For 15yrs we have been training students how to use tech devices not how to write code.

[CK_John]

So everyone wants to know what went wrong with the roll out, well noone knows what the hell is required to code or manage.

Basically IT has been pulling a redirection action and pretending to know what the hell they are doing. That is why only a handful of people know how to write an app or design a web page. Most use web design for dummies hand me down software, very few know how read or understand the core code or how to design a database app.

We have become too stupid to know we are stupid.

IMO.

[stevenleser]

1. There are a lot of coding projects and most of them go to places like India, the Phillippines and

Eastern Europe where the labor is cheaper.

I'm not sure how many more programmers could be supported here in the US.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. baloney...

while the mainstream may have that problem, profession IT personnel and engineers are more than capable of putting together complex and high-demand systems. there are problems with that system that are directly related to poor design and implementation but that is NOT because people don't know how to do it... the gov't just USED people who didn't know how to do it (well).

sP

[B2G]

3. +1000

[CK_John]

4. IT is flimflam heaven, management doesn't know Java from Cobol they don't know who can even

perform a job. HR Dept couldn't tell a programmer from a stockbroker and they won't admit it so then reach for cover and hope off shoring will save their bacon.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

5. in low tech companies i would agree with you

however, there are many competent engineers out there in the US and many excellent ones as well. this was a clusterfuck from the word 'go'. maybe the gov't has these problems you mention, but that doesn't mean that there aren't people who CAN do the job... just the people chosen to do the job may have the problem of which you speak.

sP

[CK_John]

10. I'm not picking on individuals but the industry. IT people are very passive and let the scam artist

control the industry. IT people need to learn some people skills and learn how to converse without putting everybody to sleep, or talking down to people.

[tkmorris]

11. Your OP said IT was incompetent

Now they lack people skills. I think you have a personal problem with IT people for some reason. That's too bad.

[JoePhilly]

13. The "Java versus Cobol wars" have been going on in big companies for

a very long time now.

The challenge of getting old time line of business programmers and "agile" web programmers working together coherently to create robust 24/7 business applications hasn't gone away.

The LOB programmers have a history of writing 2 lines of code, and then testing them thoroughly before they do anything else, and then a test team retesting it in a product-like test environment before deployment, helped ensure that 365/24/7 work. These guys are more rigid, and bugs are not tolerated. Once deployed, this system must work error free OR ELSE, because your ability to deploy updates and fixes is very limited.

Meanwhile ...

Most web programmers come from a model in which testing is something the users do to your beta. They program in what they think is an organized chaos or "agile" model, where there probably is no design spec., where the "plan" changes daily, and the severity of bugs are often under classified because they are more tolerant of "glitches". This is in part because these programmers are often required to make "quick at the glass" changes to a web app based on the more immediate feedback that is now available. And so, because they can make "quick changes", they think they can fix ay issue that does occur "fast".

The programmers in these worlds rare understand each other ... and issues pop up in the space between them.

[CherokeeDem]

7. I'm a Corporate Recruiter...

and I do know a programmer from a stockbroker. While I will not say that all HR departments are well-versed in various job types, there are many who are.

I give my managers qualified people, what they do with them is up to them.

[aikoaiko]

6. That's the difference between CS and IT, isn't it

[tillikum]

8. yep. the largest photo radar company in the world

with +/- 900 employees has maybe 2 people total that understand their system. a system that pokes into police records, dmv data, and has access to vastly personal data of the entire populations of 22 -23 states.

[hack89]

9. Nonsense

I work every day with some very skilled programmers.

[frazzled]

12. Why should every student know how to write code?

That's like saying we should teach all students how to repair a telephone line or perform open heart surgery or play the violin. (We only teach students about listening to music, not how to play it!)

I don't get what you're saying. There should have been enough people hired who were specifically trained to set up this system. One of the big issues is that it's not a single system: it's a portal through which many agencies' systems have to interface. Nothing quite like it.

[CK_John]

14. We don't teach because the teacher themselves have no clue. They are lucky to

be able to turn on a PC. Most don't know an OS from a broswer, no basic concepts.

[frazzled]

15. We don't need to teach everyone because not everyone needs to know this skill

Hello? Have you been taught how to weave your own cloth and sew your own clothes? Or do you just wear them? No, not everyone has been taught, because there are skilled people trained to do this. Not everyone needs to know how.

Have you been taught how to play Bach's Goldberg Variations with precision? Or do just listen to the Glenn Gould recordings? No, not everyone has been taught, because there are skilled and trained musicians who do this.

