I've written time and time again about how annoyed I get when developers spend incredible amounts of time putting others down under the guise of some nonsense academic debate. It annoys me to no end. Well sit back and block off your afternoon, because here's a post from someone called Stevey that brings it to an entirely new level.
You pretty much know as soon as the word "n00b" is used that you're in for a steaming pile of crap, and this post is no different. To suggest that developers in the 5 to 10 year experience range are "junior" is laughable, ignorant and probably compensating for something. Give me a break. If you cut out the thousands of words surrounding platform religion, you're left with ridiculous assertions that younger developers are writing paragraphs of comments in their code. Who ever did this? I didn't even do it in Apple Basic in 1989. And what's the nonsense about code density and compression? Crap. If you're writing solid code, and breaking down the problem sufficiently, inexperienced developers can read it and understand it. Even analysts can understand it.
While I've been into programming in one form or another since I first touched a TRS-80 circa 1984, I didn't get my first actual programming job, where that's all I did, until 2001, at the ripe old age of 28. ASP.old was the platform, and .NET was in beta. Being object oriented to me at the time meant being fascinated with things (or things on people), not some kind of code thing. Wrox Press got me up to speed while most online communities were useless.
By 2004, I began writing a book because I felt that the things I was learning weren't being presented in a meaningful way to people who were coming up the ranks the way I was. Blogging was taking off, including on weblogs.asp.net, but the amount of useful content that helped me was not high. And who was I to write a book after really only writing code professionally for less than three years?
I'll tell you who I was... someone who wanted to share the excitement of the learning process with others. Even with my fancy salary, a book credit and some entry level ninja skills, the learning will not stop. I work with someone who is brilliant, and I mentor a few people who are less experienced than me. At the end of the day, we collectively kick ass and deliver a sweet product. It's on time, it's quality, and we're free of the bullshit class system that Stevey spends a ridiculous amount of energy pontificating about.
Platforms and language are irrelevant. Taking what we learn and sharing it with others makes us all better. If these nerds would just put a fraction of this energy into actually advancing the technology and coaching the people who use it, more problems would be solved, and we'd all be better for it. (The open source community, by the way, is the absolute worst when it comes to this. They preach free love and get more bogged down in these "discussions" than anyone else.)
So if you're a code monkey with a blog, ask yourself if what you're posting today helps the art and science of programming by helping others, or if you're just being a blow-hard with an opinion. If it's the latter, remember what they say about opinions.
Great post applicable to many pursuits. I was recently at a trade show and chatted with a number of fellow photo artists peddling their work. I found it fascinating how some truly loved what they did and were eager to discuss techniques, opportunities, successes and failures while others tended to dismiss the ideas of others, take on a bit of a pompous know it all attitude, and actually discourage original thought! I felt that underneath it all, the disparagers were actually a bit insecure and just misguidedly trying to protect what they perceived as their turf. What a waste. We all can continue to learn from others and should strive to pass it on to any willing to grow .....