Times are great for programmers now. How does it end? • Hacker News Board

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#501

Post by pydry » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

tarsinge wrote: post #496

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

The problem is programmers are relatively immature regarding business, and confuse hobby programming with professional programming. Lawyers might like reading laws, but they are hired for winning a case. Programmers will continue to need non programmers to tell them what to do until they truly accept that code is just a mean to an end and that they are really hired to add business value. The test is simple: are they…

Lawyers arent just hired to win cases just as programmers arent just hired to "make things work".

Theyre hired to advise, to negotiate contracts and ensure compliance with existing and upcoming laws.

It has a lot in common with programming on a systemic level, I think.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#502

Post by Aeolun » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:43 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #445

Dave3of5 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For non-tech people the code should be a black box they shouldn't know the internal details. In terms of refactoring there is no way to give a Cost Benefit analysis as that's too subjective. This should be a maintenance cost that's factored into the project at a high level. So you would say there a X days per year (normally about 20%) of the working days of the year spent on maintenance. Company I'm at has this and i…

> For non-tech people the code should be a black box they shouldn't know the internal details. Ideally, yes, though in practice this usually breaks in various ways, especially when problems occur. E.g. the President of a country probably doesn't need to be a firefighter, but if there's suddenly a massive fire, I assume he'd need to be briefed in far more detail to help call shots around the type of response. > In ter…

> I assume he'd need to be briefed in far more detail to help call shots around the type of response.

I feel like this is something a lot of presidents (or VP’s, or Directors, etc.) think, but really, instead of taking time away from the professionals doing the fighting to explain to them the minutiae of blowback, the best thing they can do is say “I trust you, put it out.” And then leave the pros to do their job.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#503

Post by augusto-moura » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

tarsinge wrote: post #496

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

The problem is programmers are relatively immature regarding business, and confuse hobby programming with professional programming. Lawyers might like reading laws, but they are hired for winning a case. Programmers will continue to need non programmers to tell them what to do until they truly accept that code is just a mean to an end and that they are really hired to add business value. The test is simple: are they…

I see software engineering more like architecture or civil engineering, even though you are skilled and have your own opinions you still need to hear your clients and have managers to take some decisions. I agree that the management relationship in the building sector is very different though, micro management is the worst

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#504

Post by meowzero » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #415

zerr wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always a status meeting, even if it is advocated as not being so.

it's only a status meeting for management if management insists on being there. kick them out.

I've been in teams with just developers, being siloed from non-programmers, with a technical manager. It still becomes a status meeting. We can tell them DSU aren't supposed to be status meeting, but it still devolves into one.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#505

Post by disambiguation » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #105

balaji1 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A supply factor that this article doesn't consider - a big chunk of the new wave of graduates are software engineers in different parts of the world. And building a team in those countries will be a big trend. Rippling did this well, building a team in India. That should reduce the comp in the Bay Area.

People have been predicting that outsourcing would lower US salaries and take US jobs for over 20 years and it hasn't happened. Nothing is different now.

This is what's very different now:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/792074/india-internet-pe...

2009: 5%

2020: 50%

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#506

Post by dahart » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

cudgy wrote: post #321

dahart wrote: post #188

> I can’t think of a single product that was able to get to any meaningful degree of success running on top of some low code platform. I don’t know if this is just wildly ignorant or intentionally misleading, but thousands (maybe millions?) of businesses and organizations run low code platforms to develop their internal DBs and inventory and POS systems, among other things. Access and FileMaker are well known example…

The low code examples listed are not code. They are forms that essentially pull data from a database and display it with little if any interaction, validation, and/or processing. These tools have been available for decades.

Right, and this is exactly what the author was referring to and claiming has never worked. The claim by the author included all “no code” platforms, so both sides of the line you’re splitting.

