Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#61

Post by _yosefk » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

gardarh wrote: post #38

It's posts like these that get me as a programmer worried. Arrogance tends to lead to bad things and the world can change at a pace greater than one can imagine (a good way for me to understand how swiftly things change is to ask myself: Could I have foreseen x years ago what I am be doing today? for me, using the relatively low value of x=5 the answer is a definitive no. And I think that's a good thing). Be humble i…

Don't get me wrong - I'm rather paranoid, and I'm not sure at all that this will last. All I'm saying is, the alternatives I know about aren't necessarily better, and if one talks about quitting the field because it's not enjoyable (without mentioning money), then my question - from an angle not unlike yours, I think - my question is, so what's your alternative way to make money.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#62

Post by dpark » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 2:50 PM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #52

"Programmers who can program at all - as in, print out a binary tree correctly" Strikingly succinct and useful benchmark, just sort of thrown in there like it was jam on toast. There are some tidbits of wisdom in this article, but overall it boils down to a life that has lost all meaning and passion and has succumbed to the lowest common denominator: money. True, maybe, but sad, really.

Many people spend years or decades moving from job to job and from career to career looking for happiness. Most of them don't find it until they learn that your job just isn't what makes you happy. "Do something you love" is a myth.

Jobs are jobs because they involve a lot of crap people don't want to do. No one's going to find personal meaning by writing specs, or by cutting a beautiful design down to an ugly minimum to fit into time constraints, or by maintaining some poorly-written internal tool. But these are all things programmers will do, at some of the best jobs in the industry. Every job has a large chunk of "this sucks" work. If it's kept to a minimum, you're doing far better than most people.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#63

Post by hakaaak » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 2:50 PM UTC

Good post. I've been doing this for many years now though and I've been burnt out after maybe the first 4-5 on coding, but that is still what I do. It really is about the money though. Early on I had the idea that I would become an architect get all of the certifications (back when that meant something), work my way up management and have a house at the beach, at the lake, and in the mountains. Ha. Yeah, I should have known. Right now I'm hoping that telecommuting becomes the norm. I love working from home, but I don't think I could make what I'm making now as a contractor doing Rails development, which is now primarily what I do. As long as I continue to be employed, I guess that is the main thing. And I guess that is the point of the post.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#64

Post by skrebbel » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 3:01 PM UTC

colinb wrote: post #59

cynicalkane wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One piece of the puzzle is that programming education is not very effective. Most computer science programs teach you almost nothing about software engineering, partially because many CS profs know almost nothing about it.

I think one of the problems with software engineering is that [almost] no one knows anything about it. I've been a working programmer [or software engineer if I've just met you at a party and I think you're cute] for long enough to work on >5 multi-billion dollar projects. Of these, one was delivered on time and according to spec. That company went down the toilet within four years. I've read fairly widely in the sof…

A multi-billion dollar project.

I can't really imagine that. Are those ever executed by a single company all on its own? Are they software-only? Do they exist outside NASA?

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#65

Post by adelevie » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

> I haven't met programmers who became lawyers.

For what it's worth, I'm a programmer in the middle of law school.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#66

Post by guard-of-terra » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

_yosefk wrote: post #15

tatsuke95 wrote: post #11

> "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…

Programmer is like the modern villager. Villagers grew food and made stuff and that's what you ever needed. The programmer writes code and everything in our civilization is already code or it will be.

Therefore, programmer is a much broader occupation than almost any other. It's still a seller's marker because of that. Look at everything around you, and while there is at least one item that doesn't execute code inside, we haven't hit peak coder yet.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#67

Post by pchivers » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

hyko wrote: post #25

>" No health (...) risks " I'd like to see some research to back up this claim, but I'm not aware of any studies into occupational health for programmers. Does anyone know of any?

I'm sure sitting on your ass 8-10 hours a day is a health risk. Maybe not as bad as working in a factory breathing in nasty chemicals all day, or dodging falling trees as a lumberjack, but a health risk nonetheless.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#68

Post by guard-of-terra » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 3:14 PM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #23

_yosefk wrote: post #15

Earlier 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…

All this would do is a short-term depression of SF programmer wages coupled to short-term surge in worldwide programmer wages. Because guess what, smart guy in Ukraine was already employed there and when he moves the next guy coming to fill the gap will either cost more or be less smart.

Programmer talent is sparse worldwide, not just in the Valley.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#69

Post by CWIZO » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 3:15 PM UTC

hyko wrote: post #25

>" No health (...) risks " I'd like to see some research to back up this claim, but I'm not aware of any studies into occupational health for programmers. Does anyone know of any?

I'm pretty sure there aren't any. And as any RSI sufferer will tell you, programming has health risks, which can even prevent you from continuing to program.

Re: Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

#70

Post by geon » Sat, Oct 06, 2012, 3:16 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #35

I 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…

You seem to have "good writing". Could you write a novel, with a captivating, nonobvious plot, interesting characters and a twist ending?

You probably can score ok in a math SAT. Can you visualize the mathematics of a quaternion, or formulate the equation for an n-sided betzier patch?

The work a linguistic/novelist/journalist or a mathematican is not on the highscool level. Neither is the work of a programmer.

I do believe basic programming should be taught, just like basic math and writing skills. But that has absolutely nothing to do with proffessional programming.