
The Golden Age of the Developer - dchs
http://www.kernelmag.com/scene/2011/12/developers-developers-developers/
======
DrCatbox
On a side note, another word for kingmakers is "time-space engineers" as used
by Fred Perlman in his "Against Hist-Story, Against Leviathan" work. Now more
than ever are time-space engineers sought after and given opportunities to do
their magic, to creating new (business) empires and hold Leviathan together
for a little while longer.

As a developer, I would prefer to do the opposite. Dismantle Leviathan,
dismantle empires. As developers we have the power to change the society, to
stop making (business) empires, and to demolish those that exist, such as all
those based on copyright and patents. We must base our work on vlaues such as
freedom and not on currency.

What Im trying to say is, business as usual or really?

~~~
paulhauggis
"As a developer, I would prefer to do the opposite. Dismantle Leviathan,
dismantle empires. As developers we have the power to change the society, to
stop making (business) empires, and to demolish those that exist, such as all
those based on copyright and patents. We must base our work on vlaues such as
freedom and not on currency."

If you don't have some protection, you will have no business and lose any
power you would have had to change anything.

Copyrights and patents protect the little guy as much as they protect big
corporations. I don't think you would want to be in a world without such
protections.

~~~
DrCatbox
Quite an interesting comment. And you are right.

What I want to do is strive to make copyleft the default, instead of copyright
being the default. It has to be protected the same.

To put something under copyright or patent it should cost millions, the
expected price the society would loose if the invention/product was not
improved on by others. To let it free to use as see fit by others should be
default, and if anyone or company decides to not share or in other ways
obstruct freedom, fined.

A value-shift is needed for this. Thats what I as developer am working for
everyday, improving freedom software, being the change I wish to see.

~~~
ggchappell
> What I want to do is strive to make copyleft the default, instead of
> copyright being the default. It has to be protected the same.

I understand that your point is about freedom. But are you aware that, without
copyright, there is no copyleft? Copyright is not the "default"; it is just
always there. It is the right of an author to place conditions on how his work
is handled, including, for example, licensing it under the GPL. Without
copyright, everything is public domain, and so, for example, a requirement to
make source code available when distributing a modified version of a program,
would not be enforceable.

~~~
DrCatbox
Yes I understand that.

The laws need to be changed to better promote freedom, innovation and
diversity instead of creating time-constrained monopolies.

Everything which is not in public domain explicitly, the copyleft is assigned
to the author, where the rights to distribute the art and make derivatives is
guaranteed by the law/judiciary office, just like it guarantees that copyright
will be enforced today.

------
gavanwoolery
I would argue that we are in the Dark Ages.

Why?

We live in an age where even the simplest software is relatively complex to
develop, due to feature-bloat, bad standardization, and lack of
standardization. More importantly, we live in a world where the ruling
companies have grown so big, none of them really care about innovating - they
care about quarterly revenues. All of the big companies try to cater to
watered-down standards (I'm looking at you W3C, ISO, RFC, EMCA, IANA, Khronos
Group, etc).

We need to take what we have learned, and hit the reset button. A new system
architecture (goodbye x86 and 32-bit software), and new operating system (it
should be a few megabytes large, at most), and new compiler, language, and
virtual machine.

Or we can just continue to live semi-comfortably and bitch about it every so
often.

~~~
zeratul
gavanwoolery: What you describe is the Renaissance. Dark Ages could be DOS or
WIN 3.1 with PASCAL or VB and its short dominance over classical and forbidden
beauty of Unix and C. I guess the title of the article should really read:
"The Renaissance of Developers".

Indeed, we are like the Renaissance men. We read a lot, learn a lot, and write
a lot; different languages, different platforms, and different standards. We
need to know how to admin, design, write, build, test, and deploy. Each of us
has to be Galileo, da Vinci, Columbus, and Kepler in one person.

What we are waiting is the era of positivism where methodological debates
concerning clarity, replicability, reliability, and validity established
modern science governed by experimentation and sound statistics. Mathematics
applied in Physics, Physics in Chemistry, and Chemistry in Biology bring order
and sanity the same one that developers are longing for in computer science
and computer engineering.

------
dchs
I'd love to hear any suggestions for how a publication like this could
contribute. We've got a few ideas of our own but are very open to suggestions.

~~~
josephmosby
David,

What about a curated list of open-source projects with defined needs, perhaps
generated on a month-to-month basis? For example, you guys could comb through
GitHub or any other repository and provide users with a top-50 list of
projects/descriptions/languages used/etc.

Obviously, plenty of users will continue to contribute bug fixes to the
projects they use on a regular basis. But some users might just want an
interesting hack that stretches their knowledge and comfort zone - and if it
fixes a problem for that project, why not?

~~~
mikeleeorg
I second that idea. And would further suggest highlighting some projects that
require roles other than developers, so those projects can get the design,
marketing, product, etc help that they're seeking.

------
brikis98
Golden Age of the Developer? No, not even close. This is the just the _tip_ of
the iceberg.

Prediction: in ~30 years, programming will be just as important as literacy.

