South Africa produces some of the finest programmers in the world. This is reflected in the annual ITWeb Salary Survey, in which 16% of respondents said they intended leaving the country last year with a further 24% saying they "might leave". Of that number, 38% were destined for the UK, 15% for the US, 12% for Australia and 9% for Europe.
Even in depressed markets then, there is a demand for local programming skills. Marinus van Sandwyk, veteran programmer and chairman of LUSO Computer Institute, suggests this is due to our unique history.
People in the industrialised world spend an average of three hours a day in front of the television set, according to Scientific American magazine. It goes on to state that EEG scans showed less mental activity during viewing than during reading.
If similar studies were conducted for PC and console games, they would no doubt show very similar readings, because they all require their audiences to be passive and receive stimulation, unlike reading, for instance, which requires readers to exercise their imagination. "In this instant gratification world of ours, children are more often than not provided with this entertainment served to them on a platter; they no longer engage their imaginations to fight boredom and keep themselves busy," says Van Sandwyk.
South Africans have seen traditionally limited application of these passive, electronic "push" mediums, which has resulted in more extensive use of their imaginations through childhood to adulthood. And imagination is probably the single most important ingredient to becoming a successful programmer.
"Imagination supplies the software industry with people who fit the programming paradox: They can think outside of the box, yet they fit into the framework that embodies best practices," says Van Sandwyk.
Substantiating this claim is the fact that the most popular method for ascertaining whether a person is likely to be a good programmer or not, is based on their math skills. Math deals with abstract concepts, relying enormously on logic.
The industrialised world has also resulted in a great deal of specialisation, which particularly in the programming field requires niche expertise. For instance, a database communications programmer will do that alone, as will a user interface graphics expert.
Due to the country`s history of global isolation, South Africans tended to be jack-of-all-trades. Individuals are well rounded and can speak authoritatively on a number of subjects, and in programming specifically, they can perform the tasks of many programmers in industrialised nations.
"SA is therefore well positioned to take advantage of the fact that it has not yet become a total TV or instant nation, so we can exploit the imagination of youngsters to develop the next generation of software," notes Van Sandwyk.
Some may cite the lack of basic formal education as a stumbling block to that ideal, but traditional education is not required to become a globally competitive programmer. In the 1950s IBM, NCR and Honeywell, among others, developed programming aptitude tests that stressed logic as the most important criterion.
Based on those, LUSO developed its own and applied them in a South African context. The results speak for themselves: a man who, when introduced to the concept of programming, could barely properly manipulate cutlery, is five years down the road a successful COBOL programmer. Far less than the basic education mandated by government.
"It proves our theory that you can take the raw capabilities and natural imagination of the brain and develop excellent programmers, and it is why I believe SA has massive potential in terms of global programming progress - even domination," concludes Van Sandwyk.
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