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Suggesting that everyone needs to know how to program is indicative of tunnel vision. What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming? (B

Suggesting that everyone needs to know how to program is indicative of tunnel vision. What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming? (By no means a complete list) Artists Bakers Brewers Chefs Electricians Fashion designers Firefighters Fishermen (commercial boat captains in general as well) Mechanics Musicians Pilots (including maritime pilots) Plumbers Psychiatrists Stylists Winemakers Zookeepers Even if we were to somehow automate all these jobs (which frankly I'm not sure is actually possible), someone will need to maintain the equipment. It can't be automation all the way down. I think this attitude is dangerous, and considering these jobs "dehumanizing" is, frankly, disrespectful and betrays a lack of understanding of what non-office-workers do. I highly recommend watching Mike Rowe's TED talk for a counterpoint: http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Swizec 15y ago
Well, let's see. Artists - new forms of art, html5, cool particle effects, webgl, 3D model scripts (for videos and such) and so on. A lot of use. Bakers - baking is a science, machine learning to figure out just the perfect ingredients for the best bread? Pastry? Etc? I'm fairly certain there's a reason why Oreos taste just the way they do. Brewers - same as the above. Why does Guinness taste just so? There's a lot of science behind that, science and stats. Chefs - the same argument applies. I also suggest you watch The Best Hamburger Ever -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UB_TVznOwK8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U... Electricians - this one is a bit tougher, but some lighting systems in some houses are pretty damn complex - to the point I'm almost certain there are some microcontrollers involved. Or what about stage lighting? Sure it's physical, but it's still programming. Fashion designers - a tough one, but someone has to program all those looms (although that's fabrics). They could also decide to turn it into a science, or what about those Samsung (or was it Philips?) LED fabrics that can be programmed to make lightshows. That could make it into fashion too. Firefighters - ok you got me here, this is a very physical job that probably wouldn't benefit from programming .... oooh, how about fire prediction? Calculating how it will spread in a building? That sort of stuff? Fishermen - have you seen the amount of high tech on a modern fishing boat (on telly for instance)? Puts the average reddit battle station to shame. Those things are complex and look very programmable. Mechanics - don't modern cars depend a lot on their electronics? Aren't there people who almost do nothing other than tune engines? Isn't that quite a bit like programming? Musicians - a guy at my faculty made a software that does some intricate things with music, I forget what it was, but basically machine learning on sounds and stuff like that. All very interesting and programming-heavy. Also the effects some peopel use these days are pretty damn awesome ... programmable? Pilots - don't they already pretty much program the auto pilot? What I've seen on television (discovery channel for instance) that thing is very complex and it doesn't look too far from programming when they input their commands. Plumbers - microcontrollers that control the amount of water flow based on time of day and season for the best water economy. That is all. Psychiatrists - they already program people's minds. They don't need anything more than that or they'd be too scary. Stylists - depends on the kind of stylist. Machine learning from tweets about a celebrity to figure out their best look? To figure out trends in style in advance so the celebrity client always looks like they're ahead of the curve? Hell, apply this to fashion designers as well. Winemakers - it's a science. A lot more goes into a bottle of wine than most of us think (I've seen how advanced the field of tea tasting is). I'm sure there's a lot of chances for programming therein. Zookeepers - when do you put a mommy bear and a daddy bear together in the pen so they don't eat each other and produce baby bears instead? ok that's statistics, but a little R programming wouldn't hurt. Guess what I'm saying is, almost all of these professions could benefit from at least programming in R. edit: The point is that, if all those people at least knew about programming, who knows what they'd be able to create or at least think of (and then get someone to do it)?
- MJR 15y ago
  The original comment said: What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming? You said: ... almost all of these professions could benefit from at least programming in R. "Need" != "Benefit From". There are innate benefits from learning anything, including programming. That does not equate to a profession having a need for programming.
  - Swizec 15y ago
    I may have took "have need for" a bit liberally I guess. But if a field can be improved by applying science, I take that is there being a need for that. Even if nobody is yet doing it like that (although the fact I could think of those off the cuff like that probably means that there is somebody somewhere in the world more knowledgable of that field who is already doing it)
  - thy 15y ago
    ppl may have multiple works, besides they may find it fun.
- h0h0 15y ago
  How to improve ANYTHING: 'apply machine learning and stuff like that'
- ybot 15y ago
  You were really stretching on some of these. Sure, there will be software to assist any of these professions but that doesn't mean all the people in the profession should become programmers. You're conflating the need of an individual professional to learn to program with the ability of software to impact the industry that individual works in. Firefighters, for example. Modeling & predicting fire sounds great, but should that be the job of a firefighter or a programmer/statistician who works for the fire department? That said, I think you're right to call out the parent – many of these jobs should require programming or already do. Many artists & musicians rely heavily on an ability to write software. The group of professions producing food & drink will benefit from automation, but only so much as the professionals using those automation tools understand and can control them. Programming ability is rapidly moving into all kinds of areas, but to assume that it must end up in every area seems almost as narrow minded as ignoring the impact it's currently having.
Jach 15y ago
