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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?

#371

Post by oblio »

kerng wrote: post #307
vkou wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fundamental CS tech was arguably better in the 1970s and 1980s, because it moved more slowly and you had time to get the details right. That doesn't matter if you're building say a mobile Ethereum wallet in 2018, because you're building for the user expectations of today, they don't care about data integrity or security as long as it doesn't fail during the period where they're deciding which tech to use, and softw…

I agree, back then there was not a mindset of move fast and break things. It was foundational research, a lot results and learnings from then are still applicable today.

I think you're agreeing to disagree. His viewpoint, to me at least, is opposite to yours. Or at least parallel. He never said that today there's no foundational research.

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

#372

Post by alexgmcm »

lordnacho wrote: post #181
sharkweek wrote: post #15

I dunno about a bubble, implying it will pop in some catastrophic way. But will market forces correct the above average salary? I think so. More young students than ever are learning to code, which is naturally going to increase the labor pool. The supply of software engineers is going to go up in the next 10-20 years (as will the demand, though! But I still think supply will outpace). This seems like it would mostly…

> It feels like finance to me. Former quant dev, ie straddling the industries. The amount of people who study CS or can learn on their own is surprisingly limited. You won't get a job just by knowing how to write some if statements. By contrast, there are load of history majors in finance. There's plenty of ways to act like you understand it. Plenty of bullshitters. Also the role of luck makes some of them seem smart…

An acquaintance at University went on to work in the City - I was amazed as he had studied History rather than Physics or Maths or something.

It turns out the firm he went to work at was run by a family friend.

At least Tech has always seemed fairer to me, with less of the 'old boys network' than other fields like Finance and Law.

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

#373

Post by CraneWorm »

hackandtrip wrote: post #298
zackmorris wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still basically an entry-level developer even though I've been doing it for 30 years (20 for money). The way I see this playing out is, something like behavior-driven development (BDD) where the business folks describe the functionality they desire, and programmers write up the backend logic. Then as AI progresses to AGI, a higher and higher percentage of that backend code will be generated by machine learning.…

Your argument is based on AGI, something we have no idea if will ever happen, and most likely nearly as close as you think.

Oh, If we're getting to AGI then it's either apocalypse-time or post-scarcity-time, ain't it?

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

#375

Post by SZJX »

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 would say that it's the same for the other trades as well though. For example, people might imagine that learning a new human language is trivial with the proliferation of misleading advertisements such as Duolingo or Babbel, but to really learn a language the effort needed is tremendous and it requires constant repeated practice over a long span of time.

The question the author posed was why programmers are paid that much even when some other paths could seem "harder", which seems valid. Sure not all careers are supposed to be "harder" than programming, but they're not as easy as one'd imagine either.

Though yeah at least for now I don't see the situation abating much. The demand is still going strong. Once the proverbial "flood" of the market happens from new grads, things might get worse. But still if you know what you're doing, you know all the right concepts and skills, you should be able to stay on top of the game. There has always been a saying that the irony of the CS degree is that many people who graduated with the degree can't program, while many who can program didn't need to do a degree at all. I doubt the influx of students trying to study CS would change this situation much. Coding bootcamps have been around for a decade yet they don't seem to change the market equilibrium that much.

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

#376

Post by SZJX »

simonh wrote: post #137
natalyarostova wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data scientists who considers himself moderately good with the pydata library set, I realized the other day if you took those 5 libraries away from me, I'm not sure I have that much to offer in terms of my programming abilities. I don't necessarily feel bad about that, although it did give me pause.

I’ve known people who built lucrative careers on expertise in specialised technologies, and others who’s entire careers disappeared because they were too specialised and the technology got deprecated. You might be fine, but I’d definitely recommend diversifying your skill set a bit. Being a generalist has served me well.

I would say every capable programmer should be a "generalist" in a sense and be able to transfer their skills with relatively little effort. If they can't, they are not really that good at the abstract concepts. Still this doesn't prevent one from focusing more and specializing more on one field/language that they love and be as familiar with it as possible.

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

#377

Post by humanrebar »

rohansingh wrote: post #205
esoterica wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay is about the intersection of supply and demand, which is influenced by but not purely a function of the value created by the work. Insane work hours props up wages by decreasing supply since lots of people don't want to work 90 hours a week.

Insane work hours also reduces demand for workers, though. If it's a norm in an industry for employees to work 80 or 90 hours, an employer might hire fewer people than if folks only worked 40 hours.

That assumes a 90 hour work week produces more value than a 40 hour work week. In programming, I'd bet the other way on average.

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

#378

Post by el_cid »

soup10 wrote: post #345
solveit wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we're discussing income, that seems reasonable.

people working on new systems and tech are generally better programmers than people hacking away at enterprise spaghetti at a big corp. big corp jobs like that pay better for less work though.

To be fair - that's not the point he was making. As we were discussing income - that's the only metric that matters in the discussion at hand.

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

#379

Post by criddell »

ummonk wrote: post #369
criddell wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they program to accomplish other tasks in their domain of expertise My kids have mentioned that they might be interested in a degree in computer science because and I've encouraged them to combine that with a second area of specialization. Programmers are everywhere, but a programmer that also knows chemistry or biology or economics or art history or just about anything stands out.

>Programmers are everywhere, but a programmer that also knows chemistry or biology or economics or art history or just about anything stands out. Really? I have a physics degree with some experience in rocket science, but my most valuable skillset (measured by how much pay I can fetch for it) is plain old software engineering. I don't think I'd be able to leverage my area of specialization to exceed or even match wha…

You don't think your broader education and experience makes you a better software developer (that encompasses programming, writing, and working with other people)?

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

#380

Post by empath75 »

duderific wrote: post #289
empath75 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the current tech bubble bursts, it’s going to absolutely wreck amazon, fb and google—the three companies that actually gain most of the benefit from all these tech companies blowing their funding on ads and AWS spend. Those are the companies driving up salaries — once that rollercoast ride stops I imagine that there are going to be mass layoffs and salary readjustments for years afterwards.

What is the current tech bubble, exactly? Those companies you mentioned have absolutely massive revenues and profits, and plenty of non-tech people and companies are responsible for those revenues and profits. This was not the case in the earlier bubble (lots of overvalued companies with little or no revenues). What seems more likely is that the little startups will get crushed as VC funding dries up.

amazon, google and facebook are the companies selling shovels during a gold rush, which is a great business. While the gold rush is still going on.
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