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The article seems to be more hand-wringing over declining employment than any specific commentary on learning to code. Actually learning to code and discoverin

The article seems to be more hand-wringing over declining employment than any specific commentary on learning to code. Actually learning to code and discovering that you're good at it is probably one of the safest career moves you could make today. The elephant in the room is that not everyone is good at it, and furthermore no one starts out good at it, so most of the time one has to put in some number of years before ones potential becomes apparent. I think probably anyone of average intelligence or higher can learn enough code to pass a bootcamp but that the bar for guaranteed employability is significantly higher. The issue is that a well-architected system can eat all the value of poorly architected ad-hoc systems. Consider that 10 years ago I was churning out websites for $5k-$10k a pop, and today for 90% of those clients I just recommend Squarespace. There's probably some equilibrium where the top x percent of programmers are employable to work on the best of breed systems, but the bottom end won't stay as democratic as it has been through the first stage of the computer revolution. I suppose the end game would be the singularity, but I'm skeptical that our society is stable enough to reach that point.

monk_e_boy 11y ago
> most of the time one has to put in some number of years before ones potential becomes apparent How do you pay for those years being a student (self taught maybe) ... I think this is where basic income really shines. We need a flexible workforce who can change jobs and careers with help from a kind government.
cinquemb 11y ago
>I suppose the end game would be the singularity, but I'm skeptical that our society is stable enough to reach that point. Stable singularities? That's one I never thought to see asked for.
- dasil003 11y ago
  Not sure how you are parsing that meaning out of my sentence. My point is that our resource utilization as a species is a house of cards that we have to stack much higher to get to the singularity.
  - cinquemb 11y ago
    >My point is that our resource utilization as a species is a house of cards that we have to stack much higher to get to the singularity. Which assumes that every person in our species seeks the "singularity" (whatever comes to mind when whoever throws this word around) as a goal. Not every entity in a species needs to exist/work for resource maximizing in order for it improve among a defined direction (of which is probably not agreed upon by everyone), nor is every entity in such species at any given time is equally adept for maximizing for such direction (due to variable circumstances, some of which we as individuals have no control over).
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
It's considerably less democratic than it was. Fully half the practitioners I knew coming up ( from the mid 1980s ) had no degree. The transition from minis to micros created a great opportunity for self-taught people to make real money. Many were quite good after a few years. And where are any best of breed systems now that are for sale? All I see is flavor of the month. But I'm in the embedded space, so my vision may be obscured. I was forced to take a J2EE course around 2008, and ... I'll keep my opinion of that experience to myself.
lloyd-christmas 11y ago
> I think probably anyone of average intelligence or higher can learn enough code to pass a bootcamp but that the bar for guaranteed employability is significantly higher. I think one misconception about bootcamps is that everyone takes them to become software engineers. I took one, and out of 20 people, only a few actually had intentions of joining the industry in exclusively that role. A large portion of the class were designers trying to expand their reach a bit more. The next largest portion were project managers looking to gain better communication skills. I'd say only about 1/3 of my classmates went into a true programming role, and only 2 of us ended up truly on the "software engineering" side of the spectrum. Not all that unsurprisingly, both of us had undergraduate degrees in math and statistics. For me, my salary went down a bit, and it probably won't ever catch up. Even so, it's both a safe career move and a nice lifestyle change for me. > The elephant in the room is that not everyone is good at it Again, speaking for my class, I think 3 people came out of the program actually disappointed with their ability to learn the material. I think the discussions related to bootcamps typically overestimate the general population's interest in "best of breed systems". Most people aren't taking them with the intention of a full career U-turn. They are taking them to continue to be competitive when all the 12 year olds currently taking computer science coursework join the workforce in a decade.

monk_e_boy 11y ago

> most of the time one has to put in some number of years before ones potential becomes apparent How do you pay for those years being a student (self taught maybe) ... I think this is where basic income really shines. We need a flexible workforce who can change jobs and careers with help from a kind government.

cinquemb 11y ago

>I suppose the end game would be the singularity, but I'm skeptical that our society is stable enough to reach that point. Stable singularities? That's one I never thought to see asked for.

dasil003 11y ago
Not sure how you are parsing that meaning out of my sentence. My point is that our resource utilization as a species is a house of cards that we have to stack much higher to get to the singularity.
- cinquemb 11y ago
  >My point is that our resource utilization as a species is a house of cards that we have to stack much higher to get to the singularity. Which assumes that every person in our species seeks the "singularity" (whatever comes to mind when whoever throws this word around) as a goal. Not every entity in a species needs to exist/work for resource maximizing in order for it improve among a defined direction (of which is probably not agreed upon by everyone), nor is every entity in such species at any given time is equally adept for maximizing for such direction (due to variable circumstances, some of which we as individuals have no control over).

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

It's considerably less democratic than it was. Fully half the practitioners I knew coming up ( from the mid 1980s ) had no degree. The transition from minis to micros created a great opportunity for self-taught people to make real money. Many were quite good after a few years. And where are any best of breed systems now that are for sale? All I see is flavor of the month. But I'm in the embedded space, so my vision may be obscured. I was forced to take a J2EE course around 2008, and ... I'll keep my opinion of that experience to myself.

lloyd-christmas 11y ago

> I think probably anyone of average intelligence or higher can learn enough code to pass a bootcamp but that the bar for guaranteed employability is significantly higher. I think one misconception about bootcamps is that everyone takes them to become software engineers. I took one, and out of 20 people, only a few actually had intentions of joining the industry in exclusively that role. A large portion of the class were designers trying to expand their reach a bit more. The next largest portion were project managers looking to gain better communication skills. I'd say only about 1/3 of my classmates went into a true programming role, and only 2 of us ended up truly on the "software engineering" side of the spectrum. Not all that unsurprisingly, both of us had undergraduate degrees in math and statistics. For me, my salary went down a bit, and it probably won't ever catch up. Even so, it's both a safe career move and a nice lifestyle change for me. > The elephant in the room is that not everyone is good at it Again, speaking for my class, I think 3 people came out of the program actually disappointed with their ability to learn the material. I think the discussions related to bootcamps typically overestimate the general population's interest in "best of breed systems". Most people aren't taking them with the intention of a full career U-turn. They are taking them to continue to be competitive when all the 12 year olds currently taking computer science coursework join the workforce in a decade.