One common thing about all those jobs is that they've all been automated in parts and continue to be more and more automated. So you may be right that for some reason not every job can be automated 100%, but that doesn't save those jobs from automation. See how happy 9/10 laid off zookeepers are when you tell them "Hey, at least we kept one of you to run the machines!" Even if you can only get to a mere 50% from some baseline, that's half the previous work force blown away that was previously required. Those laid off will have to find another field quick. It's not easy to change careers and it's not easy to go from a mostly-labor job to a mostly-thinking job. (I'm being fairly broad with labor and thinking here--e.g. I consider someone whose job is to input handwritten form data all day to be a labor job even though they sit at a computer for 8 hours, and a professional artist to be a thinking job even though it's probably better categorized as a creative job.) Since mostly-labor jobs are the easiest so far to automate large portions of, those jobs are at the highest risk. Programming is the last bastion of a large supply of available jobs until we have AI smart enough to write most of the programs people want, it seems sensible to have a sizable subset of the population at least somewhat knowledgeable on the matter that they have a chance at switching to a programming job if their current one goes sour for any reason (like outsourcing), not just automation.
- simonbrown 15y ago
  I have a hard time imagining there ever being demand for anywhere near 5bn+ programmers, even if the majority of jobs are automated.
Mc_Big_G 15y ago
FWIW, my brother its an industrial electrician and programs regularly for his job.
- DanielStraight 15y ago
  I think it would actually be quite fascinating to hear the details if you could get him to write a few paragraphs on what he does.
  - mjwalshe 15y ago
    PLC's i would imagine
    - Mc_Big_G 15y ago
      I think PLCs are about 70% of the programming that he does. The rest involves optical sensors and other production equipment I know nothing about.
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
"...What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming?..." Have you looked at want ads lately? Chef: must be able to work the mixomatic programmable mixer. Electrician: must have knowledge of microcontrollers. Fashion designer: must be able to create digital mock-ups of new designs and work out how to automatically share them with our manufacturers. Pilots: must be able to work and program so many systems it would make your head spin. Musicians: must have knowledge of MIDI and be able to use a sequencer. Firefighters: must be able to program the engine and help with the local 911 modernization. Psychiatrist: must participate in the machine learning diagnostic project the hospital is undergoing. Must be able to work with data mining to determine non-current patients in need of intervention. And so on. These criteria are just made-up examples, but I could go on. We could easily pull down real ads. Let's try the most fuzzy one you have up there: artist. Know a writer who doesn't use a word-processor? They exist, sure, but not as many as before. In fact, most of them are now learning html and mixed media formats in order to eliminate publishers and broaden their base. It used to be the "traditional" writers didn't use software. Now they use software but don't configure and program it. The "new generation" of writers do that. What was optional is now becoming a necessity. What was "computer literate" is now looking more and more like programming. This trend will continue. Perhaps there is some exception. If so, I haven't thought of it. And you haven't listed it here. Yes, in some abstract, perfect way plumbing has nothing to do with computers. But that's the hell of the thing: the plumber in our imagination isn't the one in the real world. In the real world being a plumber means managing your scheduling system, your A/R, working with CAD drawings for a new construction site, buying mechanical devices that require configuration and programming, looking more into robotics for some types of work, and so it goes. The mental picture we have of these jobs and the actual way they are evolving are two different things entirely. You might be able to argue that one or the other jobs has more or less computers and programming in it, but that's a moot point. You're fighting a losing battle. They had zero ten years ago, they have some now, and they'll be mostly automated in just a decade or two. In some very real sense we are all becoming painters, just with a lot of technology to use instead of paints and brushes.
- rue 15y ago
  Creating “digital mock-ups of new designs” isn't programming. Programmers make programs, which the designers can then use to create their mock-ups. Unless I misunderstand what programmable mixers are, it's not really programming so much as defining preset profiles or sequences. I don't mean to imply it's easy, but it's not what programmers consider programming. (Again, some programmer created the software that the sound engineer uses). Writers use word processors. Yes. I'm sorry, but are you just trolling? If your argument is that everybody needs software, that's true. There's no need for everybody to write their own, though. Diluting the term programming is downright dangerous.
run4yourlives 15y ago
Exactly. Saying "Skill X is the new norm" based on the fact that your life revolves around skill X is a clear case of needing to get out more. Programming is to computer use what engine overhaul is to driving a car. You can argue that driving a car is an essential skill for modern day life, but being a mechanic is most certainly not. Being a mechanic might make you a better driver, and will certainly make you less reliant on mechanics, but it is by no means a requirement.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  Being a mechanic might make you a better driver, and will certainly make you less reliant on mechanics... Neither of these things are always true. This is something that tinkerers often struggle to grok. Consider that the safest way to travel from one place to another is probably on a plane: The vehicle which you are least likely to understand. Moreover, even if you do understand modern jet aircraft and the airlines that fly them, that knowledge won't do you much good, because you have very few knobs which you're empowered to turn. But they constitute a very highly-designed system involving reliable avionics backed-up by redundant highly trained and well-rehearsed pilots with their lives on the line. And the statistics show that you're not going to improve on that. So sit back and have a ginger ale and wait for the plane to land. As with travel, so with many things in our modern world. Does knowing something about cryptography (a) make you significantly less reliant on professional cryptographers, or (b) make your software more secure? According to security experts I've read, the answers are (a) no, unless you want your software to be less secure and (b) perhaps, but only if you fully appreciate the answer to (a). If knowing a few things about crypto tempts you to deploy crypto that you implemented yourself, it's actually counterproductive if the goal is to produce secure production software. (As a hobby or an educational toy, of course, I'm obviously a big fan of tinkering. But not everyone needs to have the same hobby.)
