4 ms·

There are a few good points in this article, but I don't think it's all that insightful overall. A particular developer can be a lot like an auto worker, or the

by ufmace 13y ago

There are a few good points in this article, but I don't think it's all that insightful overall. A particular developer can be a lot like an auto worker, or they can be very different. The difference is continuous learning. The trouble with being an auto worker in the heyday of the industry is that, as far as I know, people generally learned a relatively small set of skills early in their career, and then expected to coast along on those skills for their whole life. All skills have a limited lifetime, and in the modern era, that lifetime can be very short indeed. If you got in and out at the right time and handled lifetime investments well, then you could do all right for yourself. If the timing of your one skill being obsolete doesn't work out well for you and you don't do anything about it, then you could find yourself broke and possessing no marketable skills when you were expecting to hit the peak of your career. In development, I have worked with people who view their career like this. They learned C++/MFC or some other technology stack that's getting rather long in the tooth decades ago, still work in it now, and show no interest in learning or trying anything new. I think these guys are in the same shape as the autoworkers. I think they'll do all right for the foreseeable future, but there's always the risk that the bottom will fall out of the market for the tech stack they know, and then most employers will see them as useless. There's no need to be like that, though, especially in a time when getting your hands dirty with new technology is so easy. The developer who can do good work in 2 or 3 tech stacks and is always learning more about his main ones and any others that look interesting will always be employable - if one goes dead, you can get a job working in another one, or learn whatever the new one is yourself. I'd say it generalizes even more. Anybody who has the drive and intelligence to continuously learn new things will always be able to make money. Anybody who wants to learn one thing and coast on that their whole life will always be at risk of losing it all.

VLM 13y ago
There tends to be a lot of demonizing and blaming the victim in general on HN for people who won't learn new skills. I've coasted by for a couple decades really only having two "tech" skills. I'm really, really good at systems analysis, and I'm pretty good at translating user requirements into code more or less on time and more or less with few bugs. Sure the tools and techniques have changed a bit, but much less than some would claim. After you learn your 5th or 6th language the 7th isn't a big deal. I really don't see any deep need to learn new skills beyond those two as long as I stay in the field, after all, its worked very well so far... Eventually due to ageism I'll have to do "something" else. Maybe learn the skill of management, or sales, or something like that. Donno. What does a good techie do when no one will hire him for non-tech related reasons? Maybe start a tech company, thus the interest in HN... On resumes the "no new skills" crowd knows you can just make it up in six months if you want. For a software dev who's any good, how long does it take to learn something, contribute to an OSS project, etc? Not very long, thats for sure. New stuff comes along at every job I've ever had, and I have to implement it in a month or so. Not hire a new guy, not go take a class, production code. Its so not a big deal. There's no point in learning a new skill and telling anyone at work about it, unless you think its funny to get escorted out... after all, why update the resume unless you're looking? The other big mistake is virtually none of the detroit workers had the skill of making cars. There are people who have the skill of making cars. I have a cousin with that skill, who's a large diesel mechanic who has a hobby of tearing down cars and rebuilding, all by himself, bare metal components up, including (obviously?) engine assembly. He's stripped and rebuilt two classic corvettes and a ancient jeep, so far. Virtually no autoworkers can do that other than coincidentally as a hobby. They can tighten a bolt on a line, or align an assembly, or insert/stack partially finished parts, or press a e-stop button if the robot goes nuts. They suffer from HR doing "keyword selection" just as much as we do now. Oh look he worked on a car line, well he is totally unqualified to tighten the same bolt on our truck line. Anyway, none of them can build a car. Once, a long time ago, I worked in IT at a large regional printer. That doesn't mean I was a "press worker" or I could do much of anything with putting ink on paper other than program ethernet switches for embedded control devices. "autoworkers" are the same way.

by ufmace 13y ago

VLM 13y ago

There tends to be a lot of demonizing and blaming the victim in general on HN for people who won't learn new skills. I've coasted by for a couple decades really only having two "tech" skills. I'm really, really good at systems analysis, and I'm pretty good at translating user requirements into code more or less on time and more or less with few bugs. Sure the tools and techniques have changed a bit, but much less than some would claim. After you learn your 5th or 6th language the 7th isn't a big deal. I really don't see any deep need to learn new skills beyond those two as long as I stay in the field, after all, its worked very well so far... Eventually due to ageism I'll have to do "something" else. Maybe learn the skill of management, or sales, or something like that. Donno. What does a good techie do when no one will hire him for non-tech related reasons? Maybe start a tech company, thus the interest in HN... On resumes the "no new skills" crowd knows you can just make it up in six months if you want. For a software dev who's any good, how long does it take to learn something, contribute to an OSS project, etc? Not very long, thats for sure. New stuff comes along at every job I've ever had, and I have to implement it in a month or so. Not hire a new guy, not go take a class, production code. Its so not a big deal. There's no point in learning a new skill and telling anyone at work about it, unless you think its funny to get escorted out... after all, why update the resume unless you're looking? The other big mistake is virtually none of the detroit workers had the skill of making cars. There are people who have the skill of making cars. I have a cousin with that skill, who's a large diesel mechanic who has a hobby of tearing down cars and rebuilding, all by himself, bare metal components up, including (obviously?) engine assembly. He's stripped and rebuilt two classic corvettes and a ancient jeep, so far. Virtually no autoworkers can do that other than coincidentally as a hobby. They can tighten a bolt on a line, or align an assembly, or insert/stack partially finished parts, or press a e-stop button if the robot goes nuts. They suffer from HR doing "keyword selection" just as much as we do now. Oh look he worked on a car line, well he is totally unqualified to tighten the same bolt on our truck line. Anyway, none of them can build a car. Once, a long time ago, I worked in IT at a large regional printer. That doesn't mean I was a "press worker" or I could do much of anything with putting ink on paper other than program ethernet switches for embedded control devices. "autoworkers" are the same way.