, the more the fundamentals seem to come into play. Yes, knowing about the traveling salesman problem, the difference between O(n^2) and Ln(n), and what is meant by a minimum weight spanning tree does matter.

I won't belabor the point of education, but I can't help but bring up an example. I had a manager about six years ago who took the dev team to task for the defect rate of our software. The developers brought up the problem of shifting requirements, and the manager brought up the problem of inadequate white box testing, and both were right. However, the manager thought he was *more* right, when he said , "I don't understand why you can't produce bug free software." I then informed him that debugging an arbitrary program in the general case is a provably impossible task. Of course, he accused me of being less than truthful, so I gave him a five minute lecture about the halting problem, and he never again uttered the phrase, "and I want to see the final product with *zero* defects." Instead, he made the reasonable assertion, "and I want all of you find as many bugs as you can before the customer sees the product." The hours I spent on diagonalization proofs regarding primitive recursive problems finally paid off. People without technical degrees or without any computer science background typically have no understanding of some very important theoretical problems.

In relation to databases, many query optimization problems are NP-complete, meaning no one knows anything better than exponential algorithms to solve these problems. If you understand this principle, it makes you much more tolerant of issues related to the optimizer. Oracle's optimizer certainly does have bugs, but I would rather see a pretty good optimizer that is right most of the time then have one that takes exponential time to find the best query plan.

A degree in CS is not a necessary condition for being a solid techie, but it does make it more likely.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Weiss
mailto:chris_at_hpdbe.com
www.hpdbe.com
High Performance Database Engineering
Available for long and short term contracts


"Neil Truby" <neil.truby_at_ardenta.com> wrote in message
news:dyzA8.28903$7R.37878_at_NewsReader...


> Another drawback of recruitment ads, particularly for some reason US ones,

> is the requirement for a computer science degree.  No other discipline

will


> do.  I think this is quite short-sighted: one of the best techies I ever

met


> was a history graduate, and I myself am a technical colossus but have a

> degree in theoretical physics.

>

>

> "Daniel Morgan" <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote in message

> news:3CD2A981.F880942B_at_exesolutions.com...

> > aztek wrote:

> >

> > > Hi there,

> > >

> > > I completely agree with you on job adverts asking for ridiculous

amounts


> of

> > > 'expertise'!  I've been studying various programming languages and of

> course

> > > the other essential theory ingredients for 3 years, got diploma, doing

> > > degree and can't even get an interview - and yes, my marks are

> excellent.

> > > Here in Australia, not only do employers / head hunters list what

seems


> like

> > > an impossible number of skills from both networking and programming

> areas,

> > > but in addition, a junior seems to be considered someone with 2-3

years


> > > experience!!!  IMPOSSIBLE!!!

> > >

> > > Well, that's all I had to say.  Good luck to the original poster and

to


> > > everyone in my situation!

> > >

> > > Rachel

> > >

> > > "Kyralessa" <ryan_lundy_at_spamless_hotmail.com> wrote in message

> > > news:s8jA8.240$7r7.120058891_at_newssvr30.news.prodigy.com...

> > > > "Daniel Morgan" <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote in message

> > > > news:3CD18D9D.25533570_at_exesolutions.com...

> > > > > Developer wrote:

> > > > >

> > > > > > I'm looking for a contract job in one of areas of my experience:

> > > > > > [snip]

> > > > > > Mail:  art_of_proramming_at_seznam.cz

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Detailed CV upon request.

> > > > > > Working languages: English, German, Czech.

> > > >

> > > >

> > > > Based on the e-mail address noted above, I'd say at least one of

those


> > > > languages needs a bit of work!

> > > >

> > > >

> > > > > [snip]

> > > > >

> > > > > No one is competent in as many things as you have listed. I'm not

> > > > saying that

> > > > > you don't know them to some extent. But in the current marketplace

> > > > people look

> > > > > for experts, not generalists.

> > > > >

> > > > > If you want to be successful I would urge you to decide what it is

> you

> > > > want to

> > > > > do and apply for each position with a resume that reflects your

> > > > experience in

> > > > > that area and that area alone. When I see a resume that looks like

a


> > > > to-do list

> > > > > I just toss it aside and so do most recruiters.

> > > > >

> > > > > Daniel Morgan

> > > >

> > > >

> > > > So why, Daniel, do so many companies post such enormous laundry

lists


> of

> > > > skills on their websites for any one position?  The impression I get

> > > > from most job postings I've looked at is that companies ARE looking

> for

> > > > someone who's mastered more than is humanly possible:  Five to seven

> > > > years experience in at least fifteen of some twenty different

acronyms


> > > > listed.  Maybe if companies didn't advertise their jobs this way and

> > > > were more honest about what essential _core_ skills were required

for


> > > > each job, job-seekers wouldn't feel the need to make resumes like

> this.

> > > >

> >

> > Your posting reminded me of a phone call I got from a recruiter looking

> for

> > someone with expertise in migrating Oracle 8 to Oracle 11i.

> >

> > It is still good for a laugh ... hopefully at the expense of HR

> departments

> > (something Scott Adams does frequently in the Dilbert cartoon strip).

> >

> > Daniel Morgan

> >

>

>