- _delirium 15y ago
  It does seem fairly common for people to think that their profession is something everyone needs to know, and sometimes the arguments are even pretty good. I've met several lawyers who believe that everyone should be legally trained, at least to a basic level, because the impact of law is so pervasive in modern society (even here on HN, a good portion of our discussions are about law).
dkersten 15y ago
Why did I, as a programmer, have to learn history, geograghy, foreign languages, music, chemistry, biology, etc etc. Not all mandatory subjects in schools are useful to all professions, but that does not mean that they shouldn't be taught. A large enough percentage of people are office workers that I think teaching programming would be a net win, even if there are a lot of professions that do not require it. Also, as with the subjects I listed above, programming teaches people how a large part of modern industry and business (and just plain every day life with the ubiquity of software on our lives) works and that is, IMHO, useful. I mean, we learn about the world around us in subjects such as geography or biology, why not learn something about how the technologies we use every day (the internet, word processors, music players, whatever) work and are created? At the very least, it expands our minds just like learning a foreign language does. Saying that everyone needs to know to program is obviously too strong, but enough people would certainly benefit from it that I think saying that, eg, "schools need to teach programming" is valid.
- Animus7 15y ago
  > Why did I, as a programmer, have to learn history, geograghy, foreign languages, music, chemistry, biology, etc etc. Because the education system is broken. Many subjects we teach in schools today are there only because they classically established your social status as a proper lady or gentleman -- not necessarily because they are of any practical use to the modern public. For example, see Harvard's entrance exam from back in the day: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde... That's not to say that (for example) music theory doesn't have a place in today's society, but is it so absolutely critical to the functioning of productive citizens that we should require everyone to learn it, and subsequently forget it? This isn't why the education system is broken, but it's a symptom.
  - dkersten 15y ago
    Here's the thing though: I do feel that it is beneficial for everyone to get a taught the fundamentals of all of these subjects because: - It helps you better understand the world around you. - A lot of knowledge can (and often should) be applied outside of their obvious areas - It helps us appreciate and/or understand other people in jobs very different from our own - It helps young people decide what they enjoy or are good at - It provides a base that can be expanded on in the future if the person ever needs or wants to - It helps us communicate between disciplines as - Probably more that I can't think of offhand "and subsequently forget it" Sure. This happens a lot, but you forget a different subset of what you learned than what I forget. I also find I can relearn things that I learned in school a lot easier than I learn completely new things. I also wouldn't have known what to forget and what to spend time remembering and improving if I hadn't learnt it in the first place. Finally, I found out that I either enjoyed some of these things that I otherwise never would have been exposed to, nevermind how much of these things seemed useless at the time (and so I would have opted not to learn them, given a choice) but have since turned out to be extremely useful or even critical. Note that I am not arguing that the education system isn't broken (I think it is), but that learning a large variety of subjects isn't necessarily bad or even a symptom of the broken education system. I think that any reasonably education system would expose students to a large variety of subjects before focusing on specifics.
TimGebhardt 15y ago
Maybe I can respond with an anecdote relayed by my wife: She was a Biology undergrad who got into food science. Her first job was for a food co-manufacturer who made many of the frozen pizzas you probably eat (but purchase under the major labels brands). She invented the formulas and ran test batches before they'd run the actual production runs in the factory. They co-manufactured a lot of food and if you've eaten any frozen pizza or cheap take-out/delivery pizza within the last 5 years you've probably eaten bread my wife "optimized" :). I just want to make sure I set this scene up before I get into the incredibly crazy part: When she first started she did two things that previously nobody else did: she wrote her formulas down as she made them so she could reproduce them later, and she applied the scientific method to her formula making. Now anybody else reading this HN comment will probably think "WTF that's very obvious". Like I said, she was the first person to do it at her gigantic company (along with her other new co-worker hired at the same time). And she was made fun of and teased! "You crazy college kids" was what she heard at first. Then after she proved that she was far and away more productive than any of her co-workers they'd scoff at her that "Pizza making is an art". Nevermind that in between those scoffs her boss said she was the most creative thinker... The old guards wouldn't even write down what ingredients or the quantity when they were making new formulations. They'd have to try to remember later what they did. And guess and checking formulas was how they'd develop new stuff that was tightly specified. Guess and checking pizza is almost always a lot slower than guess and checking the positioning of a label on a web app, so this was a very expensive process. And when you work with food at that scale it's