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I'm nitpicking a bit, but this stood out to me as a good example of why I've never wanted to be part of Java-land: > He helped pioneer one of the most successf

I'm nitpicking a bit, but this stood out to me as a good example of why I've never wanted to be part of Java-land: > He helped pioneer one of the most successful pieces of enterprise infrastructure that has stood the test of time. Yet he is humble enough to still code I mean, doesn't coding being perceived as a "humble" job he's lowering himself to really say it all? It's rarely explicitly said, but coding is considered a low status activity in those spheres. That's why I avoid Java work. Other languages have cultures that respect the craft, rather than viewing it as something you grow out of.

wrong_variable 11y ago
Programmers get no respect - and its our own fault. The computing industry is directly responsible for 1/3 of global GDP in 2016. Its time that this is reflected in our paycheck.
- andrei_says_ 11y ago
  Unions?
  - brianwawok 11y ago
    Those did work out well for the auto makers in the US.
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    - nostrebored 11y ago
      And excellently in the sphere of teaching. I would be woeful to see devs operate with the same level of impunity with the toxicity that exists within our community...
      - brianwawok 11y ago
        Yes the teaching system is amazingly toxic. Ask anyone in US secondary education.
    - andrei_says_ 11y ago
      I hope we are all aware that this is not a black and white issue, that there are many ways to approach it and that there many ways to bring balance to an unbalanced situation. After recently reading of a whole company's IT staff being forced to train their H1B replacements under the threat of not receiving severance pay, and then fired as soon as the training was completed, the thought of unions does cross my mind.
      - brianwawok 11y ago
        > After recently reading of a whole company's IT staff being forced to train their H1B replacements under the threat of not receiving severance pay, and then fired as soon as the training was completed, the thought of unions does cross my mind. You think unions would fix this? Has it stopped auto jobs from leaving the US? It sounds like we need to fix H1B laws, and giving tax breaks to companies moving overseas. Throwing in a union sounds good in theory, but I don't think it would actually work.
    - pjmlp 11y ago
      They do work out well in many European countries. We do have unions for IT.
      - brianwawok 11y ago
        Does the best technology come out of these European union IT orgs? My understanding is Americans in IT make much much better pay compared to Europeans in IT. I have seen what a union environment is like. Your pay is fixed based on the number of years you worked at a company, nothing else matters. It is a race to the bottom.
        pjmlp 11y ago
        Do you do mostly 40h week, get your overtime properly paid and asked nicely to do extra hours on the weekends? And have the opportunity to spend valuable time with family and friends? I do.
    - gaius 11y ago
      They work very well for automakers in Germany.
      - brianwawok 11y ago
        True, but is the German law and trade agreements the same as the American law and trade agreements? Something working well in 1 environment does not mean it will work well in a totally different environment.
        gaius 11y ago
        Agreed, but the data doesn't support the position that unions are inherently bad - they just don't suit the US or UK.
- webkike 11y ago
  It is already reflected very highly. One needs only look at the stratification of classes in the bay area to see that. Do you really think that further stratification is needed?
  - toyg 11y ago
    To be fair, this phenomenon is almost entirely restricted to the Bay Area and Manhattan. Everywhere else, developers might make a little bit more than the average blue-collar specialist, but not that much. Most developers around the world are woefully underpaid for the value they deliver to the businesses employing them.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      The entry-level pay of a developer is in the range of the maximum most office people in government jobs will ever make – is that high enough?
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - UK-AL 11y ago
        That's just not true in most parts of the world
        tragic 11y ago
        To put this in perspective: a junior role in software in the UK will bag you 25k, which is roughly an order of magnitude lower than what you get as a senior civil servant.
        chr15p 11y ago
        25k is a decent civil servant salary well above the minimum starting pay. The only "senior civil servants" earning anything like that are the 2 or 3 at the very very top of the civil service on first name terms with the prime minister who have 40 years experience essentially running the country. If you think a junior developer fresh out of college knowing a bit of javascript is in any way comparable in terms of the value they deliver then you're wrong. Simple as that.
- exolymph 11y ago
