Let us rewind a bit…My first computer was a Timex Sinclair ZX81 as a gift for my 14th birthday. Back in those days, there was no public internet, you couldn’t download computer programs. You actually had to code things yourself, whether you wrote it from scratch or typed it in reading from an article in Popular Electronics Magazine. So, it’s safe to say that I’ve been programming for nearly 43 years now, I certainly know what the fuck I’m doing after this long.
That’s far longer than most of these “experts” I know have been sporting their obscure random upper case letters in their email signatures that don’t mean shit to anybody who reads them. The only person I can name who that opinion doesn’t apply to is my 7th grade algebra teacher who got me started with this stuff because he started at the same time that I did. He got one of the very first Apple II computers, which was the very first computer that I ever touched.
With that level of programming experience put into a project that took me over 4 years of 40 hour weeks, why would it be constantly questioned over safety and security? The very first time I had to deal with this, I was told to “prove it’s secure”. Ummm, no, if you think that it’s not, then it’s on you to prove it. You know, kinda like that “innocent until proven guilty” part of the constitution. Sorry, if dunces insist on implying that I didn’t do my job correctly, then they better be able to prove it or shut the fuck up already. I bet I know my capabilities far better than they think they know their own.
I know this goes against the entire Nebraska resident stereotype, everybody here must be a completely clueless hick. Never mind the fact that Warren Buffet is from Omaha. He must just be an exception to the rule. Right? After all, there’s no way that a person could possibly be a programmer without a computer science degree from MIT. You certainly couldn’t possibly be a self-taught programmer. Right? Honestly, I think these dunces just suffer from jealousy and cognitive dissonance.
Why didn’t I get a computer science degree? I didn’t have time for it, I was busy doing something that I actually enjoyed. I still had a computer with me while I was on the road playing in bands and wrote software to burn time during the day. I recently created a YouTube short video on the topic of all that college educated and certified expert bullshit. That stuff means nothing to me and doesn’t prove anything. I have 40+ years experience, just try to beat that with a degree!
So, if my software can’t even be security scanned unless I disable all of its security mechanisms in order to give the security company an unfair advantage, why is it always being called into question? Why would I be expected to write code for any new projects with that being the case? Seems to me that it would make more sense to hire a software development firm or a code monkey, which certainly wouldn’t break my heart. That’s just one less headache for me.
Just pick a team and play already, I either know what I’m doing, or I don’t. That fact doesn’t change based on some certified experts’ ability or inability to figure out something. Luckily, I don’t deal with this kind of crap when doing freelance work for people outside of the USA. Americans seem to forget that those hackers who can and will own your ass, don’t have computer science degrees either. They’re all determined and self-taught individuals, just like me.
Be careful whose capabilities you discount just because they didn’t waste their time in a classroom or join the same clubs that you belong to. As Groucho Marx said, I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.
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