all marketing driven: Marketing comes down with an idea that "Sodium is scary so let's develop a pizza that's really low sodium. Oh and let's see if we pitch it to blah for their kids meal". They'd specify a level of sodium that was acceptable, and then the kids meal specifications had their own acceptable levels of X, Y, and Z. So with that in mind she would work backwards, make 12 different formulations in spec at once and let the marketers try them to see which tasted best (sidenote: low-sodium pizza tastes awful. Just eat real pizza and have an extra glass of water). All of these scientific techniques were totally foreign to her co-workers and even her customers, and we're talking math and science that most learn in 4th grade. She worked for a huge successful company that's successful in spite of itself! Could you imagine the software that could have helped her do an even better job: - Software to manage the dozen or so different variations of the project she was working on - Even better, software to help her collaborate with an assistant so she could get these 12 variations in front of customers faster - Software to help her plot some sort of optimization curve to figure out the 12 different variations she should try based on the input parameters - Some sort of version control for her formulations - Automatically come up with the nutrition label before she started working on the pizza - Even more if I could remember some of our other ideas So to keep on topic: There are a lot of things, at least for baking, that were disrupted by just using 4th grade math and science. Software was the next step, and we were going to start making software (she'd be the domain expert for my coding work), but then we had twin boys so right now we're just trying to tread water. Maybe soon...
bh42222 15y ago
Pilots (including maritime pilots) If you are under 50, I would bet most planes (at least in the military) will be piloted entirely by AI before you die. The same should be true for most large ships. Most planes are already piloted by AI most of the time today.
unabridged 15y ago
Many of these businesses will have a web presence, so basic programming knowledge should be important even if you are hiring someone to else to make your website/shopping cart just so you have an idea of what is possible and so you don't get screwed on pricing. Similar to how if your business depended on a large fleet of vehicles you may not need to be a mechanic, but some basic knowledge about maintenance and the capabilities of different vehicles will allow you to make better decisions and hire better people at more reasonable rates.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I think you may have missed the point completely. The reasoning Markham is using is that 'programming' (and he tries to be clear that he's using a concept not the vocation) is rapidly becoming as essential a skill as reading and basic arithmetic ability. The support for that argument is an observation that everyday appliances are being implemented in 'software' (like the phone) and that this opens them up to customization, and the customization takes the form of programming them. A very simple and concrete example, how many people who have never been exposed to 'programming' have the additional functions of their 'universal' remote that came with their TV configured? Record shows to be watched later? Even if the tool is as simple as going through a series of menus answering questions, the underlying mechanism is that your creating a 'program' to achieve some objective. So if your Artist never needs to use a computer to create art, they will have to figure out how to tell the microwave to convert their frozen entre' into something edible. They will be exposed to stored program sequencing and understanding the basics of that will make their life easier today, and Markham asserts will be required in the future. Markham riffs on the jobs aspect I suspect because it has a large number of ways to see how people are displaced, but the bigger point is that the world is becoming programmable.
ori_b 15y ago
All of them can reduce administrative overhead, improve throughput, and streamline their workflow by effectively using and being able to extend software based tools and scripts. In my mind at least, this isn't about automating skilled jobs out of existence. This is about giving these professionals the ability to streamline their work. Without the ability to understand software, they often wouldn't have the knowledge of what pain points a hiring a programmer could help them with, let alone the ability to do the work themselves.
jdietrich 15y ago
> Fishermen The fishing industry is in dire straits because too many boats are chasing too few fish. Boats have been getting bigger hauls for decades, partly because the power block allows small crews to shoot more gear, but mainly because of better data. The bridge of a modern trawler looks like that of the starship enterprise. A captain spends most of his trip looking at computer displays, reading sonar data. A skipper lives or dies on his ability to find fish, by combining his knowledge of fish behaviour, tides and currents with his sonar data. It's for this reason that the fishing industry is consolidating into fewer, more sophisticated boats. The Annelies Ilena is currently the biggest trawler in the world at 144m LOA and 11500 tons displacement. It is capable of processing 350 tons of fish a day. Boats of this size are only economically viable because better data methods allow them to reliably find fish. > Maritime pilots Largely replaced by computers. In most modern ports, pilotage is only necessary for the biggest boats and the most difficult conditions. Higher-resolution charts and differential GPS obviate much of the need for the local knowledge of pilots. Computerisation has hugely reduced the crews of merchant ships. Some of the biggest vessels in the world operate on a crew of less than twenty. >Airline pilots The US armed forces now have more drone operators than pilots. Those are being replaced by software as fast as ethics will allow. I'd be astonished if there's a single fixed-wing pilot left in the military in 20 years time. Civilian aviation should have abandoned human crew years ago. For every Miracle on the Hudson, there are a dozen accidents that no computer would have allowed to happen. Computers are just better at flying than people. Ultimately, this isn't about "software" as we see it today, it's about artificial intelligence. We need to get our heads around the idea that within a few decades, computers will be more intelligent than us. Unless we understand the implications of that fact, we're doomed.

