The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
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The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
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Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#2I don't think this is exactly true. There are still many COBOL programmers hard at work.
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#3I enjoyed this article. However, haven't many of the core fundamental concepts and abstractions found in computing technologies stayed relatively the same over the past 40 years? Minus the occasional paradigm shift, of course.
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#4I enjoyed this article. However, haven't many of the core fundamental concepts and abstractions found in computing technologies stayed relatively the same over the past 40 years? Minus the occasional paradigm shift, of course.
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... suggests that C and Java are still going strong. Java certainly has evolved quite a bit from the early days, an effect I think the article could have discussed a bit more.
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#5I think it is funny how he sees managers - the ranks of managers include those who could not stay ahead and were flattened by the steamroller. Do managers see themselves that way or in the cab driving the thing?
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#6I think it is funny how he sees managers - the ranks of managers include those who could not stay ahead and were flattened by the steamroller. Do managers see themselves that way or in the cab driving the thing?
Both views are likely correct, in my experience.
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#7Man this is depressing.
I don't want to learn tech because I'm afraid of getting my bones crushed by a steam roller.
I would rather learn tech because of the new and interesting things I can do with it.
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#8This is not specific to coding. My background is in molecular biology and almost everything I have learnt has become worthless because of new techniques - about the only skill I have from my junior years that now has value is how to use a Gilson correctly.
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#9I enjoyed this article. However, haven't many of the core fundamental concepts and abstractions found in computing technologies stayed relatively the same over the past 40 years? Minus the occasional paradigm shift, of course.
I agree. The core fundamental concepts and abstractions are relatively stable (most innovation seems to be happening in the Haskell/FP camp), as well as the programming languages being used. Even the newer widely-used languages (Javascript, Python, etc.) are old by now.
What changes are lot are the actual frameworks and libraries. E.g., while Java is twenty years old now, Hadoop, JAX-RS, Hibernate, etc. did not exist then. And while Java will probably still be in wide use in twenty years, those libraries and frameworks will have been replaced except in legacy code.
I think the only 'platform' that has been stable for ever is UNIX. People are still using libc, POSIX (ok, SUS), etc.
Re: The Programming Steamroller Waits For No One (2013)
#10There is no steamroller.
I know many programmers feel this way, but in my humble opinion it is a fallacy, and not a very healthy one.
No-one can deny that our industry is evolving at breakneck speed, and it is an exhilarating place to be. But just because there's a new technology every week on HN doesn't mean that we are losing old ones at a similar rate.
It is perfectly possible to have done nothing but C or Java for your entire career and yet remain extremely employable. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are highly paid COBOL jobs still out there, nursing some vast banking-industry mainframe which is too precious to risk replacing.
In fact I'm hard pressed to think of any programming language which I would dare declare 'dead' in a HN comment.
But even if you're a specialist in something which you feel is in decline, or for which there are newer, snazzier replacements, you've got every opportunity to learn something new, taking as long as you like to do so. There's extensive documentation for every technology under the sun available for free on the internet, and an army of friendly, helpful people willing to provide help and advice without expecting anything in return.
In fact, it's entirely possible you could even get paid to cross-train. In my own company we use RoR for which (in England at least) demand far outstrips supply. I've paid PHP developers to learn Rails, and I would consider anyone with an in-depth knowledge of any language as potentially employable.
Really, the only way an experienced developer is going to end up flipping burgers or flying a manager's desk is because they have lost the desire to learn - ie fallen out of love with programming in general. I believe few people work in this industry for money alone - you either love programming or you don't do it - and if you love it then you will pick up new technologies out of sheer intellectual curiosity.
Feverishly reading HN every day and feeling threatened by the emergence of every new 'next best thing' is not a good idea. I would advise anyone feeling this way to take a chill pill and remember why they took up programming in the first place.