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Now might be the best time to learn software development

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Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#151

Post by soco »

Gravityloss wrote: post #136
aitchnyu wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortran promised to eliminate debugging. In 2015, I taught React is a functional programming way to create very fast, bug free apps and the project manager found ways to push us to the hair-on-fire status quo. "FORTRAN should virtually eliminate coding and debugging" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3970011

SQL had similar promises. But it still has been immensely useful and a durable paradigm, even though usage hasn't been exactly as thought.

Excel enters the chat

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#152

Post by miki123211 »

lipowitz wrote: post #40
nathanfig wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude made this point while reviewing my blog for me: the mechanization of farms created a whole lot more specialization of roles. The person editing CAD diagrams of next year's combine harvester may not be a farmer strictly speaking, but farming is still where their livelihood comes from.

Removing jobs that could only be performed by those living near the particular fields with those that can be done anywhere makes jobs for the person willing to take the least satisfactory compensation for the most skill and work. Working the summer fields was one of the least desirable jobs but still gave local students with no particular skills a good supplemental income appropriate for whichever region.

depending on the job, it may also allow you to select for talent much better, which creates intense competition and raises salaries significantly.

A good example of this phenomenon is sports. Even thought it can't be done remotely, it's so talent dependent that it's often better to find a great player in a foreign country and ask them to work for you, rather than relying exclusively on local talent. If it could be a remote job, this effect would be even greater.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#153

Post by WJW »

pipes wrote: post #48
bitpush wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bravo. This is the exact sentiment I have, but you expressed in a way that I could never have. Most people miss the fact that technical improvements increases the pie in a way that was not possible before. When digital cameras became popular, everybody become a photographer. That only made the world better, and we got soo many more good photographers. Same with YouTube & creativity. And same with coding & LLMs. World…

I thought photographers don't get paid well anymore due market saturation and few skills required to get a good photo?

This implies photographers used to be paid well in the past, which isn't true. Like painting or rock music, photography has always been a winner-takes-all kind of market where a select few can get quite wealthy but the vast majority will be struggling forever.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#155

Post by charlieyu1 »

glimshe wrote: post #16
psunavy03 wrote: post #14

"Great news, boss! We invented this new tool that allows nontechnical people to write code in English! Now anyone can deploy applications, and we don't have to hire all those expensive developers!" "Wow, show it to me!" "OK here it is. We call it COBOL."

You're joking but it's true. I'm sure you know that. SQL had similar claims... Declarative, say what you need and the computer will do for you. Also written in English.

Don’t think the person was joking. It was literally the promise of COBOL

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#156

Post by WJW »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #114
sarchertech wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are far more programmers now than in 1980, yet the average programmer makes far more (inflation adjusted) now.

How much online shopping could you do from your PC in 1980? How many people had smartphones in 1980? That's why sw devs salaries went up like crazy in our time and not in 1980. But what new tech will we have, that will push the SW dev market demand up like internet connected PCs and smartphones did? All I see is stagnation in the near future, just maintaining or rewriting the existing shit that we have, not expanding…

Maintaining and rewriting existing shit is quite well paying though, and also something that AI seems to struggle with. (Funnily enough, AI seems to struggles even more with refactoring vibecoded projects than with refactoring human-written apps. What that says about the quality of the vibe coded code I don't know.)

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#158

Post by KurSix »

NoPicklez wrote: post #84

My take just purely based on the title, I'm in the security space not a developer but I did study it during my degree. I would say that when the fundamentals are easier to learn it becomes a great time to learn anything. I remember spending so much of my degree during software development trying to fix bugs and have things explained by trawling through online forums like many of us have. Looking for different ways of…

Yep, once you hit intermediate and beyond, I think it shifts more to using them as an accelerant

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#160

Post by dakiol »

pyman wrote: post #144
guicen wrote: post #131

In fact, in my opinion, one of the benefits of AI tools that is often overlooked is "psychological support". When you are stuck at work, it will give you a push. Even if it is not completely right, it is enough to get you moving. The feeling of "no longer fighting alone at work" is actually more important than many people think.

I asked my students to write a joke about AI. Sometimes humor is the best way to get people to talk about their fears without filters. One of them wrote: "I went to work early that day and noticed my monitor was on, and code was being written without anyone pressing any keys. Something had logged into my machine and was writting code. I ran to my boss and told him my computer had been hacked. He looked at me, concern…

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now.

Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

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