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Poll: Are you a Programmer?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?

#81

Post by rmc »

dkersten wrote: post #46
mechanical_fish wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tallies with my pet hypothesis about programmer career paths. It is commonly observed that programming is a young person's game: there are lots of teenage and twenty something programmers but fewer and fewer as you look at older and older age groups. This is sometimes blamed on age discrimination, and sometimes on the idea that programming is an exceptionally terrible career. My hypothesis is that the "problem"…

you can find lots of business and professional opportunities We (Python Ireland user group members) recently held our own PyCon and I got chatting to a recruiter who confirmed what I was already thinking: that the "recession" hasn't really affected software devlopment jobs. Apparently there are loads of development jobs out there that pay above average. But, like you said, few of them have "programmer" job titles.

Yes there are loads of programming jobs in Ireland, which should help since I'm looking for a python job soon myself!

Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?

#82

Post by dkersten »

rmc wrote: post #81
dkersten wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can find lots of business and professional opportunities We (Python Ireland user group members) recently held our own PyCon and I got chatting to a recruiter who confirmed what I was already thinking: that the "recession" hasn't really affected software devlopment jobs. Apparently there are loads of development jobs out there that pay above average. But, like you said, few of them have "programmer" job titles.

Yes there are loads of programming jobs in Ireland, which should help since I'm looking for a python job soon myself!

Were you at PyCon Ireland last weekend? If you were, I was the guy that looked passed out form lack of sleep :-D

If not, you'll be happy to know that the Python job market is growing. A lot of the government type organisations seem to be switching from legacy systems to Python-based web apps. For example, a friend works for the Royal College of Surgeons replacing their legacy systems with a Django based web app.

Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?

#83

Post by derefr »

nostrademons wrote: post #42
detst wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, there was one recent feature I was involved in that was universally lauded as being a fun little easter egg, yet wasted several million hours of productivity worldwide. Pac-man?

Yup.

Ah, in that case, I should add a third possibility: in any large-enough user population (where the users could theoretically switch to an alternative—not like, say, an enterprise Lotus Notes installation) there will form a small, yet vocal, counterculture that dislikes every change you make to the software, no matter how small.

They do this not because it affects their productivity negatively (they have even less of an idea about their individual productivity than you do), but rather because it is a hit to their familiarity, and an easy rallying point to demonstrate their "consumer identity" to others. Facebook has gotten the most unlucky with this kind of problem (I think because Facebook's core 15-25 demographic are the most likely group to protest, riot, and generally shout at things), but Google has it nearly as bad, being the "front page" of the Internet to many.

Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?

#84

Post by rmc »

dkersten wrote: post #82
rmc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there are loads of programming jobs in Ireland, which should help since I'm looking for a python job soon myself!

Were you at PyCon Ireland last weekend? If you were, I was the guy that looked passed out form lack of sleep :-D If not, you'll be happy to know that the Python job market is growing. A lot of the government type organisations seem to be switching from legacy systems to Python-based web apps. For example, a friend works for the Royal College of Surgeons replacing their legacy systems with a Django based web app.

No, alas I wasn't at PyCon, I was at the Ubuntu-ie geeknic instead. I'm glad to hear python jobs are available, should make a change from all this PHP at the moment.
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