

Where Have the Great Programmers Gone? - gnosis
http://vanemden.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/where-have-all-the-great-programmers-gone/

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dalke
In any discussion of this sort, I am reminded of an essay by Stephen Jay Gould
on baseball. His question, in essence, was "Where Have the Great Players
Gone?"

His answer was that in the beginning there was a huge range of skills between
players, so those with the best skill easily stood out. But over time, as the
game matured, the variation diminished. There were more and more really good
people, so the difference between them and the best in the field diminished.

Gould's explanation can be applied to any complex new field which undergoes
maturation. For example, it also answers the question "Who is the Einstein of
our time", by saying there are many people who are better at physics than
Einstein; so many that they don't stand out.

The author of this essay conjectures "the current educational environment
militates against the discovery and nurturing of programming talent." I
disagree. The 'current educational environment' means there are so many well-
trained people that the exceptional and self-taught people do not stand out so
much.

As supporting evidence, the teaching of mathematical physics and of baseball
have not seriously changed in the last 50 years, so the author's hypothesis
cannot apply to those fields, while Gould's hypothesis does. Hence Gould's has
more explanatory power.

It may be that the 'current educational environment' is at fault, but there is
insufficient evidence for that hypothesis in the essay.

~~~
dalke
Here's Gould describing "The Disappearance of 0.400 Hitting" -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZBh2ZbEo0I>