Swizec 15y ago

Well, let's see. Artists - new forms of art, html5, cool particle effects, webgl, 3D model scripts (for videos and such) and so on. A lot of use. Bakers - baking is a science, machine learning to figure out just the perfect ingredients for the best bread? Pastry? Etc? I'm fairly certain there's a reason why Oreos taste just the way they do. Brewers - same as the above. Why does Guinness taste just so? There's a lot of science behind that, science and stats. Chefs - the same argument applies. I also suggest you watch The Best Hamburger Ever -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UB_TVznOwK8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U... Electricians - this one is a bit tougher, but some lighting systems in some houses are pretty damn complex - to the point I'm almost certain there are some microcontrollers involved. Or what about stage lighting? Sure it's physical, but it's still programming. Fashion designers - a tough one, but someone has to program all those looms (although that's fabrics). They could also decide to turn it into a science, or what about those Samsung (or was it Philips?) LED fabrics that can be programmed to make lightshows. That could make it into fashion too. Firefighters - ok you got me here, this is a very physical job that probably wouldn't benefit from programming .... oooh, how about fire prediction? Calculating how it will spread in a building? That sort of stuff? Fishermen - have you seen the amount of high tech on a modern fishing boat (on telly for instance)? Puts the average reddit battle station to shame. Those things are complex and look very programmable. Mechanics - don't modern cars depend a lot on their electronics? Aren't there people who almost do nothing other than tune engines? Isn't that quite a bit like programming? Musicians - a guy at my faculty made a software that does some intricate things with music, I forget what it was, but basically machine learning on sounds and stuff like that. All very interesting and programming-heavy. Also the effects some peopel use these days are pretty damn awesome ... programmable? Pilots - don't they already pretty much program the auto pilot? What I've seen on television (discovery channel for instance) that thing is very complex and it doesn't look too far from programming when they input their commands. Plumbers - microcontrollers that control the amount of water flow based on time of day and season for the best water economy. That is all. Psychiatrists - they already program people's minds. They don't need anything more than that or they'd be too scary. Stylists - depends on the kind of stylist. Machine learning from tweets about a celebrity to figure out their best look? To figure out trends in style in advance so the celebrity client always looks like they're ahead of the curve? Hell, apply this to fashion designers as well. Winemakers - it's a science. A lot more goes into a bottle of wine than most of us think (I've seen how advanced the field of tea tasting is). I'm sure there's a lot of chances for programming therein. Zookeepers - when do you put a mommy bear and a daddy bear together in the pen so they don't eat each other and produce baby bears instead? ok that's statistics, but a little R programming wouldn't hurt. Guess what I'm saying is, almost all of these professions could benefit from at least programming in R. edit: The point is that, if all those people at least knew about programming, who knows what they'd be able to create or at least think of (and then get someone to do it)?

MJR 15y ago
The original comment said: What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming? You said: ... almost all of these professions could benefit from at least programming in R. "Need" != "Benefit From". There are innate benefits from learning anything, including programming. That does not equate to a profession having a need for programming.
- Swizec 15y ago
  I may have took "have need for" a bit liberally I guess. But if a field can be improved by applying science, I take that is there being a need for that. Even if nobody is yet doing it like that (although the fact I could think of those off the cuff like that probably means that there is somebody somewhere in the world more knowledgable of that field who is already doing it)
- thy 15y ago
  ppl may have multiple works, besides they may find it fun.
h0h0 15y ago
How to improve ANYTHING: 'apply machine learning and stuff like that'
ybot 15y ago
You were really stretching on some of these. Sure, there will be software to assist any of these professions but that doesn't mean all the people in the profession should become programmers. You're conflating the need of an individual professional to learn to program with the ability of software to impact the industry that individual works in. Firefighters, for example. Modeling & predicting fire sounds great, but should that be the job of a firefighter or a programmer/statistician who works for the fire department? That said, I think you're right to call out the parent – many of these jobs should require programming or already do. Many artists & musicians rely heavily on an ability to write software. The group of professions producing food & drink will benefit from automation, but only so much as the professionals using those automation tools understand and can control them. Programming ability is rapidly moving into all kinds of areas, but to assume that it must end up in every area seems almost as narrow minded as ignoring the impact it's currently having.

