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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?

#451

Post by gwbas1c »

biztos wrote: post #354
lelanthran wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is actually quite interesting as I was just talking to a few other professionals about this in a social setting. I was the only one in software development. I mentioned how stand-ups work briefl…

> No lawyer, accountant, doctor, engineer, scientist or other professional stands up each day... I think this has a lot to do with the office culture of software being figured out at the same time as the professionalization of Management and the trend of "methodologies" to give a veneer of objectivity to the managerial class. Combined with FOMO about the fortunes being made at certain other companies, whose whims and…

> For example the extended hazing ritual by which we mint medical doctors in the USA is completely insane and would not be tolerated by doctors in most other countries

I married a doctor. The "hazing" is slowly going out of fashion as older doctors retire.

What they do have is a very nice licensing procedure. Yes, it's annoying, but it works a lot better when a doctor needs to get a job, because their interview process is much smoother than in the software field.

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

#452

Post by LeifCarrotson »

simonh wrote: post #436
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…

>we've entered an age, where a farmer can't milk their cows, if the software of the milking robot has a hitch... They're still perfectly capable of milking their cows the old way, it just doesn't make any sense to do so. I think this is a non-problem.

The individual farmer could do it and could fill a milk pail for his family's needs for the day, but he couldn't fill a tanker truck for Krogers. He could walk the fields and sow seed by the fistful from a bag over his shoulders, but he couldn't drill 30 acres per hour like he could with a modern tractor and planter.

Technology in agriculture is a force multiplier that has allowed the fraction of the population employed as farmers to crash from 90% in colonial times, 83% in the year 1800, 55% in 1850, 31% in 1900, 5% in 1950, and down to less than 1% today.

That 1% could not feed the world without automated milking parlors and high-speed tractors. If Y22k hit John Deere's DRM this spring, some 50% of fields would lay fallow, and we'd have 50% less food in the fall....it would be devastating.

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

#453

Post by gureddio »

Damogran6 wrote: post #429

I’m coming to the uncomforable conclusion that we’re ALL doing a dance. Programmers make a product, Managers manage the people, HR protects the company, Legal protects HR, the Shareholders leverage the Executive Staff to make their profit margins. But in all of this, very little ACTUAL STUFF happens. (I say this as a security guy, who’s line on the balance sheet is ALWAYS in the cost column.) So much of what we do is…

Your final sentence nails the fact of our work (and by proxy, business investment) is short-lived. So many apps that I've contributed to in the business world end up getting tossed after a few years. It's often because of some change in the business - like some new manager wants to deliver some fancy project so they can put it on their CV.

So long as this is going on, there will be a need for developers

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

#454

Post by anm89 »

Dave3of5 wrote: post #282
lelanthran wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is actually quite interesting as I was just talking to a few other professionals about this in a social setting. I was the only one in software development. I mentioned how stand-ups work briefl…

The DSU shouldn't be for non-technical people. They literally should not speak at all during this daily meeting if they are even there. It's for Devs only to make sure they are not blocked and they are communicating what they are working on. In my last company the non-tech people weren't allowed and the DSU was only for engineering. It is not a daily status meeting! If it has turned into this then it should be scrapp…

This attitude is something I associate with very junior developers.

"Hey you know your morning check in, this is the one true holy way that every company in the world should do it"

it's not even that it's not probably a good way to run stand-up. But the hubris is pretty extreme.

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

#455

Post by jdrc »

irrational wrote: post #83

> The markets are doing their thing. Everyone sees tech workers making money and just generally having a good time and they think: “Hey that sounds like a good career choice”. It seems like you could replace tech workers with any other profession that sounds like a good career choice. Can literally everyone (or even the majority) learn to code? Do they want to learn to code? In my experience, the answer to both quest…

Do (hired) developers code? There is no commitment or dedication in software today and it shows from the sloppiness and intrusiveness, to the wholly undifferentiated design. There is just too much easy money that has attracted too many random people. "Developers" overestimate their value too much, and they better enjoy it while it lasts

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

#456

Post by sealthedeal »

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…

One of the best standup habits we had was just posting quickly in a slack channel at a certain time saying, "no update", or "blocked", it was low touch.

I have always thought that a standup is just a way of being micro managed. If an engineer is blocked, why would they not just figure out how to get unblocked? Isnt that their job?

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

#457

Post by BirAdam »

nigma1337 wrote: post #443
BirAdam wrote: post #437

It ends the same way it did the last time. A giant tech market crash, more market consolidation, and massive cultural change. At this point, things move so fast that operating systems are shipped with known bugs, security flaws, and half baked ideas. They are then patched via over-the-net updates. I think this will stop. People will go back to more traditional development paradigms out of necessity. They also won’t c…

What/when was the last boom?

90s which ended in 2000/2001

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

#458

Post by btmcnellis »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #232
WJW wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is a big difference between finding work for yourself and finding enough work to keep a whole team employed, as you would be doing if you ran an agency.

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

#459

Post by civilized »

dom96 wrote: post #333
dystroy wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We don't have software driven vehicles, we have software driven humans. Wow, this is a very prescient quote. I think we will hear this repeated often in the years to come.

Another similar formulation: Venkatesh Rao says people are now divided into those living above the API and those living below the API. Those below the API are the software-driven humans.
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