How important is early exposure to computers for a SW developer?

Question

Hi everybody,

looking at the question about "What was your first computer?" I realized that most of us have a very long history of computer usage long before formal training set in (academic or vocational). This reminds me of tennis professionals who often have a history of playing tennis from very early on in their life.

So my question to you is: How much does early exposure to computers help a software developer in his adult professional life? Is it something that sets us apart from those that have been introduced to computers later? Do you think the children these days have a comparable "career path" ahead of them now that computers don't have to be programmed like the good old C64 or Amiga?

Greetings from Germany, Thorsten

Answer 1

I do not think early exposure matters, and recently I read something like half the people in the computer field come from other backgrounds. For people that start early it is either games, or an interest and that just end up being the career choice as well. Not sure about the career path aspect, children start at a different point in the evolution, and may not be interested in the low-level stuff but instead build upon existing frameworks or components.

/Allan

Answer 2

I don't know about the general population, but in my case it wasn't just an interest in games -- it was the ability to control the thing that instantly turned me on. I had been passively watching TV for years, and all the sudden I was in charge of the screen. So in my case it was super critical to actually interact with a computer to realize that I liked programming, and this was when I was 10 or so.

Answer 3

I think it's a symptom rather than a cause of good developers. People with a real passion for programming tend to find computers fascinating at an early age, but that is not to say that early exposure necessarily creates that passion.

Don't tennis professionals often have to start learning young so that they can get to a certain level of skill before they are too old to be physically competitive? That is much less of an issue with software developers, your body tends to fail you way earlier than your mind.

Answer 4

Personally, I didn't own a computer until I was 19, and I don't think it hurt anything. Oddly, when I was in high school I did have an unnatural obsession with programming my Casio graphing calculator.

Also remember that Djikstra was famous for not having a computer in his office, ever.

These days, it's probably better to not expose a child to computers too early lest you want him wasting his time on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. The Internet is quickly becoming the new television.

Being good at computer science is not the same as being good at screwing around on the Internet.

Answer 5

For me early exposure surely helped. I started playing games (it was around 1980, the time of the c64 and of course cp/m. Games where the good old text adventures.). But soon i wanted more and changed the code, and it was not long before i started writing my own.

If it wasn't for this experience i probably had choosen a different carreer path. But alas ;-).

And the history starts to repeat. My oldest son is a natural born computer nerd. We need a lot of force to separate him from the pc. And i can't blame him, i was just like him. (being a parent can be so unfair at times).

Answer 6

A lot of the developers that I have met, the developers who are very good software developers have loved computers since an early age and usually have been really interested in how things tick and have been really passionate about the products they make.

I have seen that a lot of developers who have gotten in to programming quite late on, never really been interested in progamming or computers and as such they treated it as a 9 to 5 and would probably be suited in other jobs.

Obviously there are lots of exceptions to this.

Answer 7

No, not really. Edsger Dijkstra stated: "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes" and I agree. Programming is really about undestanding how things work in the real world and sketching a mathematical model in your mind, a Contramption, an Incredible Machine that can reproduce the observed behaviour. And then there's discipline, keeping up to date with the latest frameworks/languages/paradigms, team working... no computers, see? ;)

Answer 8

Before I studied Computer Science I studied for a vocational qualification in Computing, where the menu consisted of Documentation, Project Management, Software Development Methodologies, Computer Systems Architecture, Quality Management and Legal, Ethical and Professional Issues. I left the course due to an injury I sustained near the final two weeks and decided to pack it in and take the course I believed would genuinely help me, Computer Science.

My first course involved very little work on Computers, other than to type up hundreds of pages of documentation, but the lack of exposure to Computers and the knowledge of the industry in general provided me with the best basis on which to build my skills. My lecturers were amazed at my ability to pick up a language or to lead a project under a methodology CS students would never learn. Not only that, documentation was always above and beyond the call of duty.

If I were to pass on advice to a student that wished to study Computer Science or Software Development then I would say that a Computer is the last thing you'll want to see. Why give someone a gun if they don't know how to fire it?

Sure, Computers were fantastic for many of us back in the day, because we didn't use a Computer for entertainment to the extent of what the majority of users use it for now. The Internet is a phenomenal resource to those who want to learn, but an even better resource for those that want to watch videos, listen to music or talk to their friends on Social Networks.

I think the inherent desire for any Software Developer is the joy of building things that don't actually exist and are bound by laws that no one understands bar Software Developers. This is where exposure to computers will play a large role in a budding Software Developers life.

Answer 9

While true that "Being good at computer science is not the same as being good at screwing around on the Internet", that's not the whole story.

Programming is about using available tools and technologies to solve a problem.

Confronted with a problem, there are several outcomes.

• You have no good background in computing: you don't "get" the technology and the tools.

  • You have brilliant new insights because you are unencumbered by previous implementations. [I think this is fantasy, and doesn't really happen.]

  • You are frustrated because you have some idea, but it's so far removed from what computers are actually capable of; and you don't understand the limitations of the technology; you can't figure out what technology to apply to your problem. [Common.]

  • You hack around a while and get something to work. [Rare, but it happens. This won't be an enduring solution.]

• You have a good background, from early exposure.

  • You have brilliant new insights because you are deeply familiar with using technology to solve problems. [Rare.]

  • You hack around with inappropriate technology, frustrated because your favorite stuff doesn't apply to any real-world problems. [Sadly, all too common.]

  • You build something that works. [Common -- this is is typical case.]

I think that a limited background is harmful. I think you need good exposure to the technology, the limitations and the possibilities.

Answer 10

I think it is very important. It may help in determining if someone is 'born to code' early on, even before you'll send him to a computer school. But this won't be a guarantee though, because I've got friends who are very good in things about computer but just didn't want to be a developer.