12 ms·

Who are we kidding. This is a symptom of the economy. There is money in software. What does the economy of the future look like? Millions and millions of progr

Who are we kidding. This is a symptom of the economy. There is money in software. What does the economy of the future look like? Millions and millions of programmers. Manipulating technology is where value comes from and software is the most efficient way to manipulate technology. I just hope we have enough robotics and computer engineering people to improve the platforms all these programmers are going to work on. The web browser is pretty limited in its ability to improve human life. We need other platforms to target.

Retric 16y ago
I suspect the number of programmers and admins to grow fairly slowly over time. In many ways we are still in the early days of the revolution where everyone needed to tack on indoor plumbing, heating, and AC to existing buildings. Not only are there huge gaps but all the tools suck so everything is a custom job. However, now days it's become a fairly standardized and when building from scratch you just include plumbing, heating, and AC as part of the initial design. EX: Modern auto factory robots are more capable than needed for most of their jobs but a better tool means less need to customize. PS: Consider the number of poeple projected to know HTML in 1998 vs actually know HTML in 2010.
- SoftwarePatent 16y ago
  "PS: Consider the number of poeple projected to know HTML in 1998 vs actually know HTML in 2010." What's the answer? A lot more or a lot less?
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    The bar's certainly a lot higher. When I was in high school in the late 90s, a bunch of us high school kids got jobs as webmonkeys writing HTML for the dot-com boom. It was something you could easily teach yourself as a student. Nowadays, Google's having trouble hiring enough people with sufficient web skills. And the reason is because the web basically "grew up". In addition to HTML, you also need to know CSS, JavaScript, how to write maintainable JavaScript, DOM APIs, browser quirks, performance tricks, emerging web standards, and at least one server-side programming language. The definition of a "web developer" has shifted so that it's really a full-fledged programmer with specific domain knowledge, akin to the skill level needed to do compilers or embedded systems. And the barriers to entry have become correspondingly bigger; you don't see as many high school kids writing major websites any more.
    - Retric 16y ago
      Exactly, if you want to create a website for your high school chess club there is a ready made solution that while not perfect is fairly difficult to beat by hand. So the average became more complex because the simple problems had already been solved AND you are building generic solutions to cover more areas. In other words Facebook solved a lot of the problems people used to learn HTML to solve and now Facebook needs a few high quality designers not just a HS student with some time on their hands. Net result fewer people learned HTML because it was not needed.
      - T-hawk 16y ago
        You also have Microsoft making efforts to obscure HTML completely to create lock-in to Microsoft's design tools. It's long been easy to create a "web page" with Frontpage or Word as a WYSIWYG editor. The followup was ASP.NET Web Forms, where a designer uses the graphical toolbox to make all the interactive fields and buttons and such without knowing a lick of the underlying HTML. The net effect is to reduce the amount of HTML knowledge in the marketplace.
        chadgeidel 16y ago
        As someone who currently works in Microsoft's web ecosystem, I would have to disagree. Microsoft's tools encourage you to know the underlying HTML and "how things work" under the hood. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a tough road to slap together a site with Visual Web developer or Visual Studio without knowing the "guts" of HTML/CSS/JavaScript, C# or VB, an ORM, and and a smattering of SQL.
        Niten 16y ago
        Heck, even their Expression Blend and Visual Studio WPF and Silverlight designers assume you'll want to edit XAML by hand. Microsoft's current generation of development tools emphatically are not in the business of hiding markup language away from the developer.
slewis 16y ago
"improve the platforms all these programmers are going to work on" I'm intrigued. Do you have specific ideas in mind? Do you mean like self-driving cars? Or in home helper robots? All of the above?
- forensic 16y ago
  How about cars with software interfaces so you can download software that will assist with driving. Download driving software from an app store. Everything from red light timers to voice activated mileage calculators to self-driving apps. Little toy apps that let you take pictures of the license plates of douche-bag drivers and tweet about them, to sophisticated safety apps that apply the brakes if you're going to run someone over. How about bathrooms with some hardware installed that controls valves on your shower, drain, toilet, sink, etc. Has some sensors: temperature, pressure, whatever. Has an exposed "reset" button that, when pushed, allows it to be connected to through WiFi. You connect on your laptop through WiFi and configure it like a router, or you give it your wifi password and configure it through an internet webapp. You could have it do things like automatically adjust the temperature of your shower so it never goes cold. Put a limit on the temperature of the water coming out so your kids don't get burned. Tell you when the drain is getting clogged. Shut off the water when the toilet is overflowing. Put a few hardware controls in the plumbing, expose the controls to a software interface, launch an app store and let people make apps for your toilet and shower. We need this. Ditto for smart houses. Create little wifi plugs that you install in your light fixtures and then have a software interface that lets people write apps to control lights from your iPhone, or from a remote web interface when on vacation. Plug a little hardware device onto your blinds that will open/close them based on a software interface. Hooks up to your wifi. Lets you program it to open with the sunrise and close at sunset, or whatever the programmer wants. Have toy apps that communicate with neighbours using morse code for $4.99 on the app store. There is infinite potential. A wifi connection, a microprocessor, and some piece of hardware to plug everyday things into. Every single morning I wonder why someone has not invented a simple hardware unit to plug into your shower that lets you regulate the temperature. I want to have an interface on my iPhone where I set the temperature of my shower in degrees fahrenheit and then push "start" and the shower turns on and heats up to my desired temperature automatically.

