5 ms·

Over the course of the next century programming will become a blue collar profession. Children who develop an interest in programming will become about as comm

by Crito 11y ago

Over the course of the next century programming will become a blue collar profession. Children who develop an interest in programming will become about as common as children who are interested in tablesaws or cutting torches.

ekianjo 11y ago
> Over the course of the next century programming will become a blue collar profession more kids than ever have access to computing devices (tablets and smartphones) but very few actually know how to do anything with them at all. I don't see that future you are talking about.
cm2187 11y ago
Programming is more akin to engineering than factory working. Languages are getting simpler and more powerful but programs are getting more complex. 15 years ago a typical developper didn't need to worry about multithreading, connectivity or security. It's fundamentally an intellectual job and will remain.
- Luc 11y ago
  From my Western European point of view, I see a lot of these intellectual jobs being outsourced to Slovenia, Poland and even the Philippines. I am advising my kids to have good technical skills but also great people skills.
  - hvidgaard 11y ago
    Outsourcing has its uses, but the majority of programming jobs cannot be oursourced, and with time it will become even less profitable to do. However, programming any major system today does require extensive knowledge and I dare say a CS degree as well. It's becoming more and more like an engineering discipline, and as such I think we're going to see a shift towards programming being something you need a college degree to perform.
    - mattmanser 11y ago
      Programming a major system has absolutely no need of a CS degree. I know and have worked with programmers with and without a CS degree (I'm one of the ones without). As far as I can tell it's no indicator of programmer skill at all.
      - wernercd 11y ago
        The issue is the "maturity" of programming as a complete field. Not only is it a "young" (decades old vs say construction) but it's changing dramatically year over year - whats asked for today is different that 5 years ago... what's acceptable 10 years ago is a deathtrap today. With that being said, how can colleges REALLY train? I got trained at my local community college a few years back (2008-2010) in VB and Cobol. How fast can most places REALLY respond to a moving target like this? Also, a degree is no indication of programming skill... but neither is having a job. You can churn out code, hopping from one place to another, and still be a shitty programmer. That's one of the biggest issues... How can you REALLY tell what someone is going to produce? There are no consistent certification processes and no consistent measure of what makes a good programmer.
      - CrLf 11y ago
        Just like building a skyscraper doesn't require a degree. You don't need a degree to lay bricks, pour cement or assemble rebar. But you do if you're the one designing the structure in the first place. There is a lot of knowledge to be gained by experience, but sometimes it's useful to have knowledge gained from books, and in particular from books you had no interest reading in the first place (which is the real value of a degree: forcing you to go through a process that includes stuff you like and stuff you dislike).
        teacup50 11y ago
        Books are not the sole property of colleges.
        CrLf 11y ago
  - noarchy 11y ago
    North American (Canada to be exact) here. I'm seeing jobs being outsourced by some of our local shops to places like Armenia and Romania. You can hire very competent developers on the cheap (relative to North America, at least). I expect more of this in the future.
  - adrianN 11y ago
    So? It's not like the people in Slovenia, Poland, or the Philippines are less intelligent or less well educated than people from Western Europe.
    - Luc 11y ago
      So? So my kids don't live in a low wage country and will need to differentiate themselves to keep making the big bucks.
    - Crito 11y ago
      They are just as smart, but due to the nature of their economies, they can out compete on cost.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - _nedR 11y ago
    You advised your kids well, but if this study is to believed, intellectual (including programming jobs) are here to stay for a bit longer : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - ajuc 11y ago
    As a developer from Poland: why is that relevant that these jobs are outsourced? They don't disappear, just move. Also "even" is a little harsh, don't you think?
- dagw 11y ago
  The future probably won't be 15 highly educated, highly paid developers working on a simple web app like today. It will be 1 highly educated, highly paid developers guiding 15 lower paid 'blue collar' developers in developing a web app.
  - cm2187 11y ago
    I don't really believe in the "blue collar" part but I think engineering may give us a clue. You have a small number of highly educated engineers working on tough problems: aeronautics, complex structural issues, etc. But the average electric or electronic board in a home appliance is not designed by sophisticated engineers, rather by a mid range average university graduate or sometimes even a technician. But we need the tools to get there. Easy languages, technologies that are immune to basic security risks, and that provide safe ways to do multi-threading easily. Right now we are in the unsustainable position where the tools require skills that too many developers lack. And the result is regular data leaks, corporate systems full of bugs, etc. A profession can't rely on all of its members to be very smart to deliver quality. But it will be an intellectual profession nevertheless.
  - gutnor 11y ago
    That's not the direction it is taking. It will be more like 1 highly paid developer doing everything himself. When I started working, it took a team of testers, a team of dba, and a team of sysops in addition of the developers to build anything. Nowadays, no only the development team is smaller, but the sysops, dba and testing are the responsibility of those developers too through automated tools. On the client side, there used to be BA and Testers, but nowadays, BA and Testers are often the same persons. The tshirt from several years ago "I will replace you by a tiny script" has proven quite true. Old job that required qualified people before have been replaced by scripts, not "blue collar" worker. A huge amount a developer entering the market could lower the salaries, but any simplification to the developer role is going to be handled by automated tools, not human.
douche 11y ago
I'm trying to parse this statement, and what I'm getting is that there is going to be a lot more programmers, and they are going to be overwhelmingly more male than they already are (is that a thing that is possible?). Little boys love power tools and fire.
cheez 11y ago
Bingo.
sklogic 11y ago
I hope that there won't even be such a profession as programming. Coding must become a basic part of the general literacy, and almost all the professions must include a degree of coding. Programmers should disappear just like scribes did.
aaronem 11y ago
Have you never been around, or yourself been, a boy child? I can count on no hands the number of boys I knew in my youth, myself included, who were not interested in tablesaws or cutting torches.

by Crito 11y ago

ekianjo 11y ago

> Over the course of the next century programming will become a blue collar profession more kids than ever have access to computing devices (tablets and smartphones) but very few actually know how to do anything with them at all. I don't see that future you are talking about.

cm2187 11y ago

Programming is more akin to engineering than factory working. Languages are getting simpler and more powerful but programs are getting more complex. 15 years ago a typical developper didn't need to worry about multithreading, connectivity or security. It's fundamentally an intellectual job and will remain.

