[racket] "The Disadvantages of High School Programming"

Joe Marshall wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Isaac Raway <isaac.raway at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's quite
>> possible to be a productive and successful programmer without having a
>> solid understanding of computer science.
> 
> That's the problem.  Maybe it shouldn't be the case.  

It arguably isn't the case.  (Can't resist the curmudgeon bait.)

A more accurate statement might be "it's quite possible to be a 
successful programmer, who appears to be productive, without having a 
solid understanding of computer science."

A programmer who appears to be productive develops systems that 
initially appear to meet their requirements, but later fail in various 
ways, such as becoming prohibitively expensive to enhance and extend; 
being impossible to scale up to handle increasing demand; or requiring 
massive amounts of administrative babysitting to keep running.

Noel suggests that many employers aren't willing to pay for the 
necessary skill, and he's right -- but they pay for the lack of it 
indirectly, in higher costs, lost customers, unhappy employees and worse.


> Variations on this
> statement are alarming:
> 
> ``It's quite possible to be a productive and successful physician
> without having a solid understanding of medicine.''
> 
> ``It's quite possible to be a productive and successful airplane
> engineer without having a solid understanding of aerodynamics.''
> 
> `Rocket Scientist'  : `Newtonian physics'
> `Brain Surgeon' : `neurology'