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The next big blue collar job is coding (2017)

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

#61

Post by lallysingh »

1. This is an article from Dec 2016. It should have a (2016) in the title.

2. Those jobs are already getting eaten up by more flexible products and tooling. This will accelerate, because the hiring firms aren't trying to innovate here, just keep up with their industries. As the requirements are relatively stable, some shops will spin off their internal products into separate businesses and others will buy those instead of building their own.

3. The underlying analogy of a blue collar programmer is closer to a plumber or electrician. The difference is that our tools are way smarter and getting smarter than wire or pipe.

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

#63

Post by corey_moncure »

vinceguidry wrote: post #41
king_magic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they won't. Frameworks often introduce new layers of complexity and abstract away important details to the point where either entirely new frameworks are eventually needed, or you need an army of "framework specialists" who understand the subtleties of particular frameworks - and who end up needing to re-specialize on shiny new frameworks when old ones are discarded in an endless cycle of framework insanity. In m…

25 years is the blink of an eye.

It's also about one third of the entire history of computer programming.

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

#64

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Maybe this forum isn't quite situated to appreciate how dismal coding is for the average coder. Folks here tend to have interesting jobs making new things.

Imagine being one of the masses of coders slaving away at some dinosaur code base in a large company. Working with ghastly C++ code, 1M lines of cruft, moving from one platform to another for the Nth time. Writing a 'unit test' for an 'if' statement buried in some spaghetti code that you yearn to replace but no, your Agile board says change this if and retest.

They outnumber us probably 100-to-1. And they're definitely, totally, blue-collar folks.

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

#65

Post by lallysingh »

christophilus wrote: post #40
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…

Yep. We had a 50% dropout rate in year 1 at my university. Most of those were in it for the money, but didn’t have enough personal interest in the subject to push through the combination of logic and tedium that makes up introductory computer science.

Over my 4 years in undergrad, ours was 90%. 300 in, 30 out.

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

#66

Post by lallysingh »

spricket wrote: post #32

This topic recycles on HN pretty frequently. I don't believe it. I have many friends that aren't coders and it helps me remember how big the skill gap is. Unless you've done substantial training, code seems just as opaque as medicine, or law, or most fields of engineering. Any job that requires substantial training and trust not to royally screw everything up pays well. Perhaps 30% of the population has the creativit…

That should be the first interview question. "Did you enjoy your math homework?". I find myself jealous of those who have some to do.

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

#67

Post by thegabez »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #26

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... p…

Neither of these are serious barriers for entering the field. I would argue it's the continuously changing landscape of skills which necessitates continuous learning that creates an ebb and flow of supply in the field.

If Java had their way and it was used everywhere for everything, and everyone started to master Java, sure all these fears that float around HN would be justified. But that's not reality.

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

#68

Post by gota »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #26

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... p…

> 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.

Anecdotally, I just tested this. Kids aged 5 and 7: neither has used a keyboard 'that they can remember'.

Are we going back to 'Typing classes' (like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCpZ3CP7IAs) in the future?

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

#69

Post by faissaloo »

matte_black wrote: post #12

Frontend javascript programming is already blue collar. Very little science left in most tasks, most of the time you are just smashing together packages and declaratively building interfaces to the point that most of the hard work has been done for you.

I'd say CRUD type stuff is moving in that direction too.

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

#70

Post by d--b »

The article talks about highly skilled “blue collar” job. It compares programming to mining, saying mining requires teamwork, engineering abilities to solve complex problems etc.

If that’s your definition of “blue collar” then yes that makes sense. Coding just won’t be the next low-skilled job.

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