Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
1–10 of 144 posts
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#2I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession.
Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#3I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession. Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
I'm a sysad in a software business.
Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports.
And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time.
And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-filling devs for 1/5 to 1/8 of US... And have them QA'ed for less than 1 USA dev.
Face it: I, a sysad, am a service worker. And devs are line workers. We're well paid, but so were factory workers at one time.
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#4I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession. Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
I don't understand why your post is so defensive. For years, "tech jobs" were marketed as a way to the upper middle class for a broad swath of people (in America and elsewhere). This was not the doing of "two-bit journalists" (and Steve Lohr has a track record of pretty good work!); it was a concerted effort by tech companies.
It's turning out to not really be the case and the successful stories are comparatively few and far between, while the rest of America falls further and further behind for reasons largely not of their own making.
Should that not be talked about?
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#5I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession. Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
I'm a sysad in a software business. Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports. And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time. And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-fil…
I disagree with this completely. Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap. "The Mythical Man-Month" explains this well. Conceptual coherence is of the utmost importance in effective software systems, and you don't get that by just knocking out stories one-by-one like they're desktop support tickets.
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#6I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession. Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
>apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own...
Well, if we're intellectually honest as software developers, we also "...create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go on [sp]..."
Sometimes, we are our own worst enemies.
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#7I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession. Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
I'm a sysad in a software business. Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports. And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time. And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-fil…
You can’t write software in a vacuum.
To write good code, you need to understand the whole program (or at least a very substantial part of it), why certain decisions were made in the past, the potential ripple effects of a “simple” change, etc.
This means that it’s impossible to just swap devs out like factory line workers, otherwise you’re just creating more bugs.
For similar reasons, you can’t paint half a canvas and then hand it over to another painter and have him finish it...
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a sysad in a software business. Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports. And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time. And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-fil…
I disagree with this completely. Development is not line work, and doing it like line work creates unmaintainable, expensive crap. "The Mythical Man-Month" explains this well. Conceptual coherence is of the utmost importance in effective software systems, and you don't get that by just knocking out stories one-by-one like they're desktop support tickets.
People like us who spend their free time on a message board about programming know it's best not done as line work. But the general population doesn't, and probably many developers don't.
There is constant, never-ending pressure to turn it into line work and we need to be aware of it. A lot of software running (barely) in the real world is written this way.
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a sysad in a software business. Sure, the professional developers are paid well. However the more Jira and agile ideas takes over, you become more replaceable. Why? You're just a card-filling machine dealing with feature requests or problem reports. And sure, the next developer may fill less cards, but they will improve with time. And if you don't work in a protected area (federal, etc), then you can buy card-fil…
You can’t write software in a vacuum. To write good code, you need to understand the whole program (or at least a very substantial part of it), why certain decisions were made in the past, the potential ripple effects of a “simple” change, etc. This means that it’s impossible to just swap devs out like factory line workers, otherwise you’re just creating more bugs. For similar reasons, you can’t paint half a canvas a…
Your scenario perfectly describes practically all code I come across in the wild (I work outside of a tech center).
Re: Tech Jobs Lead to the Middle Class, But Not for the Masses
#10I'm tired of the continued devaluation of my profession. Software development (I hate the term "coding") is not a manufacturing job, as much as some company wants it to be. And apprenticeships at body shops isn't going to create software developers, it's just going to create terrible software with obvious rot and decay as the years go own.
I don't understand why your post is so defensive. For years , "tech jobs" were marketed as a way to the upper middle class for a broad swath of people (in America and elsewhere). This was not the doing of "two-bit journalists" (and Steve Lohr has a track record of pretty good work!); it was a concerted effort by tech companies . It's turning out to not really be the case and the successful stories are comparatively f…
What should be talked about is what's actually the point of jobs. It's not as a means to get work done so corporations can generate profit. Jobs are a tool to organize society. Profit is a side-effect of that but an irrelevant part the primary function of jobs. This concept of jobs as a tool to organize society rather than a way to solve problems using human "capital" or humans as machines or tools for problem solving which can then be replaced by other machines which can solve the same problems cheaper needs additional studying. As using humans to solve problems for corporations is becoming more and more irrelevant.