Have you been taught to build your own MRI machine and analyze the results. Etc. etc.

Maybe you should have written that most people don't learn critical thinking skills, because this post is whack. When you turn on a TV or pick up a telephone, you don't need to know how to build or maintain all its internal parts. Same goes for computers. They're tools to pick up and use, for many different purposes.

[CK_John]

17. Not all have to be coders but in this cyber-era which is displacing whole industies

at the speed of light.

We should at least teach the basics and not just how to be a good device consumer. I think people know more about MRI technology than their smart phone.

[wercal]

19. I've heard this characterization before:

"it's a portal through which many agencies' systems have to interface. Nothing quite like it."

I think that's a cop-out. Many of the complaints dealt with filling out basic identifying information, and fields that you could not enter info on, etc. These problems are with the site itself...not enough people have signed up yet, to determine whether the multiple systems work together.

I still don't understand why the system wasn't tested on a small group (small state for example) before going national.

I've heard that 500k people have signed up...at that rate, it will be physically impossible for everyone who is required to sign up to make it through the website on time....and the individual mandate will slip another year...which BTW, is precisely on of Cruz's demands.

Again, why not go live a lot earlier, and why not test it small scale first?

[KurtNYC]

16. Steve Wozniak remarked famously that "writing code makes you stupid"

If Woz doesn't want to code, who does?

But I agree with upthread posts, basically that if Amazon, FB, and Instagram can roll out huge systems with minimal issues then so can the government.

[Coyotl]

18. I call BS.

We teach code writing in every basic computer literacy 101 class. Every student creates an app and web pages.

[randome]

20. It's more than the nuts and bolts of how to write code.

I can't say how much poorly written, disorganized, non-sensical code I have had to wade through in my life.

Few developers I've had to work with possess the basic literacy and organizational skills needed to fine-tune their code and make it understandable for others who follow.

And I'm not nit-picking here. More people write sloppy code than don't.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[alc]

21. for 40 years we've been teaching people how to drive and not be mechanics

I grew up knowing lots of people who could do anything from changing oil to rebuilding a carb. Lots of us kids did that with our dad's on weekends then with our own cars. Not any more - engines are more complicated, special tools are needed, kids aren't interested, and cars don't break down as much or need frequent tuning.

There are still plenty of mechanics to take care of all of our cars even though most people don't know what it takes to do the work. There are also plenty of good developers to make web sites (databases, network/cloud, front/back ends, etc). Unfortunately there are even more incompetent developers and it's hard to tell which individual or firm is good at sales and which are really competent developers. And the the sales guys have sold us that bugs and downtime and other problems are the norm so we're ok with the cheap team (which is not always inexpensive) that doesn't know what they're doing rather than project managers looking at prior work and realizing that someone else could do better. Even many "good" developers have been sold on a sadly low bar of success as the norm and don't aim for the quality that's possible.

And very few companies treat architecture as they should - more often than not the architect is the most experienced or senior developer/programmer and doesn't have enough understanding of application/systems architecture. Software has many similarities to physical structures and engineering is more important than writing code for designing a stable system. It really requires many years with good mentors not simply education or having built many sites/applications and debugged many production issues. Coding can be done in an "assembly line" process (which is how it's usually done), but the architect needs to really understand the structure of the application being built and design away weaknesses rather than try to test them out. Too many kids get out of college (or high school) and think they are the best programmer so want to got straight to architect. It needs to be more of an apprenticeship model like so many other jobs.

[crazylikafox]

22. +1000

[CK_John]

24. Now we have coming driverless cars/trucks and relative few local mechanics shops.

Nobody fixes they just replace parts. Driverless truck will replace another 2-5 million jobs in about 5yrs or less.

We need tech aware to even have a chance in this new era.

[tillikum]

29. I don't know a single person in their 20's who can change a tire.

pathetic.

[uponit7771]

30. + 10,000 on architecture... my goodness, I thought I was the only who notice that most companies

...want their architects to be great developers in a tech domain vs great system designers across business domains

[Dash87]

23. OP did you take a tech major in school?

I did, and this wasn't my experience at all. In fact, my programming teacher was very good and knew what she was doing. I had the usual good or mediocre professors found in every other program.

What gave you the idea that people in the US can't program? I've met many that can and do.

Not everyone is cut out to write code. It takes a certain type of personality and way of thinking. What would be the usefulness of teaching music majors how to code?

[CK_John]

25. I took Fortran in an eng class in 62. My experience is that those who can read

music or play an instrument make the best programmers.

