10 ms·

There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Programmers think they are undervalued and should get more. But guess what, nurses think they shou

There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Programmers think they are undervalued and should get more. But guess what, nurses think they should get more as well because they are saving lives. Soldiers think they should get more for making us all safe. Police think they should get more for reducing the level of crime in society which benefits us all. Teachers think they should get more because they are educating the next generation of wealth creators. Everyone thinks they should get a little more of the pie. How do you resolve this? (Hint: supply and demand)

ghshephard 10y ago
Couple points - I didn't say there is anything unique or special about being a programmer from a skill perspective. Almost everyone who can graduate from high school can be taught to program, and put together useful applications. I tried to call that out when describing the difference between a day-day CRUD developer and platform developer. But there is a distinct hierarchy of developers who can, for example, instinctively comprehend pointer-to-pointer data structures, or have walked through and mostly understand AoCP, or heck, can (quickly) write concise elegant code like this: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr09/cos333/beautiful.html http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr09/cos333/bea.... One key difference between programming and teaching/soldiering/policing, is leverage. A single 100x teacher/soldier/police officer is limited in the impact they can have on the world, whereas a single 100x developer can write a platform/system that is used by 100s of millions of people.
- PhilWright 10y ago
  I certainly agree that the spread in productivity between the best and mediocre seems to be huge in software development compared to most other industries. In fact, I cannot think of another one quite like it off the top of my head. We do have certain other advantages though. We can create a start-up and potentially make a huge amount of money. This is a realistic possibility for a substantial percentage of good developers. Much fewer people from other industries have that kind of chance.
- Frondo 10y ago
  I'd disagree about the 100x something-other-than-a-coder having a limited impact. I'd call Florence Nightingale a 100x nurse, or maybe a 10,000x nurse, for the impact she had on the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale#Statistics_and_sanitary_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale#Statistic...
  - ghshephard 10y ago
    Now we're talking about heroic icons. There are thousands, or maybe 10s of thousands of 100x developers. There is only one Florence Nightingale, Steve Jobs, Donald Knuth, Michelangelo, Einstein, etc...
    - baakss 10y ago
      You don't need to be a heroic icon to be more valuable than a 100x developer. The 100x teacher who molds the mind of the kid/teenager/adult who eventually cures cancer is worth more than just about any single 100x developer out there right now, and you'll never know that person's name. (Yeah, I'm aware there will be multiple different cures for different cancers, the point remains)
      - ghshephard 10y ago
        It would be interesting to see if any great researcher could tie back their success to a teacher. My suspicion (based on nothing more than gut feeling) is that while a good/great teacher has some impact, that beyond a certain level it's 99.9% the individual and their environment/peers/parents/contacts, rather than any particular teacher. Another way of saying this from a mercenary monetary point of view is that I don't think investing more than $250K/year on a K-12 teacher makes sense, though you might be able to make an argument that people who teach teachers might have greater leverage.
Consultant32452 10y ago
That's why labor policy is so important. The guy digging proverbial ditches does indeed deserve more, but the market has been distorted by large corporations who lobby for lax enforcement of immigration law. On the other end of the spectrum engineers and programmers probably deserve more but the market has been distorted by large corporations who have lobbied for massive numbers of H1Bs or colluded with each other to keep poaching/salaries down in the valley.
- twblalock 10y ago
  > The guy digging proverbial ditches does indeed deserve more How do you know? Do you have some kind of special formula to determine what people deserve to be paid? Otherwise, it's just subjective.
  - Consultant32452 10y ago
    Because I have a basic understanding of supply and demand. I even explained how supply of labor was being distorted in my post at both the higher and lower ends of the job market. I think the more appropriate question is how do you not know?
    - twblalock 10y ago
      Ok, then what does a ditch digger deserve to be paid? The answer is a number.
      - Consultant32452 10y ago
        The cumulative impact to low wage native workers is estimated between $99-118 Billion per year. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/popular/CIS2013.pdf https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/popular/... (page 2)
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
rimantas 10y ago
> There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Really? Take 1000 programmers and try to teach them skills nurses have. How many will be able to do the job well enought to be able to work at the hospitals? Now take 1000 nurses and try to teach them skills programmers have. Is the number suitable for profession work at sowftware companies be the same, as in the first case? You can claim, that there is nothing unique or special in being theoretical physicist. But is that really true?
- louisswiss 10y ago
  I am a developer and have a very close friend who is a nurse. I am pretty sure I could teach her enough to do an entry level web dev job within 2-3 months, whereas there is no way I would be mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with working life as a 'real' nurse within that short amount of time, if ever.
  - geebee 10y ago
    I couldn't agree with you more that nursing is a tough job that deserves excellent pay (though out here in SF, registered nurses do earn more, at the median, than software application developers, though this is a bit unusual and not the case in most areas). It would take a tremendous amount of time, training, and effort to turn a software developer into a registered nurse, no doubt. I am pretty bummed to hear a developer speak so dismissively of what it takes to be developer. I'm not sure what you mean about an "entry level" web job, of course - if "entry level" entails no background or skills, then I suppose I could prepare someone in no time at all. However - and I fully acknowledge this is just anecdote - after 15+ years in the field, I have yet to see the mythical simple CRUD app. I came into this field after a major in math with a CS emphasis and a MS in Industrial Engineering, during which I wrote a lot of code for various numerical analysis problems. I've written apps that need to build and solve linear programs with a few million variables and communicate results to analysis within one minute, which we felt was the maximum amount of time anyone would wait for an interactive tool designed to explore multiple supply chain scenarios. It is hardly a work of genius, but these were real CS and math problems, with a dose of programming optimization. In many ways, those projects were considerably easier than the "CRUD" projects I've been on. Seriously. You have to gather business requirements from people who do understand their business, but aren't accustomed to explaining it in a way that works within the strict confines of computer code. You often have to work with existing code bases, deciding how much customization you can get away with before forking yourself into a maintenance hell (and you have to deal with that maintenance hell). You have to integrate with many different data sources, back and forth, over networks, many of which are obscure, poorly documented, and poorly maintained. You are pressured to provide estimates and deadlines for systems that you have no idea about (how long will it take me to alter a code base for an existing application to integrate with a data source that I haven't studied yet? Uh, a week?). You have to weave through existing data structures, code bases that involve intricate logic, uncover magic documents that nobody told you about, interview and talk to business analysts, test, design UIs or work with UI people... and often encounter an (at best) irritated look when you didn't meet your "estimates" that turned into deadlines. I maintain that even the "simple CRUD" projects are difficult, stressful, and require a very high level of logic, coding ability, and the ability to communicate will with people at many levels of an organization. If you truly believe that web dev is simple, of course you have every right to make that point. You shouldn't back of from saying what you think is the truth just because the truth is harmful to the reputation of developers. What pains me is that I absolutely don't agree with you, I think it's a really hard job, and I think we developers really hurt ourselves when we trivialize our jobs this way.

