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Last junior dev I spoke to, taught themselves React, spent months building a very polished portfolio, got hired to work with a new "language" they hadn't heard

Last junior dev I spoke to, taught themselves React, spent months building a very polished portfolio, got hired to work with a new "language" they hadn't heard of called "Angular". This dev was taking up the job because it paid well, they otherwise had a disdain for tech. If these are the people who are coming into the industry, LLMs will not help them. There is no desire to learn or understand or dig even remotely beneath the surface.

hjkl0 2y ago
They’ll have to learn Angular for their new job, so “no desire to learn” seems harsh and unfair
sevensor 2y ago
Ever since FORTRAN came on the scene, there have been tools that make disdainful, unskilled programmers more productive. I doubt this will ever change. It’s in the interest of mainstream employers to treat programmers as a fungible resource. There’s a much smaller risk to your business when you hire ten and get one or two good ones in the lot, than if you hire one good one and pay them triple. Things average out, and you’re not beholden to a few people who know their worth. As long as the pay is good enough to keep a couple of competent people around, you can rely on them to cover for the rest. Best of all, you never have to figure out which is which.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  You mean COBOL? FORTRAN wasn't really about lowest common competence. Anyway, about this: > It’s in the interest of mainstream employers to treat programmers as a fungible resource. It's in their interest to make programmers fungible. It's self-delusional to think they succeeded.
  - sevensor 2y ago
    No, I do mean FORTRAN. Massively lowered the bar. Not that COBOL didn’t, but it was in a different domain and slightly later as I understand it. Have you ever worked with properly old FORTRAN? Some of it is quite good, but some of it, well, it’s regrettable it was ever transferred off of paper tape.
Jcampuzano2 2y ago
As someone who enjoys tech, I don't really fault or look down on people who get into tech for the pay like some in our field seem to do. In basically every other field on the planet that is high paying, people go into it for the money, not for some passion - so whats different about ours? I don't really mind whether you have some innate desire to learn something, or if you're doing because its your job and your job pays you. As long as in the end you suck it up and do it.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  I don't know that there's anything different about ours, but that's a shame. The difference (broad-brushing here) between someone who is a dev because that's their passion and someone who is a dev for the pay is the quality of their work. As our industry matured and gathered more "in it for the money" types, the overall product quality has been declining. I think that's a shame. Perhaps inevitable, but a shame nonetheless.

hjkl0 2y ago

They’ll have to learn Angular for their new job, so “no desire to learn” seems harsh and unfair

sevensor 2y ago

Ever since FORTRAN came on the scene, there have been tools that make disdainful, unskilled programmers more productive. I doubt this will ever change. It’s in the interest of mainstream employers to treat programmers as a fungible resource. There’s a much smaller risk to your business when you hire ten and get one or two good ones in the lot, than if you hire one good one and pay them triple. Things average out, and you’re not beholden to a few people who know their worth. As long as the pay is good enough to keep a couple of competent people around, you can rely on them to cover for the rest. Best of all, you never have to figure out which is which.

marcosdumay 2y ago
You mean COBOL? FORTRAN wasn't really about lowest common competence. Anyway, about this: > It’s in the interest of mainstream employers to treat programmers as a fungible resource. It's in their interest to make programmers fungible. It's self-delusional to think they succeeded.
- sevensor 2y ago
  No, I do mean FORTRAN. Massively lowered the bar. Not that COBOL didn’t, but it was in a different domain and slightly later as I understand it. Have you ever worked with properly old FORTRAN? Some of it is quite good, but some of it, well, it’s regrettable it was ever transferred off of paper tape.

Jcampuzano2 2y ago

As someone who enjoys tech, I don't really fault or look down on people who get into tech for the pay like some in our field seem to do. In basically every other field on the planet that is high paying, people go into it for the money, not for some passion - so whats different about ours? I don't really mind whether you have some innate desire to learn something, or if you're doing because its your job and your job pays you. As long as in the end you suck it up and do it.

JohnFen 2y ago
I don't know that there's anything different about ours, but that's a shame. The difference (broad-brushing here) between someone who is a dev because that's their passion and someone who is a dev for the pay is the quality of their work. As our industry matured and gathered more "in it for the money" types, the overall product quality has been declining. I think that's a shame. Perhaps inevitable, but a shame nonetheless.