Times are great for programmers now. How does it end? • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by berkes » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:05 PM UTC

Author overlooks three important things.

First, with amount of software engineers doubling every ~5 years, there is mostly a shortage in software developers with experience. Someone has to teach. Someone has to steer, make decisions based on knowledge, someone has to design architectures, know what coupling matters, what patterns apply, what type of solutions will haunt you later on, etc. etc. etc. No junior can do these things, because the juniors lack the experience of failing several times or maintaining or replacing legacy over years.

Secondly, software development is about so much more than writing code. In fact, I spend least of my time typing in code. If your job really is typing code that others told you exactly how to write, then yes, fear for your job. Not because of copilot or better IDEs but because what you do is easily automated away. If people doubt me, I urge them to look at their git-log over the last weeks. I daresay that most will hardly write/edit more than 100 lines of code a day. That's less than 5 lines per minute.

Nearly all software development is about understanding the domain and applying software to solve problems in that domain. About researching what problems are most urgent and what solutions have which tradeoffs. Which patterns apply, how to decouple, where to draw lines, how to keep the software agile and maintainable over decades, and so on. Hell, even "where to put my code" is a hard problem that copilot and IDEs fail miserably at.

Thirdly, the no-code movement is a forever-september thing. It has a niche, but that niche is not as big as the no-code salesmen would like you to believe. I've seen "lo-code" come and go for decades now. Every time it promised to take over all the software development only to carve out a niche and be very good only there. More practially: most such no/lo-code systems lack a lot of essential paradigms (source-control, accountability, copyability, testability). But they are either far too generic and therefore just as complex and hard to manage as "real software", or they have a specific niche and shine there! (but only there).

So no. Software engineers, especially those that have been in the trade for years (even more when decades) are in high demand and will remain so. Tools won't replace them. If anything, tools (which are build and maintained by those developers) only increase the demand.

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

#482

Post by assuringllama » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:06 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #258

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. 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 to report to their peers on their progress.

My experience when I was a tax accountant, we have a weekly status checks for around 20 people which took 1 hour, different seniors and managers breathing down your neck everyday on the progress of their projects.

As a junior, I have to manage the expectations of these managers competing for my time to prioritize their client. Sure we don't have daily standups, but I will choose daily standups over this.

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

#483

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

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…

I recently turned down a promotion to "Lead" because I witnessed the dynamics between the previous leads and the Project Manager.

A Lead pretty much has to bow his head to even Junior PM's.

It's like you're there to solve problems, and your opinion is only needed in moments of crisis. Even then people only defer to you in a almost disdainful way.

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

#484

Post by jghn » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:09 PM UTC

sealthedeal wrote: post #456

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?

The part of standup identifying blockers is to figure out when someone doesn't realize their blocked and/or they're spinning their tires a bit. If someone is blocked they should reach out immediately.

Instead, standups provide the team the ability to identify roadblocks the developer might not realize. Perhaps you're working on something and I've been down that path before, and know your solution won't work for reasons you're not aware of. I can tell you that now and save you several hours of banging your head against the wall.

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

#485

Post by hamilyon2 » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

If a company is doing something remotely cutting-edge, no amount of low-code tools and low-skilled labour is going to help. Information retrieval, PB-scale data processing, robotics, embedded, graphics and video at any significant scale are all still too cutting-edge and will be for next decade as far as I can see.

You hit performance and architectural limits pretty quickly when doing things naïvely. At this rate, growth at tech sector is going to create more demand (than created supply) for able programmers for at least a few decades into future.

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

#486

Post by davemp » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

schwartzworld wrote: post #385

hkt wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage theft is endemic in programming. Think of all those colleagues who have worked late on a deadline because somebody pressured them into it. They're reducing their own effective hourly rate and contributing to a long hours culture because of the daily ritual of humiliation at standup. It is very different to the restaurant analogy but wage theft and humiliation are still baked in for many of us.

When you accept a salaried position, you understand that there are going to be weeks your "effective hourly" fluctuates. Some weeks I have lots of work. Some I don't. I have sympathy but that's not wage theft. Actual wage theft is very common in food service. As in, you earn the money and someone else takes it.

Most software positions have a never ending backlog of work that can easily fill 40hrs of any week. Meaning a salary set at 40hrs/wk is pure downside to the work as your actual job expectations have a floor of 40hr weeks but sometimes 50-60hr+ weeks during crunch times.

It's essentially legalized wage theft.

Thankfully I get paid hourly, but still when I do overtime it's only paid at a x1 multiplier because the dinosaurs in office deemed 'computer workers' [1] are exempt from fair labor regulations. Likely, those in power guessed that they could safely chip away at more worker's rights because most of the voting base won't feel solidarity for highly paid salary positions and 'computer workers'.

[1]: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co...

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

#487

Post by simonh » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #452

simonh wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 emplo…

>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.

I actually doubt it, those aren't the only tractors in the world, or even the US. It would be annoying, and expensive, but hardly the end of the world. Also consider that the fact these things are automated makes us less susceptible to other forms of supply chain disruption that might affect a highly manual process, like a pandemic for example.

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

#488

Post by shikoba » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #258

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. 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 response was both extreme and universal: How the hell do you all accept being micromanaged to such a degree? Don't any of you have any dignity?

And they're totally right. I don't tolerate to be treated like that and nobody treat me like that.

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

#489

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

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…

That's such an awesome idea and would do wonders for the dignity of this profession. I haven't read Developer Hegemony but I absolutely will now.

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

#490

Post by Aeolun » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

lowercased wrote: post #358

hkt wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage theft is endemic in programming. Think of all those colleagues who have worked late on a deadline because somebody pressured them into it. They're reducing their own effective hourly rate and contributing to a long hours culture because of the daily ritual of humiliation at standup. It is very different to the restaurant analogy but wage theft and humiliation are still baked in for many of us.

> but wage theft and humiliation are still baked in for many of us It's harder to get much sympathy from others as well if/when you're paid much higher than many other averages. Using the term 'wage theft' - normally used in discussions around minimum wage job abuses - for someone who's making $80/hr, (and may get some stock/bonus) doesn't get the same sort of reaction. The term doesn't even feel quite right, but tha…

But money is time. If my employer feels strongly enough about getting something finished tonight, they’ll have to pay for it (e.g. paid overtime). This naturally limits how much overtime your company would like you to do, and puts some backpressure one those managers burning through budget like there is no tomorrow.