Jach 15y ago

One common thing about all those jobs is that they've all been automated in parts and continue to be more and more automated. So you may be right that for some reason not every job can be automated 100%, but that doesn't save those jobs from automation. See how happy 9/10 laid off zookeepers are when you tell them "Hey, at least we kept one of you to run the machines!" Even if you can only get to a mere 50% from some baseline, that's half the previous work force blown away that was previously required. Those laid off will have to find another field quick. It's not easy to change careers and it's not easy to go from a mostly-labor job to a mostly-thinking job. (I'm being fairly broad with labor and thinking here--e.g. I consider someone whose job is to input handwritten form data all day to be a labor job even though they sit at a computer for 8 hours, and a professional artist to be a thinking job even though it's probably better categorized as a creative job.) Since mostly-labor jobs are the easiest so far to automate large portions of, those jobs are at the highest risk. Programming is the last bastion of a large supply of available jobs until we have AI smart enough to write most of the programs people want, it seems sensible to have a sizable subset of the population at least somewhat knowledgeable on the matter that they have a chance at switching to a programming job if their current one goes sour for any reason (like outsourcing), not just automation.

simonbrown 15y ago
I have a hard time imagining there ever being demand for anywhere near 5bn+ programmers, even if the majority of jobs are automated.

Mc_Big_G 15y ago

FWIW, my brother its an industrial electrician and programs regularly for his job.

DanielStraight 15y ago
I think it would actually be quite fascinating to hear the details if you could get him to write a few paragraphs on what he does.
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  PLC's i would imagine
  - Mc_Big_G 15y ago
    I think PLCs are about 70% of the programming that he does. The rest involves optical sensors and other production equipment I know nothing about.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

"...What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming?..." Have you looked at want ads lately? Chef: must be able to work the mixomatic programmable mixer. Electrician: must have knowledge of microcontrollers. Fashion designer: must be able to create digital mock-ups of new designs and work out how to automatically share them with our manufacturers. Pilots: must be able to work and program so many systems it would make your head spin. Musicians: must have knowledge of MIDI and be able to use a sequencer. Firefighters: must be able to program the engine and help with the local 911 modernization. Psychiatrist: must participate in the machine learning diagnostic project the hospital is undergoing. Must be able to work with data mining to determine non-current patients in need of intervention. And so on. These criteria are just made-up examples, but I could go on. We could easily pull down real ads. Let's try the most fuzzy one you have up there: artist. Know a writer who doesn't use a word-processor? They exist, sure, but not as many as before. In fact, most of them are now learning html and mixed media formats in order to eliminate publishers and broaden their base. It used to be the "traditional" writers didn't use software. Now they use software but don't configure and program it. The "new generation" of writers do that. What was optional is now becoming a necessity. What was "computer literate" is now looking more and more like programming. This trend will continue. Perhaps there is some exception. If so, I haven't thought of it. And you haven't listed it here. Yes, in some abstract, perfect way plumbing has nothing to do with computers. But that's the hell of the thing: the plumber in our imagination isn't the one in the real world. In the real world being a plumber means managing your scheduling system, your A/R, working with CAD drawings for a new construction site, buying mechanical devices that require configuration and programming, looking more into robotics for some types of work, and so it goes. The mental picture we have of these jobs and the actual way they are evolving are two different things entirely. You might be able to argue that one or the other jobs has more or less computers and programming in it, but that's a moot point. You're fighting a losing battle. They had zero ten years ago, they have some now, and they'll be mostly automated in just a decade or two. In some very real sense we are all becoming painters, just with a lot of technology to use instead of paints and brushes.

rue 15y ago
Creating “digital mock-ups of new designs” isn't programming. Programmers make programs, which the designers can then use to create their mock-ups. Unless I misunderstand what programmable mixers are, it's not really programming so much as defining preset profiles or sequences. I don't mean to imply it's easy, but it's not what programmers consider programming. (Again, some programmer created the software that the sound engineer uses). Writers use word processors. Yes. I'm sorry, but are you just trolling? If your argument is that everybody needs software, that's true. There's no need for everybody to write their own, though. Diluting the term programming is downright dangerous.

run4yourlives 15y ago

Exactly. Saying "Skill X is the new norm" based on the fact that your life revolves around skill X is a clear case of needing to get out more. Programming is to computer use what engine overhaul is to driving a car. You can argue that driving a car is an essential skill for modern day life, but being a mechanic is most certainly not. Being a mechanic might make you a better driver, and will certainly make you less reliant on mechanics, but it is by no means a requirement.

