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Hm. The author works for a web/mobile development agency and uses React Native and GWT as examples of the new and the old, respectively. I hope it isn't news to

Hm. The author works for a web/mobile development agency and uses React Native and GWT as examples of the new and the old, respectively. I hope it isn't news to anybody here that this sort of work is a race to the bottom and has such turnover precisely because it's mostly being done by junior developers. Linux systems programming arcana, for instance, doesn't disintegrate so quickly as the ten years the author cites. That's why, after getting into the industry as a frontend web dev, I will only do that sort of work now as a last resort to pay the bills (the other reason is because it's easy/boring as hell, apart from the greater opportunity for mentoring). Doing that sort of work now feels like I am sabotaging my career.

go_go_ 10y ago
What do you duo instead? I want to get into embeded/systems development or marine (ship systems) development -- but the vast majority of that work seems to be DoD and/or require more than Public Trust clearance which I refuse to get. Web Dev is just so easy to get, and pays well, at the moment the temptation is hard to ignore.
- thesmallestcat 10y ago
  Nothing as cool as embedded development, database development or anything like that. Just general backend positions, working on the guts of something that may have a web layer, mobile layer, etc. Web jobs are plentiful and paid fairly well early in my career, but pay on the upper end has a pretty hard cap, so it's been a worthwhile move as there's more opportunity for career growth. It also better lends itself to specialization (ML, natural language processing, etc.) so that is another opportunity.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
Ill add people doing COBOL, C, and C++ to that list. Rate of change is slower. People are more conservative about what they're doing. Reuse of proven components prefered. Knowledge doesnt have to get worthless so fast if it was worth something in the first place.
Zyst 10y ago
Twentysomething year old here, so you know, not like you don't have a point but: >the other reason is because it's easy/boring as hell I legitimately think front end development is not only very fun, it can have some really challenging aspects. I wouldn't think there's any programming challenge that is inherently easier because it's on web as opposed to something else. Of course I bet there are domain-specific tasks (Distributed Programming, Embedded hardware to list some) that are likely harder than web development. But I guess what I'm trying to say is: I don't appreciate you calling what I make a living off, and spend quite a few hours studying weekly 'easy/boring as hell'.
- thesmallestcat 10y ago
  I was only speaking for myself. The challenges got old and most of the work felt like framework jockeying; it was work I could do in my sleep apart from the sweat of learning new tools. I won't deny that there are some exquisite challenges in frontend development, but most of the paying work does not involve them and is pretty CRUD-oriented. Also I was referring to web development in general, not just frontend.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- EpicEng 10y ago
  Well, sorry, but... it is. Maybe you find it interesting, that's subjective, but there's no real technical challenge in front end stuff. You're not solving hard engineering problems; you're pasting together libraries other people wrote on top of libraries other people wrote (and on it goes) and searching google to figure out why your opaque stack doesn't seem to be working. Developing a good UI is difficult, no question about it, but not for technical reasons. Whether you resent that or not doesn't make it any less true. >I wouldn't think there's any programming challenge that is inherently easier because it's on web as opposed to something else. Not because it's on the web, because front end work doesn't require anything more than knowledge of your toolset and some design sense. It's nearly all "hey, build a UI with some CRUD functionality which is essentially the same as the 100 you've built before, but for this special snowflake customer." Bleh.
dsjoerg 10y ago
When it's easy / boring as hell why not make the computer do it?
- DenisM 10y ago
  Yes, lets just make a framework to put an end to... well... all that mess of frameworks... ugh... :)
- dunkelheit 10y ago
  There is a lot of tasks with enough variation to resist being automated (or at least they require much higher skill to pull it off) but they are boring as hell after you do a few instances.
noname123 10y ago
