[giobox]

> There are "law schools" and "med schools" to teach you all the knowledge required to become a lawyer or a doctor.

Programmer now, gained a law degree in a previous life. Know lots of folks who studied medicine.

The idea that med school or law school teach you "all the knowledge required to become a lawyer or a doctor" is laughable and a truly absurd statement. The sheer size of the problem domains these subjects cover alone renders this impossible, and furthermore I'd argue it's pretty insulting to insinuate that Computer Science is somehow more difficult in this regard.

While I can't speak fully for medics, a law degree "hardly scratches the surface" as you put it either.

[u801e]

> While I can't speak fully for medics

Medical school will teach you the basic science and theory and give you basic clinical experience, one still needs to complete a 3 to 7 year residency in the field one wants to practice in. Then there are fellowships that one may want to do if they want to specialize even further.

It's definitely not the case that you learn everything you need to know in school.

[laythea]

I don't think that is what he/she meant. I don't know what your professional software experience has been like, but software is applied and required to some extent in all industries nowadays, and therefore there is a broader scope required. It is also more of a moving target. I'm a contractor providing software engineering services. One contract I might be doing Subsea control systems, the next OpenGL graphics hardware programming sprinkled with Java and Eclipse, the next contract may be embedded assembly language for turbine control systems etc. Law/Medicine maybe moving, but I am fairly certain a doctor or lawyer does not "move as fast". They tend to stay specialised in maybe an area or two. In fact, for a serious medical condition, from a patients point of view, I would be quite alarmed to be seen by a doctor that has not "specialised" in my condition. Ideally, one that does nothing but my condition. I think it is easier for a doctor/lawyer to fall into the trap of becoming specialised in one or two areas alone than a software engineer, simply for the fact that if I did not constantly have to become specialised in a new area, usually for every contract), then I would not be able to pay the bills. So I imagine that is what he/she meant.

[hobbyjogger]

Your point is a good one, but to me it confirms the comment you are responding to.

> The idea that med school or law school teach you "all the knowledge required to become a lawyer or a doctor" is laughable and a truly absurd statement. The sheer size of the problem domains these subjects cover alone renders this impossible

You seem to be an example of a programmer that can be good and proficient in many different fields, languages, and scopes. You don't really see that in law or medicine. Doctors can't jump around from orthopedic surgeon to psychiatrist to dermatologist. And it's very uncommon (at least for lawyers under 60 or so) to be both a corporate lawyer and a litigator.

As giobox mentioned, the sheer size of the domains of law and medicine all but require doctors and lawyers to specialize. That's certainly true to some extent with computer science but it doesn't seem to be quite as strong in that field.

[laythea]

I think you misinterpreted me a little. I think the reason that lawyers and doctors cannot "jump around" is not because, for example, a lawyer cannot absorb the information required to be both a good corporate lawyer and a good litigator, due to it being too much. They can. It is that the system that they choose to be in (law/medicine) demands the individual to be certified and formally trained to such an extent that it cripples this kind of professional mobility. This is not true in software. Not because of any other reason other than society is catching up. Unlike the fields of law and medicine, where those fields are growing "linearly" with society. It is also the reason that I do not by law require to be a chartered engineer to perform my job to the full extent.

[ABCLAW]

The (jurisdictions will have their own phrasing) 'demand' placed upon lawyers is that they are competent at the work they're doing.

The magnitude of knowledge needed to push a company to become public or undergo a merger, to litigate a divorce with children in custody, to defend an individual in a murder trial, or to litigate an aboriginal rights claim is substantial and there is very little overlap between them.

The issue isn't the regulatory requirement for competence - it's that the fields of specialization require years to become decent in.

[ACow_Adonis]

I have limited idea whether its fundamentally barriers in terms of the subject-matter (because I do not know or practice in multiple fields of medicine) or in terms of the social structure (where it is pretty obvious the highly structured/time-based hierarchical regulated fields).

But I will say one of the MAJOR things that I LOVE about programming is its relative lack of artificial and social barriers. In psyche, med, law, science: even if i am good enough to pick something up in 6-12 months, or even if I have already been studying or been experienced in said field (say because I have a family member who has been surreptitiously teaching me or bringing me along on the side), there is an inescapable time, money, and social barrier that is effectively immutable.

