Developers, When someone can be called programmer.

[Panathinaikos22]

Well, i won't be programmer, but programming is a part of my life i like it.
I Really confused, im 22 years old, and im in Informatic HSchool, i know that if i follow to be programmer that is good thing because i like it + as i know programmers take a good moneys...
But you know HSchool is just the begin, you must stay alone and spend lot of years to be special...

My Question is...

When someone can be called programmer...
All ppl know programming, most just basic thing, most know just 2-3 languages

Personaly i belive that there are few categorys, a network programmers, a HW Programmers, a web-developers-programmers, and application programmers.

when a company create a application, they use and designers ? right? because programmer work is not to make a application to look very good, programmer work is just to code it.

what exactly programmer must do

must know all languages at 100%? c#, c++,c,php,asp,java,perl,delphi and all other sh1ts are used this moment....

i belive you got my point...

[Muralidharan.E]

No need to know so many languages c#, c++,c,php,asp,java,perl,delphi .....
If you are strong(Good knowledge) in one programming langauge(For example in java) , is enough to say that You are a good java Programmer.

So you can say as "Java programmer" as well as "Programmer".

[debasisdas]

I know only one language SQL, and people still refer me as Senior Programmer. :cool:

[JeffGrigg]

If you write computer programs that work correctly and are used, then you are a programmer.

The job requirements change, depending on your skill level and where you work. It would be nice if you, as a programmer, knew how to make an application look good. But you are correct, in that if ease of use is very important to a project, it's wise to bring in specialists who know how to do that really well.

To do your job well, it is helpful to realize that it is a life-long learning experience. None of the computer languages I use today existed when I graduated from college. (...ignoring SQL, of course. ;-) This has been true for me for some years. I still regularly learn things about languages I am already "expert" in. You will never know it all. Ongoing education and change is required in all high-paying skilled fields.

[Reverend Jim]

"If you write computer programs that work correctly and are used, then you are a programmer."

That's like saying if you can nail two pieces of wood together and they don't fall apart then you are a carpenter. I would have preferred to the the statement amended as

If you write computer programs that work correctly and are used, then you are a programmer. If you can write non-trivial computer programs that work correctly, are easily maintained and easily modified and are used then you are a good programmer. Mind you, even that is not sufficient in most cases. Personally, I think we should make a distinction between programmer (anyone who programs) and professional (or certified) programmer. That is, one who has a degree or diploma from an accredited institution indicating that the individual has demonstrated a certain level of proficiency in the field of computer programming.

[Narue]

That's like saying if you can nail two pieces of wood together and they don't fall apart then you are a carpenter.

Your analogy neglects the "and are used" part.

I would have preferred to the the statement amended as

I notice that you didn't change the offending statement that prompted your carpenter analogy.

Personally, I think we should make a distinction between programmer (anyone who programs) and professional (or certified) programmer.

If there were a clear distinction in ability between amateurs and professionals, I would agree. But you can find fabulous amateurs just as easily as atrocious professionals. The only difference is the professionals convinced someone to pay them.

That is, one who has a degree or diploma from an accredited institution indicating that the individual has demonstrated a certain level of proficiency in the field of computer programming.

What about one who's clearly proficient in the field but has no degree or certification?

[JeffGrigg]

I didn't say "is a good programmer." Just "is a programmer." ;->

There are lots of "just a programmer" types out there. They do create a lot of problems in the industry.

And while I have the formal degree and a number of certifications and professional memberships, I agree with Narue that none of that is required to be a good programmer. I tend to think that a thirst for knowledge and life-long learning are required. You don't have to know it all. You can't. But you need to be willing to learn.

[Reverend Jim]

There also may be great surgeons out there who don't have medical degrees. Would you go to one of them for major surgery?

[Rashakil Fol]

Uh, it looks like some people here don't realize that programming certifications and degrees are meaningless.

Edit: Well they have meaning, in that if you know somebody's certified, you know that somebody is much more likely to be a bad programmer.

[Reverend Jim]

Would you care to back up those sweeping generalizations with some actual facts?

[Rashakil Fol]

Would you care to back up those sweeping generalizations with some actual facts?

Uh, they already are facts. You should try coming up with facts to support whatever beliefs you have. But I guess your beliefs are privileged, because they're yours, and they don't need to have any basis in reality.

Because in reality, the only meaningful predictor of a person's ability to code is examples of past code they've written and the ability to solve trivial problems (such as FizzBuzz or turning a binary search tree into a doubly linked list, in place) on a whiteboard. After all, there are MIT grads who can't grok recursion and there are people with associates degrees who are way better than most people here. There exist no institutions in the world that accurately label people with a "this is a good programmer" stamp, except for the institution of looking at their code on github and asking them to write code on the whiteboard.

[Reverend Jim]

I agree that there are some incredibly gifted programmers who have had no formal training. I disagree with the statement "if you know somebody's certified, you know that somebody is much more likely to be a bad programmer". You are saying that the level of incompetence increases with the level of education. I want to know how you came to that conclusion. I would like to see any studies that support this conclusion.

A recent item on the local news caught my attention. It seems there was a car accident in which the person survived only because he was not wearing a seat belt. I presume I can look forward to hearing my anti-seat belt friends claim that this proves that you are safer not wearing a seat belt in spite of numbers that show that you are much safer wearing a seat belt than not.

I mention this because it is my belief that for every gifted self-taught programmer there are numerous self-taught programmers who are completely delusional about their abilities. I, personally, after over 30 years as a "professional" programmer, have not met even one gifted amateur. I have, however, met dozens of keyboard cretins.

