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If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

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Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#91

Post by SudarshanP »

The lawyers/MBAs and doctors will be disrupted. This is already happening... Then they will be on the streets. all the low level jobs in Backoffice and law is getting outsourced. So if u r getting into law... u should actually be capable of creating value. Just look at all those industries that Apple Amazon etc are disrupting... No Newspaper also means the news paper does not need expensive lawyers, MBAs etc. Of course you could say Apple,Amazon,Google etc. will need the lawyers MBAs etc. But these few players need far less external help and glue coz they have captured most of the supply chain.

Imagine a device where u put a drop of blood/urine etc and out pops a diagnosis. Imagine a pharma company in a box which synthesizes a medicine on demand using basic raw materials. Then there are diagnostic solutions like IBMs Watson...

Education and healthcare will take much longer than Print/Retail/Music/Advertising/Communications to get disrupted... When these get disrupted, they will hurt more than they needed to coz of enjoying the protectionism.

There will always be demand for Good Doctors/Teachers/Programmers/Lawyers/MBAs... But those whose existence depends solely depends on protectionism or monopolies are going to see their jobs disrupted.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#92

Post by gaius »

vorg wrote: post #72
benmmurphy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he does have a point. lawyers and doctors both work in industries that are protected. anybody can come off the street and start slinging code. you can't come off the street and start lawyering and doing surgery even if you were more capable than the average doctor or lawyer.

Consider this quote from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html about the Space Shuttle software (which has been on Hacker News before)... """But how much work the software does is not what makes it remarkable. What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have a…

Even require software to meet a certain SEI ranking, depending on the industry.

Anyone who's worked with a CMM level 5 certified organization knows how laughable that suggestion is. On-board Shuttle Group are undoubtedly top-notch. But any random Bangalore bodyshop has CMM level 5 too.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#93

Post by gaius »

shawnjan8 wrote: post #22

Dare I say it... but could part of the problem be a complete lack of unions? Not to suggest every programmer who wants a job needs to join a union, but AFAIK there are very little programming jobs which are part of a union. Here are some thoughts. The reason hockey players have agents is because the hockey players focus on playing hockey, while the agent focuses on understanding how much value the player brings to th…

Programmers do not seem to have this

Sure we do. They're called recruiters, and they're paid a percentage of your starting salary as commission by the hiring organization.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#94

Post by patio11 »

arethuza wrote: post #76
roel_v wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but had never stopped to think about the fact that the other alumni of my school who became doctors are making far more." A CS degree, which many programmers don't even have, takes 4 years. There are quite a few 'programming' jobs for which having a CS degree is being overqualified , but let's say that a CS degree is the baseline. To become an MD, with the specialties that pay the amounts mentioned here, one needs t…

I honestly think that most people in the software field have no idea of the level of personal responsibility that junior doctors and lawyers are given and what that can mean in terms of stress levels.

To be fair, not every programmer faces "Oh noes I will lose a cat picture" as their maximum possible downside when coding.

I worked in a town where programming errors could easily causes crashes. There was talk of that actually happening once, although on investigation that probably wasn't actually true. When I say "crashes", the hardware at issue would routinely way several tons and be moving at 60+ miles an hour.

I do not mean to cast any aspersions on the huge levels of responsibility and mental stress involved in reviewing purchasing contracts.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#95

Post by gaius »

BasDirks wrote: post #49

As a doctor, however, someone like this - a top professional at the peak of their career - would probably make about $400,000. Yes, but doctors have the most important skills I can think of. Don't think so? I'll come ask again when one of your family members gets cancer. Coding and hacking have yet to grow to anywhere near their potential awesomeness.

Show me the doctor who never uses software to do their jobs.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#96

Post by beezee »

One major flaw with comparing programmers to doctors and lawyers is that there's no acknowledgement of liability. It is far more often the case that a lousy lawyer or doctor puts lives at risk than it is a lousy programmer does, and liability is one of the most justified determinants for compensation.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#98

Post by maxaf »

roel_v wrote: post #62
bignoggins wrote: post #18

I think one of the reasons programmers are not paid as much is that by and large, we are seen as interchangeable cogs. There are definitely exceptions, but I think the companies that think this way are large enough to set the market rate. For example, I used to work for a large defense company that probably had more software engineers than every startup in the world combined (we hired 10% of all CS graduates in the c…

The thing is that programmers largely are interchangeable. Of course, you are a special snowflake etc; but at the end, the majority of programmers do repeatable, simple work, e.g. writing line-of-business Java applications, maintenance work like adapting Cobol code to work with new tax rules, writing generic GUI's that work just well enough to justify the expense given that the app has only a few 10's or 100's of use…

> you can get a new programmer who has had a 2 year degree in programming and 6 months of training on the specific technology up to speed in such a project in a week.

And this is how crap code comes to be.

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#99

Post by [deleted] »

patio11 wrote: post #94
arethuza wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think that most people in the software field have no idea of the level of personal responsibility that junior doctors and lawyers are given and what that can mean in terms of stress levels.

To be fair, not every programmer faces "Oh noes I will lose a cat picture" as their maximum possible downside when coding. I worked in a town where programming errors could easily causes crashes. There was talk of that actually happening once, although on investigation that probably wasn't actually true. When I say "crashes", the hardware at issue would routinely way several tons and be moving at 60+ miles an hour. I…

[deleted]

Re: If Software Is Eating The World, Why Don't Coders Get Any Respect?

#100

Post by BasDirks »

gaius wrote: post #95
BasDirks wrote: post #49

As a doctor, however, someone like this - a top professional at the peak of their career - would probably make about $400,000. Yes, but doctors have the most important skills I can think of. Don't think so? I'll come ask again when one of your family members gets cancer. Coding and hacking have yet to grow to anywhere near their potential awesomeness.

Show me the doctor who never uses software to do their jobs.

I think programmers who put their skills to use for such purposes should indeed get better pay.
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