I think this line of questioning ultimately has more to do with how you feel about turning 50 than programming.
Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
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Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#42You dont necessarily need FORMAL education, but you have to learn alot to be a good programmer. Its alot about training, experience and talent...
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why isn't the field extremely competitive now? The demand has been strong for a decade and a half; it seems like a lot of time. (I'm not sure I have an explanation myself, really; perhaps it's something innate in people and perhaps it's something about education, but the fact remains that the world still hasn't churned out enough programmers even though the incentives have been there for a long time. One possible exp…
"Why isn't the field extremely competitive now? " Visas. Most programming work (of the type talked about in the OP) originates in the USA, and most companies, even startups, need employees to come in the door everyday. (not taking on the question of whether this is ideal or not, that is the just the way it is, right now) . Imagine (as a thought experiment) a scenario where a smart kid who lives in India or Ukraine or…
> The demand (and hence average salary) in SF for programmers would go way down
I think you mean the supply would go way up, and thus the market-clearing salary for new hires would go way down.
Also (all other things being equal) the number of programmers employed would go up as the equilibrium shifts to a lower-wage, higher-number-employed point on the demand curve.
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Judging by OP's blog, I'd say he's passionate. Look at his other articles. He says he's "in it for the money" because he's honest. No one working to earn a living is not in it for the money, and if they tell you otherwise they're delusional. I think the measure should be "Would you still program if this wasn't your job?" and if the answer is yes, then the passion is there. I really hate it when people decry the impor…
Off course everybody needs money to survive. But when choosing a profession, some people choose to be an attorney because they can get a big salery. However I choose computer science because of the passion. I also had a passion for making music. But the passion and the money are the drivers. But the main driver is not the money.
I guess that could still depend -- suppose the individual in question made lots of money by selling a software product, and develops a passion for it due to the payout. Does it matter if he was initially passionate, or only after making the money?
A friend of mine hated piano as a child, only after many forced hours of practice (from his tiger mom) he became really good and started to win state championships for his ability. After a few more years, he developed a passion for it and played piano for fun. He never liked piano to begin with, but when he became good at it, he developed that passion.
So I'd argue that a bad programmer, after making some decent money, can become passionate at it when the initial driver started as money.
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#45I have a suspicion (albeit a light one), that programming in itself will become a commodity skill, like "good writing" (something you _have_ to know to score well on the SAT/GRE). It would become a necessary skill that simply everyone in a wide variety of fields (doctors, accountants, etc) where programming is the slightest bit helpful would have. In such an age and era, will programmers get paid anything close to wh…
Programming is about fast thinking, good organization, good prioritization, continuous learning, continuous automatization, sharing and yes, good writing. The actual coding is a side-show.
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#46I'm one of those guys programming in my 50s. Technically my jobs involve project management and consulting as well but I still love programming the most. Saying that programming "requires little or no education" is from the perspective of either a naturally smart person or the Dunning–Kruger effect. Like any profession, there are some self-motivated people who can do the job effectively without formal education. Yet…
I said "little or no education" compared to other fields. I'm a grad school dropout, so my bet is that my CS education is above average for a working programmer. A hiring process considered "demanding" (such as Google's) is basically testing if you know the stuff they learn in the first year and a half of an undergraduate program. Contrast that to the amount of training and test-taking that a doctor must go through and it'll put what I said in proper context.
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#47> "The fact is that your material well-being is rarely in jeopardy because of a missed deadline, so your reaction is fully up to you. " Much of what the author says is true, currently. This is a fantastic market for programmers, and anyone being born into this era is lucky. But the forces of supply and demand will sort this market out in the future, to which the author seems ignorant. Name another profession that req…
Why isn't the field extremely competitive now? The demand has been strong for a decade and a half; it seems like a lot of time. (I'm not sure I have an explanation myself, really; perhaps it's something innate in people and perhaps it's something about education, but the fact remains that the world still hasn't churned out enough programmers even though the incentives have been there for a long time. One possible exp…
There's definitely more you could do with education. A lot of professional programmers are people who started doing programming as a hobby as kids. Attempting to teach programming to 20-year-olds entering an university seems to not work terribly well, while the basics can be picked by a 10-year old.
If you waited until people are 20 to start teaching them to read and write, you would probably also get poor results, while the weird kids who learned to read for fun when they were 12 would end up outperforming the regular students when they grew up.
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#48Also, in what other job can you build your own little slaves to do some of your work for you? You don't even have to tell anyone.
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#49One of the biggest reason there aren't that many 50-year-old programmers is that a lot of programmers move to other roles in the same company, like line manager, project manager, product manager or various sales roles.
Agreed - the emergence of career progression (ie monetary progression) based on technical qualities rather than managerial ones is only a fairly recent phenomenon... at least, in all the companies I have worked for (large enterprise). It's not surprising many former programmers of that vintage are in the managerial ranks now. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I'm not sure.
I think it's mostly a good thing. Having worked yourself as a programmer makes you a better manager of programmers in my experience.
Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Why isn't the field extremely competitive now? " Visas. Most programming work (of the type talked about in the OP) originates in the USA, and most companies, even startups, need employees to come in the door everyday. (not taking on the question of whether this is ideal or not, that is the just the way it is, right now) . Imagine (as a thought experiment) a scenario where a smart kid who lives in India or Ukraine or…
> The demand (and hence average salary) in SF for programmers would go way down I think you mean the supply would go way up, and thus the market-clearing salary for new hires would go way down. Also (all other things being equal) the number of programmers employed would go up as the equilibrium shifts to a lower-wage, higher-number-employed point on the demand curve.
yes you are right. Thanks for the correction. fixed in the original.