Yes. I'd love to hear some people's journeys to advance their career and move from web development into more specialization. Off the top of my head, there are three types of specialization, for money, for domain knowledge and for technical skills. For Money: Not necessarily any more satisfying or churn-proof than web development; But definitely more lucrative. Salesforce/SAP/Oracle consultant, mobile app developer, SEO or becoming a web dev consultant or remote work arbitrage or just becoming a manager. For Domain Knowledge, you are becoming a computational {Biologist, Geologist, Financial Quant} than a pure coder. Fields like modeling fluid dynamics or finite element analysis for GE or GM; or modeling petroleum reserve for Shell; or Bioinformatics for BigPharma or modeling risk for banks. You probably have to go back to school for another degree in that subject or get the equivalent on-the-job training. For Technical Skills, you are specializing in a sub-field of practical coding/IT, working at a software company. Like Data Science/Machine-Learning (distributed computing tools and knowledge about basic learning models), or Information Security (e.g., MITRE) or Embedded System (C++/Assembly) or high-performance system (e.g., Akamai; C++/networking). Curious anyone who took the step to specialize or just started out in a more specialized field and their thoughts; and if I am missing any potential specialization options out!
- WalterBright 10y ago
  I started dabbling in compilers early on and just got increasingly into them and their associated tools. It's still fun watching a new optimization rumble into life: https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6176 https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6176 (Yes I know some other compilers do that already.) It's fun knowing how it all works from the source code to the executable.
- xaa 10y ago
  Well, I learned to code in order to do bioinformatics. I didn't start out as a programmer looking to specialize. I agree that it seems that programming + X is often a much more powerful combination than programming or X alone. But I would say to anyone starting out that it is better to head towards, and get the formal qualifications for X, and learn programming on the side (or if in college, get the major in X and a minor in CS). The reasons are that programming is relatively easy to learn outside of classes, and programming itself really doesn't require formal qualifications. For me, biology has been orders of magnitude harder to learn than coding. With coding, you can learn by doing, and you get immediate feedback from the compiler/interpreter. Not so with biology. You can be mistaken for weeks/months/years and never realize it until you read just the right article. And often, domain-specific knowledge like biology seems to be composed of thousands of tiny details without too many general principles, whereas if you learn a few basic principles for programming, you can learn pretty much any new language or framework easily. I don't know if this is generally true of all specializations, but if so, it would behoove someone to get started on learning the specialization-related information ASAP, because that will take much longer to reach proficiency than for programming.
sotojuan 10y ago
> Doing that sort of work now feels like I am sabotaging my career. Heh, I feel that way and I'm 22. Unfortunately the only language I know is JavaScript and the stuff I am interested in and learning isn't quite there yet in terms of jobs.
bostonvaulter2 10y ago
But one of the downsides of doing Linux systems programming is that it is much more niche and really restricts your options for employers as well as where to live.
- bboreham 10y ago
  Containers is an exploding field, and basically "Linux systems programming". Sure it's more niche than the web, but there are many many companies hiring, all over the world.
  - Zelmor 10y ago
    Maybe in 5-10 years I'll consider taking a look at containers. Currently, they are a fad not much unlike React.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Hmm, why do you think they're a fad? Virtualization as a way of controlling specific application environments has been around for decades. The current movement (kicked off by the hypervisor work over a decade ago) is towards running more virtualized environments now that hardware and software support is much better (reduced overhead associated with it, greater portability). Do you mean that they're overused or that their value is overstated?
      - Zelmor 10y ago
        When Fortune 500s start adopting a technology, it can be considered ripe and stable. Big companies move slow for a reason. You wouldn't want your banking site to pull the newest javascript magick, but something to do dull-looking business logic, and be rock solid. You brought up virtualization. That started in the '60s. It too 40 years for the technology to get to a level where it is widespread and adopted by everyone and their cat. We will see if Docker and other container technologies will get their hold in industries other than startups. For now, all the people who use it that I see are the cool kids on the block in their hoodies. I think boring technology is good technology in that it provides value and stability for everyone. I am yet to hear of one Docker adoption where at scale the company saved more than a three digit sum year-on-year. Remember that you also pay an extra for sysops folks who run these things, and they will ask a higher price because the tech is hip! For me, I'll stick to VmWare and kvm for now.
marcosdumay 10y ago
What option do people have? We created a universal interface for computing, and it is web programming. It does not matter if you are creating a CRUD application of an improved Google search, you'll have to present it the same way. Thus, unless you are willing to give up control on the presentation of your work, you'd better learn it.

