Even though there are more than enough computer science jobs to go around, why are computer science students so competitive to the point of degradation, arguing incessantly about which operating system is the best, which programming language is the best, how n00by a person is because they hadn’t implemented a binary search tree at the age of six, still don’t know PHP despite attending college, and just generally fail at 1-upping everyone?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to share code, but not be obsessed with everything open-source and shunning proprietary work? Wouldn’t it make more sense to give encouragement to programmers who have difficulty with the particulars of a paradigm, but not give them the answer outright? Wouldn’t it make more sense to share common knowledge with others that don’t know, instead of pretending that our own knowledge of a language or system is too valuable to disseminate?

Sure, we compete for jobs, but real computer scientists don’t learn the discipline to get a job. They learn it for the love of the game, so to speak. Why don’t we spend more time teaching others to love the game and less time teaching them to loathe each other?