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Address of this article: https://www.oschina.net/news/85704/chinese-programmer-vs-american-programmer
mentality gap
In recent years, due to the rapid development of the Internet, the demand for IT talents has increased by leaps and bounds across the country, and the salary of programmers is also significantly higher than that of other industries.
But in China, there are not many people who are really engaged in this job because they love programming. Many people learn programming because the industry is popular, making money quickly, and the entry threshold is low. Learn whatever technology is popular, then enter a large company, do several successful projects, accumulate work experience, and become a small manager in a few years, with a salary of hundreds of thousands or hundreds of thousands, and never pursue it again. It's good to have a small day.
Even at the age of 30, if they fail to enter the management level, most people will consider changing careers, or start a business based on their own knowledge accumulation.
Most American programmers do this job because they love the programming industry, and they will specialize in a certain field for decades. Programmers over the age of 50 will still stay in the same position writing code and specializing in technology. Their idea is very simple, and it is more of a simple love for programming.
Influencing factors: For foreign programmers, who concentrate on writing programs and specializing in research, their level and salary will increase year by year, which is not much different from management personnel. The domestic programmers have nothing to do with this. The salary of writing programs is basically lower than that of managers. Due to the pressure of real life, they have to go in the direction of making more money.
Communication skills
When communicating with American programmers, you can clearly understand his problems from his point of view and specific ideas, and the background information is also given quite comprehensively when explaining the problems, so it is relatively simple and easy to understand their problems.
When Chinese programmers explain the problem, their logical thinking is not clear, their background knowledge is not given, and they have talked a lot, but everyone can't get the key points that he wants to express. his suggestion.
Influencing factors: The English used in programming is relatively the native language of Americans; the other is the difference in the way of thinking.
problem solving skills
If we give Chinese programmers a good plan, they generally do very well. But if there is no specific plan, it is completely an open topic, and programmers will be completely unable to start in many cases.
American programmers are better at this aspect, and their exploration and research ability is very strong. After a certain period of research, they can come up with a set of very specific and effective solutions and then solve the problem step by step.
In a way, this gap is like the gap between machine learning and true intelligence today. Machine learning can solve many domain-specific problems, and models can be optimized better and better, but the end of optimization is not real intelligence.
Influencing factors: The educational methods of the two countries are different, one is good at solving problems, the other is good at discovering and exploring problems.
Technical strength
At the beginning of the work, there was not much difference between the programmers of the two countries. 5 years was a watershed. After that, changes began to appear. Most people in China began to think about changing management after working for 5-6 years. Although the 5-6 years of our coding time, the accumulated experience can be said to be higher than that of American programmers in many cases. However, how many of us have specialized in a certain technology for more than 10 years, so the theory that programmers eat youth meals has emerged in China.
And there are people who have more than 10 years of experience in American programmers. For example, one has 30 years of work experience, and has been developing debugger since the DOS era until now, one has 24 years of work experience plus 5 years of doctoral research experience, and two have been engaged in the development of CLR diagnostic api since graduation. Basically for ten years.
It is really hard to imagine such a team in China. I remember statistics on stackover, the golden age of programmers should be around 40 years old, but a few in our country are still willing to write programs when they are 40 years old. On cocoachina, an article published by someone who has written programs for 40 years has been at the top of the list for a long time!
career demands
Chinese programmers need to pay more attention to material rewards, because our culture emphasizes buying a house and a car as soon as possible. Europeans and Americans are much more relaxed and free in this regard, and have a lot of time to try to create, but in fact most people do not create, but the probability is higher than China.
Chinese people underestimate themselves and do not have the ability to "innovate". They don't realize that when they reach the peak of creativity, they are trapped by reality. We compare our youth with other people's life. Of course, we are underestimating ourselves. You are much more. The golden age of Chinese programmers faces a lot of interference. The first is to integrate themselves into the English-speaking technical circle, and the second is to deal with a secular culture that does not seek to impose itself.
Of course, the editor is not trying to grow the ambition of others and destroy the prestige of the country. I just want to remind you as a programmer that you must not learn programming and get a high salary as your only life goal. Just like you on the road of starting a business, no matter when we are, we must constantly improve our professionalism and competitiveness, always maintain a craftsman's heart who loves our own business, and go on firmly. The Internet industry is ever-changing, and it is necessary to continuously learn and update the knowledge system in order to never be eliminated by this society.