This is a bit more abstract than the article but in my experience the best software comes from people with taste, rigour, reasoning, a good vocabulary, strong principles, and the ability to write clear and concise English (or whatever human language is used in their team.)
When you truly understand the software you are writing then, and only then, can you communicate it logically in code for the computer to execute and, much more importantly, code for a person to read. Well written and well understood code means it’s very obvious what you are doing. Later, when the code has a bug or needs to be rewritten, then it will at least be clear what you were trying to do so that it can be fixed or extended in some way.
So then the question is how do we train people to have these skills? In school, science experiments are a good way to teach logical reasoning and communication — here is what I thought would happen, here is what I did, here is what happened, and here is what it means. Math teaches you how to reason abstractly and, again, prove your point with logic. It’s a slightly different beast in that it’s harder for a math experiment to go wrong. It’s also harder to come up with and overcome novel scenarios in the lab with math, so in all it complements science well. And of course reading and writing English build your ability to express your thoughts with words and sentences. Many other high school subjects combine these in various measures — history for example is data gathering, fuzzy logical deduction, and reasoning in written language.
The bottom line is that quality software starts by working with well educated people and conversely all the most abhorrent heaps of over coupled illegible nonsense I’ve seen has come from people who, to be blunt, just ain’t that smart or well rounded, intellectually.
It’s a principle I carry over to hiring: smart and well educated wins out over pure-smarts.
When you truly understand the software you are writing then, and only then, can you communicate it logically in code for the computer to execute and, much more importantly, code for a person to read. Well written and well understood code means it’s very obvious what you are doing. Later, when the code has a bug or needs to be rewritten, then it will at least be clear what you were trying to do so that it can be fixed or extended in some way.
So then the question is how do we train people to have these skills? In school, science experiments are a good way to teach logical reasoning and communication — here is what I thought would happen, here is what I did, here is what happened, and here is what it means. Math teaches you how to reason abstractly and, again, prove your point with logic. It’s a slightly different beast in that it’s harder for a math experiment to go wrong. It’s also harder to come up with and overcome novel scenarios in the lab with math, so in all it complements science well. And of course reading and writing English build your ability to express your thoughts with words and sentences. Many other high school subjects combine these in various measures — history for example is data gathering, fuzzy logical deduction, and reasoning in written language.
The bottom line is that quality software starts by working with well educated people and conversely all the most abhorrent heaps of over coupled illegible nonsense I’ve seen has come from people who, to be blunt, just ain’t that smart or well rounded, intellectually.
It’s a principle I carry over to hiring: smart and well educated wins out over pure-smarts.