I got my computer science degree back in 1977. In order to get that degree I had to design and code a functioning assembler and a functioning compiler. I had to design and code programs to perform complex mathematical algorithms such as linear diophantine equations, splines for curve fitting, many variations of gaussian elimination, large integer (up to several thousand digits) calculations (using prime factor encoding),etc. I had to implement my own ISAM database system from scratch. All code was reviewed for both form and functionality. When I began job hunting after graduation I could point to these accomplishments with a degree from an accredited institution stating that I had demonstrated proficiency in these areas.

What can a person with only self-training display to indicate his or her abilities other than stacks of code which may or may not have been written by that person?

Again, I am not saying that the non-certified person lacks the ability. But your statement seems to say that formally untrained programmers on the whole are more capable than ones with certification.

And I repeat, by certification I mean from an accredited institution. Any institution that churns out unqualified graduates soon loses its accreditation.

I would also like to make a further point - competence in one area does not imply competence in all. I developed my skills in the era before OOP, GUIs, IDEs and source level debuggers. I started out with punch cards and toggling bits on front panels. I occasionally post questions about VB controls that show my ignorance when it comes to modern software development so I do not claim to be an expert in these fields. However, I did spend 3 years programming in assembler in the field of medical research and 29 years programming assembler, FORTRAN, C, PL/1, SQL and vb/vbscript in a critical real-time environment for a major electrical utility so I do know a little bit about what makes a good programmer and also what can happen when you let a bad programmer work in those environments.

I also see that you are a frequent poster with a good reputation and an impressive number of solved threads while I am a relative newcomer. I will not attack you personally but I do expect you to back up your statements.

[Rashakil Fol]

I'd like to know your answer to this question:
If you take two otherwise identical hiring processes where one hires without giving any programming tests, while the other gives programming tests but doesn't know anything about a person's degrees or certs, who will hire better programmers?

Any institution that churns out unqualified graduates soon loses its accreditation.

That's funny because I see a lot of institutions that churn out unqualified graduates and haven't lost accreditation.

But your statement seems to say that formally untrained programmers on the whole are more capable than ones with certification.

No, I'm saying that running the Bayesian update function on X's programming ability when given information about degrees an certs is miniscule when there is so much better information.

I'm not saying that P(X is a good programmer | X has no degree or certs) > P(X is a good programmer).

I'm not even saying that P(X is a good programmer | X has no degree or certs) > P(X is a good programmer | X is a programmer).

I have said that P(X is a good programmer | X has listed a certification on his resume) < P(X is a good programmer). This isn't because getting the certification made him dumber, it's because probably he was dumb enough to need a certification, or to think he needed a certification, in the first place. Any good programmer can get a good job out of college, and continue getting good jobs, with no need for a certification. A good programmer might get a certification, if a sales guy thinks the company needs to be able to say "Our programmers a certified in XYZ." But that doesn't mean it would go on a resume.

I also have not said that P(X is a good programmer | X has a college degree) <= P(X is a good programmer | X does not have a college degree). I am saying that P(X is a good programmer | X has a college degree and X can pass a decent hiring process) ~=~ P(X is a good programmer | X can pass a decent hiring process). That ~=~ is my ascii representation of approximately-equals.

If your hiring process is such that adding the information about certs or degrees affects your opinion in some way, then your hiring process is broken.

[Reverend Jim]

I'm saying that running the Bayesian update function on X's programming ability

not said that P(X is a good programmer | X has a college degree) <= P(X is a good programmer | X does not have a college degree)

I'm sorry but I prefer to debate in English rather than in buzzwords and mathematical jargon. It has been my experience that people who resort to buzzwords and jargon do so to hide the fact that they really do not have a valid argument and are merely trying to sound more intelligent and informed than they really are.

I must also point out that in over 30 years of programming in medical research and real-time control systems, I was never asked to write a fizzbin, bubble sort or any of the other "trivial" programs you mention. I was, however, asked to spend 26 hours straight patching someone else's code when we upgraded our mainframe operating system. I was asked to write monitoring sub-systems to ensure the healthy running of our network. I was asked to develop software to mirror servers via daily system images. I was asked to develop software to maintain data connections between control systems located in Canada and the US. I have seen hundreds of people hired and a few fired. I only met two university graduates who could not program their way out of a paper bag (in this environment). The only programmer I met who was not certified was a complete failure as a programmer. Unfortunately, as I was not allowed in on the interview, he was hired with predictably bad consequences.

I'd like to know your answer to this question:
If you take two otherwise identical hiring processes where one hires without giving any programming tests, while the other gives programming tests but doesn't know anything about a person's degrees or certs, who will hire better programmers?

I can't possible answer this question (and neither can you) without doing extensive research. I don't have the time and the resources, however, you made the first claim so I expect you to back it up rather than just saying "you first" when I make a counter claim based on years of experience.

And finally, I had a look at your profile and it says your interests are

Making fun of people,
Hurting people's feelings,
Sneaking up on people and scaring them, causing them to slip on the ice.

so I can only assume that you are not interested in a serious discussion. You are only interested in provoking and/or annoying people. You may be a gifted programmer; I have no way of knowing, but your list of interests speaks volumes about your character. I am done with this thread.

[Rashakil Fol]

I only met two university graduates who could not program their way out of a paper bag (in this environment). The only programmer I met who was not certified was a complete failure as a programmer.

Let me get this straight. Not counting the set of programmers who have certifications but no degree, you have met exactly three bad programmers.

And you have only met one programmer who didn't have a certification in something.

I have an alternate theory to explain your experiences: You're incapable of discerning between good and bad programmers.