From: Gennady <gfb@...>
Date: 2004-06-09T04:26:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Unit tests ... not just for the young

Sean O'Dell wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 June 2004 12:12, Michael Campbell wrote:
> 
>>>Maybe it depends on what your are doing, but I'm afraid for some
>>>things it hasn't changed much. My belief (don't flame me) is that
>>>those with inexperience do OK when they are working on things that
>>>give visible feedback, like GUI's and such, but take number
>>>crunching or data processing where errors don't readily
>>>reveal themselves (unless you code defensively), then they tend to make
>>>a lot of mistakes and/or leave behind a bunch of land mines.
>>
>>I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but the absence or presence of a CS
>>(et. al.) doesn't necessarily skew that heavily in one way.  I've been
>>in this industry a long time too, and I've seen this assertion made a
>>lot of times, almost exclusively by people w/o the degree they're
>>blaming poor workmanship on.
> 
> 
> There's truth behind the assertion.
> 
> Degrees look GREAT in interviews.  Given a young, sharply-dressed person with 
> a degree, compared with a middle-aged programmer with loads of experience but 
> no degree, people just get gooey about youth and pedigree.  It's human 
> nature.
> 
> 	Sean O'Dell
> 
How about a middle-aged programmer with loads of experience AND a 
degree? ;-)

Gennady.