  Keep in mind that code is not useful or economically impactful without business and community management surrounding it.
  - overgard 11y ago
    I think that's demonstrably untrue -- open source and free software has had a massive economic and cultural impact with precious little of that originating from the involvement of business people or community leaders. (For instance, the GNU project or the linux kernel -- not to mention how many commercial products must use zlib). Business support almost always comes after the value has been created.
    - exolymph 11y ago
      I would argue that free and open-source software tools have far more of an economic impact when they're used by companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc, or otherwise packaged from consumer use.
    - exolymph 11y ago
      I wrote a blog post responding to this: http://sonyaellenmann.com/2016/03/middlemen-are-crucial-open-source-software-economic-growth.html http://sonyaellenmann.com/2016/03/middlemen-are-crucial-open...
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    A lot of code would be more economically impactful without a business community "managing" it. There's certainly a point to be made about code being channelled in good directions by excellent management. Unfortunately the median for tech management is nowhere close to excellence. It's telling there's a lot of industry sweat expended on how to avoid hiring 1X or 0.1X developers. But you'll hardly ever see an SV blog post explaining how to avoid hiring/promoting a 0.1x CEO or VP - even though they certainly exist, and their ability to destroy value is so much greater than that of a single inept developer. As for Java - Oracle isn't a very interesting company. It seems to have made most of its money running a collection of corporate patterns that work well to create profit - until they don't. It's possible the OP's post is another sign the "don't" phase is getting closer.
dave2000 11y ago
I'm not sure I'd extrapolate what "java work" and related "spheres" are like based on one statement by someone who once worked at Oracle. I think if you were to pick, say c++, based on "respect" for the "craft" of developing in it you'll be wanting to avoid reading too many posts on HN and other places or you'll end up making the same daft decisions for that language too.
- overgard 11y ago
  I work in C++ :-) I'm not basing my opinion off that statement, but rather my previous jobs doing Java. I just found the quoted chunk summarized what frustrated me about that community.
  - dave2000 11y ago
    I too prefer to work in c++ (or c#). But I work in java too, such as when I'm working on android. I never fire up Android Studio and sigh about the lack of respect random internet twats would give me if only they knew what I was doing. As long as I get paid at the end of the month it's all good!
    - overgard 11y ago
      > I never fire up Android Studio and sigh about the lack of respect random internet twats would give me if only they knew what I was doing. You're painting this like sticking up for your profession is only for glory boys that want attention. People generally treat you like you expect to be treated, and when programmers pretend like our status doesn't matter we make things worse for all of us, collectively. To quote the Simpsons, "this is why we can't have nice things". > As long as I get paid at the end of the month it's all good! Sure, but your pay is largely based on the status of your profession. I'm not asking for glory, but my personal opinion is that programming is a high skill activity with a large amount of business value that takes a long time to master. People are free to disagree, but it's not in my interests to participate in a community (the Java EE community, in this instance) that doesn't share that perspective.
jcrben 11y ago
You left out the context: > still code even in front of a keynote audience I think he's mainly saying that coding in front of an audience exposes you to errors which shows that you are human.
- overgard 11y ago
  I left out that chunk, but only because I didn't think it changed the nature of what was said. The way I read the sentence it was the act of coding was the humble part; the fact that he did it in front of other people implied that he was "a man of the people". (frankly, I don't see how coding in front of people makes a person humble -- I would think it's unrelated. If anything it requires confidence, not humility).
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    It's rarely explicitly said, but coding is considered a low status activity. --overgard (an example of why you have to be careful about how much liberty you take in your quoting)
sbov 11y ago
This has nothing to do with Java, and everything to do with being an executive at a company with over 100,000 employees.
pjmlp 11y ago
> Other languages have cultures that respect the craft, rather than viewing it as something you grow out of. Not really, in many countries there is the expectation that when you are over 40 you either are a solution architect (those that never code) or a team manager. It is very hard to fight against this society bias, regardless of the programming language.

