4 ms·

The thing is, IMHO Programming to most people is boring. It's like telling them you're a builder. Yeah you lay some bricks and cement and build stuff. (Well act

by axod 16y ago

The thing is, IMHO Programming to most people is boring. It's like telling them you're a builder. Yeah you lay some bricks and cement and build stuff. (Well actually, they ask you to fix their PC, since you must know about such things if you're a programmer). We're not on the cutting edge of science, we're often not inventing anything new, we're just doing boring grunt work shoving things together. We're factory workers. In 50 years our jobs will all be obsoleted by automation. We just happen to be in a time where there's still value in being able to manually translate 'what I want' into 'what computer understands'. The public doesn't want some 'stellar factory worker' championing assembly lines, because it's boring. I think we need to get real. Programming isn't something most people are interested in, it's not glamorous, it's factory work. Lets not delude ourselves that we're at the cutting edge of new discovery. Of course there are stereotypes that are very real here. Just like the average man in fashion is camp, the average sysadmin is scary. People who work with computers often do have real 'people' issues. Perhaps that's why they gravitated to computers in the first place. There's no point denying such things. Building companies, developing products, increasing revenue are all far more interesting to everyone.

_pi 16y ago
You say: >I think we need to get real. Programming isn't something most people are interested in, it's not glamorous, it's factory work. Lets not delude ourselves that we're at the cutting edge of new discovery. And: >Building companies, developing products, increasing revenue are all far more interesting to everyone. But really, when was the last revolutionary product made? The last revolutionary way to increase revenue that was sustainable in the long run? I've seen many revolutions in software, distributed version control for instance ie git, LLVM, gaming and visualization software, and hybrid synchronization systems such as unison. In OSS the 'As Seen on TV' type products generally don't see the light of day, they get buried and forgotten, it's only incorporate environments I've seen crappy interfaces using decrepit languages from the 90's, because those programmers have stopped, or never even started caring about programming. If they did they might take the initiative to fix up the program themselves. As for the factory worker analogy, I think it's dead wrong. It's like saying anyone who ever designed a product is a factory worker. Programmers have to do a lot of design decisions, interop systems etc. Yeah if you're programming in Java, or making corporate program in programing lanaguage du jour you're probably not really innovating, like any part of life programming is self driven, for every Google there's a struggling business and for every git, there's a Java webapp for accessing an Access database. Also if you think AI is going to obsoltete us in 50 years you're kinda pushing reality there. MS tried to make programming easy and accessible, look at every <LANGUAGE> in 24 hours book. They download MSVS and run through a bunch of wizards, that's about as much control and innovation as you get with a Java webapp that accesses an access database. Not only that but who's going to program all the new features into the the automation AI? When Intel releases a new architecture or something happens there's always gonna be a need for programmers to translate and incorporate data. Essentially if what you said was true SIGGRAPH wouldn't exist. There's plenty of innovation going on in the software field, and plenty of talent, like every field there's a bunch of idiots, and plenty of talent. If anything you made a great social commentary, people care only about money, the easiest way to get money is working in middle management. Your argument is based on the corporate programmer stereotype.
rdouble 16y ago
The average man in fashion is not "camp"...
alxp 16y ago
> We just happen to be in a time where there's still value in being able to manually translate 'what I want' into 'what computer understands'. Developers have the ability to think clearly and actually create a working system that follows logical rules and accounts for edge cases and malicious users. This is not just "factory work" and never will be as long as we want software to do something that hasn't been done before, which will always be true.
zephyrfalcon 16y ago
"We're not on the cutting edge of science, we're often not inventing anything new, we're just doing boring grunt work shoving things together. We're factory workers. In 50 years our jobs will all be obsoleted by automation. We just happen to be in a time where there's still value in being able to manually translate 'what I want' into 'what computer understands'." Factory workers? Do you really believe that? Or are you saying that that is the way this work is seen by non-programmers? Also, "in 50 years our jobs will all be obsoleted by automation", may well by true for any job. Once there are machines that will do complex surgeries flawlessly, with access to all the medical knowledge in the world, people won't want a "stellar surgeon" either, for example. I wouldn't like to tell them that what they're doing is "factory work", though. :-)
squidsoup 16y ago
I'm writing medical software that has the potential to save lives and has a real, measurable social impact. That's hardly factory work; I think that's a gross misrepresentation of our craft.
- sbov 16y ago
  So building MRI machines, x-ray machines, defibrillators, seat belts, and airbags isn't factory work because they save lives?
  - _pi 16y ago
    Software isn't built it's designed, then prototyped, then finalized. The guy on the assembly line isn't designing an MRI machine, that's already been done, he's screwing screws into place. Building implies it's done more than once in a repetitive fashion which is definitely not the case with software, software is written to overcome that.

