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Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

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Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#111

Post by colanderman »

gnaritas wrote: post #51
luu wrote: post #22

As usual for HN, all of the most upvoted replies disagree with the article. Let me play devil's advocate and not disagree. Sure, the analogy isn't perfect, but what happens if we take the idea seriously? [1] Isn't it amazing, the lack of sacrifice necessary to make fat stacks of cash writing software? Even when law school was thought of as a golden ticket, it was a lottery, and to win, you had to sacrifice your perso…

> I'm told that CS enrollments are now at record highs Given the high dropout rate of anyone attempting to learn programming, I don't think enrollment rate is good metric. > What's the barrier to entry that's keeping us from being flooded with supply? Programming is hard; really f'ing hard, for most people because it requires critical thinking continually and learning continually.

[Programming] requires critical thinking continually and learning continually.

Yeah, I've met plenty of programmers who meet neither of those requirements. Most of them have held titles higher than, and almost certainly got paid more than, me.

(And yes, their code sucked. But they were still well-compensated.)

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#112

Post by gnaritas »

rmk2 wrote: post #54
gnaritas wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm told that CS enrollments are now at record highs Given the high dropout rate of anyone attempting to learn programming, I don't think enrollment rate is good metric. > What's the barrier to entry that's keeping us from being flooded with supply? Programming is hard; really f'ing hard, for most people because it requires critical thinking continually and learning continually.

Stop patting yourself on the back. Seriously . Because obviously, no other job requires critical thinking and learning continually . These are "skills" that are in no way related to programming, and do not explain an inclination towards CS rather than any other science or the myriad of other academic disciplines. And even outside academia, not every job is just that of the "sheeple" who "mindlessly" "slug away" in th…

> Stop patting yourself on the back. Seriously.

I'm not. You obviously have past bias that's caused you to read far too much into what I said.

> Because obviously, no other job requires critical thinking and learning continually.

Did I say that... NO. Your entire second paragraph is a nonsense rebuttal to things I never said.

> If you do a job for a long while, chances are you will have to adapt to new developments.

Very few traditional jobs, none of the ones you mentioned, are forced to obsolete their knowledge as quickly as programmers.

> I am sorry that this rant is directed directly at you, but I find the sheer arrogance of your two one-line remarks baffling.

I find your foaming at the mouth about things I didn't say equally baffling. Take a step back, calm down, and if you still feel it worth discussing, respond to what I actually said rather than what you feel I meant.

If programming is the new auto worker, and it can make so much money absent formal education and professional requirements/certifications, then there's obviously something different about it that prevents the masses from jumping into the field.

I've talked to and worked with many people outside the field in my life who'd love to make that kind of money and my personal experience leads me to two main answers. It's too f'ing hard, and I can't sit in front of a computer all day so I won't even try.

I'm not being arrogant, nor patting myself on the back. There are far harder jobs out there that require far more critical thinking, but those jobs in general aren't available to the typical person because they require very particular educational paths as they are not meritocracies. Anyone could potentially sit down and learn to program at home and enter the profession, it's very blue collar in that way. You don't need a degree or a license, you just need the skills.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#113

Post by VLM »

hershel wrote: post #80
GotAnyMegadeth wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially as Moore's law staggers to a halt It hasn't even begun to slow yet, has it?

For the last 5 years , or even more it has slowed considerably. Nvidia even claimed in a famous article that next generation manufacturing processes have no price benefit.

An interesting shift in the market can be observed in that demand is dropping at the high end compared to in the past. Partially greater economic effect, partially lack of demand.

The law might say the transistor density will increase, but if the market isn't willing to buy it, or the companies can't financially offer them, the law will fail but not for technical reasons. I think its a safe prediction the law will fail not for technical reasons but financial.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#114

Post by MichaelGG »

karlkatzke wrote: post #44
sker wrote: post #6

It's already happening. As a freelancer, I often find people who want their "corporate" site built in WordPress for less money than what they would pay to a car mechanic for a similar amount of time worked. Sames goes for Magento and similar platforms.

That's been the case since I entered the development field in the early 00's. I wouldn't say it's anything new. The polite thing to do is to explain to them your hourly rates and then allow them to make a decision. The impolite, but safer for you, thing to do is to run without looking back. It's not a case of developers being automated, it's a case of the customer not understanding that they get what they pay for.

Or in the case of a simple content site that WP could easily do, perhaps they do understand what they're paying for. (Excepting security holes in WP...)

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#115

Post by MichaelGG »

RossPenman wrote: post #32

They are different because if developers were replaced by robots, developers would still be required to create and maintain those robots. The same can't be said for autoworkers.

Yeah, automating all software development is probably equivalent to inventing general AI. At which point we're probably all very well off, or all screwed.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#116

Post by __--__ »

justincormack wrote: post #96
VLM wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Given the high dropout rate of anyone attempting to learn programming Its about the same as any other major. I googled around and found the 1999 cohort for Southeast Louisiana University (no particular reason, just google found it easily...) and they tracked freshmen's declared major and what they actually graduated with, if anything, after six years. In comp sci, it is true that 93% of self declared freshman comp s…

Those drop out rates are appalling!

