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"...programmers have respect on the level of assembly line workers... [in the] UK... your parents would much prefer you picked a respectable profession, like a

"...programmers have respect on the level of assembly line workers... [in the] UK... your parents would much prefer you picked a respectable profession, like a doctor or a lawyer." In the UK, sure, being a lawyer or doctor is much more prestigious than being a programmer. However, to equate programmers to (presumably unskilled) assembly-line workers is total nonsense.

arethuza 15y ago
What kind of programmer and what kind of assembly line?
Silhouette 15y ago
> However, to equate programmers to (presumably unskilled) assembly-line workers is total nonsense. Really? Is it so absurd? Some programming tasks certainly require a lot of skill and insight. Not everyone could be a senior developer on a major software project, or start a successful business making their software from scratch. On the other hand, many programming tasks today are very much like an assembly line: here are some parts, glue them together like this, make a product. A scary number of "programmers" today lack even basic background knowledge of the theory underlying their work, or a proper understanding of their tools, or any particular training and experience (academic, personal projects/self-study, or otherwise) that qualifies them to work on industrial, commercial projects. Unsurprisingly, those people produce crap. Their software doesn't do what users need, or loses users' data, or crashes users' computers, or in the Internet age has security problems that let malware onto users' systems. Funnily enough, the people paying for that crap don't much appreciate it, and the software industry generally has a poor reputation for being able to produce good quality work as a result of these fools. Of course, smart programmers have also built things like the Internet and air traffic control that can co-ordinate landing dozens of planes an hour safely, but people take it for granted that these things work without any understanding of how difficult it is to get such critical software right, and most professional programmers will never work on such important projects anyway. I don't see how we're going to start distinguishing between software developers who know what they're doing and those who don't until we have some sort of competent and authoritative professional standards body. I don't see how we're going to have one of those until our industry is grown up enough to set useful professional standards. We clearly aren't ready for that today, with widespread ignorance in the industrial community, academics whose theories often don't stand up to practical applications, management who can't even estimate a project within a factor of 5 for time and budget, and consultants who peddle the Next Big Thing as if snake oil was going out of fashion. And thus the vicious cycle goes on, and probably will until our industry is a lot more mature. Until then, many so-called professional programmers are pretty close to unskilled assembly line workers, and it is a strange idea that they should earn 10x the wage of someone working an eight-hour shift under far less pleasant conditions in a factory to produce goods that you and I rely on every day.
- olliesaunders 15y ago
  It all comes down to the point you make about there being no widespread absolute consensus on the best way to develop software: our industry moves too fast and contradicts itself too often for institutions and standards to become permanently established. But I suspect, comparatively, we are actually doing much better than more mature fields such as law and medicine (who took hundreds of years from their founding to reach what they have achieved today). Also, maybe law and medicine aren’t that great. Every time I visit my GP these days I’m always struck by how he basically has no idea what is wrong with me. And our legal system seems to be pretty out of date in the light of more recent findings in psychology and changes in society caused by the Internet.

arethuza 15y ago

What kind of programmer and what kind of assembly line?

Silhouette 15y ago

> However, to equate programmers to (presumably unskilled) assembly-line workers is total nonsense. Really? Is it so absurd? Some programming tasks certainly require a lot of skill and insight. Not everyone could be a senior developer on a major software project, or start a successful business making their software from scratch. On the other hand, many programming tasks today are very much like an assembly line: here are some parts, glue them together like this, make a product. A scary number of "programmers" today lack even basic background knowledge of the theory underlying their work, or a proper understanding of their tools, or any particular training and experience (academic, personal projects/self-study, or otherwise) that qualifies them to work on industrial, commercial projects. Unsurprisingly, those people produce crap. Their software doesn't do what users need, or loses users' data, or crashes users' computers, or in the Internet age has security problems that let malware onto users' systems. Funnily enough, the people paying for that crap don't much appreciate it, and the software industry generally has a poor reputation for being able to produce good quality work as a result of these fools. Of course, smart programmers have also built things like the Internet and air traffic control that can co-ordinate landing dozens of planes an hour safely, but people take it for granted that these things work without any understanding of how difficult it is to get such critical software right, and most professional programmers will never work on such important projects anyway. I don't see how we're going to start distinguishing between software developers who know what they're doing and those who don't until we have some sort of competent and authoritative professional standards body. I don't see how we're going to have one of those until our industry is grown up enough to set useful professional standards. We clearly aren't ready for that today, with widespread ignorance in the industrial community, academics whose theories often don't stand up to practical applications, management who can't even estimate a project within a factor of 5 for time and budget, and consultants who peddle the Next Big Thing as if snake oil was going out of fashion. And thus the vicious cycle goes on, and probably will until our industry is a lot more mature. Until then, many so-called professional programmers are pretty close to unskilled assembly line workers, and it is a strange idea that they should earn 10x the wage of someone working an eight-hour shift under far less pleasant conditions in a factory to produce goods that you and I rely on every day.

olliesaunders 15y ago
It all comes down to the point you make about there being no widespread absolute consensus on the best way to develop software: our industry moves too fast and contradicts itself too often for institutions and standards to become permanently established. But I suspect, comparatively, we are actually doing much better than more mature fields such as law and medicine (who took hundreds of years from their founding to reach what they have achieved today). Also, maybe law and medicine aren’t that great. Every time I visit my GP these days I’m always struck by how he basically has no idea what is wrong with me. And our legal system seems to be pretty out of date in the light of more recent findings in psychology and changes in society caused by the Internet.