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Hetz Ben Hamo wrote:
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<div>My question is simple: When does the "developer" experience
starts ticking? (I'm not talking about any specific language here). Do
the years of writing those small programs/scripts count as a "developer
years"? or does the clock starts ticking when I'm a full time
programmer?</div>
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Partiality of occupation is hardly a factor, but experience is. I don't
have the link, (I think it was on slashdot a while back), but someone
once claimed that the difference between a programmer with greatness
potential and actual great programmers is X hours of experience (I
don't remember what X was, but it translated to about 3 or 5 years of
full time job experience). The article claimed that the same X applies
to other areas too (the article used the Beatles as a primary example).<br>
<br>
My point is that in order to realize your potential in any field, you
need to invest a huge amount of time practicing it. This is almost
impossible to do unless you make it your full time occupation. From
personal experience, I think the article's quoted X may even be a
little on the low side.<br>
<br>
So, if you did mostly system tasks, but did about 10% development, you
will see how, for practical reasons, that leaves very little of your
actual development experience.<br>
<br>
I should point out that the article talks about greatness. Assuming you
have the potential to become a great programmer, this is a requirement
for becoming great actually happening. Personally, I pride myself on
seeing programmers, in certain cases total novices, and saying to
myself "he has the potential". They are not great programmers, but you
can see that with enough experience, they will be. That said, even
those that do not possess the potential for "greatness" advance
significantly with experience. At a guesstimate, about 60% of the
population can become acceptable quality programmers given enough
experience (of course, initially they will suck) and a supporting
environment ("supporting" includes not accepting mediocre). Of course,
most of those will quit, because programming is a horrid job to do if
you don't like it, but this is just to point you as to why <br>
<br>
Shachar<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lingnu.com">http://www.lingnu.com</a>
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