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In one of Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin presentation you may find the answer. The number of developers duplicates each 5 years. That means that any point in time ha

In one of Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin presentation you may find the answer. The number of developers duplicates each 5 years. That means that any point in time half of the developers have less than 5 years of experience. Add to that realization the fact that inexperienced developers are learning from other inexperienced developers and you get the answer on why we repeat the same mistakes again and again. I guess that is a matter of time that the reality changes, we will not duplicate the number of developers indefinitely and experience and good practices will accumulate. Taking into account the circumstances, we are not doing so badly.

dgellow 7y ago
Do you have the source? Sounds like an interesting talk.
- Hokusai 7y ago
  I found it! :) I has a lot of content and insights. "Uncle" Bob Martin - "The Future of Programming" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc
  - hota_mazi 7y ago
    That's not the source, it's the claim. There is zero evidence for his claim that the number of developers double every five years.
    - ulisesrmzroche 7y ago
      Off the top of my head, coding boot camps
hota_mazi 7y ago
> The number of developers duplicates each 5 years You probably mean "double" here, but the bottom line is that there is zero data to back up that claim. He literally made up that number out of thin air to make his talk look more important.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  It should be fairly simple to look up people describing themselves as developers in the census data I think?
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    Does the census actually track that? I just did the questionnaire last night online and it didn't ask me anything about my occupation. Or did you mean something other than the US Census (e.g. GitHub or Stack Overflow or LinkedIn profiles)?
    - throwanem 7y ago
      The long form asks about your line of work. Most people get the short form.
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      No, I meant the US census (or whatever national census), I didn’t actually check if they asked that since it seemed like such a basic thing :/ sorry.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Not as easy as you might think, since “developers” isn't particular to software and software developers have lots of other near-equivalent terms, the set of which in use changes over time, and many of them aren't unique to software, either. OTOH, historical BLS data is easy to look up.
- purerandomness 7y ago
  Let's say it's 10 years, or make it 15 years, for the sake of the argument. How does that change his original argument?

dgellow 7y ago

Do you have the source? Sounds like an interesting talk.

Hokusai 7y ago
I found it! :) I has a lot of content and insights. "Uncle" Bob Martin - "The Future of Programming" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc
- hota_mazi 7y ago
  That's not the source, it's the claim. There is zero evidence for his claim that the number of developers double every five years.
  - ulisesrmzroche 7y ago
    Off the top of my head, coding boot camps

hota_mazi 7y ago

> The number of developers duplicates each 5 years You probably mean "double" here, but the bottom line is that there is zero data to back up that claim. He literally made up that number out of thin air to make his talk look more important.

Aeolun 7y ago
It should be fairly simple to look up people describing themselves as developers in the census data I think?
- yellowapple 7y ago
  Does the census actually track that? I just did the questionnaire last night online and it didn't ask me anything about my occupation. Or did you mean something other than the US Census (e.g. GitHub or Stack Overflow or LinkedIn profiles)?
  - throwanem 7y ago
    The long form asks about your line of work. Most people get the short form.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    No, I meant the US census (or whatever national census), I didn’t actually check if they asked that since it seemed like such a basic thing :/ sorry.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  Not as easy as you might think, since “developers” isn't particular to software and software developers have lots of other near-equivalent terms, the set of which in use changes over time, and many of them aren't unique to software, either. OTOH, historical BLS data is easy to look up.
purerandomness 7y ago
Let's say it's 10 years, or make it 15 years, for the sake of the argument. How does that change his original argument?