Can someone who has experienced "social stigma of being a programmer" share what's it like?
well the NO 2 guy at BT labs (the uk equivalent of Bell labs) was confused with a car mechanic when he said he was an engineer.
Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
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Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#72[deleted]
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#73As usual for HN, all of the most upvoted replies disagree with the article. Let me play devil's advocate and not disagree. Sure, the analogy isn't perfect, but what happens if we take the idea seriously? [1] Isn't it amazing, the lack of sacrifice necessary to make fat stacks of cash writing software? Even when law school was thought of as a golden ticket, it was a lottery, and to win, you had to sacrifice your perso…
Exactly. I came upon this conclusion back in 2009. It took me six months to emotionally accept it, and when I did, the conclusion I came up with is to hasten it. To deliberately write myself out of a career.
So yes! Build up your network, build up your resources. Enjoy the good times and store things up during the times of abundance. Figure out how to completely replace having a job as your source of income (that is, you might still have to work, but you wouldn't necessarily have a job). Solve hard problems. Those problems might not necessarily be in software.
"Winter is coming" :-D
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#74Happy Labor Day!
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#75The thing about development, and it certainly may slow down eventually, especially as Moore's law staggers to a halt and broadband peaks, is that no matter what I build, everybody always, always, always wants more. Every framework I ever developed or integrated was met with a doubling of people's expectations. Make it better, make it slicker, give me this feature, et cetera. I think we've got between 40 and 50 years…
> especially as Moore's law staggers to a halt
It hasn't even begun to slow yet, has it?
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#76The points seem all logical on the surface. There's just one thing that makes me disagree with the article as a whole. The software industry doesn't behave like any other industry. The industry changes and fluctuates as often as software gets refactored. It's like a billion springs permeating a billion sponges. It's silly putty for computers. I saw this coming reading articles about software as a kid. The one rule th…
Yes production line industry with semi skilled labor is very very different beast to the IT industry trying to use two wildly different industries and draw analogies is a losing game.
web development which the author comes from is a tiny part of the IT industry as a whole.
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm told that CS enrollments are now at record highs Given the high dropout rate of anyone attempting to learn programming, I don't think enrollment rate is good metric. > What's the barrier to entry that's keeping us from being flooded with supply? Programming is hard; really f'ing hard, for most people because it requires critical thinking continually and learning continually.
Stop patting yourself on the back. Seriously . Because obviously, no other job requires critical thinking and learning continually . These are "skills" that are in no way related to programming, and do not explain an inclination towards CS rather than any other science or the myriad of other academic disciplines. And even outside academia, not every job is just that of the "sheeple" who "mindlessly" "slug away" in th…
Arrogant, maybe, but there is at least a kernel of truth.
I've done a lot of trades. I'm not a master level craftsman or anything, but I can build a house to code using just my current knowledge. The only thing I've never done is masonry, but I'm told it's not too tough. So that includes carpentry, electric, plumbing, fine wood working if you want things like molding and wainscoting, and more. I'm a very good but not quite great artist as well.
None of those things is as difficult, conceptually, as programming is. You live in a bubble surrounded by very smart people, so I honestly think you overestimate people's capacity for abstract thought. I'm confident that pretty much any programmer could learn to be a plumber if they cared to, but the reverse is not true.
And I'll go a step farther and say that while "easy stuff" like basic web development is out of the range of most people, the harder stuff like algorithms, game engines, embedded systems, is in another universe. No amount of training could help for a very large proportion of the population.
It's not popular to say because we like to think everyone's a special snowflake with some predetermined number of "ability points," just allocated differently, but the bell curve is real and some people just can't do what we do.
The reason we are currently enjoying an alternative employment universe, insulated from the rest of the economy, is that the mass of unemployed people predominantly couldn't break into this field if they wanted to.
If they could, they damn well would.
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#78It's already happening. As a freelancer, I often find people who want their "corporate" site built in WordPress for less money than what they would pay to a car mechanic for a similar amount of time worked. Sames goes for Magento and similar platforms.
If you are talking about the front end of a corporate site then sure, you can do that in WP. Don't think many would though; maybe for the grocery shop, but other than that? Even relatively small businesses in my neighborhood with not much cash to spend start out with a 'cheap WP' site, but then they want reservation systems integrated with their CRM. They want a live chat system. Integrated with their CRM. They want…
I was surprised to see a multi-million dollar corporation (nameless) using wordpress. It's slow and bloated but I guess it gets the job done. Naturally they went to someone and said they needed a site, then that someone did what they do best and installed wordpress with some theme. Naturally when it came time to make certain changes or something broke the installer couldn't do anything about it. This is a B2B company and I doubt any sales come from their site so from a business point of view it's understandable how a cheap WP installation got there. However, in my experience it always turns out being more expensive down the road. There's money to be made with broken wordpress installations and moving sites off wordpress altogether.
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#79As usual for HN, all of the most upvoted replies disagree with the article. Let me play devil's advocate and not disagree. Sure, the analogy isn't perfect, but what happens if we take the idea seriously? [1] Isn't it amazing, the lack of sacrifice necessary to make fat stacks of cash writing software? Even when law school was thought of as a golden ticket, it was a lottery, and to win, you had to sacrifice your perso…
> I'm told that CS enrollments are now at record highs Given the high dropout rate of anyone attempting to learn programming, I don't think enrollment rate is good metric. > What's the barrier to entry that's keeping us from being flooded with supply? Programming is hard; really f'ing hard, for most people because it requires critical thinking continually and learning continually.
>Given the high dropout rate of anyone attempting to learn programming
Its about the same as any other major. I googled around and found the 1999 cohort for Southeast Louisiana University (no particular reason, just google found it easily...) and they tracked freshmen's declared major and what they actually graduated with, if anything, after six years.
In comp sci, it is true that 93% of self declared freshman comp sci majors failed to achieve a BSCS degree within six years aka dropped out (well, at least dropped out of the BSCS program..)
Before you start cheering, lets check some other stats. In the school of nursing, 88% dropped out. In accounting, 83% dropped out. In criminal justice 93% dropped out. In psychology, 90% dropped out. CS is only a couple percentage points harder. I don't see how you can justify from an engineering perspective reporting so many sig figs when the sample size is so small. For all practical purposes, the dropout rate for all majors is about 85%, and none are much higher or lower.
Its pretty unusual not to switch majors. (Pointless Anecdote Time) I didn't go to the particular school listed above, but I was a ChemEng in my freshman year and eventually (took awhile) graduated with a BSCS and almost enough EE classes to double major (which is partially why it took so long).
Re: Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
#80The thing about development, and it certainly may slow down eventually, especially as Moore's law staggers to a halt and broadband peaks, is that no matter what I build, everybody always, always, always wants more. Every framework I ever developed or integrated was met with a doubling of people's expectations. Make it better, make it slicker, give me this feature, et cetera. I think we've got between 40 and 50 years…
> especially as Moore's law staggers to a halt It hasn't even begun to slow yet, has it?
For the last 5 years , or even more it has slowed considerably. Nvidia even claimed in a famous article that next generation manufacturing processes have no price benefit.