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Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

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Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#121

Post by ori_b »

nohuck13 wrote: post #19
mkr-hn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think that's a key question, but I've never been a fan of the notion that robots (or efficient frameworks) are going to put us all out of jobs. If you look at what we've actually seen in the last 20 years, efficient frameworks enable entrepreneurship and wealth creation on a scale that wasn't possible in the past. Sure, there are fewer people employed doing nitty gritty stuff, but the size of the economic pie is fa…

The argument is that the pie is already unevenly distributed. In the future, it will be even more unevenly distributed, and the skewing of the distribution will outpace the growth of the pie.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#122

Post by learc83 »

johnfuller wrote: post #26

> When the most frequent complaint you hear is “I wish recruiters would stop spamming me with six-figure job offers,” life’s gotten pretty good. As other have said many times here, a six figure job in some places is just enough to possibly be compared to a middle class lifestyle elsewhere in the U.S. Go look at the database of BART salaries, and as big as their pay appears, these guys went on strike. > WordPress does…

>Part of the problem there is that the law profession built walls up that technology is tearing down. The development industry has no walls.

Exactly law school was such a golden ticket because the lawyer's guild set it up that way. The ABA convinced the state governments that that they should be the gatekeepers of the legal profession. They manufactured scarcity that drove up prices.

New lawyers can still make a decent income, even now. The problem is that they need to make way more than a decent income to pay the inflated tuition rates charged by most law schools.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#124

Post by potatolicious »

6thSigma wrote: post #27
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 have at least 10 friends who are in the technology industry but don't know how to program. Every single one of them have been saying for years how they want to learn. None of them have. It takes more sacrifice than you think to learn new skills.

That barrier is dropping. Years ago becoming a developer meant going back to school for another 4-year degree. Expensive, time-consuming, and necessary for most employers to take you seriously.

You could self-train, but having seen the insides of recruitment processes at most companies... that's a laughable thought. For all the wankery that comes out of our mouths about meritocracies, the vast majority of software companies are still extremely enamored with credentialing, especially from prestige schools.

But now we have hacker schools - hacker schools where there are actual employers with actual money who are willing to employ the results. I know two people who are going through it right now, and the interest in hiring them from local startups is much, much higher than I ever expected.

The level of sacrifice required is dropping, and it's dropping like a rock. We will see more and more conversions, and there will soon be a flood in supply.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#125

Post by berntb »

btilly wrote: post #55
unono wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't working then, but from my understanding (might be wrong), it was 'html coders' that had difficulty finding jobs, not actual coders.

I personally knew a number of competent programmers who ran into extreme financial difficulty in that time period. However they didn't like to talk about it then or now, so I can't give names. They were, of course, a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people who had no business calling themselves programmers having trouble. But there were still lots of them. How do I know this? When I went to move from New…

I can confirm that there were a big dot com death and hangover the first years of the millennium. Specifically, for Sweden.

The rest of the Swedish economy was quite OK.

The takeaway lesson you should get kids, is that there is a boom/bust cycle for programmers/developers -- but it isn't necessarily in phase with the general economy. (Some corollaries about how to handle this were listed in the article.)

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#127

Post by bennyg »

VLM wrote: post #62
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…

There's another interesting similarity not discussed in that autoworkers in, say, Wyoming, were pretty thin on the ground and not so well paid. In the Detroit area, sure there was competition and excellent pay. But in rural Wisconsin there was one (of many) rural assembly plants. Pay wasn't awful, but it wasn't as amazing as working in Detroit. And there was "a" plant. You get fired, you better move out of town becau…

Although not Podunk by any means, here's Google's Wisconsin satellite: http://www.google.com/about/jobs/locations/madison/

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#128

Post by hershel »

VLM wrote: post #113
hershel wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fa…

I don't think demand for silicon(measured by area) for high end manufacturing processes had dropped. It might have shifted from pc to tablets/smartphones. but it's there.

According to darpa , the end would probably come due to money. But even assuming unlimited money, 6nm is the size of a silicon atom. to go below we'll have to split the atom :)

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#129

Post by Aqueous »

There are some parallels but the analogy falls apart. Even the most perfect car does only one thing very well: get people from point A to point B.

That is, there is a finite amount of autorepairs and new car manufacturing that is done and will ever be done, and that ceiling is related to how many people own cars or want to own one at any given point in time.

But the potential domains for software automation are unlimited.

The demand for software programmers will keep increasing, continually, until all the work that people do in their lives is automated by software. The time to enjoy being a software developer might be finite, but I don't see the plateau happening any time soon.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#130

Post by marincounty »

VLM wrote: post #79
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.

>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…

Let's not forget one thing. Computer Science can be extremely boring for many young people. It's a man made science(meaning it's different than, let's say, biology.)

As a younger lad, I couldn't imagine having to spend my working life in front of a computer screen.

These are just my observations, and yes--some of you will have jobs for life.

In all honesty, I don't love computers, or even the Internet. I was forced to get involved in the Computer economy.

Actually, I'm going to turn off all my screens for awhile, and try to enjoy the rest of this day---outside--scary kinda? What happened to me?

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