go_go_ 10y ago

What do you duo instead? I want to get into embeded/systems development or marine (ship systems) development -- but the vast majority of that work seems to be DoD and/or require more than Public Trust clearance which I refuse to get. Web Dev is just so easy to get, and pays well, at the moment the temptation is hard to ignore.

thesmallestcat 10y ago
Nothing as cool as embedded development, database development or anything like that. Just general backend positions, working on the guts of something that may have a web layer, mobile layer, etc. Web jobs are plentiful and paid fairly well early in my career, but pay on the upper end has a pretty hard cap, so it's been a worthwhile move as there's more opportunity for career growth. It also better lends itself to specialization (ML, natural language processing, etc.) so that is another opportunity.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

Ill add people doing COBOL, C, and C++ to that list. Rate of change is slower. People are more conservative about what they're doing. Reuse of proven components prefered. Knowledge doesnt have to get worthless so fast if it was worth something in the first place.

Zyst 10y ago

Twentysomething year old here, so you know, not like you don't have a point but: >the other reason is because it's easy/boring as hell I legitimately think front end development is not only very fun, it can have some really challenging aspects. I wouldn't think there's any programming challenge that is inherently easier because it's on web as opposed to something else. Of course I bet there are domain-specific tasks (Distributed Programming, Embedded hardware to list some) that are likely harder than web development. But I guess what I'm trying to say is: I don't appreciate you calling what I make a living off, and spend quite a few hours studying weekly 'easy/boring as hell'.

thesmallestcat 10y ago
I was only speaking for myself. The challenges got old and most of the work felt like framework jockeying; it was work I could do in my sleep apart from the sweat of learning new tools. I won't deny that there are some exquisite challenges in frontend development, but most of the paying work does not involve them and is pretty CRUD-oriented. Also I was referring to web development in general, not just frontend.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
EpicEng 10y ago
Well, sorry, but... it is. Maybe you find it interesting, that's subjective, but there's no real technical challenge in front end stuff. You're not solving hard engineering problems; you're pasting together libraries other people wrote on top of libraries other people wrote (and on it goes) and searching google to figure out why your opaque stack doesn't seem to be working. Developing a good UI is difficult, no question about it, but not for technical reasons. Whether you resent that or not doesn't make it any less true. >I wouldn't think there's any programming challenge that is inherently easier because it's on web as opposed to something else. Not because it's on the web, because front end work doesn't require anything more than knowledge of your toolset and some design sense. It's nearly all "hey, build a UI with some CRUD functionality which is essentially the same as the 100 you've built before, but for this special snowflake customer." Bleh.

dsjoerg 10y ago

When it's easy / boring as hell why not make the computer do it?

DenisM 10y ago
Yes, lets just make a framework to put an end to... well... all that mess of frameworks... ugh... :)
dunkelheit 10y ago
There is a lot of tasks with enough variation to resist being automated (or at least they require much higher skill to pull it off) but they are boring as hell after you do a few instances.

