

Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer? - rob_r0
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/article.php/3848406/Are-You-a-Blue-Collar-or-White-Collar-Developer.htm

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thwarted
_With more than a hint of a defensive tone, he said that he didn’t go to
college. ... "Really? So where did you learn to write code?"_

The most interesting thing about this parable is that no one seemed to have
been "writing code" before having gone to school to "learn" it.

I'm not a programmer because of my CS degree, I'm a programmer because I've
been programming, learning to program, and continue to learn to program, for
nearly 75% of my life, only half of that professionally.

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seldo
I think there is definitely a difference in personality types between
"Computer Science" people and "software engineers", which the author is
characterizing as white and blue collar. However, I think the white/blue
distinction carries overtones of a class difference which isn't necessary.

A good engineering team needs CS people to be the "architecture astronauts"
and pure engineers to keep them grounded and make sure something actually
ships. Too many CS guys and you ship something needlessly complicated far too
late; too many engineers and you ship spaghetti code that doesn't scale,
because they're focused on results rather than architecture.

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skawaii
Overall, the article was pretty good. I think the conclusion is right on (just
get some enthusiastic developers and get to work).

The article made it seem (IMHO) that the different personalities were
completely distinct. I'd have to disagree with that point, having majored in
CS while at college, but I feel like I'm slightly more "blue collar" than
"white collar". I think you can definitely have bits of both personalities.
Just my 2 cents.

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gfodor
This dynamic is a perfect example why you have to have unianimous enthusiasm
for new team hires. The lack of respect for one another is astounding: I'd be
shocked if they ever shipped any software together.

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rwhitman
Well I'm glad to see the raging class / education war raging in the comments
of that post isn't taking place on HN.

