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Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

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Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#21

Post by devoply »

shantanubala wrote: post #9

I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you. Some of the smartest people I know work in other domains: biology, chemistry, and even physics. They are sometimes baffled by tasks that seem trivial to me, and I'm under no impression that I'm more intelligent than them. I simply spec…

If anything good programmers are underpaid. If you are making your company a mil, you should be getting 1/2.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#22

Post by dt3ft »

Tehchops wrote: post #16
dt3ft wrote: post #14

Ironically, the website is down. Perhaps that bubble is only in his mind or maybe he should look into hiring a dev worth his while to look into that?

Yep. Since it's down, I can't actually read the content, but I too find no small amount of irony in a claim there is any kind of bubble in knowledge work, when the site said content is hosted on doesn't even appear to work.

The article had a several good points, but it tends to generalize. One statement was that devs are not under stress. He lost me right there.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#23

Post by vectorEQ »

devoply wrote: post #21
shantanubala wrote: post #9

I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you. Some of the smartest people I know work in other domains: biology, chemistry, and even physics. They are sometimes baffled by tasks that seem trivial to me, and I'm under no impression that I'm more intelligent than them. I simply spec…

If anything good programmers are underpaid. If you are making your company a mil, you should be getting 1/2.

if you solo develop (usually not the case) an app for 1 mil then make it yourself if you want that large a cut...

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#25

Post by TeMPOraL »

shantanubala wrote: post #9

I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you. Some of the smartest people I know work in other domains: biology, chemistry, and even physics. They are sometimes baffled by tasks that seem trivial to me, and I'm under no impression that I'm more intelligent than them. I simply spec…

> I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you.

Good programmers I know also overestimate the skill needed to earn high salary in this job. You don't have to go up the learning curve much; these days, you just learn yourself JS a little bit and go for a webdev job, making shit code and still earning more than most people in a given country.

> But wondering why the wealthiest corporations in the world pay their workers high salaries is perhaps like wondering why water is wet. Software has a low marginal cost, and the rest is basic incentives for the corporations.

Nah, that's like wondering why is this ice block sitting on a hot plate and still solid. The answer is: because it just got put there, and it'll melt in a moment. So too, will end high salaries, as most low-hanging fruits get eaten by software, made by mass-produced cohort of programmers.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#26

Post by amrrs »

shantanubala wrote: post #9

I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you. Some of the smartest people I know work in other domains: biology, chemistry, and even physics. They are sometimes baffled by tasks that seem trivial to me, and I'm under no impression that I'm more intelligent than them. I simply spec…

Absolutely right and something we see in Data science too. Coding is a domain where we work cross-architecture. I can't be just a useful Python programmer - I can only be a useful Python programmer in Marketing automation or some Business associated with it.

The fat package makes programmers not realize this.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#27

Post by sam0x17 »

shantanubala wrote: post #9

I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you. Some of the smartest people I know work in other domains: biology, chemistry, and even physics. They are sometimes baffled by tasks that seem trivial to me, and I'm under no impression that I'm more intelligent than them. I simply spec…

I agree, but the real bubble that has popped is that non-techies have become more selective in judging the skills of programmers. Gone are the days where being able to stand up an FTP server and display a mysql query result in a web page means you can write your own ticket into any tech job in the world.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#28

Post by jjeaff »

devoply wrote: post #21
shantanubala wrote: post #9

I think programmers tend to underestimate the difficulties involved with becoming a good programmer because once you're good, you only see the even steeper learning curve ahead of you. Some of the smartest people I know work in other domains: biology, chemistry, and even physics. They are sometimes baffled by tasks that seem trivial to me, and I'm under no impression that I'm more intelligent than them. I simply spec…

If anything good programmers are underpaid. If you are making your company a mil, you should be getting 1/2.

But what if another programmer is willing to make me a million for only 25%?

That's how markets work. You get paid what what the market will bear, not what you "should" make.

Re: Are We in the Middle of a Programming Bubble?

#29

Post by thegabez »

Since 2008 the Federal Reserve has been keeping interests rates historically low. Low interest rates generally provide favorable conditions for stocks to go up, many companies will even buy back their own stock. Tech stocks have been growing faster than most sectors since 2008.

You mention other companies offered same salary but could not compete on equity. I'm assuming many of the big tech companies buy back their stock and then draw from this pool to give to new employees, which other companies cannot do, giving them an advantage in getting the best talent.

So are we in a programming bubble? In some sense yes, but it's being driven by low interest rates. I would guess that once rates normalize we will see a decrease in overall compensation from the tech giants as providing equity will become much more costly. However, moving forward the demand for strong information technologists will only increase.

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