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Coders Automating Their Own Job

theatlantic.com

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Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#491

Post by peteforde »

samirm wrote: post #444
peteforde wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not everyone on HN is a developer, it does tend to skew that way so I don't feel guilty pointing out how frustrating it is to measure the output of a top programmer. Often, a mature codebase shrinks as code quality improves. This drives the efficiency wonks absolutely bonkers.

>This drives the efficiency wonks absolutely bonkers. what do you mean by that?

In most areas of business, there are important signals which can be observed that are often based on counting values over time. There are people for whom it is their primary job function to identify what should be counted, and how.

When a codebase shrinks AND increases in quality, you've now demonstrated that the most obvious way to quantify the utility of a resource - units of productive output - is not useful. So now people who are used to tallying widgets and graphs that are "good" if they move up and to the right, now have to understand things like refactoring, technical debt and design patterns.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#492

Post by [deleted] »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #19
wvenable wrote: post #8

It should be noted that programmers are not automating themselves out of programming jobs . They're automating themselves out of data entry, or testing, or any number of other mindless tasks easily done by computers.

We may not (yet) be able to automate ourselves out of programming jobs, but we can certainly leverage smart development practices into making the job a lot less labor-intensive. I'm experiencing a shift in that thinking right now. I write reusable, modular, tested code. My co-workers don't. I use a project management system (Phabricator, on my own personal server, which I maintain); the company doesn't. For most of t…

[deleted]

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#493

Post by buzzdenver »

someguydave wrote: post #471
buzzdenver wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds more like an option pair for an equity. Both your upside and downside are limited and you get a steady income stream. Slavery is very different.

Except, is your downside really limited? It's true the company must make payroll while you are still employed. However, the employer has the option of firing you. While this might not put in you in debt to the employer's creditors, it does reduce the value of your employment contract to zero AND reduces your attractiveness to future employers. If you only have had one employer for a long period, this is a large blow.…

Your downside is limited to being laid off, so it is limited. They can't go after your personal assets if the company goes bankrupt, or claw back past wages. And a couple of tangential points: 1) Being laid off because your company went under is not a bad black mark on your resume. 2) You have the freedom to terminate your employment at any time just like the company can. That's very different from slavery.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#494

Post by agumonkey »

peteforde wrote: post #119

You know how sometimes you love an article so much that you are annoyed you didn't write it? This does a better job than I could have of tieing together a dozen threads of conversation that I've had with various friends for years. I actually believe that there's a culture war implied in this debate; the question of who deserves to reap the gains of automation is more than just philosophy or ethics. The question "is t…

it's almost spiritual: in an ideal world where I automate everything, what do I do ?

these days I get brain chills whenever I do something un-intellectual but very sensory-based: crafting wood, molding things, taichi..

Work today is a twisted version of sharing group survival/happiness.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#495

Post by femidav »

buboard wrote: post #160
tabtab wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Modern web dev is fantastically more productive and efficient than it was 10 or 15 years ago. I have to disagree. The esthetical expectations of the user/customer are higher now. If it's not "in style" they think you are sticking them with old tech. And you have the desktop/mobile split that frameworks only get half right and require days of black-box fiddling to get working right on all devices. And JavaScript g…

> If it's not "in style" they think you are sticking them with old tech Is that even true? Is there any survey showing that users consider those bad or old tech? Because with things like the reddit, ebay, paypal, gmail redesign, the common thing i ve noticed is that nobody asked for those.

End users very consistently hate breaking changes, regardless design or functional.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#496

Post by Immortalin »

ekzy wrote: post #385
Immortalin wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shameless Plug: https://KloudTrader.com/Narwhal Doesn't make the decisions for you but manages the other 80% of the complexity involved in deploying a trading strategy.

Is it your product? The "get started" buttons don't work. As well as none of the links under "What does Narwhal Offer?"

https://youtu.be/4hfSJ769bDk

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#497

Post by kayge »

ddingus wrote: post #209
peteforde wrote: post #119

You know how sometimes you love an article so much that you are annoyed you didn't write it? This does a better job than I could have of tieing together a dozen threads of conversation that I've had with various friends for years. I actually believe that there's a culture war implied in this debate; the question of who deserves to reap the gains of automation is more than just philosophy or ethics. The question "is t…

I once returned a wallet, cash, everything intact. Called the guy when I found it. He totally panicked. Was odd. When I handed it to him, that face! Worth it. Amazingly, he proceeded to try and give me the cash. Was an effort to decline. At the time, I really needed a warm fuzzy. The lost wallet was a great opportunity, and I got a good one. But, our conversation basically centered on, "who does that?" Indeed. The st…

Hah that's funny... I'm literally sitting here waiting for a call to go meet a guy and return his wallet that I found in the middle of the street. Hope it goes well, not looking for a reward or anything. I've had a variety of lost and found experiences over the years though. Returned a wallet with over $700 to a guy at my gym; he barely even took a second to thank me and just went on with his conversation with someone else. Returned a smartphone to a lady who was mostly shocked (and maybe a little embarrassed about some of the pictures she had on her unlocked phone...). Only regretful experience I've had so far is another time where I turned in a new (at the time) iPhone to a store's customer service counter instead of tracking down the owner myself; I left with a bad feeling that the person behind the counter wasn't going to put as much effort into finding the owner as I would.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#498

Post by tabtab »

femidav wrote: post #495
buboard wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's not "in style" they think you are sticking them with old tech Is that even true? Is there any survey showing that users consider those bad or old tech? Because with things like the reddit, ebay, paypal, gmail redesign, the common thing i ve noticed is that nobody asked for those.

End users very consistently hate breaking changes, regardless design or functional.

True, but it's hard to get new customers unless your "art" keeps up with the Joneses. A revised product is still usually more similar to the last version than another vendor's product such that existing users will usually stick around because a same-vendor overhaul is the least of two evils to them.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#499

Post by ddingus »

kayge wrote: post #497
ddingus wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once returned a wallet, cash, everything intact. Called the guy when I found it. He totally panicked. Was odd. When I handed it to him, that face! Worth it. Amazingly, he proceeded to try and give me the cash. Was an effort to decline. At the time, I really needed a warm fuzzy. The lost wallet was a great opportunity, and I got a good one. But, our conversation basically centered on, "who does that?" Indeed. The st…

Hah that's funny... I'm literally sitting here waiting for a call to go meet a guy and return his wallet that I found in the middle of the street. Hope it goes well, not looking for a reward or anything. I've had a variety of lost and found experiences over the years though. Returned a wallet with over $700 to a guy at my gym; he barely even took a second to thank me and just went on with his conversation with someon…

Your feeling is one I would share. They probably won't.

My experiences are similar. People really vary in their response to a good deed directly favoring them, and I suspect the nature and quantity of deeds they do can be correlated to those responses.

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