[fiveoak]

No one is forcing you to read it... I'm a self taught developer and I lack a lot of low level data structure/algorithms knowledge. I really enjoyed reading the article myself and learned something from it. Sorry that you didn't enjoy it.

[coldtea]

Maybe programmers should educate themselves in the basics before working on products people depend on? Customers PAY that company for their services.

Would you be ok if the people who worked on your house didn't know about construction basics -- and worse, created stuff that's widely known to be ineffective?

[loeg]

So you've just written off internship, apprenticeship, or the possibility of any on-the-job training, because? Everyone must somehow become a master craftsman without any in-market work experience before they start working? That's absurd.

> Customers PAY that company for their services.

If the impact of poor programming is material, customers will send their money elsewhere. Customers evaluate products in a marketplace; unless the sale explicitly mentioned the developers' qualifications, it's not like they are defrauding customers.

[jerojasro]

No, he doesn't. Any of those alternatives you mention (apprenticeship, etc.) require someone senior to you overseeing your tasks/progress. That someone can be a colleague, boss, CS teacher, etc. It's up to the entity overseeing your development (be it a school, or a company) to provide such expertise.

Once again, it's OK that you (person, programmer) don't know that. But as a company, there should be a strong guarantee that you (company) have the knowledge to build a good product. It's fine for a company to have some people who don't know this stuff, but not to not have anyone capable (and in a position that allows them to) notice these kind of mistakes.

[loeg]

The parent comment is talking about individuals, not companies:

> Maybe programmers should educate themselves in the basics before working on products people depend on?

That remark clearly puts the onus on individual workers and there is no qualifying statement that anyone who doesn't know this particular thing should be allowed to work, under supervision.

[coldtea]

>That remark clearly puts the onus on individual workers and there is no qualifying statement that anyone who doesn't know this particular thing should be allowed to work, under supervision.

Ever heard of the principle of charity? Programmers should educate themselves, and that includes senior supervision. And they should make sure they used what's best for the job when the ship while still learning -- and if they're unsure, they could check with someone...

[loeg]

The sarcastic question about my reading being uncharitable is amusingly disconnected from your original, extremely uncharitable comment about the OP.

[coldtea]

>So you've just written off internship, apprenticeship, or the possibility of any on-the-job training, because?

Nope, didn't wrote off any of those. In fact I encouraged them, saying programmers should educate themselves (and all of those are ways to do that).

What I did write off was letting selling ineffective staff by interns, apprentices, on-the-job trainees ship to customers...

Do customers pay for a quality product or to have whatever done by cheap or unpaid internets shipped to them?