Introduction
I believe that success greatly correlates to two things, how you see the world and how much you truly understand it. We ca...
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That kind of dogmatic behavior is what is wrong with the tech industry and humanity as a whole.
Seriously, try expanding your mindset.
Spot on, yes this is a fine example of some narrow minded elitist thinking, probably with the idea to keep "outsiders" out of "our" industry, and to protect the privileges of the 'incumbents' lol. Yes let's raise the barriers by subjecting all newcomers to some arbitrary and useless algorithm tests, artificial gatekeeping with a nice hidden agenda if you ask me, terrible idea if I ever heard one.
"Every developer", how do we even define that? An accountant writing Excel macros is also writing code, hence is a coder or 'developer'! This idea is only feasible and remotely realistic if you apply it to specific well-defined segments of the industry, like SCADA programmers building mission critical stuff, industrial control applications, and that's an example where it would have added value.
P.S. "putting a stake in the heart of Ruby and Python", that's just toxic, and painful/denigrating for people who love these tools and get stuff done with it ... I'd say spare us your negativity and your elitist mindset, and don't pollute dev.to with it!
Total nonsense, you're trying to provide a solution in search of a problem. Does your idea guarantee that the industry will attract the best and most talented people? i don't think so, it just reeks of artificial gatekeeping. Fortunately the principles of free market economy won't ever let this happen.
Hello Voider,
thanks for your article.
I agree with your conclusion that learning computer architecture will help you become a better software engineer :)!
And a question comes to my mind, "How do you train to become a Computer Architect?".
Hello Akin,
I recommend reading computer organization and design by David A. Patterson and John L., that's where I knew about CA during my last semester, but I also recommend learning the basics of assembly so that you can 'link' the concepts you will know about from the book from a closer level of abstraction.
I wish we could not assume questions like this, i see it everywhere, not exact question but such computer questions, definately its a "newbe" asking but if they took time to read ur article, please answer them to ur best.....you dont know how much you do to that person
Thank u
Trust me, software and tech industry improved a lot only because we didn't have any stupid form of gatekeeping like this.
The hacker mindset and permissionless nature of code is the fundamental of the innovation.
You just described most of humanity. Do you think that taking a hardline point of view will change everyone?
And who's going to decide what will be in that test? And you're seriously thinking that you can come up with one standard test that makes sense for people doing vastly different work, all of which we conveniently lump together under "software engineering" or "development" or whatever you want to call it? The industry is just too broad, this could work for specific segments but in no way indiscriminately across the board.
Okay, nice try with the accountant writing Excel macros already being licensed - how about a junior intern writing those Excel macros? ... not licensed in anyway, but he/she does write code.
So my argument remains - how do you define which devs or coders or whatever are required to get that official license, and which don't ... software development is just way too broad an activity and an industry to be regulated centrally, it's going to cause a ridiculous amount of cost, hassle and bureaucracy with hardly any tangible benefits.
The only thing I can imagine is that you could require this for very narrowly defined areas of expertise within the software development industry, for instance SCADA programmers working on mission critical systems, like I said before. In no way is it practically possible to require this across the board, it isn't even possible to clearly define who is a developer or software engineer and who isn't (too many grey areas and edge cases).
Okay, now you're talking:
"anybody performing development work, including training AI modules, that has a material impact on financial statements or other regulated areas of operations"
So, that does not sound like a blanket across-the-board entry exam or license for every developer (if 'developer' can even be clearly defined) - it sounds like specific requirements or certifications for specific industries or roles, so for situations where it matters.
That's different from what you said before, and now we're getting pretty close to agreeing on this, because under those circumstances I could see the merits of licensing or certifications. But, we're then talking about a much more narrowly defined segment of "hard core devs working on mission critical stuff".
Exactly, this is not the government's responsibility, and forcing "every" developer (regardless of what he/she actually does) to take an standard exam sounds like the worst idea ever. So who all would be included, also the person in the accounting office writing Excel macros? He/she is also undeniably a "coder".
Not really, because comparing SolarWinds to a mom & pop shop doing WordPress sites would clearly be comparing apples and oranges, yes? Both are doing "software development", however one is arguably a little bit more mission critical than the other. But both should undergo the same sort of licensing and certification? I think that's a total waste of time and resources, instead require this where it makes sense, not across the board.
Have a new user handle for you:
The Not-So-Sharp, Close Minded Ninja.
