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Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

vaghetti.dev

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Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#231

Post by ManuelKiessling »

chii wrote: post #206
edanm wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. I highly disagree with this. For some reason, many devs seem to think they are somehow better than everyone else, that they are the most important part of any team, that no on besides them can have any insight on timelines, or budget, on which features are or aren't important. News flash - all of the above is…

and yet i don't tell my plumbers to give me a standup for the day. I tell them what i wanted achieved, and i pay. it gets done. If there's a delay, i expect the plumber to tell me promptly, and i re-evaluate the work. Some programmers do get treated this way - consultants and such. But the majority is not - they are considered a cog in a machine.

But the boss of your plumber might demand to have a daily standup with him or her if he is so inclined.

If you want to be treated as a payed consultant, become a payed consultant, with all the disadvantages and advantages which follow from that.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#232

Post by LAC-Tech »

WJW wrote: post #224
LAC-Tech wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I figure all I need to do is find one dev I get on well with to become a partner. In-fact someone floated it with me a few years ago and I was lukewarm because I didn't think I was ready (kind of regret it).

Starting an agency is the easiest part. Then after that comes the never ending grind to find and retain customers, who will never pay on time, refuse to budget time for frivolities like "testing" and "refactoring" and who will mercilessly shop out the work to as many of your competitors as they can find. Developer agencies have existed for decades and the reason that not everybody is rushing to work for them is becau…

As an independent contractor for the past two years, It hasn't been much of a grind finding and retaining customers. You have to put some work in, sure, but I don't feel it's particularly onerous. Never had to take someone out to dinner or cold call. People need software development skills and generally like it when you find them.

As for never being paid on time - I think the most late it's ever been has been 2 weeks. Pretty annoying but not the biggest deal in the world.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#233

Post by dystroy »

hooby wrote: post #212

Programmers are increasingly needed for *everything*. I mean, we've entered an age, where a farmer can't milk their cows, if the software of the milking robot has a hitch - can't plow their fields, when the gps-software that drives the tractor isn't working. Apart from that, programming is becoming every other job - as far as domain knowledge is concerned. I've personally experienced (multiple times!) professional ac…

For taxi drivers, the most important change was already done and it took decades: it wasn't replacing them with self driving vehicles. It was replacing very competent drivers having a perfect knowledge of the town and of the optimal paths with drivers with absolutely no competence needed.

We don't have software driven vehicles, we have software driven humans.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#234

Post by randomsearch »

I think the current bubble is very short-term. It has been caused by 10 years of low interest rates pushing a lot of capital into startups. The recent "next level" hysteria in the market has been caused by stimulus packages in the US and elsewhere. A lot of what we're seeing is very reminiscent of the .com bubble.

That said, I do think underlying the froth is a genuine increased societal demand for tech and programmers, so I don't expect the collapse to be as bad as .com outside of crypto and other hyper-bubbles. Yes, there will be a lot of job losses, but most engineers will just experience a salary correction rather than years of unemployment.

In the long-term, a move away from traditional programming will be necessary to solve the supply problem. Tools like SquareSpace, which are really awful but do genuinely replace a lot of low-end web dev work, will eventually mature and begin to eat up a decent amount of engineering demand. We'll see lots of these Excel-like apps that can serve low-end business needs reasonably well and remove the need for engineers.

I think there are a lot of opportunities making great creative tools for programming-like tasks, just as we've had a few decades of innovation in graphic design or publishing tools - there are lots of very valuable startup opportunities waiting for those who have the motivation and patience to figure out how to help non-nerds do nerdy things.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#235

Post by jseban »

chii wrote: post #206
edanm wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. I highly disagree with this. For some reason, many devs seem to think they are somehow better than everyone else, that they are the most important part of any team, that no on besides them can have any insight on timelines, or budget, on which features are or aren't important. News flash - all of the above is…

and yet i don't tell my plumbers to give me a standup for the day. I tell them what i wanted achieved, and i pay. it gets done. If there's a delay, i expect the plumber to tell me promptly, and i re-evaluate the work. Some programmers do get treated this way - consultants and such. But the majority is not - they are considered a cog in a machine.

Yeah but it's because your plumbers have judgement and will not start to demolish a whole house because they discovered a sub optimal detail in the initial construction of the plumbing. Or install a high pressure car wash in someone's bathroom that they obviously don't need.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#236

Post by mibollma »

edanm wrote: post #229
LAC-Tech wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're definitely better at non-developers at software development. Yet we literally have outside people dictating to us when they think it's appropriate for refactoring to happen. Or when it's time to update a dependency. This is a lot different from than "no on besides them can have any insight on timelines, or budget, on which features are or aren't important.". I definitely value the input of other profess…

Again, I'm not defending every single workplace here. Obviously some developers aren't treated well, and in those cases, they should find another job. I was commenting on the fairly blanket statement made. But the way the conversation should go isn't the developer deciding when refactoring should happen. It's the developer giving an analysis of the cost and benefit of a refactoring (it will take X time, but will save…

> It's the developer giving an analysis of the cost and benefit of a refactoring (it will take X time, but will save Y work in the future). And the manager factoring that into all the other circumstances, and deciding whether it's worth the current cost.

I don't think either devlopers or managers can estimate future savings in most cases, but I still think it's necessary to refactor just to not drown in complexity and slow down overall development speed. My approach is to reserve about 20% for refactoring and technical improvements and let the team decide internally what to use it on.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#238

Post by jdrc »

I prefer to see it in terms of power hierarchy. Programmers gained a massive advantage in the past decades because they got to dictate to everyone how to work - they went higher in the power hierarchy. This has taken the wages of everyone else lower and lower and lower, while tech companies have been making absurd margins (yes there is a lot of zero sum in it). But now free money is over and inflation is showing its teeth very sharply -- here in europe it is going to be a massive problem.

What you will see is more and more tech-savvy business owners in all other sectors that will reign-in the overpriced-snake-oil salesmen of the big tech and will put developers back in the lower ranks of the cogs hierarchy.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#239

Post by jseban »

edanm wrote: post #203
LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

> We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. I highly disagree with this. For some reason, many devs seem to think they are somehow better than everyone else, that they are the most important part of any team, that no on besides them can have any insight on timelines, or budget, on which features are or aren't important. News flash - all of the above is…

Doctors and lawyers have way more integrity and status, because they are well rounded people as well as experts. They can put their knowledge to the best possible use.

In the software industry there is a lingering stereotype of the eccentric genius who is really good with computers, and really bad at everything else in life, and their computer skills make up for lacking a lot of basic skills of a functioning adult, such as lack of judgement and perspective.

It's expected that software developers are odd and lopsided people who need someone else to babysit them and provide judgement and direction, and by now this has become the norm in the industry and is an established culture in the workplaces, so it also gets perpetuated and it's really hard to even be a well rounded software developer.

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