MS Access certainly is a coding environment though, enough so that there’s some debate over whether it’s “low code” or not. It comes with a programming language and APIs. Same goes for something like GameMaker. Perhaps by definition low-code and no-code platforms are typically quite domain specific. And lots of no code platforms grow into low code over time to evolve into adding more control but not get so technical that they need people with CS degrees.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#507

Post by 300bps » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

tupac_speedrap wrote: post #45

300bps wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it ends with everyone becoming a developer Not in a million years. When I was 10 I got my first computer and spent 12-16 hours per day on it every day learning BASIC, 6502 Assembly and many other languages. All the adults at the time thought, “this is how all kids will be from now on!” Except none of my peers did it. The generation after me only had a small percentage of people truly interested in computers a…

How is not touching a programming language until college a bad thing? Some people just want to make a living out of software engineering and then go home and they aren't sweating over Web 4.0 or whatever we are on now.

How is not touching a programming language until college a bad thing?

I am the OP you're asking this of and I don't think first touching a programming language in college is a bad thing. And I also don't subscribe to the belief that learning has to become more difficult as you age.

What I was doing however was responding to the statement, "I think it ends with everyone becoming a developer". The reality is that almost all people have no interest in becoming a software developer. Most software developers have no idea this is true, but it is. This doesn't make most people's lives less valid or make them "dumber" or anything else pejorative - they're just different.

On the one hand you have people like me who stared fascinated watching my 5th grade teacher program a VIC-20 in Commodore BASIC that led my parents to invest a giant sum of money into buying a Commodore 64 for Christmas when I was 10. To give me a 300 baud modem when I was 13. I couldn't afford to buy computer books in the mall bookstores so I would go to a "book warehouse" near me as often as I could and I tell you I would literally get butterflies in my stomach as I approached the computer book section. I wrote my own BBS program at 14. In 1988 I read the Waite Group's Turbo-C Bible cover to cover repeatedly.

There are people out there who get just as excited about and have as much proficiency with bass guitars. I have a good friend that is like that. I respect his ability and interests as much as I hope people respect mine.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#508

Post by mooreds » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

> we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, and turn bosses into customers.

I've definitely seen a number of consulting companies follow this pattern. This is one successful business pattern, no reason why more devs can't do this.

However, someone needs to be the sales person and moves away from programming. Does that happen in law offices as well? (I believe so, but that is mostly from reading, not first hand experience. See also https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rainmaker )

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#509

Post by 88913527 » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

berkes wrote: post #481

Author overlooks three important things. First, with amount of software engineers doubling every ~5 years, there is mostly a shortage in software developers with experience . Someone has to teach. Someone has to steer, make decisions based on knowledge, someone has to design architectures, know what coupling matters, what patterns apply, what type of solutions will haunt you later on, etc. etc. etc. No junior can do…

If a low code tool can overcome the inner platform effect, then they'd win. But if you want all the paradigms like version control and what not, then code is the best tool for a representation that interop's with the rest of your non-functional requirements. Maybe we need to embrace coding a little more. Not the people in this forum, but the people trying to show us some sort of better "no code" way.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#510

Post by musingsole » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #480

rixed wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only are devs micromanaged by any figure of authority with not much tech knowledge and sometime not even business knowledge and freshly landed from a different industry, if not from school, but devs are also happy to be, quite frankly, considered as mere children. Other skilled professions do not either communicate with memes, have slides and swings in the office (as seen in some Google offices), etc. If part of…

I've said it before that these "copy paste" and "stack overflow" memes reflect badly on us. People don't realise that others are forming real life opinions on these memes.

> People don't realise that others are forming real life opinions on these memes.

Maybe, but if any non-developer internalizes a worldview from those memes...that really just means they're blind to the usually worse offenses in other careers. While not perfect, measuring programmer productivity is infinitely easier than a long list of other job roles. At the top of that list is "middle manager".

We take hits on the chin about elitism, sexism, whatever other low-point of human nature. Meanwhile, whoever is spewing the critique fails to notice that in practically any other role, the *-isms are worse and harder to prove.