The next big blue collar job is coding
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Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#2Considering the quality of the code I see currently and the costs created by that technical debt I'm not sure if becoming less elitist will be a good thing. Instead of all these code camps, I can't help but wonder if we could get 90% of the value and 10% of the problems if we taught people shell scripting instead of programming.
It looks like wireds ad-blocker blocker has been circumvented now at least.
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#3Considering the quality of the code I see currently and the costs created by that technical debt I'm not sure if becoming less elitist will be a good thing. Instead of all these code camps, I can't help but wonder if we could get 90% of the value and 10% of the problems if we taught people shell scripting instead of programming. It looks like wireds ad-blocker blocker has been circumvented now at least.
The nice thing about software projects is that they're easily replaceable. They can be treated as any other business asset in that you can hire a shop to develop them or do it in-house. So long as you have enough business eyes on the process then it works. Expensive, but it works. Businesses are used to expensive.
The real value of good code is way, way less than developers would like to believe. This is coming from someone who is damn near a perfectionist about code. I have to constantly check myself and ask whether whatever I'm demanding we spend time and effort on is really worth it from a business perspective. Occasionally it is, most of the time it's not.
If coding wasn't the thing I could make the most money with at this point in time, I'd do something else and code free software as a hobby. At least free software really benefits from great code practice.
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#4Considering the quality of the code I see currently and the costs created by that technical debt I'm not sure if becoming less elitist will be a good thing. Instead of all these code camps, I can't help but wonder if we could get 90% of the value and 10% of the problems if we taught people shell scripting instead of programming. It looks like wireds ad-blocker blocker has been circumvented now at least.
Also: shell scripting is programming.
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#5I've had this thought before. What's software development if not a trade? I don't want to say that work gets dumbed down, but one hundred years ago a store clerk was a solidly middle-class job, now it's not.
Maybe a more relevant example. My grandfather was an accountant. What he did for most of his career, bookkeepers do now. What he did at the end of his career was basically law and banking. The electronic spreadsheet took care the gruntwork he used to do
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#6Considering the quality of the code I see currently and the costs created by that technical debt I'm not sure if becoming less elitist will be a good thing. Instead of all these code camps, I can't help but wonder if we could get 90% of the value and 10% of the problems if we taught people shell scripting instead of programming. It looks like wireds ad-blocker blocker has been circumvented now at least.
The nice thing about software projects is that they're easily replaceable. They can be treated as any other business asset in that you can hire a shop to develop them or do it in-house. So long as you have enough business eyes on the process then it works. Expensive, but it works. Businesses are used to expensive. The real value of good code is way, way less than developers would like to believe. This is coming from…
as a general rule, i think the quality of the code matters more as more things depend on it, so i think you need to temper your statement a bit- the value of good code depends greatly on what its being used for.
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#7Considering the quality of the code I see currently and the costs created by that technical debt I'm not sure if becoming less elitist will be a good thing. Instead of all these code camps, I can't help but wonder if we could get 90% of the value and 10% of the problems if we taught people shell scripting instead of programming. It looks like wireds ad-blocker blocker has been circumvented now at least.
I think the article is trying to argue that we should embrace the bifurcation of the tech industry. It's pretty fair to say most software developers don't need a full computer science education. In my view, web development is especially vulnerable to continued commoditization. It makes sense to optimize the lower hanging fruit among programming jobs - aside from perpetuating high (arguably, inefficiently so) salaries, the barrier to entry really doesn't need to be as high as it is now. That's not to say coding bootcamps are the answer, but vocational training is at least a step in the right direction.
From one perspective, this would be good because driving down barriers to entry will theoretically increase jobs and reduce costs. From another, it's obviously not great for web developers who are highly paid, though it could theoretically raise salaries even higher for the fewer highly trained engineers who actually require a computer science education.
Either way, I think the industry would need to substantially change before the less complex/more rote programming jobs could be subsumed into vocational training. It would require a pretty significant cultural shift.
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#8From Scott Adams:
"If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:
1. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.
The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.
The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.
I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge."
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/care...
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#9There has been a "blue collar" coder for a long time, maybe always. It's all about "sandboxes", by which I mean the area the programmer is concerned with. If the sandbox of a programmer's job is in one language, say Java, and it's only writing unit tests to test other people's code, the programmer is very limited in what they are responsible for, and the cost of their mistakes is very low. Yet just writing unit tests that cover code, even if they aren't brilliant tests, certainly has value. And the number of people who can be taught to write unit tests is much higher than the number of people who can be taught to write the application itself. And the person is still a professional programmer, but they are paid less, and are less talented than other programmers. But they still make decent money and likely find this work more intellectually stimulating than selling insurance or whatever.
I think a lot of people who are professional programmers find programming itself scary. Programming is a hard thing to do, and ace programmer's are very opinionated, smart, logical, and can spot non-ace programmer's pretty easily. Or maybe it's just that people are naturally lazy and don't want to get out of their comfort zone. Whatever the reason, many programmers work in one language, in one product, then try and stay in it forever. Then they get laid off after 10 or 15 years and find it quite hard to find a new job.
When hiring people, I'll come across this type of resume, where they focused in some super-niche proprietary tech for many years and are unfamiliar with the latest trends, and usually are asking for a below-average salary. I have interviewed a few, and their lack of talent is so glaringly obvious I feel bad for them. But someone will probably hire them, probably the companies that think that all programmers are replaceable widgets.
In summary, "blue collar" programmers already exist, it's just the author who thought he made some stunning realization, which isn't new.
Re: The next big blue collar job is coding
#10The big problem with this is that we're already competing to some extent with outsourcing shops in China and India and this trend is more likely to grow than not. While I believe there will always be an incentive to keep these jobs in-house and local, there is no reason to think it will grow to the extent that middle class blue collar work did through the industrial revolution.