4 ms·

This is why development is ageist. Keeping programming skills up to date after work, and spending hours after work trying different languages and libraries is f

by UK-AL 12y ago

This is why development is ageist. Keeping programming skills up to date after work, and spending hours after work trying different languages and libraries is fine when your young. Its not so fine, when you have kids and a wife to look after. Probably have about an hour to myself everyday.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
marvin 12y ago
It's not only ageist. As long as developers keep accepting that they have to spend 15 hours a month on their own dime just to keep up, it's outright exploitative. Developers are generally expected to keep current in the breakneck technology rat race with no support from their employing organization. This could (maybe) be considered reasonable if technology moved more slowly, but not the way the world of computer software works. It's one thing if you're a consultant in a web development position where your team is constantly jumping from the previous best practice to the next; keeping up in such an environment is easy and you'll get paid to do it. The problem occurs if you're in (e.g.) a back-end position where your job duties require you to focus on slower-moving technologies that might have lesser demand in the market. What happens if you lose your job after 5 years? Unless you spent all your weekends working with the latest hot frameworks, you're (mostly) screwed. There was a good essay a while ago which stated that software developers need a professional association. If we were organized, we could put forward the very reasonable demand that a small portion of our on-the-clock time should be spent for education. I think this is a requirement if we are not aiming for a world of 40-year old burnouts and early retirees.
- alphapapa 12y ago
  That's a very good point. Other fields have Continuing Education, sabbaticals, in-service training, etc. (e.g. medicine, education). But then, computers and software change so much more rapidly--and arbitrarily--than other fields, that it's very different. Software is as much art as science, and a lot of "keeping up-to-date" with software is simply learning whatever is popular at the moment, not what is necessarily more advanced, better, or newly discovered.
- tbrownaw 12y ago
  As long as developers keep accepting that they have to spend 15 hours a month on their own dime just to keep up, it's outright exploitative. Why? How is this any different from working an extra... 4 hours a week? It sounds like long hours are fairly common, and we tend to be on salary and not get paid extra for that either.
  - marvin 12y ago
    I think the US system of salaried employees and no overtime restrictions (or even pay) encourages exploitation in the first place, so that is my background for making this statement. I live and work in Europe, and I will never work for any US-based company that does not place firm restrictions on how overtime is managed. Most US companies simply have the wrong incentives in place. But yes, having the legal right to take 4 hours a week out of your schedule to stay up-to-date would go a long way towards alleviating the problem.
- gaius 12y ago
  If you've done C++ or DB2 or something for 5 years or 10 years or 20 years you will have no trouble finding the next gig. Because these skills genuinely do take time to develop, and people with the tenacity to do it are rare.
robotkilla 12y ago
We need a union.
- falcolas 12y ago
  It will not happen anytime soon. For one, (speaking as an American) unions are sneered at as a waste of resources by your average citizen. This leads to the second problem: there will always be a pretty decent sized group who do not believe in unions, meaning companies will have a choice in who to hire. It's usually not in a corporation's best interest to hire a unionized worker, at least not a corporation which views "profit" as their primary goal.
  - robotkilla 12y ago
    well, speaking as an american from the midwest, unions are usually sneered at as a waste of resources by people who have to pay for union workers. We need to make sure that we aren't getting taken advantage of by our employers (examples: shitty pay, terrible work environments, bad equipment, conspiracies to lower wages), aren't implementing poor practices (things like backdoors for the government), and aren't subject to things like sexism, racism, ageism (as you age and learn more and get better at what you do, its going to be harder to get a job - does that seem fair?). I'd prefer to be part of a tech union that helped ensure my safety in these areas. admittedly i don't know enough about unions to know how the current structure would benefit our industry, but we need something similar at least.
  - gaius 12y ago
    Call it a "guild" and everyone will join!
- Terr_ 12y ago
  Unions are suitable for measurable and substitutable tasks, but most programming is actually custom work. Show me a unionizeable programming job and I'll show you something that's about to be replaced with a library or shrink-wrap app. A comparison to law/medicine is more appropriate.
  - 12y ago
Dewie 12y ago
Sounds like a race to the bottom.
gaius 12y ago
It's pointless too. Every new language that comes out, everyone reinvents the wheel in it. You see it here on HN, on the front page[1] every day <some piece of software that has existed for years> now rewritten in <trendy language of the day> and everyone cheers, but is this program doing anything that it didn't do before? Is it faster, better, more reliable? Generally no, and this happens in the workplace too, just reinventing the wheel over and over and over again. We could have stuck with C, and concentrated on developing new things, but the programming community is like Hollywood remaking the same film over and over with different stars. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203045 [2] [2] That was easy to find...

