[qsera]

It is not about complexity.

I ll list some attributes of software development that makes it unique.

* No hard rules, textbooks to follow, industry as a whole still make costly mistakes and recovery cycles.

* No easy way to gauge the requirement-fit of the thing you made. Only time will tell.

* Cheap (financially) to practice, make mistakes and learn.

[menaerus]

You're making some strong assumptions about other industries which are incorrect. All of that exists elsewhere and is not so unique to software as you may think. Things are never that simple. Your argument reads more as a justification to the status quo and gatekeeping rather than being objective. I'm sure the doctors would have said something similar for their profession too but it doesn't necessarily mean it is true. Software engineering is a demanding profession but it is not that special as we like to think it is.

[qsera]

>doctors would have said something similar for their profession

Actually that applies to doctors. A doctor who is not curious and is not willing to do learn/research on their own initiative is only a marketing hand of pharma.

But it is quite hard for doctors to do any real research independently. They can't really do experiments on real people...

Software is really special.

[menaerus]

So a software engineer who is not curious enough to invest 15+ hours daily over the course of years is just a marketing hand of ... what ... programming language of their choice or company they work for?

Don't get me wrong. I am that guy, who probably over-invested into the development of his skills but I don't think it's a normal thing to expect.

[qsera]

>So a software engineer who is not curious enough to invest 15+ hours daily over the course of years is just a marketing hand of ..

That does not apply here. Because more often than not, we don't prescribe products/services that our clients must go out and buy, without exception.

>it's a normal thing to expect.

It is not a normal thing to expect because in other fields there are few people who can afford to do that. So an employer cannot really pick someone from that pool.

But in software, it is possible if one choose to do it. So the pool is a lot bigger, so it becomes feasible for an employer to pick someone from there, instead of picking from I-am-only-as-good-as-I-am-paid-to-be pool..

[menaerus]

> That does not apply here. Because more often than not, we don't prescribe products/services that our clients must go out and buy, without exception.

You know that treating patients is not only about picking the right medicament and writing prescriptions? It's about diagnosing, testing the hypotheses, optimizing for the particular patient case, learning about all the specific factors of their environment including the genetics, then we have surgeons, etc.

And yet I don't quite see doctors being on a time spending spree to become exquisite in all of those things. Nor do I see hospitals or clinics doing such knowledge and ability harness tests over their potential employees. Stakes are much higher in medicine than they are in software so it makes no sense at all to make an argument that doctors cannot "afford" it. They can, they have books and practice the same way we do. I don't get to modify the production system every day but yet I am learning constantly of how not to make those same production system go down when I do.

> It is not a normal thing to expect because in other fields there are few people who can afford to do that.

It's not a normal thing in software too, you know? Let's please stop normalizing things which are not normal. If there is one thing that makes me happy in this new era of AI-assisted development is that all this bs is coming to its end.

[qsera]

I am not normalizing anything!

I am just describing the logical behavior of an employer who wants to get the best person for the job.

About the other thing, I think I will let you have the last word since I feel that we are speaking past each other.