Adobe MAX 2008 BoF: Addressing the ColdFusion Developers' Skills Gap
If you're going to MAX this year, make sure to check out the Bird of a Feather (BoF) meetings Monday night (11/17). These are informal, 50 minute meetings where we can discuss various issues and get to know each other while eating pizza and having a few beers.
If you haven't seen the complete list of BoFs yet, they're a bit hidden. Click here and scroll down a bit.
I'll be running "Addressing the ColdFusion Developers' Skills Gap" at 8:30 in room 2000, Level 2 of Moscone West. (I just found this out about an hour ago. :))
What Gap?
Over two years ago, Brian Kotek posted about the perception of a CF Skills Divide. Today I think that in many cases, the skills divide has grown.
The big question is, why? Once we know why, how can we each fill in our own gaps? Better yet, how can we help each other fill in the blanks?
I'll be putting together some talking points over the next two days. If you have anything you'd like to talk about, please post it in the comments. I can't guarantee I'll bring up everything, but we'll talk about as much as possible in the 50 minutes we have. We can also continue the discussion afterwards in the hallways or elsewhere.
See you there!
I'm glad you've found a place that makes you want to show up for work. I've been working so much, I haven't had time to blog about all the new things I've learned in the first four months at my new job.
One is that in the academic world, programming courses don't have a bell-curve. Instead they have *two* bell curves (per class) or you might call it a "camel curve", as though the attendants really do have two fundamentally different kinds of skill sets. Someone recently was able to create a test that actually shows which students will fall into which side of the bell-curve, and interestingly enough, it doesn't really change as the course continues -- it seems to be that either you're wired for problem set a or you're wired for problem set b. That's not to say that you can't become a great programmer if you started out in the lower bell-curve, but merely that it will require more effort to get there.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000635.h...
The other is that, irrespective of the language or even the industry, the average person never becomes an expert at much of anything. The average person really reaches a "comfort zone" in their skill set after about 5 years into any given career and then rest on their laurels for the rest of their career. In order to become an expert at anything, you have to be one of those unusual kinds of people who instead of spending the bulk of their time enjoying the things they do well actually seek out opportunities to do things that are still very challenging for them. Most people just don't do that and personally I don't expect they ever will. Which leaves every industry with a long-tail curve. You've got a really small number of people with expert skills, a steep downward gradient and then a relatively sharp curve where the bulk of people are at intermediate level. After the curve there's a very shallow grade where you see the "long tail" of all the newbies who are in the process of rapidly becoming intermediate performers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail
I can't remember the guy's name, but there's actually a scientist who's been studying "expertise" who's done a number of studies that have shown that most people basically stop learning new things after about 5 years on any job. His studies are mentioned in a book titled Influencer.
Of course nobody is forced to fall into that category of people who stop learning after 5 years. Anyone can continue to learn and continue to excel, it's just that most people don't. For most people the incentive just isn't strong enough, they're happy where they're working or doing what they're doing. Those of us who just love the job, who are passionate about it, are the ones who become experts.
Web development used to be very accessible to folks with less training. You'd never expect to see an English major working on the next release of a packaged software product but somehow in Web development this isn't that much of a surprise.
Many of the people who got into web development during the dot com explosion really had no business doing anything software development related. The sheer demand for people who could halfway do it outweighed the need for trained personnel.
So, here's the thing. I believe that the market is changing and now the only people we really need, the only ones who really add value, are the computer science/engineering folks who understand algorithms, etc. Also a small percentage of self-taught developers who are able to keep up because they have educated themselves in theory as well as practice.
Bottom line, at this point the only way to bridge the skills gap is if you work your tail off. The best developers don't punch out at a 40 hour week, they keep working on other projects, or reading, or both. Failure to commit to that will see your skills fail to improve and eventually there won't be a job for you anymore.
Just how I see it.
I understand the having a family angle to it, but I usually try to spend at least an hour or so every other night, if not every night, reading and tinkering.
While my focus could probably be better, it's serving me well so far.
For what it's worth, of course.