>I actually agree with the practice, and generally don’t think you should be employed to learn the basic tools of the trade.
In what other technical field are you expected, post-school (which probably hasn't taught you a ton of practical skills), to spend a year on your own making yourself employable?
In medicine you spend a decade making yourself employable. The on your own part is a luxury and a curse, in that we don’t need patients to practice on.
The closest comparison I have is professional musician.
you’re supposed to love the language of music. If you don’t, good luck.
The view of some that software has to be this all-consuming thing from a young age if you want to be any good at it has a great deal in common with the arts.
And very little in common with how most people treat other technical professions.
It has a lot in common with other fields (most of which sure, are not “technical professions”, but that's because this is not about broad content) in which there is an oversupply of talent at the low levels, regardless of the conditions at the top of the industry.
The reason is because — between the people with the genuine love of the field plus those drawn in by the lure of the high-end pay — there is such an oversupply.
Sure, because software is both an art and a science and draws a lot of comparisons with music where you have to understand the technical theory, the creative and also be comfortable physically playing an instrument while having some level of understanding the digital domain (MIDI etc).
Software also sits at this technical/creative/implementation intersection where unless you're doing something very specific, you're going to need to push/pull in different directions.
A lot of software doesn't do anything exciting, standard office CRUD, dashboards, back office tools can be banged together by a single developer as long as they can connect to a database, render a UI (web/desktop) and take requirements from the business.
There's a lot of software jobs which aren't at software companies but regular businesses who just need to track something domain specific and can't afford to tender.
In what other technical field are you expected, post-school (which probably hasn't taught you a ton of practical skills), to spend a year on your own making yourself employable?
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