ohohoh's comments

Programming jobs need critical thinkers and problem solvers with a mathematical ability. What degree such students were attracted to at the age of 18 is neither here nor there really. An undergraduate degree is not really training you in anything formally. How many of us actually use, or for that matter remember, what we learned in our undergraduate degree program? In my case it was pure Mathematics, and to this day I have not had to use Field Theory, say, in my career (and I would likely fail abysmally if required to).

The most important bit is the 'critical thinking' coupled with a passion to learn, build and being creative. At the end of the day writing software has a huge creative component to it. Sadly most companies require STEM degrees for an entry level Software Engineer position. I agree with the author that we need to be more open and be the meritocracy we thump our chests about so loudly. Conversely for liberal arts jobs ...

> I'm certainly not convinced that sitting around reading a whole lot of Virginia Woolf is a very good way of getting better at writing clearly, except in the same rather roundabout sense that waxing a car makes you better at karate.

Ha ha. Love the analogy :). Totally agree. There aspects of creativity and conciseness required for good developers. Its also true that it takes a while for those aspects to sink into a new developers. Its absolutely true that most people outside of the software community don't recognize this, stereotyping software developers as automaton or genius 'hacker types'. For all these reasons I appreciate the article in the nytimes highlighting the creative aspect of software development. But lets not stretch it to Virginia Woolf, and pointers by philosophers. Come on! For some reason that starts reminding me of the rather faux romanticized and pretentious 'Mozart in the Jungle' depiction of musicians stopping in the street to 'hear the music of the city'. Conversely too, I think writers would take serious affront if we asked them to take programming courses in school to prep for a career in, say, journalism or creative writing.