mechanical_fish 15y ago
Being a mechanic might make you a better driver, and will certainly make you less reliant on mechanics... Neither of these things are always true. This is something that tinkerers often struggle to grok. Consider that the safest way to travel from one place to another is probably on a plane: The vehicle which you are least likely to understand. Moreover, even if you do understand modern jet aircraft and the airlines that fly them, that knowledge won't do you much good, because you have very few knobs which you're empowered to turn. But they constitute a very highly-designed system involving reliable avionics backed-up by redundant highly trained and well-rehearsed pilots with their lives on the line. And the statistics show that you're not going to improve on that. So sit back and have a ginger ale and wait for the plane to land. As with travel, so with many things in our modern world. Does knowing something about cryptography (a) make you significantly less reliant on professional cryptographers, or (b) make your software more secure? According to security experts I've read, the answers are (a) no, unless you want your software to be less secure and (b) perhaps, but only if you fully appreciate the answer to (a). If knowing a few things about crypto tempts you to deploy crypto that you implemented yourself, it's actually counterproductive if the goal is to produce secure production software. (As a hobby or an educational toy, of course, I'm obviously a big fan of tinkering. But not everyone needs to have the same hobby.)
_delirium 15y ago
It does seem fairly common for people to think that their profession is something everyone needs to know, and sometimes the arguments are even pretty good. I've met several lawyers who believe that everyone should be legally trained, at least to a basic level, because the impact of law is so pervasive in modern society (even here on HN, a good portion of our discussions are about law).

dkersten 15y ago

Why did I, as a programmer, have to learn history, geograghy, foreign languages, music, chemistry, biology, etc etc. Not all mandatory subjects in schools are useful to all professions, but that does not mean that they shouldn't be taught. A large enough percentage of people are office workers that I think teaching programming would be a net win, even if there are a lot of professions that do not require it. Also, as with the subjects I listed above, programming teaches people how a large part of modern industry and business (and just plain every day life with the ubiquity of software on our lives) works and that is, IMHO, useful. I mean, we learn about the world around us in subjects such as geography or biology, why not learn something about how the technologies we use every day (the internet, word processors, music players, whatever) work and are created? At the very least, it expands our minds just like learning a foreign language does. Saying that everyone needs to know to program is obviously too strong, but enough people would certainly benefit from it that I think saying that, eg, "schools need to teach programming" is valid.

Animus7 15y ago
> Why did I, as a programmer, have to learn history, geograghy, foreign languages, music, chemistry, biology, etc etc. Because the education system is broken. Many subjects we teach in schools today are there only because they classically established your social status as a proper lady or gentleman -- not necessarily because they are of any practical use to the modern public. For example, see Harvard's entrance exam from back in the day: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde... That's not to say that (for example) music theory doesn't have a place in today's society, but is it so absolutely critical to the functioning of productive citizens that we should require everyone to learn it, and subsequently forget it? This isn't why the education system is broken, but it's a symptom.
- dkersten 15y ago
  Here's the thing though: I do feel that it is beneficial for everyone to get a taught the fundamentals of all of these subjects because: - It helps you better understand the world around you. - A lot of knowledge can (and often should) be applied outside of their obvious areas - It helps us appreciate and/or understand other people in jobs very different from our own - It helps young people decide what they enjoy or are good at - It provides a base that can be expanded on in the future if the person ever needs or wants to - It helps us communicate between disciplines as - Probably more that I can't think of offhand "and subsequently forget it" Sure. This happens a lot, but you forget a different subset of what you learned than what I forget. I also find I can relearn things that I learned in school a lot easier than I learn completely new things. I also wouldn't have known what to forget and what to spend time remembering and improving if I hadn't learnt it in the first place. Finally, I found out that I either enjoyed some of these things that I otherwise never would have been exposed to, nevermind how much of these things seemed useless at the time (and so I would have opted not to learn them, given a choice) but have since turned out to be extremely useful or even critical. Note that I am not arguing that the education system isn't broken (I think it is), but that learning a large variety of subjects isn't necessarily bad or even a symptom of the broken education system. I think that any reasonably education system would expose students to a large variety of subjects before focusing on specifics.

TimGebhardt 15y ago

Maybe I can respond with an anecdote relayed by my wife: She was a Biology undergrad who got into food science. Her first job was for a food co-manufacturer who made many of the frozen pizzas you probably eat (but purchase under the major labels brands). She invented the formulas and ran test batches before they'd run the actual production runs in the factory. They co-manufactured a lot of food and if you've eaten any frozen pizza or cheap take-out/delivery pizza within the last 5 years you've probably eaten bread my wife "optimized" :). I just want to make sure I set this scene up before I get into the incredibly crazy part: When she first started she did two things that previously nobody else did: she wrote her formulas down as she made them so she could reproduce them later, and she applied the scientific method to her formula making. Now anybody else reading this HN comment will probably think "WTF that's very obvious". Like I said, she was the first person to do it at her gigantic company (along with her other new co-worker hired at the same time). And she was made fun of and teased! "You crazy college kids" was what she heard at first. Then after she proved that she was far and away more productive than any of her co-workers they'd scoff at her that "Pizza making is an art". Nevermind that in between those scoffs her boss said she was the most creative thinker... The old guards wouldn't even write down what ingredients or the quantity when they were making new formulations. They'd have to try to remember later what they did. And guess and checking formulas was how they'd develop new stuff that was tightly specified. Guess and checking pizza is almost always a lot slower than guess and checking the positioning of a label on a web app, so this was a very expensive process. And when you work with food at that scale it's all marketing driven: Marketing comes down with an idea that "Sodium is scary so let's develop a pizza that's really low sodium. Oh and let's see if we pitch it to blah for their kids meal". They'd specify a level of sodium that was acceptable, and then the kids meal specifications had their own acceptable levels of X, Y, and Z. So with that in mind she would work backwards, make 12 different formulations in spec at once and let the marketers try them to see which tasted best (sidenote: low-sodium pizza tastes awful. Just eat real pizza and have an extra glass of water). All of these scientific techniques were totally foreign to her co-workers and even her customers, and we're talking math and science that most learn in 4th grade. She worked for a huge successful company that's successful in spite of itself! Could you imagine the software that could have helped her do an even better job: - Software to manage the dozen or so different variations of the project she was working on - Even better, software to help her collaborate with an assistant so she could get these 12 variations in front of customers faster - Software to help her plot some sort of optimization curve to figure out the 12 different variations she should try based on the input parameters - Some sort of version control for her formulations - Automatically come up with the nutrition label before she started working on the pizza - Even more if I could remember some of our other ideas So to keep on topic: There are a lot of things, at least for baking, that were disrupted by just using 4th grade math and science. Software was the next step, and we were going to start making software (she'd be the domain expert for my coding work), but then we had twin boys so right now we're just trying to tread water. Maybe soon...