ghshephard 10y ago

Couple points - I didn't say there is anything unique or special about being a programmer from a skill perspective. Almost everyone who can graduate from high school can be taught to program, and put together useful applications. I tried to call that out when describing the difference between a day-day CRUD developer and platform developer. But there is a distinct hierarchy of developers who can, for example, instinctively comprehend pointer-to-pointer data structures, or have walked through and mostly understand AoCP, or heck, can (quickly) write concise elegant code like this: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr09/cos333/beautiful.html http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr09/cos333/bea.... One key difference between programming and teaching/soldiering/policing, is leverage. A single 100x teacher/soldier/police officer is limited in the impact they can have on the world, whereas a single 100x developer can write a platform/system that is used by 100s of millions of people.

PhilWright 10y ago
I certainly agree that the spread in productivity between the best and mediocre seems to be huge in software development compared to most other industries. In fact, I cannot think of another one quite like it off the top of my head. We do have certain other advantages though. We can create a start-up and potentially make a huge amount of money. This is a realistic possibility for a substantial percentage of good developers. Much fewer people from other industries have that kind of chance.
Frondo 10y ago
I'd disagree about the 100x something-other-than-a-coder having a limited impact. I'd call Florence Nightingale a 100x nurse, or maybe a 10,000x nurse, for the impact she had on the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale#Statistics_and_sanitary_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale#Statistic...
- ghshephard 10y ago
  Now we're talking about heroic icons. There are thousands, or maybe 10s of thousands of 100x developers. There is only one Florence Nightingale, Steve Jobs, Donald Knuth, Michelangelo, Einstein, etc...
  - baakss 10y ago
    You don't need to be a heroic icon to be more valuable than a 100x developer. The 100x teacher who molds the mind of the kid/teenager/adult who eventually cures cancer is worth more than just about any single 100x developer out there right now, and you'll never know that person's name. (Yeah, I'm aware there will be multiple different cures for different cancers, the point remains)
    - ghshephard 10y ago
      It would be interesting to see if any great researcher could tie back their success to a teacher. My suspicion (based on nothing more than gut feeling) is that while a good/great teacher has some impact, that beyond a certain level it's 99.9% the individual and their environment/peers/parents/contacts, rather than any particular teacher. Another way of saying this from a mercenary monetary point of view is that I don't think investing more than $250K/year on a K-12 teacher makes sense, though you might be able to make an argument that people who teach teachers might have greater leverage.

