
Why programmers can’t make any money - shawndumas
https://web.archive.org/web/20151221082425/https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/why-programmers-cant-make-any-money-dimensionality-and-the-eternal-haskell-tax/
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acconrad
Firstly, this post is from 2014, and should probably have the title modified
(if it even stays).

But more importantly, Michael has archives spanning all the way to 2013, with
his 2014 blog posts oddly disappeared. Does he still feel this way, is this an
accurate statement in today's economy?

I think it's a very controversial statement to say "any" money. Developers do
quite well - on average, developers make more than the majority of the
population. Some, especially in engineering management, make on par (or more)
than some lawyers and even doctors.

Just like specialties in law and medicine, some pay more than others because
of demands, and those specialties can cycle in demand. For example, radiology
is really hot right now and pays very well - it was not as lucrative or
selective of a specialty in the 70s and 80s.

Similarly, in engineering, choosing a language like Haskell may be highly-
specialized, so that if someone needs your skills, they will pay a pretty
penny, but amortized over many years, you may make less because the volume of
demand doesn't quite match what one is willing to pay. I also think it's a
flawed comparison to law and medicine. An example:

A lawyer doesn't specialize in English or Spanish. They may know a few
languages to talk w/ clients, which is an asset, but they specialize in a
discipline of law (e.g. corporate, tax, IP), not on the toolbox used for the
law (e.g. reading/writing English).

To draw that analogy to programmers, better to know a discipline (e.g. HCI,
Machine Learning, Robotics) and then find languages that go with that (e.g.
Python & R for Machine Learning, C/C++ for Robotics) than to specialize in a
language itself.

