Atlas · Details
Wizard School
AI Notes
Steve writing science fiction, for once. The narrator is a working programmer a decade or so into a future where the wizard thing already happened, and he sounds exactly like the guy who missed Napster, explaining it all to the neighbors after the fact. The world-building rewards a slow read: companies bidding on graduates like sports franchises, pointing devices strapped to foreheads, "folding languages" so compact that 90% of ordinary developers claim they can't read them. And some real 2006 grievances travel on the fiction's passport — the passage on CS Ph.D.s who "think Big-O is a tire company," so over-specialized that "an alarming number of them are no-ops," needs no wizard hat at all.
The piece keeps an odd scorecard. A throwaway gag dates Perl's popularity as running "up through 2010 or so," which landed within shouting distance of the real obituary. The ending predicts cheaper competitors rushing in to siphon off the world's unmet demand for programmer training, and reality obliged with the coding bootcamp — which took the market and inverted the curriculum, compressing the essay's seven years of typing drills, drawing, music theory, and three human languages into twelve weeks of JavaScript. Whether that counts as the prophecy failing, or as the industry confirming everything this essay suspects about it, is worth deciding for yourself.
Related listings
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2005
Practicing Programming
The serious version of the same argument. Wizard School is the satirical mirror; Practicing Programming is the twelve-drill training programme it implies.
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2008
Get That Job at Google
Two years later Steve writes the application essay for the wizard school — what to study, what to drill, how to get in.
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2008
Portrait of a N00b
Wizard School wonders what real training would look like; Portrait of a N00b shows what we currently get instead — the predictable phases a self-taught programmer cycles through without one.
From the peanut gallery
Read the rest of the thread · 29 more
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Load of crap, everyone knows that people don't want guys that are smarter working for them.
The N-th tier talent gets hired because they can be easily manipulated.
No one that brilliant would stand to work for someone else, not for long anyhow. -
Loved it. I hope you put the references to Google hiring strategies and Paul Graham's rants in there on purpose, because I certainly read the music/paint/week-long-interviews bits that way.
I wish this did exist. Maybe one day it will. -
I've put a new disclaimer at the top. Apparently the references to horseback riding and archery didn't trigger "Legend of Zelda" for enough people, nor did the multiple Harry Potter references make it obvious that it's just a story.
Remember *stories*? We just never seem to get those anymore. Even poor Neal Stephenson has stopped writing computer fiction, apparently.
Do blogs always have to be soapboxes? Soap doesn't even come in boxes anymore! It comes in squeeze tubes! Our cherished boxy traditions are crashing down all around us, but we still can't let go of the idea that blogs have to be -about- something.
Gosh. -
Oops, I think my sense of humor doesn't engage on Saturday mornings until the second cup of coffee.
Next time, I'll wait until I'm more awake to comment. Sorry about that, Steve. -
You made my day, sir.
In a follow-up, there would be this company that consists solely of wizards which finally pushes us into the Singularity.
That reminds me, gotta go back to reading "Rainbow's End"... -
There already are Geek Cruises. They could morph into Wizard Schools. But as a regretful ex-physics major, I know that software development is only a small ugly niche cult in the techie universe.
What about engineering? "Schools across Norway are to teach 3D CAD to students aged 14 to 18 using SolidWorks Education Edition software. ..." at http://www.engineeringtalk.com/news/sol/sol225.html
There should be community hour-by-hour rental machine shops, or chemistry labs, like Kinkos, where people could work on projects.
Geeks should bypass the current broken healthcare system with a health co-op, with finances run like an open source project.
There should be an American "New Oroville" (http://images.google.com/images?q=%22new+oroville%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images) where geeks could vote tax money to sidewalk slidewalks, or underground pneumatic transport/trash removal systems. -
Great post. Looking forward to more speculative fiction. Don't get boxed.
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Sorry, I still like the kind of soap that comes in the boxes. I hate that squeeze tube crap.
Also, Utopian science fiction is as boring as dirt; so, I just naturally assumed it was futurism. -
I knew it was (very funny) fiction pretty quickly. Not right away, but quick enough that by the end of it I was laughing out loud. In fact, I came back again this evening just to read it for another chuckle.
I don't think the disclaimer is doing you any good. Who cares if people are fooled by your cleverness? That makes it even funnier!
Also, if the dates don't give it away ("back in 2006," and "it's been 10 or eleven years, now"), then I'm not sure your disclaimer is going to do it either.
Seth -
Steve,
I've always enjoyed your blog most, most thoroughly, but then I drew back, aghast, as I happened upon your "sight"->"site" malapropism. Realizing you were referencing the aberration early on in book 6, the world went right; way to Joyce that shit up. You're the best guy ever, thanks a lot for the good times.
-nick black -
Oooh! Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, but that is, in fact, a genuine goof on my part. I've noticed that as I grow older and more senile, I make mistakes of that sort increasingly often. They're almost always homophone substitutions, and I rarely edit my work carefully enough to catch them all. Sigh.
