My son is completely self-taught in programming. After correcting for inflation his first professional job didn't pay all that much more than my first professional job. ;) I went through four zero income years for less.;(
That said I made a career of developing military electronic systems (no education in either the military or electronics) involving computer hardware and software (no education in either) but self taught in all four fields plus project management methodology learned on the job. A BS in physics got me a job to do completely unrelated things. The sheepskin is what the employer looks for which is why you got one. But even then I had an unsolicited offer from ORNL after only two years of the BS work if I was willing to become a programmer.
Perhaps software is the only field where this self-learning is practical.
I prefer to look at it differently based upon that long digression. Programming is the only new discipline since the invention of science back in the Renaissance. All the old fields are stuck in the old mold of acolytes studying religion in colleges which was later extended to studies in other fields <em>in addition to</em> becoming a priest.
What we all do once in the real world is learn what we need to learn regardless of the academic degree. Even in the academic version of the real world, a PhD professor, they are so narrow in their specialization they do not use 90% of what they learned. They do the same thing the rest of us do.
We have a model and it works even for the college dropouts who lead the companies which lead the fastest growing and newest industry in the world. We are not hide-bound to medieval schooling methods and it works better than great. It is really the way most people learn the subjects that are how they earn a living. It is about time the rest of the world at least give it a try.
The original idea of a patent was full and open disclosure in exchange for a fixed period of control. The assumption was as Edison said, 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. The fixed period was to motivate the perspiration. As with any system it had glaring successes and failures but it was always as an option to trade secrets which, last I heard, are more numerous than patents. No one is required to use the patent system. Reverse engineering a trade secret cannot be patented as it is by definition prior art.
Inventors are not like Buddhist monks in that no one gives them gold coins just for sitting around inventing all day. They are on their own getting reimbursement for their effort. And as the author notes, they have to do it within their own culture.
That said the patent system has gotten out of hand and particularly in the foolish application to software. Everyone has their favorite rant on a software patent. Most of them are not about the software but on what is done regardless of the software making it happen. That is not an invention. That is not an novelty. They are things you have to be a dullard not to see as obvious.
Patents are no longer to encourage beneficial novelties which are better known to the public than kept secret. They have become commodities. Patent claims are company tradegoods with attorneys as the traders. The use of these patents is no longer to introduce better products but as part of overall profit strategies.
Let us remember all of the issues of the software community can be eliminated by simply nullifying all software patents.
Copyright has always been the reasonable way to deal with software. The meaning of infringement is reasonably well established as is the concept of public domain. The latter has served the open source community well.
Lets keep patents and copyright as separate issues and deal with them separately.
Authored Comments
[There is a reason for this long preamble.]
My son is completely self-taught in programming. After correcting for inflation his first professional job didn't pay all that much more than my first professional job. ;) I went through four zero income years for less.;(
That said I made a career of developing military electronic systems (no education in either the military or electronics) involving computer hardware and software (no education in either) but self taught in all four fields plus project management methodology learned on the job. A BS in physics got me a job to do completely unrelated things. The sheepskin is what the employer looks for which is why you got one. But even then I had an unsolicited offer from ORNL after only two years of the BS work if I was willing to become a programmer.
Perhaps software is the only field where this self-learning is practical.
I prefer to look at it differently based upon that long digression. Programming is the only new discipline since the invention of science back in the Renaissance. All the old fields are stuck in the old mold of acolytes studying religion in colleges which was later extended to studies in other fields <em>in addition to</em> becoming a priest.
What we all do once in the real world is learn what we need to learn regardless of the academic degree. Even in the academic version of the real world, a PhD professor, they are so narrow in their specialization they do not use 90% of what they learned. They do the same thing the rest of us do.
We have a model and it works even for the college dropouts who lead the companies which lead the fastest growing and newest industry in the world. We are not hide-bound to medieval schooling methods and it works better than great. It is really the way most people learn the subjects that are how they earn a living. It is about time the rest of the world at least give it a try.
The original idea of a patent was full and open disclosure in exchange for a fixed period of control. The assumption was as Edison said, 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. The fixed period was to motivate the perspiration. As with any system it had glaring successes and failures but it was always as an option to trade secrets which, last I heard, are more numerous than patents. No one is required to use the patent system. Reverse engineering a trade secret cannot be patented as it is by definition prior art.
Inventors are not like Buddhist monks in that no one gives them gold coins just for sitting around inventing all day. They are on their own getting reimbursement for their effort. And as the author notes, they have to do it within their own culture.
That said the patent system has gotten out of hand and particularly in the foolish application to software. Everyone has their favorite rant on a software patent. Most of them are not about the software but on what is done regardless of the software making it happen. That is not an invention. That is not an novelty. They are things you have to be a dullard not to see as obvious.
Patents are no longer to encourage beneficial novelties which are better known to the public than kept secret. They have become commodities. Patent claims are company tradegoods with attorneys as the traders. The use of these patents is no longer to introduce better products but as part of overall profit strategies.
Let us remember all of the issues of the software community can be eliminated by simply nullifying all software patents.
Copyright has always been the reasonable way to deal with software. The meaning of infringement is reasonably well established as is the concept of public domain. The latter has served the open source community well.
Lets keep patents and copyright as separate issues and deal with them separately.