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I agree - Background doesn't matter.
What matters is how the individual's brain is wired, and how diverse their background experience has been. This way they can see things from angles that others simply miss.
However, I do thing certain backgrounds will strengthen you ability to develop software in certain fields. For example, if you are writing software for military hardware, then a background in military hardware will obviously benefit your ability to deliver correct, well written code.
Basically, there are a mix of factors that make a good programmer, and background can be part of this mix. Those that choose Mathematics as a profession are likely to already be good a thinking logically, which is a core element of programming.
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Anonymous wrote:
What matters is how the individual's brain is wired, and how diverse their background experience has been. This way they can see things from angles that others simply miss.
This is exacly what I mean. The programming ability is not the part of, say, mathematical talant, it is something very independent.
And if you have it, it will drag you to programming from any other field of action.
Anonymous wrote:
However, I do think certain backgrounds will strengthen you ability to develop software in certain fields.
Not exactly. Nobody can promise you the same data domain all over the life.
And one of edges of programming capability is exactly this: be able to understand the problem from any field, quickly enter any data domain.
I'm in programming more than 40 year. Do you know, how many data domains I had to learn, and how many programming tools I had to use ?
And the only help of my mathematical background was, that I knew what is it - "modulo" - before learning any programming language. 
Sure I exaggregate, but only a little bit.
Regards,
Gennady
My English is permanently under construction. Please, be patient.
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Engineering, Mathematics, Self-Taught, and Science all rolled into one. Definately should have been its own category.
Democracy is just a fancy word for mob rule, or 3 wolves and a sheep deciding whats for dinner.
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me too 
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The following: -
Carpenter,
Philosopher,
Deep Sea Diver,
Product Designer,
Delinquent Skater
are among the past histories of some of the best developers I've worked with. Personally I think your background is irrelevant, you either have the mindset of a good developer or you don't.
Phil Harding.
myBlog [^] | mySite [^]
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I've got to agree with Phil on this one. I have been in this game a long time (1984!) and all the best IT developers I have met, have somehow 'drifted' into it, from all academic levels, and backgrounds.
You've either got a underlying flair for this sort of stuff or you haven't, and that's about it.
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I think the way the question is or can be interpreted is far more interesting than the question itself.
I'd like to think of a programmer as a "artistic handy-man" that constructs different tools(programs) that can be used in a machine(computer) to solve different kind of problems. These problems can be of various nature; scientific, mathematical, economical and so on, but this has nothing to do with how well constructed the tool is or in this case how well-written the code is.
Naturally the best suited for solving a mathematical problem is a mathematician. Or in other words: it would not be wise to send a carpenter to solve a plumbing problem even if both the plumber and the carpenter use screwdrivers. The screwdriver may be of better or worse quality, but that just the tool to get the job done. I'd like to compare the person that manufactures screwdrivers with a programmer.
The screwdriver manufacturer's job is to make good screwdrivers; selecting the best materials for long-lasting screwdrivers at reasonable prices.
The programmer's job is to create well-functioning programs that don't crash.
To make a specialized screwdriver that is supposed to be used by carpenters only would require some knowledge about carpenting, which should be fairly obvious, but this doesn't say anything about the quality of the screwdriver.
The thing about programmers are exactly the same: to create a program used for financial calculations would require some education in economics, but this doesn't say anything about the quality of the program.
In my opinion it's neither the background nor the education that makes the "Best Programmer". I consider constructing good programs to be a talent not so very far from artistic talent. Haven't we all seen "ugly code"? If something like "ugly code" exists, there must be something like "beautiful code" and creating something beautiful requires an artist/poet.
However, beautiful code doesn't necessarily guarantee a well-functioning program. It would require some technical talent as well.
Put these requirements together and you will end up with a technical artist comparable with Leonardo da Vinci who also had both technical and artistic skills.
Bottom line (in my opinion):
What makes a programmer is a unique mix of talents more than an issue of education.
Understanding the problem to be solved requires something more than just talent such as education and/or experience but this is a different thing.
--
Rog
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Roger Stoltz wrote:
unique mix of talents more than an issue of education
Definitely.
I also think someone self-taught is well suited to continually keep up to date with new technology. But at the same time good programmers are logical thinkers who would probably lean towards pursuing mathematics.
I wouldn't go as far as to say programming is an art-form since IMO "beautiful code" is code that is logical and easy to understand, and probably has very little to do with visual/aural appeal that an artist/poet would aim for.
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The mental process behind writing poetry and code is the same.
You have to be able to abstract reality into a simple model and be able to transfer that abstraction into a concret code, that can be your natural language our a programming language.
Mathematics have an important role on all Computer Sciences, but programming has a lot to do with poetry.
Rui Sousa
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Similarly,
Good code is like good Haiku.
It is concise, descriptive, and elegant.
Good Haiku, like good code is never contrived. It is also minimialsist without compromising its descriptive qualities.
using (Haiku)<br />
{<br />
Writing code, like Haiku:<br />
Elegant within confines<br />
That limit and free.<br />
}
Please don't judge the quality of my code based on the quality (or lack thereof) of my Haiku.
-- Being innovative means not being afraid to get fired.
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Your a poet and didn't know it.
BluePineNeedles wrote:
-- Being innovative means not being afraid to get fired.
I guess I'm not as innovative as I thought I was. 
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Is it an oversight, or is that intended to fall under science?
Daniel Vaughan
Zen Diaphragm
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I wondered if the question meant 'best background apart from computer science'?
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Isaac Asimov[^] said:
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
-- Being innovative means not being afraid to get fired.
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One of CP's best and most respected programmers, PJ, was a Chicken Farmer - so it's gotta be a good background
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I was once a nice little school girl. Will that count?
Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
-- Richard Bach
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Smitha Vijayan wrote:
I was once a nice little school girl. Will that count?
Damn. That's put a rather nice image in my head... Smitha in a School uniform. Sorry, must go and take a cold shower.   ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
Michael
CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
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Does the Lounge's 'kid sister' rule apply to survey responses  ?
Software Zen: delete this;
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Lol, I once played football on the streets. But I don't think that isn't relevant to my software development skills. Originally I am educated as an electrician, but that kinda boored the hell out of me. So I wend programming 
WM.
What about weapons of mass-construction?
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Yes, we definitely need more programmers with a "little schoolgirl" background!
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
was
is
I am taking a big leap here and assuming you are talking about me. At least the initials and the chicken farmer part fits anyway, I would not be too sure about the rest of your post:->
"You're obviously a superstar." - Christian Graus about me - 12 Feb '03
"Obviously ??? You're definitely a superstar!!!" - mYkel - 21 Jun '04
"There's not enough blatant self-congratulatory backslapping in the world today..." - HumblePie - 21 Jun '05
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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PJ Arends wrote:
I am taking a big leap here and assuming you are talking about me.
There's only one PJ for Loungers - PJ Arends 
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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 ? "
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predragzakisevic wrote:
I strongly disagree that a self-taught programmer can compete a programmer with a background either on math or physics.
In a way, though, aren't we all self-taught. Our education provides the backdrop or foundation of our knowledge, but where we go from there is very rarely similar to where we started.
I am a CSE (Computer Science/Engineering) grad with a strong physics background (majored in it before CIS), but I think that my background only informs my ability as a devloper. The stronger characteristic is my personality. I am constantly reading magazine or web articles, tinkering, deconstructing, buying books, exploring, and evaluating industry best-practices (patterns + practices). In this way, I am more self-taught than anything else, because my experiences have moved far beyond what I learned in school.
-- Being innovative means not being afraid to get fired.
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