The problem is : The lion heart.
Submitted by theBrain on Sat, 2007-10-27 02:24.
We always hear about non FCI (Faculty of Computers and Information) graduates who want to work (or actually work) in the IT field.
but.......
why these leave their specialities and try to work on IT?
we may guess
- they can not find a good job in their specialities so, they tried their luck with IT.
- they see IT is a good field that gives good salaries so, why not try?!
- they think IT is easy to learn, all you have to do is to learn a programming language or more (like C++, Java, VB, or any of .NET languages), a DB engine, and other skills will be gained by the time.
- or, there may be a lot of other reasons.
but...........
Can they really be developers?
personally, I had a lot of arguments with a lot of them in this topic (especially with engineers who present the most number of non FCI graduates who want to work in IT), and there are some points that they can not understand well.
first I would to mention that IT isn't a list of programming languages to learn, not some DB engines, and even not just concepts.
if any one knew all these things he may be a coder not a developer.
So, what is the deifference between a coder and a developer?
from words we can obtain it. A coder who only writes codes, implement databases and he also have to know programming and database concepts. A developer do all this but he has a brain of a developer.
Yes, the problem isn't tools and concepts, it is in the brain.
A developer who has the brain of a developer not tools of a developer.
And this brain couldn't be built just by reading books and working in a couple of projects.
An engineer may have tools of a developer but he still have the brain of engineer.
I don't say "the brain of the engineer is useless". of course NO, but it is usefull in engineering not in IT, also the brain of a developer can not work in engineering!
why we can not understand till now?!
- can anyone be a doctor without studying in faculty of medicine?!
- can anyone be an engineer without studying in faculty of engineering?!
so, why all faculties graduates try to be developers and they don't understand this?!
We all know, both a doctor and a nurse can use thermometer to measure patient temperature and can use sphygmomanometer to measure blood pressure? but can a nurse be a doctor because she can do what a doctor do?!
of course NO.
finally I want to mention a small story that I heard while I was a child.
There was a coward mouse which be very afraid when it see a cat, one day it wished to be a cat to not be afraid from cats again. one morning it found itself a cat but it found that cats fear from dogs, so, it wished to be a dog. another morning it found itself a dog, but again it found itself afraid from lions, so, it wished to be a lion. finally at a morning it found itself a lion, it was very happy to be a lion but suddenly it saw a cat and found itself very afraid from it.
Now it understood the truth that the problem isn't in being a mouse, but to have a mouse heart.
and it doesn't need a lion body, but a lion heart.
Re : The problem is : The lion heart.
I didn't read your whole note, as it is long and it is too late now :D, so this is my rough opinion. I agree and disagree with you. I agree that coders are not developers, and developers are Software Engineers, and those both roles are not Computer Scientist, but we need all of them, the role key here is following a quality standards and a process, so we can make sure that the output of each of these roles are at the heighst quality ever, this does not depend on whether you had studied to be one of these roles or not. But the big problem is that we think that all of these roles depends only on the ability to code :S thats all, which is a disaster, even for people who studied Software Engineer, my dear a lot of companies in Egypt still don't UnitTest their code even by hand, they do not profile their code, they don't check for security and even performance, they only care about code and that it runs thats all :S, all what I can say is SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. [Sorry for that last word but I couldn't hold myself] .
Re : The problem is : The lion heart.
I agree with you in the first part except in the word "Computer Scientists". What is the relation between IT and computers?
computers are just tools used in IT and no more, and when I said developers I mean all IT specialists (developers, designers, analysts,.......and so on, but of course it does include coders)
and the second part of your reply isn't the topic of this post (sorry).
I spoke about non specialists who learned some programming languages and even contributed in some designs and they think they became developers(IT specialists).
I hope you continue reading the post when you have time. sorry if it is long but I couldn't make it shorter.
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