Last week Jon Udell wrote a post titled Open source education describing how the transparency of open source projects can be a great value for people who are various degrees of learning about the field of software development.

Open source software development, to a degree unmatched by any other modern profession, offers apprentices the opportunity to watch journeymen and masters at work, to interact with them, and to learn how they think, work, succeed, and fail. Transparency and accountability govern not only the production of source code but also the companion processes of design, specification, testing, maintenance, and evaluation.

As the parent of small children, I would live it if kids are able to gain this type of insight about the fields that the choose to enter, before they enter them. Modern society is increasing the pressure on young people to make up their minds about what they want to do earlier and earlier in life. It (now) seems insane to me to slot young people into careers so early in life. I am fortunate that I am able to work in a field that I really enjoy, but I didn't really have a good idea of what it would be like to work in software before I got there. Judging from the number of people that seem to merely tolerate, or even hate their job, I'd say we're in need of a better way of helping young people figure out what the want to do when they grow up.