by UK-AL 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

marvin 12y ago

It's not only ageist. As long as developers keep accepting that they have to spend 15 hours a month on their own dime just to keep up, it's outright exploitative. Developers are generally expected to keep current in the breakneck technology rat race with no support from their employing organization. This could (maybe) be considered reasonable if technology moved more slowly, but not the way the world of computer software works. It's one thing if you're a consultant in a web development position where your team is constantly jumping from the previous best practice to the next; keeping up in such an environment is easy and you'll get paid to do it. The problem occurs if you're in (e.g.) a back-end position where your job duties require you to focus on slower-moving technologies that might have lesser demand in the market. What happens if you lose your job after 5 years? Unless you spent all your weekends working with the latest hot frameworks, you're (mostly) screwed. There was a good essay a while ago which stated that software developers need a professional association. If we were organized, we could put forward the very reasonable demand that a small portion of our on-the-clock time should be spent for education. I think this is a requirement if we are not aiming for a world of 40-year old burnouts and early retirees.

alphapapa 12y ago
That's a very good point. Other fields have Continuing Education, sabbaticals, in-service training, etc. (e.g. medicine, education). But then, computers and software change so much more rapidly--and arbitrarily--than other fields, that it's very different. Software is as much art as science, and a lot of "keeping up-to-date" with software is simply learning whatever is popular at the moment, not what is necessarily more advanced, better, or newly discovered.
tbrownaw 12y ago
As long as developers keep accepting that they have to spend 15 hours a month on their own dime just to keep up, it's outright exploitative. Why? How is this any different from working an extra... 4 hours a week? It sounds like long hours are fairly common, and we tend to be on salary and not get paid extra for that either.
- marvin 12y ago
  I think the US system of salaried employees and no overtime restrictions (or even pay) encourages exploitation in the first place, so that is my background for making this statement. I live and work in Europe, and I will never work for any US-based company that does not place firm restrictions on how overtime is managed. Most US companies simply have the wrong incentives in place. But yes, having the legal right to take 4 hours a week out of your schedule to stay up-to-date would go a long way towards alleviating the problem.
gaius 12y ago
If you've done C++ or DB2 or something for 5 years or 10 years or 20 years you will have no trouble finding the next gig. Because these skills genuinely do take time to develop, and people with the tenacity to do it are rare.

robotkilla 12y ago

We need a union.

falcolas 12y ago
It will not happen anytime soon. For one, (speaking as an American) unions are sneered at as a waste of resources by your average citizen. This leads to the second problem: there will always be a pretty decent sized group who do not believe in unions, meaning companies will have a choice in who to hire. It's usually not in a corporation's best interest to hire a unionized worker, at least not a corporation which views "profit" as their primary goal.
- robotkilla 12y ago
  well, speaking as an american from the midwest, unions are usually sneered at as a waste of resources by people who have to pay for union workers. We need to make sure that we aren't getting taken advantage of by our employers (examples: shitty pay, terrible work environments, bad equipment, conspiracies to lower wages), aren't implementing poor practices (things like backdoors for the government), and aren't subject to things like sexism, racism, ageism (as you age and learn more and get better at what you do, its going to be harder to get a job - does that seem fair?). I'd prefer to be part of a tech union that helped ensure my safety in these areas. admittedly i don't know enough about unions to know how the current structure would benefit our industry, but we need something similar at least.
- gaius 12y ago
  Call it a "guild" and everyone will join!
Terr_ 12y ago
Unions are suitable for measurable and substitutable tasks, but most programming is actually custom work. Show me a unionizeable programming job and I'll show you something that's about to be replaced with a library or shrink-wrap app. A comparison to law/medicine is more appropriate.
- 12y ago

Dewie 12y ago

Sounds like a race to the bottom.

gaius 12y ago

It's pointless too. Every new language that comes out, everyone reinvents the wheel in it. You see it here on HN, on the front page[1] every day <some piece of software that has existed for years> now rewritten in <trendy language of the day> and everyone cheers, but is this program doing anything that it didn't do before? Is it faster, better, more reliable? Generally no, and this happens in the workplace too, just reinventing the wheel over and over and over again. We could have stuck with C, and concentrated on developing new things, but the programming community is like Hollywood remaking the same film over and over with different stars. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203045 [2] [2] That was easy to find...