http://technology.monster.com/articles/programmer/

"Tone-deaf people are not going to go very far as musicians, so if coding is not for you, don't force it."

WTF? Don't try, if it's too hard?

I like this, what it's really like to be a programmer, and it's Joel says this, Joel says that. Do you guys think Joel has the authority opinion on programming?

"School's suck now." "Either your born a programmer or you'll never be any good."

Nobody gets that Joel is a troll?

"coding is not for you" <> "it's too hard"
"coding is not for you" = "you don't want to do it"

"Tone-deaf people are not going to go very far as musicians" is just a bad analogy kinda like "Blind people make poor air traffic controllers". WTF does it have to do with wanting to write code ???

I nominate Joel for the Troll of the Month Award.

BTW, of the programmers I have known in person, I think most if not all would agree with Joel's comment. I personally don't agree with it.

I dunno, maybe I am more analytical and should go with hardware, but I think coding can be fun, it's "pseudocoding", figuring out what to do next, that seems to take more brainwork, to me.

But that's the same with hardware, inductive thinking is much more strenuous and results-producing than deductive thinking, for me at least, but the rewards are sweeter because when I build something, then I know why things are the way they are.

+1 for longest-sentence award. ;-)

"I nominate Joel for the Troll of the Month Award."

LOL! This is the part that makes me agree with you:
' "The idea that it's a lonely job where you sit in an office and interact with a computer all day long is the biggest misconception" about programming, says Joel Spolsky, founder of New York City-based Fog Creek Software who blogs at Joel on Software.'

Sometimes I wonder about him, as if he was once a great programmer, and is now a promoter?!

Sweet, that's two votes. Do I hear three?

Sure, you got my vote.
I dont post very often but this deserves it.

Face it, some people just can't teach other people -- life is too short. Or you already know by yourself, or you are competitor's material. :-)

Mark, I'll definately throw my vote in for that.

The thing to remember is that Joel only has authority to the point others give it to him. I'm glad what works for him works. I'm also glad companies make exceptions to that advice because they find some good gems. As Philo has said before, MS ignores that, and I know several incrediable developers who now work for MS who don't have a degree.

You have my vote too. But I think one month is too short a period...:-)

I have no clue as to the size of Joel's shop but if his returns are a magnitude greater than one of a similar size then, obviously, he's doing something right.

++Joel = Troll of the Month

Lately, I've been beginning to wonder if everything Joel has to say has already been summed up in the articles that went into his most recent book.

I've tended to agree with him the majority of the time in the past and I'd honestly say he's done a decent job of practicing what he preaches over the long haul, but seriously...pretty much everything he's written since his "How Microsoft Lost the API War" can be paraphrased as one giant troll that says, "If you didn't go to a top 10 college, then you deserve to be flipping burgers and here's why..."

That's 4, so just one more vote. W00t! Our first troll of the month.

Senthilnathan - Joel will be elligible for Lifetime Troll starting after this month is finished. All he needs is another nom & 10 total votes.

5 votes! JHC will be so jealous.

nah.
I didn't WANT to be troll of the month anyway.
hah.
Fooled you all.
hah.

Your envy is showing.

Philo

I don't agree that there's such a thing as being tone-deaf.

I do agree that some people lack the ability to do programming, but I don't think that they need to be told not to become a programmer.

Well, there is such a thing a being tone deaf, it's a physiological condition and represents some damage or abnormality in the ear or in the brain somewhere. These people have a hard time distinguishing a question because they can't tell whether or not you go up at the end of the sentance or not, but have probably figured out ways around that using other cues.

Then there's the people who just shouldn't ever sing at Karaoke bars, but could, with a lot of training, be taught to be halfway decent.

Isn't it, like, quarter to five in New York right now?

Yep. Why?

Apart from some particular problem domains, financial derivatives and so on, most programming is linguistic even if the problem solution is defined using a logical language with rules of precedence of algebraic logic the actual process is syntactical and grammatical.

Anyone that can read and write with fluency and can be more or less precise with their language in a constrained domain can program effectively. However, this kind of requirement is necessary in many walks of life, not only programming.

So, on the whole, I'd call it a troll yes.

I'd always assumed my lack of programming ability stemmed from my absolutely horrible ability to learn foreign languages. I took 5 (count them, 5) years of Spanish, and could barely speak it by the end. I took it for 2 years in grade school (7 and 8) which I failed, and then went into year 1 Spanish in high school and after a year of that had already fallen behind... again.

I could probably learn it now, using some of the study techiniques I've learnd recently, but don't really feel like putting it to the test.

Okay, you've got my vote too.