Coders vs Programers – Redux

My earlier write on Coders vs Programers, gave a nice platform for me to understand various people’s thoughts on this topic. So I thought, why not take this discussion further?

I’ve been interviewing quite a few people for my company off lately. The interviews being for positions of innovation related activities. More specifically look at something/s and come up wth better ways to do it.

Even to select a single individual I’ve sometimes had to go through 30-35 interviews, with regards to programming.

Some examples being, a java expert once came in for in interview with 3 years of Java Experience on the resume. All I had to ask to end the interview was what is public static void main mean. Is this the level which we expect from 3 years of working in Java. Knowing the language does not mean to say knowing about how to use JDBC but why are you doing what you are doing.

We talk about  moving into an economy of innovation from services, but where is it happening when we are producing coders and not programers. Abhijit talks about it here very acurately.
So what can we do? Change the education system? Or change our poilicies of recruiting? Neither, it is a question of attitude by individuals, we need to get beyond the focus of how much am I earning? to What am I contributing? We need to get beyond from Am I going to get an onsite oppurtunity? to Am I going to be working with smart people/a challenging project?
Unless and until this come in, we will always be coders.