should there be a award for programming skill?

[msd]

Hhmmm...lots of people seem to be saying, "Please, young programming students, grow up to be really lousy programmers."

I don't personally care if there's a programming-focused award or not, but let's keep our eye on the ball here: trying to encourage good engineers. Some folks seem to be unaware that there is a field called Software Engineering, to which the general engineering principles still apply.

For example, I think we can all agree that there is a huge difference in the design/skill/quality of

A) a convoluted system of dozens of pulleys and counterweights (many of which are unnecessary) and cables,

vs.

B) a clean and simple pneumatic system.

Both might accomplish the same "function" or "results" (perhaps a lift of some kind), but there are clear differences in simplicity, in cost, in maintainability, extensibility, and several other "ilities" -- which are a staple of engineering evaluation criteria.

So it is with code.

In industry terms, software maintenance and support costs typically rival software design and development costs. It is almost an industry standard notion that code which only "works" is not sufficient, it must also strive to be flexible, reusable, understandable, maintainable, and so on -- all in balance with time and cost of course.

As a software team lead, I would never, ever, ever hire someone who didn't understand this concept.

So regardless of the feasibility of an award, please don't mis-inform students into thinking that nothing matters except the end results, or if you do, make sure you plan to hire them, because no one else will.