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Your arrogance is showing. Sure, you could learn how to operate a lathe on an assembly line in a matter of weeks; in just the same way nearly any adult of avera

Your arrogance is showing. Sure, you could learn how to operate a lathe on an assembly line in a matter of weeks; in just the same way nearly any adult of average education could learn in a matter of weeks to write WordPress templates, or cobble together SQL queries, or etc. etc. To become a master machinist, the kind who can do anything with a lathe that a lathe can be asked to do? Years of dedication and expertise.

cbd1984 12y ago
The problem with this is that those cobbled-together SQL queries are precisely the kinds of things good programmers either replace or automate away; you can automate away an assembly-line job, but not as cheaply, and not as easily. There might not be any such thing as a 100x programmer or whatever, but the value proposition for replacing a few sub-par programmers with one better programmer and a framework is a lot clearer than the one for replacing a handful of assembly line workers with a more complicated and more expensive piece of machinery.
- kragen 12y ago
  Hmm, I don’t think so. If you have a dozen similar queries, then you can factor out the similarity (say, into a view, or a Ruby subroutine that generates the SQL). If you have a thousand that vary in a lot of different ways, a few subroutines isn’t enough; you need a DSL to factor out the similarity, aka “automate away” the queries. But then you need someone to write down the idiosyncratic bits of each query, the thing that makes it different from the other thousand, in your DSL. For a lot of systems, the right DSL is in fact SQL itself, but even if it’s not, you still need people to write in it. In short, nonprogrammers writing cobbled-together SQL queries are the result of automating away the non-idiosyncratic aspects of the queries.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Software (in the Turing sense), removing the material complexity, accelerated the notion of automation. Easy things can be, medium-complexity too, only leaving the NP-complete stuff to be done by hand. Jobs are an endangered species.
briholt 12y ago
In the scope of factories in the industrial revolution, I think he's clearly referring to low-skill assembly line work, which made up the vast majority of jobs. You're referring to master craftsman. The problem with software is that there's no known way to create assembly-line-style software with lots of low skill labor. It can only be made by at least semi-skilled craftsman. Being able to cobble together an SQL query is nice, but what kind of useful product could you put out with a line of 50 people such low-skill people? None that I know of. Thus we're stuck with a lot less, higher skill jobs.
- cwp 12y ago
  Yeah, but the software revolution doesn't require everyone to be coders, just as the industrial revolution didn't require everyone to be lathe designers. There are definitely non-coding jobs being created by the software revolution. Cobbling together SQL queries, bashing spreadsheets together, creating graphs, cleaning up data for further processing. These are exactly the kind of things that low(ish) skilled people will be doing in the future.
  - wvenable 12y ago
    The low-skill clerical type work is exactly the sort of job I work to eliminate every single day. Only the top skilled in most departments could cobble together a SQL query, do anything useful with Excel, etc. The vast majority of Office workers today cannot do what you're asking of them. They work the "assembly line" jobs in the office. Those people are needed less and less.
  - xj9 12y ago
    Cobbling together SQL queries, bashing spreadsheets together, creating graphs, cleaning up data for further processing. Its my job to make it so people don't have to do any of these things.
dsq 12y ago
I have coworkers whose official job title is one that involves programming and they are bad at it. I shouldn't speak for myself, but it's not that simple. If you continuously strive to advance, it means constant learning, and most people I see really can't or won't learn like that.

cbd1984 12y ago

The problem with this is that those cobbled-together SQL queries are precisely the kinds of things good programmers either replace or automate away; you can automate away an assembly-line job, but not as cheaply, and not as easily. There might not be any such thing as a 100x programmer or whatever, but the value proposition for replacing a few sub-par programmers with one better programmer and a framework is a lot clearer than the one for replacing a handful of assembly line workers with a more complicated and more expensive piece of machinery.

kragen 12y ago
Hmm, I don’t think so. If you have a dozen similar queries, then you can factor out the similarity (say, into a view, or a Ruby subroutine that generates the SQL). If you have a thousand that vary in a lot of different ways, a few subroutines isn’t enough; you need a DSL to factor out the similarity, aka “automate away” the queries. But then you need someone to write down the idiosyncratic bits of each query, the thing that makes it different from the other thousand, in your DSL. For a lot of systems, the right DSL is in fact SQL itself, but even if it’s not, you still need people to write in it. In short, nonprogrammers writing cobbled-together SQL queries are the result of automating away the non-idiosyncratic aspects of the queries.
agumonkey 12y ago
Software (in the Turing sense), removing the material complexity, accelerated the notion of automation. Easy things can be, medium-complexity too, only leaving the NP-complete stuff to be done by hand. Jobs are an endangered species.

briholt 12y ago

In the scope of factories in the industrial revolution, I think he's clearly referring to low-skill assembly line work, which made up the vast majority of jobs. You're referring to master craftsman. The problem with software is that there's no known way to create assembly-line-style software with lots of low skill labor. It can only be made by at least semi-skilled craftsman. Being able to cobble together an SQL query is nice, but what kind of useful product could you put out with a line of 50 people such low-skill people? None that I know of. Thus we're stuck with a lot less, higher skill jobs.

cwp 12y ago
Yeah, but the software revolution doesn't require everyone to be coders, just as the industrial revolution didn't require everyone to be lathe designers. There are definitely non-coding jobs being created by the software revolution. Cobbling together SQL queries, bashing spreadsheets together, creating graphs, cleaning up data for further processing. These are exactly the kind of things that low(ish) skilled people will be doing in the future.
- wvenable 12y ago
  The low-skill clerical type work is exactly the sort of job I work to eliminate every single day. Only the top skilled in most departments could cobble together a SQL query, do anything useful with Excel, etc. The vast majority of Office workers today cannot do what you're asking of them. They work the "assembly line" jobs in the office. Those people are needed less and less.
- xj9 12y ago
  Cobbling together SQL queries, bashing spreadsheets together, creating graphs, cleaning up data for further processing. Its my job to make it so people don't have to do any of these things.

dsq 12y ago

I have coworkers whose official job title is one that involves programming and they are bad at it. I shouldn't speak for myself, but it's not that simple. If you continuously strive to advance, it means constant learning, and most people I see really can't or won't learn like that.