[prodigal_erik]

The talent pool consists of the people who are already being irresistibly drawn to the work. No matter how severe the shortage, nobody who needs to be lured into the industry (by pay or a more polite environment or whatever) can adequately substitute for obsession. When we try, we get the kind of embarrassing trainwrecks software is infamous for.

[MartinCron]

I understand exactly what you're saying, you and I have had this exact argument before.

The notion of being "irresistibly drawn to the work" seems very shallow and amorphous. Would you (or I, for that matter) still be irresistibly drawn to it if the pay were dramatically worse? If the status were worse? If the working conditions were worse? If people systematically objectified you and your gender?

Following through with that example, do you think we should make day-to-day life worse for software developers to drive the-less-than-committed out? Maybe have hazing rituals or public shaming? Force interview candidates to walk through hot coals? Endure a persistently hostile and alienating workplace? It's all the same bullshit.

Regardless of the whole "learned skill vs. natural talent" question, the ability to make software well is an aptitude, it's not a calling. It's not (and shouldn't be) the priesthood.

[prodigal_erik]

Sorry for repeating myself, this is I think a perspective that tends to be overlooked in recruiting discussions.

People like teachers and writers and musicians and i-bank analysts are treated like dirt because there's a surplus of them, and the work is being rationed to the ones with the greatest need to participate in their industries. I suppose there's some level of hellishness (say, minimum wage, a continually-ringing phone, and no testing) that would so overwhelm the privilege of writing code that I would eventually only do it on the side, wasting most of my life in a day job doing something mediocre. And there's a lesser level that would shake out only the duds and frauds, like turning the squelch dial on a radio. But it isn't going to happen anytime soon. In the current shortage of developers, even though the industry as a whole would be better off ramping down the astonishing pay and perks which have started attracting people we can't use, each employer defects and tries to outbid the others.

Which is why I get concerned at proposals to bring in a lot more disinterested people. Harassment is not an ethical tactic to keep them out, though; I think I draw the line at outreach.

[MartinCron]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I love a chance to find common ground. I think that we can agree that harassment can drive good people out and that outreach can bring bad people in.

It shouldn't be a goal to pull in disinterested people, but to create a culture in which the interest isn't unnecessarily smothered in half of the general population. People are complex, and can be pulled in by one facet of something (vintage corvettes are kind of cool) at the same time they are repelled by other facets of the same thing (I don't want to look like I am having a mid life crisis).

As a man in technology, I am pulled in by lots of things, but repelled by others. Lack of meaningful diversity in the culture is one of the more repellant things for me.