by axod 16y ago

_pi 16y ago

You say: >I think we need to get real. Programming isn't something most people are interested in, it's not glamorous, it's factory work. Lets not delude ourselves that we're at the cutting edge of new discovery. And: >Building companies, developing products, increasing revenue are all far more interesting to everyone. But really, when was the last revolutionary product made? The last revolutionary way to increase revenue that was sustainable in the long run? I've seen many revolutions in software, distributed version control for instance ie git, LLVM, gaming and visualization software, and hybrid synchronization systems such as unison. In OSS the 'As Seen on TV' type products generally don't see the light of day, they get buried and forgotten, it's only incorporate environments I've seen crappy interfaces using decrepit languages from the 90's, because those programmers have stopped, or never even started caring about programming. If they did they might take the initiative to fix up the program themselves. As for the factory worker analogy, I think it's dead wrong. It's like saying anyone who ever designed a product is a factory worker. Programmers have to do a lot of design decisions, interop systems etc. Yeah if you're programming in Java, or making corporate program in programing lanaguage du jour you're probably not really innovating, like any part of life programming is self driven, for every Google there's a struggling business and for every git, there's a Java webapp for accessing an Access database. Also if you think AI is going to obsoltete us in 50 years you're kinda pushing reality there. MS tried to make programming easy and accessible, look at every <LANGUAGE> in 24 hours book. They download MSVS and run through a bunch of wizards, that's about as much control and innovation as you get with a Java webapp that accesses an access database. Not only that but who's going to program all the new features into the the automation AI? When Intel releases a new architecture or something happens there's always gonna be a need for programmers to translate and incorporate data. Essentially if what you said was true SIGGRAPH wouldn't exist. There's plenty of innovation going on in the software field, and plenty of talent, like every field there's a bunch of idiots, and plenty of talent. If anything you made a great social commentary, people care only about money, the easiest way to get money is working in middle management. Your argument is based on the corporate programmer stereotype.

rdouble 16y ago

The average man in fashion is not "camp"...

alxp 16y ago

> We just happen to be in a time where there's still value in being able to manually translate 'what I want' into 'what computer understands'. Developers have the ability to think clearly and actually create a working system that follows logical rules and accounts for edge cases and malicious users. This is not just "factory work" and never will be as long as we want software to do something that hasn't been done before, which will always be true.

zephyrfalcon 16y ago

"We're not on the cutting edge of science, we're often not inventing anything new, we're just doing boring grunt work shoving things together. We're factory workers. In 50 years our jobs will all be obsoleted by automation. We just happen to be in a time where there's still value in being able to manually translate 'what I want' into 'what computer understands'." Factory workers? Do you really believe that? Or are you saying that that is the way this work is seen by non-programmers? Also, "in 50 years our jobs will all be obsoleted by automation", may well by true for any job. Once there are machines that will do complex surgeries flawlessly, with access to all the medical knowledge in the world, people won't want a "stellar surgeon" either, for example. I wouldn't like to tell them that what they're doing is "factory work", though. :-)

squidsoup 16y ago

I'm writing medical software that has the potential to save lives and has a real, measurable social impact. That's hardly factory work; I think that's a gross misrepresentation of our craft.

sbov 16y ago
So building MRI machines, x-ray machines, defibrillators, seat belts, and airbags isn't factory work because they save lives?
- _pi 16y ago
  Software isn't built it's designed, then prototyped, then finalized. The guy on the assembly line isn't designing an MRI machine, that's already been done, he's screwing screws into place. Building implies it's done more than once in a repetitive fashion which is definitely not the case with software, software is written to overcome that.