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Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

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Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#41

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

esafak wrote: post #4

Big tech g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶o̶u̶s̶l̶y̶ lavishly supported programmers for a whole generation. This is something to be happy about.

I wouldn't call it generosity - it's supply and demand like anything else. There is money to be made from tech products, whether that's software itself or anything (i.e. almost everything) containing software. There is a limited supply of good developers with the skill/experience to develop complex products and ones with high reliability requirements.

It'll be interesting to see how the use of AI-based software development tools plays out, and affects the job market, but so far - together with offshoring - it seems to be mainly a matter of limiting entry level opportunities. Whether this persists or not remains to be seen - companies seem to be hoping/expecting that AI will let them cope with fewer entry level developers, but given that currently you need a human to use the tool it's not clear to what extent that is actually true.

Trump has recently, somewhat unexpectedly, been making noises about offshoring and H1B developers - saying that US companies need to be more patriotic in their hiring practices. It remains to be seen if this will progress from bullying to actual policy/law changes, but a reversal of offshoring would do a lot to improve the US job market for developers, especially entry level.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#42

Post by taeric »

It is hard to get passed the first paragraph here. Even if I think "big tech" does terrible things, I think blaming them for a boom/bust cycle is idiotic.

Could their behavior be a big part of what we should study in knowing how to control things better in the future? Almost certainly. Does it help to frame them as a villain? I'm far less sold on that. Especially if you don't offer any sort of path on how things could have been run better.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#43

Post by chubot »

nosefrog wrote: post #22

My first programming job in SF paid $60k/year 10 years ago. I'd like to thank big tech for driving salaries up.

Yeah I mean I have to thank Facebook, because I was at Google in 2011.

Anyone remember when Google raised the entire company's salary, maybe 30K or 60K people at that point, something like 20-25% all at once? Eric Schmidt and Laszlo Block got on stage and told the whole company how great we are, so they want to keep us

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

We learned later that was because Facebook didn't participate in the Steve Jobs-initiated cartel of Google-Apple-Pixar-Adobe-Intuit-LucasFilm-eBay

Eric and Laszlo of course made no mention of the collusion that turned out be illegal

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#44

Post by bigbuppo »

freedomben wrote: post #20

This is a really terrible article. I suspect the HN comment section will be good, but TFA is not worth reading IMHO (though it is quite short so can be read in a minute or two). > For years, companies like Google, Facebook/Meta, and Amazon hired too many developers. They knew they were hiring too many developers, but they did it anyway because of corporate greed. They wanted to control the talent pool. Aside from all…

The article is something known as "a blog post" with a bunch of words known as "an opinion". It's not a thorough economic analysis from an economist using validated data sources and empirical research backed by strict scientific rigor that passes all peer review but can't be repeated.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#45

Post by gchamonlive »

Never before it's been so easy to contribute to open source.

A dirt cheap notebook has 16gb of ram today. We are used to it now but that's an insane amount of ram for software.

Processors with 8-16 threads are the norm.

There are countless options for you to deploy your stack and run your software regardless of database or persistent storage layer.

You have so much, just sooo much free content to make you a better programmer in virtually any language, that for those you don't you can just... ask an LLM.

We have LLMs, Linux is stronger than ever, there is just so much stuff going on, I don't know what you guys are talking about with "the end of golden age for programming".

The golden age is NOW.

Maybe it's just the end of the golden age for capitalism for those seeking to become filthy rich?

In any case, if you buy into this crap talk about how the golden age is over all you are going to do is being left behind.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#46

Post by arethuza »

rkozik1989 wrote: post #12
zwnow wrote: post #3

It also caused the "Golden Age of Programming". It's only been a golden age because of high salaries for relatively low effort. So if their needs change, obviously the industry changes. This article has nothing to say really.

>It's only been a golden age because of high salaries for relatively low effort. Money is how you define a Golden Age of Programming? I consider the late 1990s and early 2000s more of a Golden Age, and my reasons for it have nothing to do with making money. The time was of Golden Age because that's when programming became more accessible to the masses. Yes it wasn't without its fault, namely with regards to cyber sec…

I'd have said the Golden Age started about the time Linux distros allowed you replicate the full Unix workstation experience on a basic PC - which I think in my case was around '93 or '94 - right around the same time as the Web starting to become a standard technology.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#47

Post by hollowonepl »

I’m not buying this at all. Good people always find job, and if you don’t you need to work on better network or better skills or both. Author by the picture looks young. Maybe passionate about programming but lacking fundamental life experience that could let him look beyond personalization and typical socialistic view of bad corporations intentionally damaging job markets as targeted goal.. that’s just nonsense

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#48

Post by Aperocky »

The discussion here reminded me of a funny (but probably true) anecdote where all you had to do to actually get working answer from stackoverflow (RIP) is to create an answer that is blatantly wrong.

You'll have people of knowledge descending on that question in no time to refute your heresy.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#49

Post by hecanjog »

rkozik1989 wrote: post #12
zwnow wrote: post #3

It also caused the "Golden Age of Programming". It's only been a golden age because of high salaries for relatively low effort. So if their needs change, obviously the industry changes. This article has nothing to say really.

>It's only been a golden age because of high salaries for relatively low effort. Money is how you define a Golden Age of Programming? I consider the late 1990s and early 2000s more of a Golden Age, and my reasons for it have nothing to do with making money. The time was of Golden Age because that's when programming became more accessible to the masses. Yes it wasn't without its fault, namely with regards to cyber sec…

This was my experience, too. During that period there were free tools and accessible information for learning, search was useful and the excitement was about making things. Not products to sell, interesting software to use. Then it all got paved over into a shopping mall. Those tools and information are still around. (If you look hard enough past the edges of the shopping mall.) I just spent my morning before work once again working on free software, but the mainstream culture of programming is depressing to me now.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#50

Post by tickettotranai »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #34
freedomben wrote: post #20

This is a really terrible article. I suspect the HN comment section will be good, but TFA is not worth reading IMHO (though it is quite short so can be read in a minute or two). > For years, companies like Google, Facebook/Meta, and Amazon hired too many developers. They knew they were hiring too many developers, but they did it anyway because of corporate greed. They wanted to control the talent pool. Aside from all…

Sure, all those things could be "corporate greed". Opposite actions in different environments don't change the intent. > Aside from all the claims with no sources/references whatsoever It's an opinion piece about many of our shared experiences. > blaming "corporate greed" for hiring employees? They explained their argument. > Isn't it also "corporate greed" to lay people off? It depends. A struggling company that nee…

If your framing is unfalsifiable, I question its utility.
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