Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 101 posts

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#21

Post by notus »

umvi wrote: post #10

Bootcamps I swear train cargo cult programmers. It may work for some, but in my experience they lack the understanding of why they are typing what they are typing. They can go through the motions of what they've been trained to do, but they get stuck extremely easily and have no idea how to help themselves. So then when you start explaining why their program does not work, their eyes glaze over when you start talking…

This is actually just how I learn. I never understand anything abstract the first time I read about it or use it. In fact there were many things in software that I just did because it was "best practices" without understanding why. I could read about the Why all day long but until I experience the Why it will never really click for me. I eventually understood why because I kept trying things out, asking questions, and didn't give up. I don't think you can expect most juniors to understand the Why to a lot of the things they are doing and one could argue that there isn't much value in ensuring they understand it right away. What matters is that you have processes in place to allow juniors to slowly learn why we do things the way we do. Seniors need to also understand that not everyone comes from a CS background nor is it necessary to come from one and be an effective worker. The work that 90% of programmers do out there is not complicated and anyone with a rudimentary understanding of algebra could do it.

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#22

Post by talltimtom »

alistairSH wrote: post #15

"But any blue-collar coder will be plenty qualified to sling Java­Script for their local bank. " Even highly trained software engineers can barely get security correct. What makes this journalist think somebody with a few years of high school programming can do any better? I'm not sure I buy the "blue collar coder" prediction. At least not in the US. That type of work is currently outsourced to India and parts of Eas…

“Even highly trained software engineers can barely get security correct. What makes this journalist think somebody with a few years of high school programming can do any better?”

Why would they have to be better? You just made very point here. Some high schooler with a boot camp can do just as well as many “highly trained software engineers”.

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#23

Post by vinceguidry »

king_magic wrote: post #17

No, it really super isn't. Look, I'm all for teaching CS/programming to toddlers through people in their 90s - but the blunt, brutal reality is that not everyone can do this work . Full stop. That does not make programming a good candidate for widespread, blue-collar work.

Frameworks will eventually turn most jobs we do now into low-skill office jobs. Maybe not WordPress 6.0, but WordPress 10.0 certainly will be easy enough for just about anybody to use. We won't call them programmers, but they'll be doing all the jobs we used to do, if we're lucky enough to have moved up.

Just how like tasks that used to be done by doctors are now done by nurses, and tasks that used to be done by lawyers are now done by increasingly large staffs of paralegals and secretaries, coding will eventually be stratified like everything else. I would argue it's more inevitable in this one than it ever was in those fields.

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#26

Post by AndrewKemendo »

It's going to take a generation for this to be the case because the basic everyday skills that we don't even think about are just not a part of the core daily activities for most people.

Consider the most basic skill you need to write code: Writing with the Keyboard. The majority of kids have never used a non-software keyboard. Technology isn't helping this either as autocomplete, swype, speech to text input etc... pushes new and basic users further away. My daughter has iPads in her school, not computers with keyboards. So although she's using computers, she's not using keyboards. Maybe IDE input schemes will adapt to this, or eliminate it completely but nothing so far has beaten writing with the keyboard.

The second most basic skill is also very rare today: OS navigation. Almost to a person, every developer I know including myself started playing around with computers at a young age literally just poking around to see what was inside. This means simple things like installing programs, configuring applictions, installing drivers, searching for folders, moving files, modifying text based program files and on and on. Now imagine not knowing how file structures work and trying to grok ls or mkdir in your bootcamp classes.

I think it's a solvable problem and I think we can get to where the entry level requirements for developers is low enough for the general population, but that means our tools (IDE, frameworks, installs) and structures need to adapt to support that.

As a community we don't particularly care to work on that, and we seem to like to gatekeep when it comes to our "special skills" and "special thinking." If we really care about communities and our economies it's up to us to help grow the developer base and transition the labor force because we're the ones building the tools and systems.

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#27

Post by notus »

shhehebehdh wrote: post #4

Doubt it. For whatever reason, it seems like the way of thinking required for even simple programming doesn’t come naturally to most people. I saw this with a bunch of kids I went through nearly CS classes with. People who could not wrap their heads around pointers or reference semantics. People who didn’t get polymorphism and seemingly couldn’t no matter how many times you went through it with them. People who could…

Actual logical thinking doesn't come naturally to anyone. Look at symbolic logic classes in Universities and how much people struggle with that. You only get good at it by doing it a lot and banging your head against the wall sometimes. Most people would do just fine with programming if you frame it the right way for them. We are already used to working within constraints.

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#28

Post by throwanem »

I get that there's a lot of people here who don't want to think about the work they do becoming commoditized, and I get why. But I've been in the same line of work for twenty years now, and the reality is that it really just isn't that hard or that special.

The only part of it that's uniquely difficult is dealing with complexity, and complexity is something that a skilled senior can largely manage for juniors while they're working their way up the learning curve. In that sense and most others, it's the same as any other skilled trade; it's just a trade that happens to be in very high demand lately.

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#29

Post by galfarragem »

everdev wrote: post #18

Blue collar jobs aren't low paying due to lack of skill or value, it's due to excess supply. In the bay area we have plumbers who charge $150/hr, the same rate I charge for coding, due to a low supply of plumbers. The catch is that plumbing and other trades haven't changed much in the last 100 years. Coding is changing constantly. Therefore the supply of coders who can professionally use the latest technology is alwa…

'Blue collar jobs aren't low paying due to lack of skill or value, it's due to excess supply.'

When told to children, this sentence can save lives.

By the other hand, the anachronic maxim, "who knows more, earns more" is poisonous.

Re: The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

#30

Post by alistairSH »

talltimtom wrote: post #22
alistairSH wrote: post #15

"But any blue-collar coder will be plenty qualified to sling Java­Script for their local bank. " Even highly trained software engineers can barely get security correct. What makes this journalist think somebody with a few years of high school programming can do any better? I'm not sure I buy the "blue collar coder" prediction. At least not in the US. That type of work is currently outsourced to India and parts of Eas…

“Even highly trained software engineers can barely get security correct. What makes this journalist think somebody with a few years of high school programming can do any better?” Why would they have to be better? You just made very point here. Some high schooler with a boot camp can do just as well as many “highly trained software engineers”.

But would they do just as well? The state of data protection and security in the industry may seem abysmal because of several well publicized breaches, but in some of those cases (Equifax comes to mind), it was a lack of experts that caused the problem.
Post reply on HN