But not surprising. In 2001, the college I was accepted to also accepted a record number of students. Every year since then, the number of accepted students increased. The first year drop out rate also increased every year, to mirror the accepted rate. The number of graduates stayed the same, though.

The only conclusion I could come up with is the college was purposely accepting people they knew wouldn't be able to pass the first year. They fudged the numbers to maintain their graduation and placement rates AND they got the extra cash from gullible first year students.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#117

Post by yogo »

tluyben2 wrote: post #100
yogo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised to see a multi-million dollar corporation (nameless) using wordpress. It's slow and bloated but I guess it gets the job done. Naturally they went to someone and said they needed a site, then that someone did what they do best and installed wordpress with some theme. Naturally when it came time to make certain changes or something broke the installer couldn't do anything about it. This is a B2B company…

Yep, and that's were it gets very expensive very fast and that's also were 'cheap' programmers cannot help at all. I have 3 friends who quit their jobs and went into website creation. They make simple sites based on WP and make nice money with it. They look mostly horrible but clients can talk to them on their level and feel comfortable. These sites go between E1500-2500 per site. Now when anything breaks / doesn't w…

That's something I don't think this article covered. Sure technologies like WP make it easier for someone less skilled to accomplish something but then demand is created for others that are more skilled to fix, support, customize like you said.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#118

Post by lhnz »

jdjb wrote: post #104
lhnz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the sacrifice which you should worry about. These things don't happen quickly. Watch the curriculum of young children change. 10 years is all it will take.

You honestly think programming will become such a vital skill in everyone's job that it'll be taught along side reading and math to young children? Even at the high school level students are forced to learn algebra and calculus but they don't really learn it. They memorize a few formula and apply them on tests but how many people can even take a simple derivative a few years after leaving school? Just cause someone t…

> You honestly think programming will become such a vital skill in everyone's job that it'll be taught along side reading and math to young children?

I'm in the UK, and yes: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23222068

> They memorize a few formula and apply them on tests but how many people can even take a simple derivative a few years after leaving school?

You're right about this. But the percentage of people that will learn will remain the same, the quantity of the population that were taught will increase. It will have an effect.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#119

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

mkr-hn wrote: post #10
nohuck13 wrote: post #7

Hold on a minute. You can't discuss labor markets without discussing productivity. In the heyday of the automotive industry, the best auto worker in the world produced about the same output as the average auto worker. Maybe they messed up less, but being a genius autoworker didn't let you tower head and shoulders above the competition, because car factories are designed with auto workers as interchangeable parts. We'…

I think the argument is that the skill level and number of people needed for most development jobs will be lowered with platforms and tools that make it easy for a minimally trained user to do it. Someone still has to make the tools and platforms, but implementing them won't take as many people. Think about how many wildly popular websites run with a handful of people. How long will it be before you don't even need m…

>Think about how many wildly popular websites run with a handful of people.

You're talking about the "Silver Bullet," [1] whether you mean to or not. There have been hundreds of attempts to reduce the complexity of development, starting in the '50s and continuing pretty much continually until today. And just as Fred Brooks describes in the book I linked, that kind of productivity increase doesn't happen in software. And won't happen in software.

You do get ways of better managing complexity. Look at object-oriented programming, for example. That's a recent development, right? Sure, as long as you're old enough to consider the 1970s to be "recent." [2] Not me, thanks. ;)

The best you do get is a single problem being solved in a somewhat general manner. The CMS gives us a generic web site/blog. Square and others give us easy commerce integration. And so on: Specific common problems solved really well.

Yes, these are things that previously took many man-hours of time to create one-off versions of, but what happens is that people want more and more complex (and differentiated!) functionality in their web sites or apps.

And that differentiation is by definition not able to be packaged in bulk. As soon as it gets interesting, I don't care how easy you've made the "language" that specifies it, you still need a programmer to implement it. Or someone who can think like one.

And most people not only don't think like programmers, they firmly believe they can't think like programmers, and so refuse to even try to learn how. Or at the very least they have an image that programming is dull or dry or boring.

There are still huge barriers to people entering programming en masse. And even if they did, it would be the lowest complexity jobs that would be harder to get -- the ones where the barrier to entry is really low.

I work tasks a few tiers of complexity above those jobs; I'm not worried about being replaced by a new wave of college graduates any time soon.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming#Hi...

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#120

Post by SapphireSun »

jdjb wrote: post #104
lhnz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the sacrifice which you should worry about. These things don't happen quickly. Watch the curriculum of young children change. 10 years is all it will take.

You honestly think programming will become such a vital skill in everyone's job that it'll be taught along side reading and math to young children? Even at the high school level students are forced to learn algebra and calculus but they don't really learn it. They memorize a few formula and apply them on tests but how many people can even take a simple derivative a few years after leaving school? Just cause someone t…

It's worse than that. Most people don't take calculus in the US...
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