qez2

My dad was a military analyst in the Balkans in the 90s. I am telling this story second-hand, but I'll try to get it correct. While in Albania, my dad shared a taxi with an older Albania gentleman. The man recounted his time working in the Albanian military in the 60s. His platoon had constructed a large number of bunkers, more than any other platoon. The dictator Enver Hoxha was slated to visit, to give them an award for building the most bunkers in the whole country. When Enver arrived, he walked around, and looked at a bunch of the bunkers they had constructed. He pointed at the bunkers. "Look! You have not used enough rebar! Obviously, you are trying to jeopardize the security of our nation, by neglecting to use enough rebar! You are traitors to Albania!" He swiftly sentenced the entire platoon of young men straight to 30 years in prison, which they approximately served. This man, after serving this time, had just gotten freed from jail. The taxi was transporting him from the halfway house.

It's true that both sides of the arms race make things worse. But the thing is, at risk of sounding like a child: companies started it.

We've all heard the complaints, "why does this job make me submit my resume, and then fill out a form with all the same information on my resume??" and "why is this job listed as entry level when it requires 3 years of experience??", and "this job posting isn't even maintained, it only exists so someone can say they did due diligence before they hired their friend" -- these are all very valid complaints. And also a few of my complaints: why is every job posting super long, require a large amount of highly specific technologies that can easily be learned on-the-job, and also paradoxically really vague about the /actual/ checkboxes that they'll be using to screen out your resume? And what is the point of cover letters; what am I supposed to say on the cover letter that wouldn't be covered on my resume?

Companies have been doing this BS for many years. I don't blame people at all for adopting strategies which let them spam applications. I haven't even heard one coherent argument, from the hiring managers who claim to despise it, why spamming applications is supposed to be bad in the first place.

> If they didn't write a git commit message because "no one is going to read it anyway", they're a lazy engineer.

If an engineer spends an hour writing a commit message that no one reads, that's an unproductive engineer, compared to where they should be.

I have to admit, I am lazy. I don't spread seeds by hand; I use a tractor. I don't swim across the ocean; I use an air plane. Likewise, I don't write documentation in commit messages; I write documentation in PR descriptions, READMEs, and official document sources. You got me, I'm incompetent.

My "job" is to write software, not follow some arbitrary "pure" practices.

> If a coworker doesn't understand a code change, because they didn't bother to read the commit message

And I would argue we shouldn't cater to developers who make documentation difficult to access for everyone else by hiding it where only crappy tools can reach it.

> Too many people are enrolling in CS programs these days because they want a quick ticket to a cushy tech job

Or maybe, people are enrolling in CS programs these days because they want to learn how to program. Which is a perfectly appropriate skill to teach. The fact that schools fail to teach it is their defect.

There is indeed a tension of one defines free will in terms of thoughts and behaviors.

Languages for "teaching kids how to code" tend to be either:

1. very visual/non-text (eg: scratch)

2. usability IDE/language tools (what this appears to be)

#1 is fine. But #2, these should be present in software the adults use. But it's not, which is an embarrassing indictment of our approach to computing. The fact that we don't have Victor-esque feedback by default in our IDEs is a blight.

____

Tangent: famously, in the US and much of the western world (for some reason... meaning Disney, mostly), the culture got it into its head that animations are cartoons which are exclusively "for kids", and if you watch animation, you're a kid. But in fact, there's nothing inherent about the medium of animation which necessarily makes it just "for kids", and another culture (Japan) which does not have that cultural assumption got some great art out of it (Anime).

It's weird what we decide is "for kids" and limit ourselves.

> Learning about "for" loops is not learning to program, any more than learning about pencils is learning to draw.

This is incorrect. If an artist doesn't know what pencils are, then leaning about pencils is learning how to draw.

> Thus, the goals of a programming system should be: to support and encourage powerful ways of thinking

People can naturally think, but they cannot naturally use advanced tools. The goal of education is to acquaint people with information they are lacking. It's not necessary to tell people how to think. Surprisingly enough, when you give a person the ability to build, thoughts on how to use tools will come organically.