8 ms·

You are right. Programming is a blue collar trade.

rschmitty 13y ago
That is a bit of a reach to call it blue collar. I have blue collar friends from high school who envy what programmers do and make and I do what I can to try and persuade/teach them to learn to code and make a better life for themselves.
- asdfologist 13y ago
  whoosh Edit: I thought the original "blue collar" remark was sarcastic. Am I wrong?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- BugBrother 13y ago
  Most everyone has forgotten the 2000 dot com crash, when all the computer jobs disappeared. This "learn to code" is just how it was then. I would bet money that in less than five years, a lot of software people will be unemployed -- again. (If I win, good. If not, good. :-) )
  - smsm42 13y ago
    I'm curious - how much money would you be willing to bet on that? At which odds? I've been through the dotcom crash and minor disturbances after, and the jobs never "disappeared". Yes, there were layoffs, pay cuts and hiring freezes. But not all jobs disappeared, and most of the people who lost their jobs found new ones after a while. I'm not diminishing the pain and suffering of those who got caught in bad situations there, but it's not like the whole IT disappeared and people went back to abacuses and wired telegraph.
    - BugBrother 13y ago
      >>But not all jobs disappeared I wrote "all jobs" in one place and in another "a lot of software people [...] again". Since you were also there, what I meant should be obvious...? In my Swedish job market, there was also something similar around a decade earlier. But it was not only for software people.
  - joshdance 13y ago
    "This "learn to code" is just how it was then." - really? I don't remember it that way. Sure there was lots of people who wanted to get in, and lots of books printed but nothing like the sustained push that there is now.
- parasubvert 13y ago
  Blue collar workers can make a lot of money these days, especially if their trade required significant theoretical learning and practical training. Electricians, mechanics, heavy machinery operators in Alberta can make $150,000 in the oil sands before overtime, plus fly-in/fly-out costs; in the major urban centers, upwards of $100,000. If you're young, add in overtime and you're looking at $150-200k+. Foremen and supervisors can make up to double. A programmer in the Bay Area will top out around $200k as a senior member of technical staff.
quanticle 13y ago
By the article's definition, neurosurgery is a blue collar trade as well.
- parasubvert 13y ago
  If you consider blue collar work as "manual labor" and white collar work as "knowledge work", then there likely is a middle-category that is a mix of both - "knowledge work that require you to use your hands to deliver results". Peter Drucker called these folks "knowledge technologists": http://www.economist.com/node/770819 http://www.economist.com/node/770819 ... And believed probably will be the majority of workers in a developed countries over the next century.
bradleyjg 13y ago
A) That's not what the post above says, and b) it's not accurate. Blue collar refers to jobs that involve physical labor. The term arose when people on the factory floor would wear blue coveralls, and people that worked in the offices off the floor would wear white button down shirts. Why exactly every job needs to have a clear path to CEO or be considered a dead end or blue collar job is a mystery to me.
- autokad 13y ago
  because unless you can work 40 hours a week and spend another 20 learning new techs as they come out for the entirety of your life, you will become obsolete unless you can move onto other roles. If management is not an option, then chances are very likely that person will be unemployable somewhere between ages 40-50. and that's only one problem. you may reach (or ever want to) the top, but if there is a low ceiling that is going to put so many pressures on your career.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    "Unemployable beyond 40" has been dead for years in the software industry. Probably for decades. There's nothing in current industry that requires you to be under 30 (actually, there are tons of positions which require extensive experience) and technologies don't die that fast - C programming market is still alive, C++ is over 30 and not going anywhere, Java would be 20 years old next year and not disappearing any time soon. The time where experience from 10 years ago was completely irrelevant is past, now you could have been writing in Java 10 years ago and still be doing it today and continue doing it 10 years from now if you'd like so. Of course, you have to keep current, but any trade has that, especially trade which deals with advanced technologies.
    - autokad 13y ago
      you cherry picked the most successful languages, and also ignored how much they changed. you also doubled the amount of time c++ was actually used. 30 years ago COBOL was all the rage I'm sure. And lets face it, knowing just those is not going to get you very many jobs, maybe for a few hundred people in the entire united states. and people have to look ahead and see the trend. newer stuff is coming out faster and faster. The 'hard' stuff is paying more and more and requires less and less people to do it, while the easy stuff is consistently either being outsourced or made so easy 'anyone' can do it. and unemployed beyond 40 dead in the industry? are you kidding me? we have less IT/programming jobs today than we had in the late 1990s. Where do you think those people went, they just up and died? they had to pick a new industry

