It was like that in 1997. Programmers were hired who couldn't program. I had to train them in Visual BASIC 6.0 and 5.0 to write programs. You have to pair them up with a mentor to train them.<p>When I worked at a community college in the early 1990s we'd get comp sci graduates who couldn't even use a computer. So I would train them in the business computer lab.<p>I did tutoring for $35 hour and it was worth it. I was a super debugger and found their problems out really quick.<p>I know Programmers who have never been to college, they just bought a PC clone and programming books. But they never get picked over a graduate.