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Are coders worth it?

aeonmagazine.com

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Re: Are coders worth it?

#31

Post by jiggy2011 »

jezclaremurugan wrote: post #3

Not all web developers are "plumbers". If you are working on websites with heavy traffic, then you need to use complex algorithms to scale. That needs someone who is comfortable with algorithms, and that needs a quite lot of thought. The author describes simple CRUD websites and then equates all of web development to trivial tasks like that. Even scaling simple CRUD needs a lot skills, intelligence and ingenuity. And…

The analogy is still apt.

I imagine plumbing the Burj Khalifa needs a different and more advanced set of skills than plumbing a prefab home.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#32

Post by bennyg »

rdouble wrote: post #18
jumblesale wrote: post #6

Very well written article, I always enjoy reading stuff from the intersection of writers and coders. What I found startling was how different my experience has been to that of the author's at the start of the article. I've put up with some horrific jobs paying miserable money in some of the most uninspiring industrial parks you could imagine. I've taken work in dingy Victorian offices so cold that I've had to program…

It's particular to the New York startup scene. There is a lot of money sloshing around and startups have a different hiring strategy than in Silicon Valley. It's quick to hire, quick to fire. I've had six figure offers without even going through a real interview. This leads to a lot of churn. One place I worked at ran through three almost entirely different engineering teams in 18 months. It will be interesting to re…

Not necessarily true. I think if you aren't in those tech places (beyond SV and NYC, there are other hotbeds too), you have to get known amongst a tech community and this is where social shines. I've been open sourcing software fairly frequently lately and was contacted by potential future bosses at three very well-known companies for software engineer roles, two in California and one smack-dab in Manhattan. I've also been leveraging things like Show HN and putting stuff in appropriate subreddits to get an initial jump. Once you break the trending barrier in your language of choice on Github, it's practically smooth sailing. Getting on the most-starred today (just on Objective-C) has resulted in two extra days of blog posts, tweets and mentions from all over the internet that I didn't even solicit at all. Two of my open-sourced repositories ended up trending number one overall on Github for a day each. I think if you make stuff that helps coders, and position it correctly on sites that care about that, then it's easier to get noticed and technical directors are more willing to consider you for a job (why wouldn't they hire someone that makes their team more productive).

I have a BA in Art with a minor in Advertising. If I can get noticed using these tactics, then surely people with CS or EE degrees can too.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#33

Post by BerislavLopac »

"In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect."

This might be true only by a VERY narrow definition of "world", specifically Silicon Valley. Or maybe I live in a very peculiar place, but the developers (Web or otherwise) here are in the low to mid income range, regardless of their skills and experience. And don't even get me started on freedom and respect...

Re: Are coders worth it?

#34

Post by SethMurphy »

We are not the shovel, we are the ditch diggers, just slightly better paid. Either way, who wants to be a commodity. Your analogy doesn't make me feel lucky, but like I need to get out of the ditch.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#35

Post by stdbrouw »

jacques_chester wrote: post #16

Virtue is not value. Value is not virtue. What you consider virtuous may produce no economic value. Or maybe it does. There's no rigid formula that connects them and the Just World Hypothesis is an illusion that traps fools and wisemen alike. Attempts to browbeat the world out of "is" and into "ought" have been universal failures and I retain every confidence that it will be ever thus. James Somers might find Hayek's…

I didn't feel like the author was trying to prove anything, or was trying to get people to pursue more "virtuous" pursuits. It is simply a personal reflection on the state of the startup ecosystem and what it means to be a computer programmer.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#36

Post by guard-of-terra »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #33

"In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect." This might be true only by a VERY narrow definition of "world", specifically Silicon Valley. Or maybe I live in a very peculiar place, but the developers (Web or otherwise) here are in the low to mid income range, regardless of their skills and experience. And don't even get me started on freedom and respect...

You are. Why don't you move? Metaphorically speaking, don't be Steve Jobs in Syria, be Steve Jobs in the USA.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#37

Post by prollyignored »

jacques_chester wrote: post #16

Virtue is not value. Value is not virtue. What you consider virtuous may produce no economic value. Or maybe it does. There's no rigid formula that connects them and the Just World Hypothesis is an illusion that traps fools and wisemen alike. Attempts to browbeat the world out of "is" and into "ought" have been universal failures and I retain every confidence that it will be ever thus. James Somers might find Hayek's…

People in 20-30 ages neither have virtue, nor know the meaning of value. They structure their lives around "fun", which is definable, post-hoc.

edit: by post-hoc I mean, facebook was never meant for memes, but it does now. So you say "facbook is about fun memes", "XXXX was fun". Both of them were not in the original idea, but you express the fallacy.

The fact is, the 15-30's people doze off in a third rate movie, have fun by poking and squeaking.

And I have watch, ppt's about my company's future.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#38

Post by jabbernotty »

prollyignored wrote: post #37
jacques_chester wrote: post #16

Virtue is not value. Value is not virtue. What you consider virtuous may produce no economic value. Or maybe it does. There's no rigid formula that connects them and the Just World Hypothesis is an illusion that traps fools and wisemen alike. Attempts to browbeat the world out of "is" and into "ought" have been universal failures and I retain every confidence that it will be ever thus. James Somers might find Hayek's…

People in 20-30 ages neither have virtue, nor know the meaning of value. They structure their lives around "fun", which is definable, post-hoc. edit: by post-hoc I mean, facebook was never meant for memes, but it does now. So you say "facbook is about fun memes", "XXXX was fun". Both of them were not in the original idea, but you express the fallacy. The fact is, the 15-30's people doze off in a third rate movie, hav…

Those are some really broad brush strokes.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#39

Post by einhverfr »

There is a lot to this piece. I do think good coders are worth it, but I also think the current social/mobile bubble will burst (not that there aren't important gains to be had in those spaces but that the gains do not live up to investors' expectations). It seems to me so many businesses are chasing playthings because solving the real problems of the day are hard. To be sure not one of us can solve any of them, but if we build our businesses with the problems in mind (rather than the hype), then we are all doing our part. That isn't a lot to ask but it seems like too much.

For my money the businesses I am starting (including the new cloud ERP start-up Efficito (http://www.efficito.com) are intended to continue to chip away at real problems. They may not seem like much but they will hopefully contribute in one way or another to helping support small businesses, the self-employed, and such against the leviathan multinational companies. Some problems (like too much corporate control) are bad matches for venture-capital backing. Other problems though may not be.

Re: Are coders worth it?

#40

Post by jacques_chester »

stdbrouw wrote: post #35
jacques_chester wrote: post #16

Virtue is not value. Value is not virtue. What you consider virtuous may produce no economic value. Or maybe it does. There's no rigid formula that connects them and the Just World Hypothesis is an illusion that traps fools and wisemen alike. Attempts to browbeat the world out of "is" and into "ought" have been universal failures and I retain every confidence that it will be ever thus. James Somers might find Hayek's…

I didn't feel like the author was trying to prove anything, or was trying to get people to pursue more "virtuous" pursuits. It is simply a personal reflection on the state of the startup ecosystem and what it means to be a computer programmer.

I'm trying to save him some angst.

Trying to reconcile the virtues of what he does with his economic value is pointless. They're just not connected.

Demand for Ruby on Rails plumbing is ultimately connected with the current wishes and desires of most of the planet's population and has nothing whatsoever to do with how he, or anyone else, feels about it.

In literary terms: he's tilting at windmills.

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