Developers are the autoworkers of our generation • Hacker News Board

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#171

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:09 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #42

unono wrote: post #18

Programming is fundamentally different from most other occupations. We are actually building factories - automating manual tasks. If developer jobs start to become scarce, we'll be nearing a situation where there are no jobs at all for anyone. So, as a programmer, you're never at risk of falling into poverty.

So, as a programmer, you're never at risk of falling into poverty. I'm guessing you aren't old enough to remember the dot com bust then...

Back then IT wasn't big enough to contain all the programmers who had moved into it due to the bubble. Heck most smaller shops wouldn't have IT or a complicated website then.

Today there are so many businesses that needs IT to stay competitive that we would need a bubble of incredible epic propertions to knock us all out. And honestly I doubt there are enough people who can pass as devs that it would even be possible.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#172

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

karlkatzke wrote: post #46

nohuck13 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does personal sacrifice correlate with market price for your skills? Maybe it's progress when someone with a liberal arts degree (and presumably some programming experience) can get competing developer job offers based on his skills. I agree with your sentiment about the most-upvoted posts but I don't see this as a counterargument.

I think you would be surprised which developers have a liberal arts degree and which don't. I know of at least five or six developers who currently have or in the past have held very lofty roles within international open-source projects who have liberal arts degrees.

The irony is that we're all posting this on a site run by Paul Graham, who majored in Philosophy.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#173

Post by eliben » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:32 PM UTC

I used to feel uncomfortable after reading articles like this. But as the years went by, I gained more experience, and understood what programming is really about. I no longer worry. But if you spent a total of 2 months on your programming education and are now gainfully employed copying and pasting answers from Stack Overflow into your editor, perhaps you should.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#174

Post by peterjancelis » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:39 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #121

nohuck13 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. Wealth will be more volatile. The smart will get richer.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#175

Post by saryant » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:47 PM UTC

quaffapint wrote: post #167

saryant wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I live in Texas and as a recent CS grad there is no shortage of places trying to hire me. Pay is good (new grads starting at $50-60k in cheap cities like San Antonio), jobs are plentiful. I graduated in 2012. From our CS department, every student who at least managed a B average walked right into a real dev job.

You can get jobs in our area too (Northeast US), but they just ain't paying what they used to pre-economic downturn. Now that they know they can get devs cheaper, they just don't pay anywhere near as well. So, here you try to hold on to those old jobs, like it or not.

You're welcome to come down here. Salaries just seem to be going up in my area.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#176

Post by ritchiea » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:51 PM UTC

vectorpush wrote: post #139

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…

the lack of sacrifice necessary to make fat stacks of cash writing software? I don't know about you, but I've sacrificed an incalculable amount of positive social interaction sitting in front of these damned screens. My programming skills weren't spontaneously conferred upon me, as a kid I'd spend weeks at time building foolishly impossible-to-complete applications that I'd eventually leave to rot as I hopped onto th…

You're making the wrong comparison. The comparison shouldn't be "sitting in front of a screen" vs socializing. It should be "sitting in front of a screen" vs the amount of work it takes to achieve a similar career in another field vs the amount of work it has historically required to achieve a similar career.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#177

Post by pearjuice » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 10:06 PM UTC

Is it really the golden era of programming in America? In Europe we still get underpaid for what we do yet there is an extreme shortage of good engineers. I have seen a lot of my network move to America and haunt software engineering positions in SV but always thought they were chasing a lottery ticket. People drop out of school here and move to the States because there is so much demand and half of what they learn is not even applicable in real life jobs "In America you can actually get a job if you can prove you can program - without a degree!" is what I hear a lot.

How true is this? Is it a gold rush or are we not even close to the peak? Are they exaggerating? What is the demand like? Is a degree worth it if you are just in it for the paper?

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#178

Post by singingfish » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 10:09 PM UTC

pmichaud wrote: post #77

rmk2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Arrogant, maybe, but there is at least a kernel of truth. I've done a lot of trades. I'm not a master level craftsman or anything, but I can build a house to code using just my current knowledge. The only thing I've never done is masonry, but I'm told it's not too tough. So that includes carpentry, electric, plumbing, fine wood working if you want things like molding and wainscoting, and more. I'm a very good but not…

Smarts required for trades IMO from top to bottom (source: finishing a new construction this week on time and on budget(ish) as project manager who knew nothing about building 8 months ago):

1. Carpenter/Sparky/Concretor/Plumber (different skill spaces, similar skill levels required, if anything electric is harder as it's the most likely to kill you and requires high level maths) 2. Tiler/plasterer/brickie/painter 3. Floor sander and other unpleasent menial trades.

So the biggest difference between construction and software eng is that for a construction project it's relatively easy to specify a project such that outcomes are deterministic. Any significant software project will have non-deterministic outcomes. Good tradies use the reduced cognitive load caused by certainty to be fast and efficient, and to have incredible levels of attention to detail. In software to achieve similar levels is either impossible, or requires two or three stabs at the same problem to get it right (and minor deviations from the problem space cause extra confusion).

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#179

Post by zeteo » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

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…

>perhaps the answer is that there is no barrier, and we're about to get flooded with supply.

One of my earliest memories is listening to my old grandpa give multiple arguments as to why computers were a passing fad. Needless to say, he was somewhat incorrect. Just because something is on the ascendant doesn't mean it will hit the corresponding descendant anytime soon.

What killed autoworkers' jobs more than anything was automation. They had simple, repetitive jobs that anyone could do; and one day that anyone included robots. It costs nothing to write software with software, you don't need big hulking robots to do it. But it's also a job that basically involves solving frustrating, novel problems each day. Not something to be easily replaced by a robot.

To boot, the number and kinds of computers in existence is significantly increasing each year. Smartphones, which became wildly popular in a mere six years, are the most egregious example. The number of developers may be growing a lot, but their tasks are not getting fewer either.

Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation

#180

Post by FurrBall » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 10:23 PM UTC

There are 2 kinds of work.

1. Execution of a process. 2. Creation of a process.

Execution can be automated. A factory can be automated with robots. Someone who makes backups can be automated with a script.

But creation (of a process) cannot be automated. Until we have a major breakthrough in AI our jobs are safe. Most programming is the creation of a process, not the rote following of a process. "Programmers" making cookie-cutter-CRUD apps may need to worry!

Our only threats are over supply and under demand. We are currently on the winning side of supply/demand. Competition with low-wage countries has not been able to significantly hurt us they way it has with factory work. We are in a good spot.