Retric 16y ago

I suspect the number of programmers and admins to grow fairly slowly over time. In many ways we are still in the early days of the revolution where everyone needed to tack on indoor plumbing, heating, and AC to existing buildings. Not only are there huge gaps but all the tools suck so everything is a custom job. However, now days it's become a fairly standardized and when building from scratch you just include plumbing, heating, and AC as part of the initial design. EX: Modern auto factory robots are more capable than needed for most of their jobs but a better tool means less need to customize. PS: Consider the number of poeple projected to know HTML in 1998 vs actually know HTML in 2010.

SoftwarePatent 16y ago
"PS: Consider the number of poeple projected to know HTML in 1998 vs actually know HTML in 2010." What's the answer? A lot more or a lot less?
- nostrademons 16y ago
  The bar's certainly a lot higher. When I was in high school in the late 90s, a bunch of us high school kids got jobs as webmonkeys writing HTML for the dot-com boom. It was something you could easily teach yourself as a student. Nowadays, Google's having trouble hiring enough people with sufficient web skills. And the reason is because the web basically "grew up". In addition to HTML, you also need to know CSS, JavaScript, how to write maintainable JavaScript, DOM APIs, browser quirks, performance tricks, emerging web standards, and at least one server-side programming language. The definition of a "web developer" has shifted so that it's really a full-fledged programmer with specific domain knowledge, akin to the skill level needed to do compilers or embedded systems. And the barriers to entry have become correspondingly bigger; you don't see as many high school kids writing major websites any more.
  - Retric 16y ago
    Exactly, if you want to create a website for your high school chess club there is a ready made solution that while not perfect is fairly difficult to beat by hand. So the average became more complex because the simple problems had already been solved AND you are building generic solutions to cover more areas. In other words Facebook solved a lot of the problems people used to learn HTML to solve and now Facebook needs a few high quality designers not just a HS student with some time on their hands. Net result fewer people learned HTML because it was not needed.
    - T-hawk 16y ago
      You also have Microsoft making efforts to obscure HTML completely to create lock-in to Microsoft's design tools. It's long been easy to create a "web page" with Frontpage or Word as a WYSIWYG editor. The followup was ASP.NET Web Forms, where a designer uses the graphical toolbox to make all the interactive fields and buttons and such without knowing a lick of the underlying HTML. The net effect is to reduce the amount of HTML knowledge in the marketplace.
      - chadgeidel 16y ago
        As someone who currently works in Microsoft's web ecosystem, I would have to disagree. Microsoft's tools encourage you to know the underlying HTML and "how things work" under the hood. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a tough road to slap together a site with Visual Web developer or Visual Studio without knowing the "guts" of HTML/CSS/JavaScript, C# or VB, an ORM, and and a smattering of SQL.
        Niten 16y ago
        Heck, even their Expression Blend and Visual Studio WPF and Silverlight designers assume you'll want to edit XAML by hand. Microsoft's current generation of development tools emphatically are not in the business of hiding markup language away from the developer.

slewis 16y ago

"improve the platforms all these programmers are going to work on" I'm intrigued. Do you have specific ideas in mind? Do you mean like self-driving cars? Or in home helper robots? All of the above?

forensic 16y ago
How about cars with software interfaces so you can download software that will assist with driving. Download driving software from an app store. Everything from red light timers to voice activated mileage calculators to self-driving apps. Little toy apps that let you take pictures of the license plates of douche-bag drivers and tweet about them, to sophisticated safety apps that apply the brakes if you're going to run someone over. How about bathrooms with some hardware installed that controls valves on your shower, drain, toilet, sink, etc. Has some sensors: temperature, pressure, whatever. Has an exposed "reset" button that, when pushed, allows it to be connected to through WiFi. You connect on your laptop through WiFi and configure it like a router, or you give it your wifi password and configure it through an internet webapp. You could have it do things like automatically adjust the temperature of your shower so it never goes cold. Put a limit on the temperature of the water coming out so your kids don't get burned. Tell you when the drain is getting clogged. Shut off the water when the toilet is overflowing. Put a few hardware controls in the plumbing, expose the controls to a software interface, launch an app store and let people make apps for your toilet and shower. We need this. Ditto for smart houses. Create little wifi plugs that you install in your light fixtures and then have a software interface that lets people write apps to control lights from your iPhone, or from a remote web interface when on vacation. Plug a little hardware device onto your blinds that will open/close them based on a software interface. Hooks up to your wifi. Lets you program it to open with the sunrise and close at sunset, or whatever the programmer wants. Have toy apps that communicate with neighbours using morse code for $4.99 on the app store. There is infinite potential. A wifi connection, a microprocessor, and some piece of hardware to plug everyday things into. Every single morning I wonder why someone has not invented a simple hardware unit to plug into your shower that lets you regulate the temperature. I want to have an interface on my iPhone where I set the temperature of my shower in degrees fahrenheit and then push "start" and the shower turns on and heats up to my desired temperature automatically.