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Hyperbole. Programming is a fraction of the jobs in this economy, and it's not even the largest employer when it comes to STEM. People in medicine, finance, or

Hyperbole. Programming is a fraction of the jobs in this economy, and it's not even the largest employer when it comes to STEM. People in medicine, finance, or small business don't need to code.

Alex3917 11y ago
> Programming is a fraction of the jobs in this economy Yeah, but they're the fraction that don't suck and aren't going away in ten years. And again, most people with jobs that require knowing how to code aren't actually developers. E.g. it's difficult to get hired as a customer retention marketer without knowing how to code, but most of those folks also aren't coding on a regular basis, if ever. It's just that when you have 500+ people applying for any decent job, the person who thought it wasn't a good use of their time to spend 3 months teaching themselves to code is almost always going to lose out to one of the other folks who did, just on the off chance that those skills actually come in handy or whatever. Is it unfair? Maybe. But that's just how it works. If you were to look at my HN comments from the early days of the site, you'd see that I was pretty much the poster child for saying that learning to code wasn't necessary. And back then I don't think it was, because the tools were so shitty that to be any good at it pretty much meant that you had to forgo being good at anything else, including other skills that were potentially much more valuable like business or marketing or whatever. And it's hard to pinpoint exactly when, but at some point over the past ten years that has definitely changed.
- username223 11y ago
  What even is a "customer retention marketer"? Is that the person who tries to prevent you from canceling your Comcast cable when you call Comcast to try to cancel your cable? I guarantee that those people just need to suppress their shame and sometimes pretend not to understand English.
  - Alex3917 11y ago
    More like someone who is halfway between a data analyst and an email marketer. E.g. they do things like cohort analysis, but also send out email blasts to increase engagement.
    - username223 11y ago
      So "spammer." Got it.

Hyperbole. Programming is a fraction of the jobs in this economy, and it's not even the largest employer when it comes to STEM. People in medicine, finance, or small business don't need to code.

Alex3917 11y ago

> Programming is a fraction of the jobs in this economy Yeah, but they're the fraction that don't suck and aren't going away in ten years. And again, most people with jobs that require knowing how to code aren't actually developers. E.g. it's difficult to get hired as a customer retention marketer without knowing how to code, but most of those folks also aren't coding on a regular basis, if ever. It's just that when you have 500+ people applying for any decent job, the person who thought it wasn't a good use of their time to spend 3 months teaching themselves to code is almost always going to lose out to one of the other folks who did, just on the off chance that those skills actually come in handy or whatever. Is it unfair? Maybe. But that's just how it works. If you were to look at my HN comments from the early days of the site, you'd see that I was pretty much the poster child for saying that learning to code wasn't necessary. And back then I don't think it was, because the tools were so shitty that to be any good at it pretty much meant that you had to forgo being good at anything else, including other skills that were potentially much more valuable like business or marketing or whatever. And it's hard to pinpoint exactly when, but at some point over the past ten years that has definitely changed.

username223 11y ago
What even is a "customer retention marketer"? Is that the person who tries to prevent you from canceling your Comcast cable when you call Comcast to try to cancel your cable? I guarantee that those people just need to suppress their shame and sometimes pretend not to understand English.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  More like someone who is halfway between a data analyst and an email marketer. E.g. they do things like cohort analysis, but also send out email blasts to increase engagement.
  - username223 11y ago
    So "spammer." Got it.