noname123 10y ago

Yes. I'd love to hear some people's journeys to advance their career and move from web development into more specialization. Off the top of my head, there are three types of specialization, for money, for domain knowledge and for technical skills. For Money: Not necessarily any more satisfying or churn-proof than web development; But definitely more lucrative. Salesforce/SAP/Oracle consultant, mobile app developer, SEO or becoming a web dev consultant or remote work arbitrage or just becoming a manager. For Domain Knowledge, you are becoming a computational {Biologist, Geologist, Financial Quant} than a pure coder. Fields like modeling fluid dynamics or finite element analysis for GE or GM; or modeling petroleum reserve for Shell; or Bioinformatics for BigPharma or modeling risk for banks. You probably have to go back to school for another degree in that subject or get the equivalent on-the-job training. For Technical Skills, you are specializing in a sub-field of practical coding/IT, working at a software company. Like Data Science/Machine-Learning (distributed computing tools and knowledge about basic learning models), or Information Security (e.g., MITRE) or Embedded System (C++/Assembly) or high-performance system (e.g., Akamai; C++/networking). Curious anyone who took the step to specialize or just started out in a more specialized field and their thoughts; and if I am missing any potential specialization options out!

WalterBright 10y ago
I started dabbling in compilers early on and just got increasingly into them and their associated tools. It's still fun watching a new optimization rumble into life: https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6176 https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6176 (Yes I know some other compilers do that already.) It's fun knowing how it all works from the source code to the executable.
xaa 10y ago
Well, I learned to code in order to do bioinformatics. I didn't start out as a programmer looking to specialize. I agree that it seems that programming + X is often a much more powerful combination than programming or X alone. But I would say to anyone starting out that it is better to head towards, and get the formal qualifications for X, and learn programming on the side (or if in college, get the major in X and a minor in CS). The reasons are that programming is relatively easy to learn outside of classes, and programming itself really doesn't require formal qualifications. For me, biology has been orders of magnitude harder to learn than coding. With coding, you can learn by doing, and you get immediate feedback from the compiler/interpreter. Not so with biology. You can be mistaken for weeks/months/years and never realize it until you read just the right article. And often, domain-specific knowledge like biology seems to be composed of thousands of tiny details without too many general principles, whereas if you learn a few basic principles for programming, you can learn pretty much any new language or framework easily. I don't know if this is generally true of all specializations, but if so, it would behoove someone to get started on learning the specialization-related information ASAP, because that will take much longer to reach proficiency than for programming.

sotojuan 10y ago

> Doing that sort of work now feels like I am sabotaging my career. Heh, I feel that way and I'm 22. Unfortunately the only language I know is JavaScript and the stuff I am interested in and learning isn't quite there yet in terms of jobs.

bostonvaulter2 10y ago

But one of the downsides of doing Linux systems programming is that it is much more niche and really restricts your options for employers as well as where to live.

bboreham 10y ago
Containers is an exploding field, and basically "Linux systems programming". Sure it's more niche than the web, but there are many many companies hiring, all over the world.
- Zelmor 10y ago
  Maybe in 5-10 years I'll consider taking a look at containers. Currently, they are a fad not much unlike React.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Hmm, why do you think they're a fad? Virtualization as a way of controlling specific application environments has been around for decades. The current movement (kicked off by the hypervisor work over a decade ago) is towards running more virtualized environments now that hardware and software support is much better (reduced overhead associated with it, greater portability). Do you mean that they're overused or that their value is overstated?
    - Zelmor 10y ago
      When Fortune 500s start adopting a technology, it can be considered ripe and stable. Big companies move slow for a reason. You wouldn't want your banking site to pull the newest javascript magick, but something to do dull-looking business logic, and be rock solid. You brought up virtualization. That started in the '60s. It too 40 years for the technology to get to a level where it is widespread and adopted by everyone and their cat. We will see if Docker and other container technologies will get their hold in industries other than startups. For now, all the people who use it that I see are the cool kids on the block in their hoodies. I think boring technology is good technology in that it provides value and stability for everyone. I am yet to hear of one Docker adoption where at scale the company saved more than a three digit sum year-on-year. Remember that you also pay an extra for sysops folks who run these things, and they will ask a higher price because the tech is hip! For me, I'll stick to VmWare and kvm for now.

marcosdumay 10y ago

What option do people have? We created a universal interface for computing, and it is web programming. It does not matter if you are creating a CRUD application of an improved Google search, you'll have to present it the same way. Thus, unless you are willing to give up control on the presentation of your work, you'd better learn it.