Yeah, your post is pretty much bullshit. A CS degree from Harvard isn't worth anything more than any other college. They aren't known for their science or engineering program. One from MIT is worth more due to their reputation in the field, but no more so than a couple of other top schools like UC-Berkley or UIUC which are public (or Stanford which isn't)..

Basically there's 3 tiers of degrees. The elite CS schools (about the top 5-6) earn bonus points, but more is expected from you. Then there's a middle tier of about a dozen schools with a good reputation but not up to the elite. It may help you get to an interview, but gives you no bonus points once there. Everything else just lumps together in the yes he has a degree box.

Please note that online degrees, MOOC certs, University of Phoenix type schools, fall under no degree at all.

Maybe a better analogy than jail would be foster system. We need to take the company away from mommy and daddy for a little while (or forever) because they weren't responsible parents, and give it to someone who will follow the law.

This april fools is believable.

The problem is that there's no way to do that with the current short term management techniques and high CxO salaries. If they get away with it for 1 year and make 10-20 million, which the lawsuits can't touch, they don't care. We need to change the corporate veil so it protects small investors but not those who run the company day to day.

Actually, you are saying that PROFESSIONAL drivers have conversations and don't get into abnormal amounts of wrecks. Ok, I believe that. The bad part is that most drivers are amateurs.

I drive two hours a day on the interstate (not a "professional", just reasonably cautious with phone features built into car and never text and drive). You would be amazed at how many "professional" truck drivers I see crossing the line while fiddling with a phone. Whether they are texting or calling, I don't know. I don't see this daily, but I do see it about once a week. I85 in NC.

Depends on if you care. Most likely these employees are talented programmers, and the hiring environment is good right now. For those who have a bit of money set aside losing their job is an inconvenience at worst, a nice vacation at best. Especially if they were smart enough to start shipping resumes as they took their stand.

Designers who don't code are worthless. They make horrible solutions because they're too separated from the actual problems with their designs. Senior devs should be designing, but they should still be coding most of their own designs.

Like I said- there's exceptions. Maybe you're one of them, I can't tell as I don't know you. But you'd need to prove you were an exception in the interview, because most of the people who stay that long have stagnated.

I stick by 3 months though. That's plenty of time to learn the system, if it takes longer than that you aren't really trying. If it takes you a year (as a senior, not as an intermediate or junior), you've been let go by that time. Of course your experience could be biased in some ways- the best engineers I know would avoid the kind of place where you work on 1 system for 5 years, so you may be looking at a lower overall talent pool.

May I pass up on some good talent because of this? Maybe. But I'm not particularly worried about it- passing up on a good hire is a less harmful mistake than making a bad hire. Besides which, the few exceptions that I'd miss aren't looking for new jobs anyway. And they probably wouldn't be happy at the type of company I prefer.

One other comment, I forgot in my original reply. Each year of experience doing the same thing brings diminishing returns. By branching out and doing other things, you learn additional skills and tricks that are used in other fields. I've done firmware, web services, mobile software, porting, etc in my career. I can bring knowledge from one field to bear on another. Someone who's moved has seen a variety of business practices, protocols, and development practices while someone who's stayed in place likely hasn't. So 10 years of mixed experience will very likely just be a better programmer than 10 years of staying in place.

I use that method of subtraction today, and have since grade school. I just typically do it in reverse- figure out what numbers I need to add to the smaller number to make the bigger number, and typically with larger numbers. Its a solid way of doing the math, there's no reason it shouldn't be taught to them.

I agree that the term shouldn't be taught to them. Its something educators should know so they can discuss techniques. Although you will find that term in a lot of math textbooks these days.

I see 10 years of experience as a valuable thing, you've been around long enough to see a lot of mistakes and know to avoid them. 10 years in one place isn't- you're likely stuck in your ways. The fact that you were willing to do the same job for 10 years shows a lack of ambition or mental curiosity in other realms in the field of programming.

In fact your post proves me right. "Stable job" "all the way to retirement". You're looking for safe over interesting, over doing something worthwhile. Those aren't the types of companies I would even interview at, and not the type of programmer I'd hire. You're even looking at it in terms of doing it for a salary increase- my last job change was a pay cut to go to a startup. Not because I expect to become rich (I know that at best I'll break even), but because its more interesting, more fun, an idea that could really make things better, and I have more leeway to do things how I want and define how this company runs. You might be technically competent, but unlikely to be a culture fit.

And ignoring the culture fit part- most people I know who want safety that much require it because they're average to below average and don't want to risk being on the job market, and depend on institutional knowledge to be useful. There's a few exceptions, but I'd say that goes for 80-90% of them. I wouldn't refuse to interview someone like that to see if they are the exception, but it would be a yellow flag and I'd need to be convinced otherwise in the interview to give them an offer.

Horrible advice.

I don't care if you have a bear or not, it doesn't effect your ability to code. Same with the hair cut. As or the suit- if you need to try and impress me with how you dress, I assume its because you can't impress me with your code. You can overcome that, but it won't help you and may hurt you.

Yes, it's currently in the "then they fight you" stage.

Why the hell would you want to do that? If you like coding, keep doing it. You'll be miserable as a manager if you don't have a passion for it but do have one for programming. You're better off retiring than that.

3 years isn't long, but in the programming industry its pretty standard. 5 years is a fairly long stint somewhere. Much more than that is a real long sting- if I see 7 or so years at a place I wonder about his ability to switch to a new job. Its a series of less than 2 years (or less than 1) that worry me- less than 1 means he's always looking for the next job, less than 2 means he's easily bored.

A year to get up to speed? A senior programmer should be contributing something by the end of week 1, and should be fully up to speed on language and architecture by 3 months. If someone takes anywhere near a year they need to be fired- they aren't pulling their weight (junior and intermediate level programmers get more time, of course).