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If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

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Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does medicine have the hazing ritual known as residency?

That's actually fairly common in fields where mistakes can be dangerous. Most places refer to it as apprenticeship, but it's fairly common in even less glamorous trades like electrical work, carpentry, etc.

The difference as far as I know, is that apprentices have normal working hours, while residents are sleep deprived to counterproductive levels and they could be barred from becoming a doctor at the end of it. If residents had normal hours like the rest of the doctors, I wouldn't nearly be nearly as apprehensive about it.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#272
Architects are the original programmers. They are the master builders who conceive of the built environment that no computer programmer could live without. They fulfill a basic need and (arguably) practice the highest form of art. They complete a level of education comparable to any lawyer and most doctors. Yet even an architect who runs their own successful, mid-size firm would be lucky to turn over $150,000 working 70 hour weeks. Did I mention they take on the liability of life, safety, and well-being of the general public with every decision?

Just sayin'... compensation isn't logical, and it sure as hell isn't fair.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you wrong! in order to you the pay should be proportionally to the good that they do to human? This is a nosense idea....Just pay proportionally to their skills! Is a shame that a nice doctor earn 500k$ and a nice software engineer fight for 100k$

"in order to you the pay should be proportionally to the good that they do to human?" yes. "Just pay proportionally to their skills!" If I'm amazing at flipping burgers do I need to get amazing pay?

oh man you have a distorted view of the world.....

Of course, if anyone in the world can flip burgers as him, you should pay him really high....it is the market rule.

if developers are requested as "seem to be", so they should be paid accordingly, same thing as doctor, and similar professions.

No matter (for the paycheck) if they save lives or make sites. :)

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#275
post #249
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a quote from Yossi Kreinin: CMM has 5 levels. CMM level 1 is where you operate right now: it denotes the ability to ship something. CMM level 5, the one mentioned in the interview from Kent Beck's book, denotes complete paralysis. To do anything, you have to write or update so many documents, have so many meetings with "relevant stakeholders", and to perform so many pointless measurements of the defects…

But wouldn't salaries for software workers eventually rise? Accounting and legal rules are also books heavy enough to kill a human. My point is that government intervention is the reason solicitors and accountants salaries are so high. Exams are the reason teachers salaries are high. The same would be needed (e.g legislated and enforced CMM levels) for programmer salaries to rise.

> But wouldn't salaries for software workers eventually rise?

No.

Lawyers, accountants, and teachers can make a lot of money because people are willing to pay a lot of money for the services they provide, because those services are very valuable.

Paying a top-notch lawyer US$500 an hour can save you a huge multiple of that US$500 if you're being sued for US$500M. Paying a good accountant allows you to manage your business transparently enough that you can raise money on a stock market, thus getting 20 times the amount of cash you've made in profits. A four-year university education can lift you from the lower class into the middle class, adding millions to your earnings and a decade to your lifespan.

It turns out that developing software quickly is a very valuable activity. In a single day of work, a good programmer can write a piece of software that functions in production for years afterwards, serving dozens, hundreds, or millions of people. Often, this is even the case if the software is buggy; the alternatives (repetitive manual labor, spreadsheets built by amateurs) are often even less reliable.

If you tried to outlaw the development of unreliable software, programmer salaries would go the same place that salaries for nuclear plant engineers and designers of small planes have gone over the last three decades: overseas or into oblivion.

Worse, it would likely be counterproductive. What we need for more reliable software is not books of management rules but better abstractions, better theorem provers, better programming languages, better insights. Those things are themselves software, but they are probably not software that we can develop faster, or at all, under an SEI CMM Level 5 process.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. It's not actually "the bulk" of engineers - I heard Senior SWE + above is something like the 30% of engineers. However, the age range is off; typically Senior SWEs at Google are about 26-32, depending on what their past career was. Someone who's 35 and of Google caliber (i.e. same intelligence as a doctor, lawyer, or management consultant) would usually be at least Staff and have some management responsibilities.…

>>(i.e. same intelligence as a doctor, lawyer, or management consultant) I keep reading this again and again. A doctor, lawyer, or management is not necessarily smarter than a programmer. They have to work longer before they can start practicing their profession but that doesn't make them smarter.

There are plenty of programmers too dumb to get a job at Google. I think the post you were replying to was merely saying that they also wouldn't have been able to pass the LSAT or MCAT.
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