[penultimate]

26. What are you basing this on?

Most IT professionals are expected to know too much from management. Have you searched any recent IT job postings? We're expected to be expert system admins, network admins, hardware techs, programmers, messaging experts, visualization gurus and whatever else is new and trendy at the time. As for programming specific jobs, we have plenty of computer science graduates that are capable of writing java, c# or whatever else when they finish school. We also have plenty of people who learn on their own or after school continue to learn on their own (kinda required in IT) We still see a great majority of new technologies and companies spawn from the various tech hubs here in the US.

I work in the networking field (service provider) and I'm fully capable of creating fairly complex web applications and systems. I have a friend who is an electrician by trade (went to school for CS, but decided he wanted to work with his hands), and he is always creating cool stuff in C++. I've met numerous non-programmers who are fully capable of writing code. I've worked with many programmers who seemed like they knew what they were doing.

So I'm curious what kind of experiences caused you to form this opinion.

[CK_John]

27. Your right too much is expected but.... IT goes along and are enablers so the

flimflam artist moves in and controls the industry.

[uponit7771]

28. unnn, they sized it 1/5 of it's peak traffic... thier estimates were way of, don't think this had

... mostly anything to do with coding efficiency just low balled traffic estimates based of medicare.

If it was built right it can scale horizontally or veritcally fairly easily and then they can load test it with 2x peak traffic.

I think there was also some DDOS involved.... I wouldn't put it past conservatives .. they hate so much

[L0oniX]

31. You can teach yourself. Open source code is there for all to study. Examine existing code...

it's not like it isn't viewable. Maybe it's just me but I don't find it that hard to figure out html, style sheets, C and Java.

[CK_John]

32. I agree it's not rocket science.

[penultimate]

33. Not to mention the massive wealth of information out there in the form of tutorials, blog postings

and books. Most books and online training is available for free (although often times illegally)... but even if you go the legit route, you can get a subscription at Safari Books for only $50/mo. I usually try to keep mine active, because that's a massive amount of information for the price of one book. Motivated people who want to learn will learn, particularly if they don't have a family to take care of.

[arendt]

34. "We love standards so much, that's why we have so many of them."

IMHO, its not that programming is so hard as much as it is that the language environment keeps shifting. You spend most of your time learning brand-new languages only to have them obsoleted by the next fad language. Twenty years ago, a cynical tech guru claimed that most development was riding various waves of fads. The fads didn't necessarily have to pan out in the end; but everyone had to jump on board at the beginning.

There are two levels of problems with programming language: syntax, and scope. Syntax is the more well-known problem. Does this language want a semi-colon at the end of a line, do for loops use brackets, braces, or parentheses? Is it a pass-by-reference or pass-by-value language, or both? Etc. After you have been through 20 or 30 languages it all blurs together, like some dialect mess in the Balkans.

The second problem is more insidious. It is the scope of the language. Can the language easily manipulate operating-system-level concepts? That is, can it find the name of a file from a list and then open that file? Can it spawn child processes? And, vice versa for shell scripting languages: Does the scripting language have decent arithmetic capabilities? Does it force every variable to be of type string and manipulate integers with arcane function calls? Etc.

From my POV, programming (especially web programming) has turned into a Tower of Babel. People use languages they don't understand, and get help from almost-equally clueless coders on question sites like "StackExchange". Manuals that really explain things? Manuals are so 20th century. We can't be bothered to create a language that passes BNF rules, so why should we bother to explain our inconsistent gibberish.

Bottom line: blame the people touting new languages. They are completely out of control.

[randome]

35. Too much copy/paste involved in coding files that few understand any longer.

Refactoring? My experience is that few even know what the word means anymore.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[arendt]

37. Refactoring is a great idea that requires a lot of skill

AFAIK, Refactoring is object-orientation applied to the code base itself, not the application the coding is running.

Refactoring is an attempt to modularize the code in a sensible manner.

Of course, if the code was implemented sensibly to begin with, it wouldn't need re-factoring.

So, you're telling me that ten years after refactoring first hit the scene, it is now just another old fad? When, really, it was a tremendous advance in software technology.

[randome]

38. It requires too much introspection for most, I think.

Copy/paste is faster. And far too often I hear developers say, "Let's try this and see if it works."

It's not always their fault. The coding landscape has become so complicated and so faddish that design and organizational skills are no longer in demand.

And refactoring can definitely be applied to the application code itself. Structure your methods and resist the temptation to repeat yourself. Smaller, more granular, more generic and modular methods. But in the corporate world, few care.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Dreamer Tatum]

36. Most pathetic try yet. nt