Luc 11y ago
From my Western European point of view, I see a lot of these intellectual jobs being outsourced to Slovenia, Poland and even the Philippines. I am advising my kids to have good technical skills but also great people skills.
- hvidgaard 11y ago
  Outsourcing has its uses, but the majority of programming jobs cannot be oursourced, and with time it will become even less profitable to do. However, programming any major system today does require extensive knowledge and I dare say a CS degree as well. It's becoming more and more like an engineering discipline, and as such I think we're going to see a shift towards programming being something you need a college degree to perform.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    Programming a major system has absolutely no need of a CS degree. I know and have worked with programmers with and without a CS degree (I'm one of the ones without). As far as I can tell it's no indicator of programmer skill at all.
    - wernercd 11y ago
      The issue is the "maturity" of programming as a complete field. Not only is it a "young" (decades old vs say construction) but it's changing dramatically year over year - whats asked for today is different that 5 years ago... what's acceptable 10 years ago is a deathtrap today. With that being said, how can colleges REALLY train? I got trained at my local community college a few years back (2008-2010) in VB and Cobol. How fast can most places REALLY respond to a moving target like this? Also, a degree is no indication of programming skill... but neither is having a job. You can churn out code, hopping from one place to another, and still be a shitty programmer. That's one of the biggest issues... How can you REALLY tell what someone is going to produce? There are no consistent certification processes and no consistent measure of what makes a good programmer.
    - CrLf 11y ago
      Just like building a skyscraper doesn't require a degree. You don't need a degree to lay bricks, pour cement or assemble rebar. But you do if you're the one designing the structure in the first place. There is a lot of knowledge to be gained by experience, but sometimes it's useful to have knowledge gained from books, and in particular from books you had no interest reading in the first place (which is the real value of a degree: forcing you to go through a process that includes stuff you like and stuff you dislike).
      - teacup50 11y ago
        Books are not the sole property of colleges.
        CrLf 11y ago
- noarchy 11y ago
  North American (Canada to be exact) here. I'm seeing jobs being outsourced by some of our local shops to places like Armenia and Romania. You can hire very competent developers on the cheap (relative to North America, at least). I expect more of this in the future.
- adrianN 11y ago
  So? It's not like the people in Slovenia, Poland, or the Philippines are less intelligent or less well educated than people from Western Europe.
  - Luc 11y ago
    So? So my kids don't live in a low wage country and will need to differentiate themselves to keep making the big bucks.
  - Crito 11y ago
    They are just as smart, but due to the nature of their economies, they can out compete on cost.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- _nedR 11y ago
  You advised your kids well, but if this study is to believed, intellectual (including programming jobs) are here to stay for a bit longer : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ajuc 11y ago
  As a developer from Poland: why is that relevant that these jobs are outsourced? They don't disappear, just move. Also "even" is a little harsh, don't you think?
dagw 11y ago
The future probably won't be 15 highly educated, highly paid developers working on a simple web app like today. It will be 1 highly educated, highly paid developers guiding 15 lower paid 'blue collar' developers in developing a web app.
- cm2187 11y ago
  I don't really believe in the "blue collar" part but I think engineering may give us a clue. You have a small number of highly educated engineers working on tough problems: aeronautics, complex structural issues, etc. But the average electric or electronic board in a home appliance is not designed by sophisticated engineers, rather by a mid range average university graduate or sometimes even a technician. But we need the tools to get there. Easy languages, technologies that are immune to basic security risks, and that provide safe ways to do multi-threading easily. Right now we are in the unsustainable position where the tools require skills that too many developers lack. And the result is regular data leaks, corporate systems full of bugs, etc. A profession can't rely on all of its members to be very smart to deliver quality. But it will be an intellectual profession nevertheless.
- gutnor 11y ago
  That's not the direction it is taking. It will be more like 1 highly paid developer doing everything himself. When I started working, it took a team of testers, a team of dba, and a team of sysops in addition of the developers to build anything. Nowadays, no only the development team is smaller, but the sysops, dba and testing are the responsibility of those developers too through automated tools. On the client side, there used to be BA and Testers, but nowadays, BA and Testers are often the same persons. The tshirt from several years ago "I will replace you by a tiny script" has proven quite true. Old job that required qualified people before have been replaced by scripts, not "blue collar" worker. A huge amount a developer entering the market could lower the salaries, but any simplification to the developer role is going to be handled by automated tools, not human.

douche 11y ago

I'm trying to parse this statement, and what I'm getting is that there is going to be a lot more programmers, and they are going to be overwhelmingly more male than they already are (is that a thing that is possible?). Little boys love power tools and fire.

cheez 11y ago

Bingo.

sklogic 11y ago

I hope that there won't even be such a profession as programming. Coding must become a basic part of the general literacy, and almost all the professions must include a degree of coding. Programmers should disappear just like scribes did.

aaronem 11y ago

Have you never been around, or yourself been, a boy child? I can count on no hands the number of boys I knew in my youth, myself included, who were not interested in tablesaws or cutting torches.