bh42222 15y ago

Pilots (including maritime pilots) If you are under 50, I would bet most planes (at least in the military) will be piloted entirely by AI before you die. The same should be true for most large ships. Most planes are already piloted by AI most of the time today.

unabridged 15y ago

Many of these businesses will have a web presence, so basic programming knowledge should be important even if you are hiring someone to else to make your website/shopping cart just so you have an idea of what is possible and so you don't get screwed on pricing. Similar to how if your business depended on a large fleet of vehicles you may not need to be a mechanic, but some basic knowledge about maintenance and the capabilities of different vehicles will allow you to make better decisions and hire better people at more reasonable rates.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I think you may have missed the point completely. The reasoning Markham is using is that 'programming' (and he tries to be clear that he's using a concept not the vocation) is rapidly becoming as essential a skill as reading and basic arithmetic ability. The support for that argument is an observation that everyday appliances are being implemented in 'software' (like the phone) and that this opens them up to customization, and the customization takes the form of programming them. A very simple and concrete example, how many people who have never been exposed to 'programming' have the additional functions of their 'universal' remote that came with their TV configured? Record shows to be watched later? Even if the tool is as simple as going through a series of menus answering questions, the underlying mechanism is that your creating a 'program' to achieve some objective. So if your Artist never needs to use a computer to create art, they will have to figure out how to tell the microwave to convert their frozen entre' into something edible. They will be exposed to stored program sequencing and understanding the basics of that will make their life easier today, and Markham asserts will be required in the future. Markham riffs on the jobs aspect I suspect because it has a large number of ways to see how people are displaced, but the bigger point is that the world is becoming programmable.

ori_b 15y ago

All of them can reduce administrative overhead, improve throughput, and streamline their workflow by effectively using and being able to extend software based tools and scripts. In my mind at least, this isn't about automating skilled jobs out of existence. This is about giving these professionals the ability to streamline their work. Without the ability to understand software, they often wouldn't have the knowledge of what pain points a hiring a programmer could help them with, let alone the ability to do the work themselves.

jdietrich 15y ago

> Fishermen The fishing industry is in dire straits because too many boats are chasing too few fish. Boats have been getting bigger hauls for decades, partly because the power block allows small crews to shoot more gear, but mainly because of better data. The bridge of a modern trawler looks like that of the starship enterprise. A captain spends most of his trip looking at computer displays, reading sonar data. A skipper lives or dies on his ability to find fish, by combining his knowledge of fish behaviour, tides and currents with his sonar data. It's for this reason that the fishing industry is consolidating into fewer, more sophisticated boats. The Annelies Ilena is currently the biggest trawler in the world at 144m LOA and 11500 tons displacement. It is capable of processing 350 tons of fish a day. Boats of this size are only economically viable because better data methods allow them to reliably find fish. > Maritime pilots Largely replaced by computers. In most modern ports, pilotage is only necessary for the biggest boats and the most difficult conditions. Higher-resolution charts and differential GPS obviate much of the need for the local knowledge of pilots. Computerisation has hugely reduced the crews of merchant ships. Some of the biggest vessels in the world operate on a crew of less than twenty. >Airline pilots The US armed forces now have more drone operators than pilots. Those are being replaced by software as fast as ethics will allow. I'd be astonished if there's a single fixed-wing pilot left in the military in 20 years time. Civilian aviation should have abandoned human crew years ago. For every Miracle on the Hudson, there are a dozen accidents that no computer would have allowed to happen. Computers are just better at flying than people. Ultimately, this isn't about "software" as we see it today, it's about artificial intelligence. We need to get our heads around the idea that within a few decades, computers will be more intelligent than us. Unless we understand the implications of that fact, we're doomed.