Click here to Skip to main content
16,014,309 members

Survey Results

What background makes the best programmer?   [Edit]

Survey period: 8 Aug 2005 to 14 Aug 2005

Many of us came to programming from different directions. What do you think is the best way? (suggested by Bill Gammill)

OptionVotes% 
Engineering / Physics50931.34
Science1227.51
Mathematics41025.25
Economics181.11
Education513.14
Arts432.65
Literature171.05
Self-taught hackers40324.82
SysAdmin150.92
Tech Support362.22



 
JokeRe: Chicken Farming Pin
Smitha Nishant8-Aug-05 23:01
protectorSmitha Nishant8-Aug-05 23:01 
JokeRe: Chicken Farming Pin
Michael P Butler9-Aug-05 1:05
Michael P Butler9-Aug-05 1:05 
GeneralRe: Chicken Farming Pin
Gary Wheeler10-Aug-05 7:18
Gary Wheeler10-Aug-05 7:18 
GeneralRe: Chicken Farming Pin
WillemM11-Aug-05 0:43
WillemM11-Aug-05 0:43 
GeneralRe: Chicken Farming Pin
peterchen14-Aug-05 9:29
peterchen14-Aug-05 9:29 
GeneralRe: Chicken Farming Pin
PJ Arends9-Aug-05 12:56
professionalPJ Arends9-Aug-05 12:56 
AnswerRe: Chicken Farming Pin
Nish Nishant9-Aug-05 18:34
sitebuilderNish Nishant9-Aug-05 18:34 
GeneralPhysics + Biology ??? Pin
akyriako788-Aug-05 20:32
akyriako788-Aug-05 20:32 
I voted Physics because it encloses maths.I've studied Physics and my opinion is that you can't study physics without a fair amount of knowledge on mathematics. The first two years in university felt like studying maths.

I believe that one of my biggest weapons in my arsenal is my studies of Physics,because it combines many abstract fields of science and a very good level of math.I strongly disagree that a self-taught programmer can compete a programmer with a background either on math or physics.

Every little piece of code i wrote beside the pure code technices, had to implement an algorithm either simple or more complicated.So the very first thing i have to do is to study the order of growth of the running time and the asymptotic efficiency of the algorithm.

I don't believe that the majority of self-taught programmers has the slightest idea about these stuff because they need a lot of math and a self-taught dude lacks of guidence and motivation to study such things.In my opinion programmer isn't the one who can write a HelloWorld program in a thousand elegand ways just because he knows the semantics of a language or a framework's libraries.

A little time ago i saw a documentary about genes and species.I must admit that the whole story reminded me a lot of OOP concepts (concering species) and plugin architecture scenarios, objects' reusability (concerning genes).

So i had a crazy thought : "What would be the impact of the combination biology + physics + programming ? "


GeneralRe: Physics + Biology ??? Pin
BluePineNeedles9-Aug-05 4:12
BluePineNeedles9-Aug-05 4:12 
GeneralRe: Physics + Biology ??? Pin
Marc Soleda9-Aug-05 21:39
Marc Soleda9-Aug-05 21:39 
GeneralRe: Physics + Biology ??? Pin
Kevin McFarlane9-Aug-05 23:03
Kevin McFarlane9-Aug-05 23:03 
GeneralRe: Physics + Biology ??? Pin
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 0:21
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 0:21 
GeneralRe: Physics + Biology ??? Pin
Tom Pruett10-Aug-05 7:03
Tom Pruett10-Aug-05 7:03 
GeneralRe: Physics + Biology ??? Pin
PedroMC13-Aug-05 12:23
PedroMC13-Aug-05 12:23 
GeneralUFO illuminated me Pin
Marc Soleda8-Aug-05 20:15
Marc Soleda8-Aug-05 20:15 
GeneralRe: UFO illuminated me Pin
Farhan Noor Qureshi9-Aug-05 6:28
Farhan Noor Qureshi9-Aug-05 6:28 
GeneralRe: UFO illuminated me Pin
13BOB129-Aug-05 17:12
13BOB129-Aug-05 17:12 
GeneralRe: UFO illuminated me Pin
toxcct10-Aug-05 1:28
toxcct10-Aug-05 1:28 
GeneralRe: UFO illuminated me Pin
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 4:49
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 4:49 
GeneralRe: UFO illuminated me Pin
toxcct10-Aug-05 5:05
toxcct10-Aug-05 5:05 
GeneralRe: UFO illuminated me Pin
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 5:24
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 5:24 
GeneralRe: UFO illuminated me Pin
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 4:42
Marc Soleda10-Aug-05 4:42 
GeneralBelieving Allah and his Messanger Muhammed (P.B.U.H) Pin
Abdul Aahad8-Aug-05 17:38
Abdul Aahad8-Aug-05 17:38 
GeneralRe: Believing Allah and his Messanger Muhammed (P.B.U.H) Pin
Abdul Aahad8-Aug-05 17:39
Abdul Aahad8-Aug-05 17:39 
GeneralRe: Believing Allah and his Messanger Muhammed (P.B.U.H) Pin
Judah Gabriel Himango9-Aug-05 7:50
sponsorJudah Gabriel Himango9-Aug-05 7:50 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.