Thanks also for the reminder of the word "malapropism" -- I was trying to remember that exact word yesterday morning. -
I thought about something along these lines awhile back, and thought it would be fun to do a comic or animation-type project about it. (If I was an artist of some sort, then I might have something to show...)
I pictured it being more along the lines of a 70's-era liberal college atmosphere with a lot of peace/love and eastern religion and an extra dose of jargon file, but more out of interest than realism.
And I was picturing it being in Hell, Michigan, for no discernible reason. -
You caught me! I was carried away and started to worry that I'm really missing something. Till I got to last line.
You're a really cool writer. I am seriously beginning to consider your candidacy as a PR man for my future startup when it grows into huge miltinational company.
Seriously, yours is one of the best blogs out there. -
Wow, I was googling wizard schools too. Damn. I cant believe I fell for that. Nice job.
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Wait... so you are saying this doesn't exist? Seriously, good job. Sometimes it is better to dream big.
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Such fictitious folk would never work for others... maybe only with the illusion of working for others.
Many more skills than tech skills are also needed, such as leadership.
Only learning in a language of their own making would keep their knowledge amongst themselves to create a class of their own. Would they use Smalltalk for smalltalk? A priesthood of sorts.
Moral development continues through the turbulent teens. Don't want Slytherin types taking over the tech world. Wealthy parents aren’t known for raising moral children in the early years.
Besides, the Croquet project democratized the whole thing for everyone in 2007 via VR.
;-)
www.croquetproject.org -
P.S. Croquet's theme is from the Alice in Wonderland stories. That's from open source literature rather than closed source literature. The orig. stories are also a merging of poetry and math, chess and cards, logic and chance.
;-) -
You just make me dream, until I saw the comments and searched Google for "Wizard Schools"...
For someone like me, that works hard to become a great programmer, going to a school likes that would rank #1 in the list: "The things I what to do before I die."
Thanks for that magical moment, even if it didn't last long. -
100% agreed on the PhD part. I'm still currently undecided on the issue. Should I or shouldn't I get a PhD in CS?
How many of the readers get scared before getting it's a joke. I was at least.
Is it a reverse-psychological way of making us strive for excellence? That'd work! Although I suspect that protectionist measures are easier to apply than pursuing the quest to excellence. -
Steve,
You don't post often enough. Not nearly enough. -
Very interesting and thought provoking article. More comments here.
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We worked as a small team the way you describe it happens at google back in '92 and produced a great piece of software which these days is called Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Rather than 10 people it now takes hundreds of people to make a new version. Yet they still haven't really changed what we made back then, I guess it still does the job.
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Sorry, Steve...
I don't agree with you. Your proposal will work if there is one team only. In a bigger company it is necessary to be more organised -
Steve wrote: Do blogs always have to be soapboxes? Soap doesn't even come in boxes anymore! It comes in squeeze tubes!
What? Tubes? Is this part of the story too or does soap really come in tubes? That would be weird, like toothpaste. -
The Most Innovative College in America has 27 graduates. Maybe you can get them to go a bit further and become a Wizard School.
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The name sounds like something from Harry Potter a wizard school where the kids can do their magic. Do they teach magic tricks in private schools? I don't think they do in public school...
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it splendid job.
I am very charming on visit this site,please allow strangers to login there is no option for sign up I visit this site but Iam puzzled to get an account . because I am a n3ew member I can't find sign up option -
This is Great. I really was tricked -- although I'm sad this isn't true
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Just re-reading this oldie but goodie. One mistake -- it will probably be pretty typical to be a millionaire by 22 this far into the future ;) -- inflation, think about it.
-tk
Am I the only one who is struck by the eerie similarity between this idea and John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider? The key difference being that stevey's idea is for private enterprise to do it, whilst Brunner saw the government creating the schools. While I'd love to see stevey's vision come true, I fear that Brunner's is at least as likely. Tarnover, anyone?
— tdk · 10:20 PM, October 03, 2006
Yegge, I always thought you were half freak, especially with your Haskell fixation, but this...
Thanks for a big laugh. I loved the details about learning musical instruments and archery, and the depiction of PhD programs. There was enough truth in it that you actually had me going for a little while. You did make one serious error, though: No one would suffer the creator of an abomination like Perl to teach in such a school.
— Unknown · 9:37 AM, July 01, 2006
This is a strange one, Steve. It will be interesting to see what kind of reaction you get.
To whatever extent that your thoughts here are not fictional, I am surprised by the direction you seem to have taken.
I would have thought that you would be more inclined toward "let a thousand flowers bloom".
In terms of education, that would mean helping as many people as possible achieve as much as they can, not setting up an institution available to a blessed few.
In terms of management, that would mean helping everyone in the organization experiment, learn, and innovate, not anointing code wizards and ignoring the rest.
Have I misinterpreted what you are saying here? This one is a bit cryptic, so please forgive me if I have.
— Greg Linden · 9:34 AM, July 01, 2006