Consultant32452 10y ago

That's why labor policy is so important. The guy digging proverbial ditches does indeed deserve more, but the market has been distorted by large corporations who lobby for lax enforcement of immigration law. On the other end of the spectrum engineers and programmers probably deserve more but the market has been distorted by large corporations who have lobbied for massive numbers of H1Bs or colluded with each other to keep poaching/salaries down in the valley.

twblalock 10y ago
> The guy digging proverbial ditches does indeed deserve more How do you know? Do you have some kind of special formula to determine what people deserve to be paid? Otherwise, it's just subjective.
- Consultant32452 10y ago
  Because I have a basic understanding of supply and demand. I even explained how supply of labor was being distorted in my post at both the higher and lower ends of the job market. I think the more appropriate question is how do you not know?
  - twblalock 10y ago
    Ok, then what does a ditch digger deserve to be paid? The answer is a number.
    - Consultant32452 10y ago
      The cumulative impact to low wage native workers is estimated between $99-118 Billion per year. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/popular/CIS2013.pdf https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/popular/... (page 2)
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]

rimantas 10y ago

> There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Really? Take 1000 programmers and try to teach them skills nurses have. How many will be able to do the job well enought to be able to work at the hospitals? Now take 1000 nurses and try to teach them skills programmers have. Is the number suitable for profession work at sowftware companies be the same, as in the first case? You can claim, that there is nothing unique or special in being theoretical physicist. But is that really true?

louisswiss 10y ago
I am a developer and have a very close friend who is a nurse. I am pretty sure I could teach her enough to do an entry level web dev job within 2-3 months, whereas there is no way I would be mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with working life as a 'real' nurse within that short amount of time, if ever.
- geebee 10y ago
  I couldn't agree with you more that nursing is a tough job that deserves excellent pay (though out here in SF, registered nurses do earn more, at the median, than software application developers, though this is a bit unusual and not the case in most areas). It would take a tremendous amount of time, training, and effort to turn a software developer into a registered nurse, no doubt. I am pretty bummed to hear a developer speak so dismissively of what it takes to be developer. I'm not sure what you mean about an "entry level" web job, of course - if "entry level" entails no background or skills, then I suppose I could prepare someone in no time at all. However - and I fully acknowledge this is just anecdote - after 15+ years in the field, I have yet to see the mythical simple CRUD app. I came into this field after a major in math with a CS emphasis and a MS in Industrial Engineering, during which I wrote a lot of code for various numerical analysis problems. I've written apps that need to build and solve linear programs with a few million variables and communicate results to analysis within one minute, which we felt was the maximum amount of time anyone would wait for an interactive tool designed to explore multiple supply chain scenarios. It is hardly a work of genius, but these were real CS and math problems, with a dose of programming optimization. In many ways, those projects were considerably easier than the "CRUD" projects I've been on. Seriously. You have to gather business requirements from people who do understand their business, but aren't accustomed to explaining it in a way that works within the strict confines of computer code. You often have to work with existing code bases, deciding how much customization you can get away with before forking yourself into a maintenance hell (and you have to deal with that maintenance hell). You have to integrate with many different data sources, back and forth, over networks, many of which are obscure, poorly documented, and poorly maintained. You are pressured to provide estimates and deadlines for systems that you have no idea about (how long will it take me to alter a code base for an existing application to integrate with a data source that I haven't studied yet? Uh, a week?). You have to weave through existing data structures, code bases that involve intricate logic, uncover magic documents that nobody told you about, interview and talk to business analysts, test, design UIs or work with UI people... and often encounter an (at best) irritated look when you didn't meet your "estimates" that turned into deadlines. I maintain that even the "simple CRUD" projects are difficult, stressful, and require a very high level of logic, coding ability, and the ability to communicate will with people at many levels of an organization. If you truly believe that web dev is simple, of course you have every right to make that point. You shouldn't back of from saying what you think is the truth just because the truth is harmful to the reputation of developers. What pains me is that I absolutely don't agree with you, I think it's a really hard job, and I think we developers really hurt ourselves when we trivialize our jobs this way.