~~~
rimantas
Prediction: your prediction is wrong. We pretty much all drive cars, how many
of us are mechanics? More importantly, the amount of under-the-hood knowledge
to operate a car was diminishing, not increasing over time, and I expect the
same thing to happen with computers. They will be all around us (already are),
but for most people there will be no need to acknowledge their presence, let
alone know how to program them.

~~~
brikis98
Cars are not a good analogy for this situation, at all. The presence of
software and computers in our life is much closer to the invention of the
alphabet and writing. Written text gradually becomes so ubiquitous in life
that being illiterate is a serious handicap for anything you want to do.

Likewise, the amount of software and technology we deal with on a daily basis
is increasing at an exponential rate. It is just a matter of time before the
ability to deal with it at a deep level becomes a necessity of life.

Of course, not everyone will be _paid_ to write code, just like not everyone
is _paid_ to read/write, but you'll be handicapped in life if you don't know
how to do it. Moreover, coding itself will largely change as well: programming
languages are constantly adopting every higher levels of abstraction and
gradually becoming more accessible to a wider audience.

------
systemizer
We developers are getting evermore control and power on the internet, which
can be both a good thing and bad thing.

Do we trust ourselves? Will we make the world a better place as a result of
this power? I'm hesitant to answer this question. I know developers that I
would trust my life with, however, it just takes a few bad apples to mess
everything up.

~~~
dataphyte
I've heard numerous people reference the mythical pragmatism of programmers
and hackers as a problem when idealism vs. self-interest is on the line, Kevin
Mitnick being one of them (~"a caught hacker always rats etc.")

Solution? It would be great to revive the old cyber-optimism of the 1990's
when everyone thought the Internet was going to save the world. The "twitter
revolutions" come to mind, but that narrative is pretty shallow.

For people to take a stand and hold under temptation for money and power, they
have to have something they can believe in.

------
dsolomon
The author is delusional, at best.

| There’s never been a better time to be a developer.

Let’s take the internet wayback machine before the dotbomb days.

Companies provided the hardware and software to work on. Required travel was
reimbursed. You had your own work area and it was for working in. Productivity
was measured in new features and bug fixes. Bonuses were plentiful. Salaries
were good (100K/yr with about 5 years experience and a high level security
clearance).

Today, companies expect you to provide your own hardware and software. Travel
isn’t reimbursed. Work areas double as company storage areas. You often have
to time-share a cube. Productivity is measured by the number of lines of code
produced. There are no bonuses and experienced developers get 80K/yr, maybe.

Today is the golden age? Not to people who’ve been doing this for a few years.

~~~
joshAg
I don't think that's quite accurate based on the experiences of my friends
from school.

Most people I know from school are making ~$90k with 0-2 years of experience.
The highest salary I've heard is my friend who is getting $105k (plus
benefits) when he graduates this spring, and the lowest I've heard is about
$75k (plus benefits). Granted, all these people went to UC Berkeley, but quite
a few of them dropped out/were just auditing (ie not an enrolled student) and
most of us didn't have good GPAs (2.0-3.5, with an est. median of probably
2.75 and a stddev of maybe 0.35).

None of my friends have had to provide their own hardware or software, though
many have chosen to use their personal laptops as terminals instead of using
provided equipment. Everyone at least has their own cubicle (no time sharing),
and i believe about half of us got a significant (ie two weeks pay or more)
bonus sometime in the last year. None of my friends really travel much for
work, but I do know that my company reimburses all travel costs for engineers
(for the few that actually need to travel between offices).

And I don't know anyone whose productivity is measured by LoC.

------
GetATrip
There is a saying that goes, "Everytime you point your finger at someone, 4
fingers are pointing back at you!" So, here I sat writing about how this
particular writer needed more positive mental process so that he would not
look at the world so gloomy, thus this was my perception.

Then, there is another saying that goes "There is a principle which is a bar
against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can
not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt
prior to investigation." So my apology again, as I finally went on the website
in question and it was exactly the opposite that I had conjured up in my mind,
of being sour and pessimistic. I have been drawn to this topic so needed to
learn something here. I thank you for your patience and the opportunity to
speak my mind.

I am also not a developer though desperately trying to learn a little as I
keep paying hundreds and thousands of dollars on a Drupal site I can barely
understand. I need at least back office proficiency. Speak up if anyone knows
the best practice of narrowing down good Drupal "teachers." The author here is
obviously highly intelligent and well read, so if I had simply practiced a
little zen mind and offered out an empty cup perhaps a little knowledge could
have been poured my way. Great post here--

------
GetATrip
I love this type of debate, as the original author has not been shy for
speaking his mind. I am brand new to this website and have a good feeling that
I can learn something here perhaps not seen on other websites. Really, I love
where it is safe to hold an opinion other than the status qou and still all
walk away friends. I am in hopes this is that website.

Today a certain Facebook post told how this Christmas should not be about
Santa but rather Jesus and that Jesus was sad of what came of his birthday.
Well, I guess we could all jump onto that story, same as we could all believe
we are in the dark ages. We are and we are not. Its much like mind-mapping.
Reality is flimsy material, but a tool for the mind to feel it is clothed and
has a home to go to and some money in the bank, general feelings of
familiarity and safety. I choose to live life to the fullest with my cup half
full not half empty -- no, still not favorable enough of a perception to me,
so let's simplify, "My cup runneth over!"

------
iRobot
Ironically, the second someone invents AI, every programmer will be out of a
job!

(So lets enjoy it while we can!)

~~~
andrewflnr
I wouldn't count on computer expertise being infinitely available even after
AI is invented. They won't be infinitely intelligent; we will still need to
give the programming AIs some sort of spec, which will need to be written by
people who understand how the AI thinks. If nothing else, there will need to
be people who understand it well enough to make sure it's actually serving
peoples' interests.

More likely, there would be a gradual transfer of control to increasingly
sophisticated AIs, paralleling our current/past move to higher-level
languages.

