Keeping skills up to date is more important to programmers than any other job?

Question

I remember back in school, students use to say in a tiring tone, "Engineers and computer scientists must always keep apprised of new technologies and keep their skills up to date. If they don't they will be at risk of being laid off. It's easier to be something like an accountant because an accountant only needs to learn a finite number of things (things that haven't changed over the last several decades) and still make lots of money."

Luckily for me, I do enjoy learning new technologies. And I find that picking up a new technology isn't difficult because it always seems to be an extension of what I'm already use to. I have seen more senior friends lose their job because they command very high salaries but also do not apply "modern best practices" in software development. They also never climbed the corporate ladder or became a project manager.

Does a profession in technology require more ongoing learning than say an accountant? or a dentist? or a regional sales manager? etc...

Answer 1

I would argue that you could learn Assembly/C and nothing else, be very good at it mind you, and become a wanted programmer for the rest of your life.

Answer 2

Technology does appear to change faster in Information Technology than the other fields you mentioned. However...

• The accountant must now deal with Sarbanes Oxley.

• My dentist used to use X-ray film in my mouth, that had to be developed in a lab. Now he uses a computer sensor that takes x-ray pictures instantaneously.

• The regional sales manager must constantly update his sales campaigns to keep them from going stale.

Answer 3

I think so .......

Answer 4

I don't know for other countries, but in France laws are constantly changing. Lawyers must follow these changes and I believe this is more challenging than learning yet another C-based programming language or yet another boxes-and-arrows modelling method.

Answer 5

Nope, totally ridiculous. Ongoing learning sure, but technology based? Bullsh#@. New technology becomes easier to learn as you go - especially when you notice that they are mostly
just "repackaging" common sense with fancy terminology.

The most important ongoing learning you get past that is more about how to use whatever technology to solve business problems - it's about understanding the business rather than understanding the O^n ways to prompt the user for a value and save it.

Ron

Answer 6

It seems like it, doesn't it? It's been some years since I last touched some web technology and, if I get into a conversation with the webguys at my company I can barely understand a word. I mean, Seam, Spring, Jquery? What's wrong with good old cgi? :P

But in reality, in every profession you will find people complaining about having to learn new things. They think they are the only ones that need new knowledge, and it is mainly because their understanding of the intricacies other people's work.

You can find an example of this in medicine practice. In the outside it seems it's only fixing people, and these don't change much, isn't it? Well, in reality medical science has been improving continously and treatment that were revolutionary a few years back can be obsoleted by a new cheaper/safer/quicker new treatment. Doctors must keep learning these new treatments to stay up-to-date.

In the end, you will probably find that every profession you study has a basic corpus that is static and will probably remain unchanged for-nearly-ever. All additional knowledge will be transient, and will be substituted at a higher rate than it seems from the outside. So, if you are a computer scientist you have to learn the basis of OOP, functional, data structures... and this knowledge will help you throughout your whole career, while the specific things like Java, C, etc... will only be with you for some time before being substituted.

Answer 7

This skills fallacy is a bunch of nonsense in the age where knowledge is readily available at your fingertips.

The real "skill" that needs to be evaluated is if you don't know about Something_ABC, how do you go about learning Something_ABC? Next, how do you apply it to the job?

Want to know the real reason behind this incessant chase of skills? It's because employers don't really know how to define "competence." They think the only way to prove ability is to show that you did it for somebody else. That's why you get ridiculous job postings that demand 5 years proficiency in a language, database, or other technology that's only been on the market for less than half of that.

Moreover, employers of today are governed by one dictum: fear of making a hiring mistake! Of course, it's somewhat redeeming and comical to see that some employers who say that they hire only the best and brightest have pulled some of the grandest colossal failures (think Vista, the operating system which in Spanish means vision.) How visionary do you think such employers are?

And how forward-thinking are they that denied both themselves and applicants who could grow into their own in-house experts?

Eventually, some of us get wise and ditch the programmers' world altogether. If not because of outsourcing, we've seen the light in other fields. If it means we're less than dedicated, well, it's something we learned in coding. Elegantly speaking, if we can get paid more by doing less in another field, so be it (or IT!)

Answer 8

In terms of the initial part of the question, I think there are other factors that may be more important. If the company is losing money and doesn't have secure funding, layoffs may be more common than other companies. Even companies in fine shape financially can still have layoffs, look at Google and Microsoft for examples here. Keeping one's skills up to date can be good or bad to my mind. For example, if someone knew ASP.Net MVC but not Webforms this could cause them problems in some places. My point is that sometimes older technologies can be the ones that help someone get a job. There is still classic ASP used where I work on some sites that even new developers may have to go through and handle, yet this is hardly cutting edge stuff.

Just to echo the sentiment in other replies, every field has changes to note and things to learn. For example, do accountants have to know various financial software packages now, e.g. Quickbooks? Don't dentists have to keep an eye on new procedures or equipment that they may use for handling people's teeth,e.g. how many people have wooden teeth these days? The regional sales manager may have to use CRM packages to enter orders or track customer behavior. Just because at first glance a job may look like it doesn't involve technology, a little digging may reveal otherwise.

Answer 9

Is it more important, and harder, to keep up to date in the programming profession than in many other professions? Maybe. Although I'm not at all sure whether that's true.

But, we are still a very, very lucky and privileged group of people in a similar but different respect: Regulation. Any programmer can set up shop somewhere, without any credentials, develop an application, and try to sell it. Try that as a doctor. Or an architect. Or a car designer. Or even as a food producer. You will be shut down faster than you can count to three, at least in the western world, regardless whether your work is good or not.

Answer 10

• I wouldn't say they need to do it more frequently, but when they do change skill sets the length of time and depth of content to be learned is deeper than most other professionals. Changing languages/major technologies can require months/years to regain familiarity/an expert status. vs an accountant changing tax codes between states or annual law changes is days/weeks/months.
• Another big difference is the ability to apply what you've learned/researched. Factual knowledge without the wisdom to know how/when to apply it is useless. Good programmers HAVE to have the skill or they will be come stagnant.
• That said, there are still a wide array of core skills/abilities that remain fixed regardless of the technology/passage of time (e.g. see Mythical Man Month/Code Complete). Get the foundations down and you can succeed. Skills/languages can be taught, but attitude/logical analysis/creativity are innate abilities that are difficult to teach.