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As a working coder whose interests are not served by increasing US supply of coders through immigration I have a financial motivation in this meme spreading. I

As a working coder whose interests are not served by increasing US supply of coders through immigration I have a financial motivation in this meme spreading. I oppose increasing immigration because coding is one of the few remaining pathways to a solid middle class life in the US, and I don't want that to change. That said, quality hackers can feel very secure in 2013 and for the foreseeable future. The point the article makes about the ample number of programmers graduating US universities is belied by the essential truth of FizzBuzz. It is not graduates that are in short supply, it is high IQ individuals that can solve problems with computers. That is not going to change. As a consulting coder I find the demand for custom apps to be incredible. Almost everyone who asks me what I do for a living follows up by saying they want something built. Most are filtered out because they don't have the budget, but the demand (willing and able) is incredible. There are just not that many people with the tenacity and analytical thinking to deal with the realities of building the kind of software the world needs. My feelings here are best articulated by David Mamet through the character Levene in the play Glengarry Glen Ross: "You can't learn that in an office. Eh? He's right. You have to learn it on the streets. You can't buy that. You have to live it."

danso 13y ago
I know that in every profession, each passionate practitioner thinks that no cheap hire can possibly replace them. And yet I think this case is especially true for the developer of custom solutions. If you believe that the majority of time spent on software is in its post-release maintenance and iteration phase, then hiring mediocre developers to build the product will only result in massively increased product lifetime costs. And throwing more mediocre developers at it won't fix the underlying issues. It's hard to think of other building-type professions where one person can have so much sway over a company's initial success. And no, this is not because programmers are inherently more vital than civil engineers or doctors...it's because programmers have so few limits and regulations to deal with...as has been said on HN many times, just about anyone can spin up a Heroku dyno, load up incredibly powerful FOSS, and attempt a worthwhile product with little cost beside time and effort. Whereas a doctor, it doesn't matter how brilliant you are, you're going to have to jump through a lot of hoops and pay a lot of dues before you can fully develop your revolutionary treatment.

danso 13y ago

I know that in every profession, each passionate practitioner thinks that no cheap hire can possibly replace them. And yet I think this case is especially true for the developer of custom solutions. If you believe that the majority of time spent on software is in its post-release maintenance and iteration phase, then hiring mediocre developers to build the product will only result in massively increased product lifetime costs. And throwing more mediocre developers at it won't fix the underlying issues. It's hard to think of other building-type professions where one person can have so much sway over a company's initial success. And no, this is not because programmers are inherently more vital than civil engineers or doctors...it's because programmers have so few limits and regulations to deal with...as has been said on HN many times, just about anyone can spin up a Heroku dyno, load up incredibly powerful FOSS, and attempt a worthwhile product with little cost beside time and effort. Whereas a doctor, it doesn't matter how brilliant you are, you're going to have to jump through a lot of hoops and pay a lot of dues before you can fully develop your revolutionary treatment.