I can't REALLY do law/medicine without running them in serial, paying the fixed costs of time/money for both (which almost no one has), and I can't fast-track through either or leap-frog students or peers of lesser ability. And god help you if, half-way through, you then think that something in chem/physics might be interesting and applicable. Or if you have the insight/ability to say: i think i'd learn more over there (well too bad, these are the requirements for the program and this is the course structure and this is what you need to do to get your practicing certificate...and except in exceptional circumstances, that's even if you had someone in a position of authority who would agree with you).

Those barriers have not yet been established effectively in programming. Sure, some people tried earlier to establish things like certification and structure, and we're now starting to see the germination of university degrees in arbitrary specializations, and that force will always be there, but few people take them comparatively seriously. The barriers to entry are low (you could almost always even just pirate some software to get started and install it on relatively cheap generic hardware). And if you want to apply it to different fields, you quickly find the barriers aren't generally from the computing/programming side, but from the social/structural barriers inherent in those fields in our society.

Now to be sure, we get the downside of this too: cranks, frauds, used-car-salesmen, agile coaches, wannabes, fads, marketing, etc.

But they don't stop me learning for my own ends, and if i ignore them they have no effect on what I can learn for myself once I pass the relatively low barrier of stable employment and income and basic hardware. And my knowledge makes me more employable and more attractive.

Whereas there is no way I can participate or do the same with engineering, medicine, or law etc without effectively cancelling my life and/or desires in other fields.

And whereas my knowledge and self-direction make me immediately more employable and desirable NOW and at all times in the future in programming, i have huge sunk, upfront, and opportunity costs for several years to participate formally in each of those other fields.

[laythea]

Yep. Except I would consider what I do as mostly engineering, and what I said above still applies. Subsea oil/gas control systems, gas turbine control systems, etc, but then sometime just desktop applications, eg OpenGL/Java etc. All need software. But all engineering, although I would say the desktop application contracts are less engineering, more programming. But then we would have to start talking about the whether programming is actually engineering so don't want to go there :)

[terminalcommand]

I am about to graduate from law school. I also agree that a law degree "hardly scratches the surface" of law.

That's why in most countries lawyer candidates are required to do mandatory legal internships. And even after becoming a lawyer, you need to gain a lot of experience before you can be trusted to practice law without the supervision of an experienced lawyer.

[regulation_d]

One of my law professors speculated that you learn about 3% of what you need to be a lawyer in law school. At the time, I thought that was a bit conservative. In hindsight, it seems pretty fair.

[zozin]

Do you have a throwaway email? I'd like to ask you a few questions about transitioning from law to programming. Thanks.

[giobox]

Afraid I don't really have much to say about this - I did a postgrad Computer Science Masters, applied for Software Engineer jobs and started new career immediately following completion of Masters. I've known several law graduates follow this path. If like me you've always had an interest in the field and were a reasonably competent programmer before starting the CS degree this wasn't all that difficult by comparison - I found attaining the CS Masters easier than studying Law if I'm honest.

[tostitos1979]

CS PhD here and worked over a decade. Yesterday, I made a list of over a dozen technical areas in CS I feel inadequate on. I think the issue is not that a CS Masters is easy. It is that CS knowledge is a never ending firehose. When I graduated (2008), most NoSQL systems were not even created. For anyone transitioning from law/medicine to CS, while I welcome you to the field (good for you!! tech is awesome), just be aware that tech gets obsolete very fast. While an older lawyer or doctor may be considered experienced, the newbies right out of school may run laps around you (lots of examples but the creator of Ethereum comes to mind. I know oh so many PhDs who work on distributed systems but it took a Waterloo undergrad student to think out of the box).

[DubiousPusher]

Yeah if we're talking about barrier to entry, I can't think of one much greater than the LSAT.

[sethrin]

That's an interesting idea. What would you say makes the LSAT difficult?

[pathseeker]

>furthermore I'd argue it's pretty insulting to insinuate that Computer Science is somehow more difficult in this regard

Why in the world would that be insulting and who is it insulting to? If anything it's a reflection of how immature the industry is and how computer science degrees have minute overlap with software engineering.

[dsacco]

> Why in the world would that be insulting and who is it insulting to?

It’s insulting to diminish the legitimate achievements of other people through unjustified comparison, in particular when doing so results in the elevation of the person doing it.

There is no objective criteria by which we can state computer science is a more difficult field than law or medicine. To imply that is therefore offensive, and people are not “immature” just because they react to offensive things by being insulted, even if you believe they shouldn’t feel insulted.

[infinite8s]

It's insulting to all the people who are doctors/lawyers/any number of other fields where the degree is just the entry point to being able to work in it.