And no, I won't reconsider my position.
The whole idea is nuts but once someone is obsessed with their own "brilliant" idea then it's generally extremely hard to convince them they're wrong, I'm absolutely about to give up and say "yes fine, whatever".
Yeah nice, let's all create a boatload of unnecessary bureaucracy and busywork to solve, well, what exactly? An imaginary problem ... I'm glad you're not in charge of running the government or a major company
I agree that knowing CA is useful. However, the optimization you make on a if statement will only really be useful in high performance context. Adding lot of checks like this in an environment where performance is not the highest requirement will only make your code harder to read.
I agree with you, the range of knowledge you need to know will vary depends on what you need to do.
I will be covering the levels of abstractions for most of the software requirements hopefully.
Okay, nice how you discredit yourself with this comment, because every single argument you're putting forward here can be refuted with the simple counter argument "it depends". It all depends on the business and technical requirements - it's 100% clear that there are plenty of use cases where Rails is perfectly fine as a solution, and plenty other cases where it isn't. It's never black and white, as always, it depends ... I rest my case.
Liked reading your article. IMHO book recommendations or links to other types of resources would enhance your piece. I do see that as part of the discussions section however embedding the same in the article itself would be better.
No the cases aren't slim, they're the majority ... you're serious that most people now working in development are unqualified to do so and should preferably be ousted and only let back in after passing your "exam"? I think the cure here is much, much worse than the ailment ... unless you happen to be in the business of developing all of these certifications and making big money off of that ...
The issues you're trying to solve are minor and mostly theoretical, the tool to solve them are well, a very big and blunt sledgehammer ... if ever the powers to be would mandate this kind of thing (lord forbid), it would just be a total and utter disaster.
Yes, everyone should go take the test, because, well ... because you say so. This gets weirder by the minute, I'm so glad that you're not in charge, and that this idea has zero chance of becoming a reality. Get a life, let everyone just do their job without assuming they're incompetent, give us all a break LOL
I'm sure developers would benefit a lot from a lot of things. As a frontend engineer at a big cloud networking company, I think a lot of people will benefit from knowing about encryption, cryptography, networking, frontend engineering, and UI/UX concepts.
So this is to say that computer architecture is not really for everyone. I won't benefit at all from knowing this information. There are far more pressing things I have to learn in this field than computer architecture.
For instance:
You see, NONE of these will even come close to anything related to the systems. For frontend developers, everything happens through the browser, so inconsistencies across browsers, etc. are the thing to worry about. Not computer architecture.
Lol you want to put up artificial barriers (keep salaries high?), and what does it have to do with Ruby and Python? Weird thought, but fortunately it ain't gonna happen.
For those who read this. You've probably heard of the 80/20 rule. You're looking at one. Learning computer architecture is the 20% of the work that'll get you 80% of the result.
Great post and Great advice
My semester exams are going on and I'll be writing my Computer Architecture exam in the coming 10 hours. I've hated every moment of preparing for this subject. But after reading this article, I guess I'll give it a try. Thanks man
I am happy to hear that man, and good luck with your exam I hope you do great!
You don't even know what kind of architecture your code is going to work on. It might be a one-core single-threaded legacy machine, it might be a virtual machine, it might be a bytecode-executing runtime thing, like Graal VM. Knowing architecture might make you a better embedded or real time software engineer, or even a mixed software-hardware architecture designer. If you are creating any kind of software nowadays, what you write is so far away from the actual architecture that you might as well guess it's running on a Turing-complete cellular automata. You don't care.
Would you be interested to share you thoughts on one of our book titled, Modern Computer Architecture and Organization? In return we would share a free ebook copy of the book and any other ebook as per your expertise.
I agree
Great article!! Keep it up!
Thank you so much.
I would love to read some more example translating into real scenarios when you program. The branch prediction one translated into if condition was really interesting.
check out caching, it will help you really well on how to use your data structures better, you can also check how function calls really work, also instruction-level parallelism and out of order instruction scheduling
Give me a break, get real, you clearly have a totally irrational bias or hatred towards ... a tool? What has Ruby done to you to deserve this? LOL
Good Job, Badawy
Keep going 💪
Thanks Abanoub!
Precisely why every dev, programmer, coder or whatever should learn some assembler, even if they don't use it regularly.
You are right. CA is most important for Software Engineers