That is a bit of a reach to call it blue collar. I have blue collar friends from high school who envy what programmers do and make and I do what I can to try and persuade/teach them to learn to code and make a better life for themselves.

asdfologist 13y ago
whoosh Edit: I thought the original "blue collar" remark was sarcastic. Am I wrong?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
BugBrother 13y ago
Most everyone has forgotten the 2000 dot com crash, when all the computer jobs disappeared. This "learn to code" is just how it was then. I would bet money that in less than five years, a lot of software people will be unemployed -- again. (If I win, good. If not, good. :-) )
- smsm42 13y ago
  I'm curious - how much money would you be willing to bet on that? At which odds? I've been through the dotcom crash and minor disturbances after, and the jobs never "disappeared". Yes, there were layoffs, pay cuts and hiring freezes. But not all jobs disappeared, and most of the people who lost their jobs found new ones after a while. I'm not diminishing the pain and suffering of those who got caught in bad situations there, but it's not like the whole IT disappeared and people went back to abacuses and wired telegraph.
  - BugBrother 13y ago
    >>But not all jobs disappeared I wrote "all jobs" in one place and in another "a lot of software people [...] again". Since you were also there, what I meant should be obvious...? In my Swedish job market, there was also something similar around a decade earlier. But it was not only for software people.
- joshdance 13y ago
  "This "learn to code" is just how it was then." - really? I don't remember it that way. Sure there was lots of people who wanted to get in, and lots of books printed but nothing like the sustained push that there is now.
parasubvert 13y ago
Blue collar workers can make a lot of money these days, especially if their trade required significant theoretical learning and practical training. Electricians, mechanics, heavy machinery operators in Alberta can make $150,000 in the oil sands before overtime, plus fly-in/fly-out costs; in the major urban centers, upwards of $100,000. If you're young, add in overtime and you're looking at $150-200k+. Foremen and supervisors can make up to double. A programmer in the Bay Area will top out around $200k as a senior member of technical staff.

quanticle 13y ago

By the article's definition, neurosurgery is a blue collar trade as well.

parasubvert 13y ago
If you consider blue collar work as "manual labor" and white collar work as "knowledge work", then there likely is a middle-category that is a mix of both - "knowledge work that require you to use your hands to deliver results". Peter Drucker called these folks "knowledge technologists": http://www.economist.com/node/770819 http://www.economist.com/node/770819 ... And believed probably will be the majority of workers in a developed countries over the next century.

bradleyjg 13y ago

A) That's not what the post above says, and b) it's not accurate. Blue collar refers to jobs that involve physical labor. The term arose when people on the factory floor would wear blue coveralls, and people that worked in the offices off the floor would wear white button down shirts. Why exactly every job needs to have a clear path to CEO or be considered a dead end or blue collar job is a mystery to me.

autokad 13y ago
because unless you can work 40 hours a week and spend another 20 learning new techs as they come out for the entirety of your life, you will become obsolete unless you can move onto other roles. If management is not an option, then chances are very likely that person will be unemployable somewhere between ages 40-50. and that's only one problem. you may reach (or ever want to) the top, but if there is a low ceiling that is going to put so many pressures on your career.
- smsm42 13y ago
  "Unemployable beyond 40" has been dead for years in the software industry. Probably for decades. There's nothing in current industry that requires you to be under 30 (actually, there are tons of positions which require extensive experience) and technologies don't die that fast - C programming market is still alive, C++ is over 30 and not going anywhere, Java would be 20 years old next year and not disappearing any time soon. The time where experience from 10 years ago was completely irrelevant is past, now you could have been writing in Java 10 years ago and still be doing it today and continue doing it 10 years from now if you'd like so. Of course, you have to keep current, but any trade has that, especially trade which deals with advanced technologies.
  - autokad 13y ago
    you cherry picked the most successful languages, and also ignored how much they changed. you also doubled the amount of time c++ was actually used. 30 years ago COBOL was all the rage I'm sure. And lets face it, knowing just those is not going to get you very many jobs, maybe for a few hundred people in the entire united states. and people have to look ahead and see the trend. newer stuff is coming out faster and faster. The 'hard' stuff is paying more and more and requires less and less people to do it, while the easy stuff is consistently either being outsourced or made so easy 'anyone' can do it. and unemployed beyond 40 dead in the industry? are you kidding me? we have less IT/programming jobs today than we had in the late 1990s. Where do you think those people went, they just up and died? they had to pick a new industry