wrong_variable 11y ago

Programmers get no respect - and its our own fault. The computing industry is directly responsible for 1/3 of global GDP in 2016. Its time that this is reflected in our paycheck.

andrei_says_ 11y ago
Unions?
- brianwawok 11y ago
  Those did work out well for the auto makers in the US.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nostrebored 11y ago
    And excellently in the sphere of teaching. I would be woeful to see devs operate with the same level of impunity with the toxicity that exists within our community...
    - brianwawok 11y ago
      Yes the teaching system is amazingly toxic. Ask anyone in US secondary education.
  - andrei_says_ 11y ago
    I hope we are all aware that this is not a black and white issue, that there are many ways to approach it and that there many ways to bring balance to an unbalanced situation. After recently reading of a whole company's IT staff being forced to train their H1B replacements under the threat of not receiving severance pay, and then fired as soon as the training was completed, the thought of unions does cross my mind.
    - brianwawok 11y ago
      > After recently reading of a whole company's IT staff being forced to train their H1B replacements under the threat of not receiving severance pay, and then fired as soon as the training was completed, the thought of unions does cross my mind. You think unions would fix this? Has it stopped auto jobs from leaving the US? It sounds like we need to fix H1B laws, and giving tax breaks to companies moving overseas. Throwing in a union sounds good in theory, but I don't think it would actually work.
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    They do work out well in many European countries. We do have unions for IT.
    - brianwawok 11y ago
      Does the best technology come out of these European union IT orgs? My understanding is Americans in IT make much much better pay compared to Europeans in IT. I have seen what a union environment is like. Your pay is fixed based on the number of years you worked at a company, nothing else matters. It is a race to the bottom.
      - pjmlp 11y ago
        Do you do mostly 40h week, get your overtime properly paid and asked nicely to do extra hours on the weekends? And have the opportunity to spend valuable time with family and friends? I do.
  - gaius 11y ago
    They work very well for automakers in Germany.
    - brianwawok 11y ago
      True, but is the German law and trade agreements the same as the American law and trade agreements? Something working well in 1 environment does not mean it will work well in a totally different environment.
      - gaius 11y ago
        Agreed, but the data doesn't support the position that unions are inherently bad - they just don't suit the US or UK.
webkike 11y ago
It is already reflected very highly. One needs only look at the stratification of classes in the bay area to see that. Do you really think that further stratification is needed?
- toyg 11y ago
  To be fair, this phenomenon is almost entirely restricted to the Bay Area and Manhattan. Everywhere else, developers might make a little bit more than the average blue-collar specialist, but not that much. Most developers around the world are woefully underpaid for the value they deliver to the businesses employing them.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    The entry-level pay of a developer is in the range of the maximum most office people in government jobs will ever make – is that high enough?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - UK-AL 11y ago
      That's just not true in most parts of the world
      - tragic 11y ago
        To put this in perspective: a junior role in software in the UK will bag you 25k, which is roughly an order of magnitude lower than what you get as a senior civil servant.
        chr15p 11y ago
        25k is a decent civil servant salary well above the minimum starting pay. The only "senior civil servants" earning anything like that are the 2 or 3 at the very very top of the civil service on first name terms with the prime minister who have 40 years experience essentially running the country. If you think a junior developer fresh out of college knowing a bit of javascript is in any way comparable in terms of the value they deliver then you're wrong. Simple as that.
exolymph 11y ago
Keep in mind that code is not useful or economically impactful without business and community management surrounding it.
- overgard 11y ago
  I think that's demonstrably untrue -- open source and free software has had a massive economic and cultural impact with precious little of that originating from the involvement of business people or community leaders. (For instance, the GNU project or the linux kernel -- not to mention how many commercial products must use zlib). Business support almost always comes after the value has been created.
  - exolymph 11y ago
    I would argue that free and open-source software tools have far more of an economic impact when they're used by companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc, or otherwise packaged from consumer use.
  - exolymph 11y ago
    I wrote a blog post responding to this: http://sonyaellenmann.com/2016/03/middlemen-are-crucial-open-source-software-economic-growth.html http://sonyaellenmann.com/2016/03/middlemen-are-crucial-open...
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  A lot of code would be more economically impactful without a business community "managing" it. There's certainly a point to be made about code being channelled in good directions by excellent management. Unfortunately the median for tech management is nowhere close to excellence. It's telling there's a lot of industry sweat expended on how to avoid hiring 1X or 0.1X developers. But you'll hardly ever see an SV blog post explaining how to avoid hiring/promoting a 0.1x CEO or VP - even though they certainly exist, and their ability to destroy value is so much greater than that of a single inept developer. As for Java - Oracle isn't a very interesting company. It seems to have made most of its money running a collection of corporate patterns that work well to create profit - until they don't. It's possible the OP's post is another sign the "don't" phase is getting closer.

dave2000 11y ago

I'm not sure I'd extrapolate what "java work" and related "spheres" are like based on one statement by someone who once worked at Oracle. I think if you were to pick, say c++, based on "respect" for the "craft" of developing in it you'll be wanting to avoid reading too many posts on HN and other places or you'll end up making the same daft decisions for that language too.

overgard 11y ago
I work in C++ :-) I'm not basing my opinion off that statement, but rather my previous jobs doing Java. I just found the quoted chunk summarized what frustrated me about that community.
- dave2000 11y ago
  I too prefer to work in c++ (or c#). But I work in java too, such as when I'm working on android. I never fire up Android Studio and sigh about the lack of respect random internet twats would give me if only they knew what I was doing. As long as I get paid at the end of the month it's all good!
  - overgard 11y ago
    > I never fire up Android Studio and sigh about the lack of respect random internet twats would give me if only they knew what I was doing. You're painting this like sticking up for your profession is only for glory boys that want attention. People generally treat you like you expect to be treated, and when programmers pretend like our status doesn't matter we make things worse for all of us, collectively. To quote the Simpsons, "this is why we can't have nice things". > As long as I get paid at the end of the month it's all good! Sure, but your pay is largely based on the status of your profession. I'm not asking for glory, but my personal opinion is that programming is a high skill activity with a large amount of business value that takes a long time to master. People are free to disagree, but it's not in my interests to participate in a community (the Java EE community, in this instance) that doesn't share that perspective.

jcrben 11y ago

You left out the context: > still code even in front of a keynote audience I think he's mainly saying that coding in front of an audience exposes you to errors which shows that you are human.

overgard 11y ago
I left out that chunk, but only because I didn't think it changed the nature of what was said. The way I read the sentence it was the act of coding was the humble part; the fact that he did it in front of other people implied that he was "a man of the people". (frankly, I don't see how coding in front of people makes a person humble -- I would think it's unrelated. If anything it requires confidence, not humility).
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  It's rarely explicitly said, but coding is considered a low status activity. --overgard (an example of why you have to be careful about how much liberty you take in your quoting)

sbov 11y ago

This has nothing to do with Java, and everything to do with being an executive at a company with over 100,000 employees.

pjmlp 11y ago

> Other languages have cultures that respect the craft, rather than viewing it as something you grow out of. Not really, in many countries there is the expectation that when you are over 40 you either are a solution architect (those that never code) or a team manager. It is very hard to fight against this society bias, regardless of the programming language.