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I don't really understand the desire for skills to be in high demand. Obviously, you want your skills to be in demand in some capacity. But putting so much em

I don't really understand the desire for skills to be in high demand. Obviously, you want your skills to be in demand in some capacity. But putting so much emphasis on whether some tech skill is a winner on a scoreboard can give people the wrong impression about other languages and technologies that appear to either be unpopular or dying. It's reassuring that Java and SQL are still in high demand after all these years, but newbies looking at these charts might make the assumption that they might as well not bother learning other things like Elixir, PHP, Rust, Ruby, etc., because they're not that popular, even though those jobs exist, will continue to exist, and pay well. Also, it's disturbing that Scum is the 13th most demanded "skill".

Felk 7y ago
Is that a freudian typo?
deepaksurti 7y ago
>> Scum I don't if it was an intentional typo, but the `pun` might actually apply in many projects, unfortunately I must say.
pm90 7y ago
This sounds horrible but maybe the people who would take these lists seriously are precisely the kinds of people who are careerist programmers. And they really just want the maximum value from their “investment” in learning programming. In college I didn’t learn Java at all because it didn’t seem very fun. Python did and I learned that. Then Go came along which was easy to pick up. But once you know a general purpose language well, it doesn’t take long to learn another one (maybe not the most performant code right away but that’s what code reviews by peers are for).
- dvtrn 7y ago
  Is there anything inherently wrong with that? They know where the butter for their bread comes from and make it work for them and reap from it. As far as individual career choices go, seems like a winning move.
  - pm90 7y ago
    This is a good question. I think I don’t want to work with careerists. Programming is a kind of labor that seems to have different properties than other kinds of labor, which can be quantified effectively and used to make accurate predictions. The sheer complexity of the field makes promising things a fools errand. The Agile manifesto is an acknowledgment of this unpredictability, and the approach they take is to quantify only the immediate next goals instead of predicting months ahead. Careerists tend to like predictable slices of work which they can accomplish during work hours and go home and do whatever. Unfortunately, most high impact projects require a bit more involvement: not to give up all free time, but to be more flexible. A commitment to do the right thing (very easy to cut corners and ignore best practices) but to deliver on time. Careerists tend to prioritize their quanta of work and how to get it done during work hours rather than focusing on getting it done well. They have to be coached into best practices. They need to be asked to meet deadlines, or disagree to deadlines if they feel it’s inadequate. For these reasons, I personally do not like working with careerists.
- abernard1 7y ago
  > This sounds horrible but maybe the people who would take these lists seriously are precisely the kinds of people who are careerist programmers. While I agree with the sentiment, I think there's a flipside to this. Certain communities cough cough ahem have the luxury of not caring at all about skills in broad demand, hopping from technology to technology because the market allows it. I've seen a lot of "expert beginnerism" from that group of people, and a little bit of disdain for the people who do schlep work day in and day out to make a living. In my experience, a lot of the people who work with the boring technology have more seniority and depth because they're not relearning the window dressing that is syntax/framework/language constantly. If anything, I think these reports (from Indeed... real data, not some meaningless top ten) just indicate that employers don't really care about whatever's hot right now, and that a surprising amount of the economy is powered by unglamorous tech.
- Redoubts 7y ago
  Ok, well what if you picked up VBasic and Pascal instead of python and go? I would say your choices are particularly convenient.
kweinber 7y ago
Library depth and growth are side-effects of a language ecosystems popularity. It doesn’t mean that all libraries are good ones, but remember the open-source rallying cry “many eyes make all bugs shallow”? Yeah, that tends to be true. Also, in-demand technologies tend to have a larger talent-pool to choose from. Not everyone is good, but you have a much better time finding the right skills and cultural fit if the talent pool is larger. A great example counter example is elixir... A technology with a lot of advocacy but almost no demand. Slow library growth, almost no programmers with production experience, and almost no market demand... which is a self-perpetuating cycle. Choosing a technology like that for your stack is like buying an obsolete car with impossible to find parts.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
bsaul 7y ago
because price ( aka salary / fee) is a function of supply and demand and it grows the more the skill is in demand. As simple as that. Let’s say you want to start a career as a freelance for example : what skill to you put forward ? You may say « but jobs requiring elixir are probably more interesting than sql/java ». I agree, but that is if there’s one position open at the time you’re looking , in the area you’re looking and with other qualifications matching
- sidlls 7y ago
  It isn't that simple. Most "Java + SQL" jobs are run of the mill cost-center type jobs at companies that aren't tech companies. Their salaries, benefits, and locales are generally poor relatively to other software engineering jobs. The demand is high, and so is the supply of labor, but that isn't the whole picture.
  - NikolaNovak 7y ago
    I would agree with that picture. In other comments on this thread, I've indicated Java & SQL are the #1 demands on any project I've ever worked on. At the same time though, none of those people have earned anything remotely what I tend to see on HN in general, and SF area in particular. From my limited experience, it feels like a good, experienced, hardened, senior Java developer in Toronto, Canada (not a tiny/cheap place), makes about half what a hot-startup-technology intermediate makes in SF :-\
    - nostrebored 7y ago
      Canada is particularly bleak in terms of SDE salary though. My offers in South Africa were higher than average salaries in Vancouver.
    - sidlls 7y ago
      Tech "hubs" like the Bay Area are rare: most software developers earn far less, and our salaries shouldn't be taken for a typical salary. The vast majority of software developers will never see six figures (adjusted for inflation) unless they move to management, just like most of their white-collar peers.

