the second thing is the same way iq tests work. many questions asked in programming tests have no real-world application. i rarely ever deal with strings, so i am terribly incompetent with strings.

i really think of myself as an engineer, as a problem solver, and programming is only one of the many skills, and it is not even a terribly important skill for me.

i should add that i have 1o years experience as an embedded software engineer and have been generally highly valued in all the places i have worked at. there have been better programmers, but rarely better all-round software engineers. i have single-handedly finished projects, often projects that no one is brave enough to take on.

Programming is all about *hiding* stuff. There is so much that is invisible. While debugging a program, you are generally looking at a tiny tiny portion of it, like scanning a stadium with a flashlight.

Every programmer of a certain age knows that software was more stable years ago, because it was smaller. As it has gotten bigger, it's gotten less stable. We're still surprised by this because we are employing increasingly sophisticated tools and techniques, but apparently they can't possibly keep up with the problems caused by size.

Larger programs mean more things are hidden. Code rot is almost never discovered early. Programmers who cause code rot are almost never discovered early.

I can't account for the FizzBuzz effect at all, but it's been a while since I was in school so I really have no idea what goes on there; all I know is that it has got to be really different than it was when I was in school.