> Also, don't gatekeep the field, unless you have a citation that proves that modern teaching techniques have really led to a decrease in quality of software engineers.
I don't think modern teaching techniques have. I think the profession has done admirably (but not good enough) at cultivating the basics in more people than managed it ever before.
But when you multiply the size of the profession by so much, even if teaching improves greatly, odds are you're including a lot more volatility in the amount of ability/intrinsic interest/talent.
There's people who are making it today who'd never have been good enough 20-40 years ago. We need a bunch more programmers and software engineers now, so we tolerate it. And thankfully, improvements in tooling, debugging, and instrumentation, along with a bunch more available performance and storage, limit the harms.
I don't think modern teaching techniques have. I think the profession has done admirably (but not good enough) at cultivating the basics in more people than managed it ever before.
But when you multiply the size of the profession by so much, even if teaching improves greatly, odds are you're including a lot more volatility in the amount of ability/intrinsic interest/talent.
There's people who are making it today who'd never have been good enough 20-40 years ago. We need a bunch more programmers and software engineers now, so we tolerate it. And thankfully, improvements in tooling, debugging, and instrumentation, along with a bunch more available performance and storage, limit the harms.