Felk 7y ago

Is that a freudian typo?

deepaksurti 7y ago

>> Scum I don't if it was an intentional typo, but the `pun` might actually apply in many projects, unfortunately I must say.

pm90 7y ago

This sounds horrible but maybe the people who would take these lists seriously are precisely the kinds of people who are careerist programmers. And they really just want the maximum value from their “investment” in learning programming. In college I didn’t learn Java at all because it didn’t seem very fun. Python did and I learned that. Then Go came along which was easy to pick up. But once you know a general purpose language well, it doesn’t take long to learn another one (maybe not the most performant code right away but that’s what code reviews by peers are for).

dvtrn 7y ago
Is there anything inherently wrong with that? They know where the butter for their bread comes from and make it work for them and reap from it. As far as individual career choices go, seems like a winning move.
- pm90 7y ago
  This is a good question. I think I don’t want to work with careerists. Programming is a kind of labor that seems to have different properties than other kinds of labor, which can be quantified effectively and used to make accurate predictions. The sheer complexity of the field makes promising things a fools errand. The Agile manifesto is an acknowledgment of this unpredictability, and the approach they take is to quantify only the immediate next goals instead of predicting months ahead. Careerists tend to like predictable slices of work which they can accomplish during work hours and go home and do whatever. Unfortunately, most high impact projects require a bit more involvement: not to give up all free time, but to be more flexible. A commitment to do the right thing (very easy to cut corners and ignore best practices) but to deliver on time. Careerists tend to prioritize their quanta of work and how to get it done during work hours rather than focusing on getting it done well. They have to be coached into best practices. They need to be asked to meet deadlines, or disagree to deadlines if they feel it’s inadequate. For these reasons, I personally do not like working with careerists.
abernard1 7y ago
> This sounds horrible but maybe the people who would take these lists seriously are precisely the kinds of people who are careerist programmers. While I agree with the sentiment, I think there's a flipside to this. Certain communities cough cough ahem have the luxury of not caring at all about skills in broad demand, hopping from technology to technology because the market allows it. I've seen a lot of "expert beginnerism" from that group of people, and a little bit of disdain for the people who do schlep work day in and day out to make a living. In my experience, a lot of the people who work with the boring technology have more seniority and depth because they're not relearning the window dressing that is syntax/framework/language constantly. If anything, I think these reports (from Indeed... real data, not some meaningless top ten) just indicate that employers don't really care about whatever's hot right now, and that a surprising amount of the economy is powered by unglamorous tech.
Redoubts 7y ago
Ok, well what if you picked up VBasic and Pascal instead of python and go? I would say your choices are particularly convenient.

kweinber 7y ago

Library depth and growth are side-effects of a language ecosystems popularity. It doesn’t mean that all libraries are good ones, but remember the open-source rallying cry “many eyes make all bugs shallow”? Yeah, that tends to be true. Also, in-demand technologies tend to have a larger talent-pool to choose from. Not everyone is good, but you have a much better time finding the right skills and cultural fit if the talent pool is larger. A great example counter example is elixir... A technology with a lot of advocacy but almost no demand. Slow library growth, almost no programmers with production experience, and almost no market demand... which is a self-perpetuating cycle. Choosing a technology like that for your stack is like buying an obsolete car with impossible to find parts.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

bsaul 7y ago

because price ( aka salary / fee) is a function of supply and demand and it grows the more the skill is in demand. As simple as that. Let’s say you want to start a career as a freelance for example : what skill to you put forward ? You may say « but jobs requiring elixir are probably more interesting than sql/java ». I agree, but that is if there’s one position open at the time you’re looking , in the area you’re looking and with other qualifications matching

sidlls 7y ago
It isn't that simple. Most "Java + SQL" jobs are run of the mill cost-center type jobs at companies that aren't tech companies. Their salaries, benefits, and locales are generally poor relatively to other software engineering jobs. The demand is high, and so is the supply of labor, but that isn't the whole picture.
- NikolaNovak 7y ago
  I would agree with that picture. In other comments on this thread, I've indicated Java & SQL are the #1 demands on any project I've ever worked on. At the same time though, none of those people have earned anything remotely what I tend to see on HN in general, and SF area in particular. From my limited experience, it feels like a good, experienced, hardened, senior Java developer in Toronto, Canada (not a tiny/cheap place), makes about half what a hot-startup-technology intermediate makes in SF :-\
  - nostrebored 7y ago
    Canada is particularly bleak in terms of SDE salary though. My offers in South Africa were higher than average salaries in Vancouver.
  - sidlls 7y ago
    Tech "hubs" like the Bay Area are rare: most software developers earn far less, and our salaries shouldn't be taken for a typical salary. The vast majority of software developers will never see six figures (adjusted for inflation) unless they move to management, just like most of their white-collar peers.