

Why Don't More People Work as Programmers? - lmedinas
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/10/31/why-dont-more-people-work-as-programmers/

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greenyoda
While I think that most of the points the author makes are valid, I'd disagree
with this:

 _" On top of all this, the language that you thought was the next big thing
was a passing fad and nobody is using it 5 years later. Now you’re on to the
next cool language, which might not be used 5 years from now. You constantly
have to stay on top of things."_

In most areas of programming, there's no need to chase the next hot language.
Many of the languages being used today, such as Python, Ruby, Java,
JavaScript, C++ and C have been around for a very long time. Outside of web
and mobile development, the frameworks and libraries don't change that
quickly.

 _" There’s a ton of stuff you need to know, and it keeps changing! It’s not
something you can be truly great at unless it’s your main focus. You can’t be
a 'weekend programmer.'_"

There are many fields in which you can. For example, if your weekend project
is writing a program to do electronic music composition on a PC or a Mac,
you'll be pretty much unaffected by the trends in languages and frameworks.
The code you write this year will still run just fine five years from now, and
user interfaces on desktop machines won't change all that much in the next
five years.

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Theodores
It has been a while since I was at school and I am sure things have changed
since then, however, most of the reasons cited here are not evident at that
formative, career deciding stage. At school/university you don't know about
'death marches', the obligation to work in a focused manner for more hours in
the week than the stereotypical 'junior doctor' (allegedly they put in all the
hours) or that projects are likely to be managed by people that cannot be
bothered to learn the slightest thing about how things work 'under the hood'.

The same could be said for almost any other profession - teachers go into it
with idealism then get jaded once they find out the reality of what is asked
for them. Same with anything else to varying extents.

IMHO there are lots of different types of programmers with different
motivations. Some are product/client/customer focused, plenty are not. Some
fail to see programming as a creative endeavour - it might as well be car
mechanics to them. For some people programming is all they are cut out for,
only a miracle will move them on to something else or some late spurt of
personal development might enable that.

At the end of the day programming is hard work. But this is not the same sort
of hard work that most people consider to be hard work. In some ways this
difference is a bit like the difference between 'hot courage' and 'cold
courage'. ('Hot courage' is what soldiers have when they do something
courageous under fire, 'cold courage' is what Edward Snowden has.)

