On January 31, 2006 at 12:41, cma said...
My experience has shown the opposite, I've seen
a few programmers at an old company I worked for
come out of school as hot shot C++ and whatever
programmers only to crash and burn in AMX only
because they couldn't grasp the fundamentals on
how AV and other systems work and interact with
each other. They were out to write the most complex
he-man program to impress anyone who would ever
dare to look at the code, and if something didn't
work the way they thought it should they wouldn't
know how to fix it or make it work other than
through trial and error.
I think they crashed and burned because they wrote over complex and inefficient code, which was caused by their arrogance and attitude. Kinda like some ex installers who just got back from AMX school.
There's no doubt a need for an acclimation period to our industry. But, code is language. AV is not rocket science, and any programmer who is mediocre in skills should be able to figure out IO mapping, how to make buttons work, etc. They should even be able to program a VCR, but if not, I can do it.
I don't deny your experience, but I would rather have an experienced programmer (past the 'wild oats' stage you described) and teach him AV. I'm sure there's exceptions to every experience, but I've not seen many badass programmers who were ex-installers. I've not seen a really good programmer who still installs, and does well at both crafts.
I don't want to hijack the thread about who makes a better programmer. We all agree it's a craft, a profession, not a part time secondary job.
