

Autoworkers of Our Generation - johnjlocke
http://blog.baugues.com/autoworkers

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gailees
This is a great, concise synthesis of a lot of thoughts that have been rolling
around in my head. I don't know if I could compare software development as
directly to autoworkers because I do believe it's an art, but I love the post!

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MaxScheiber
> No profession stays on top forever… just ask your recently graduated lawyer
> friends.

This is really a poor comparison. The issue with the legal industry is that
there are too many bad law schools. Students from top 13 law schools simply
don't have trouble finding BigLaw positions, sort of like how engineers from
Stanford have their pick of top tech shops, or how Wharton undergraduates have
a whole host of investment banking and private equity opportunities.

It's the law school candidates from poor schools that have trouble.

If the author's point was to say that anyone can log onto the Internet, learn
Ruby for a month, and make a very respectable salary, and that this isn't
sustainable...well, duh.

The rockstars — the people that read HN, the people that think about software
engineering and computer science constantly, the people that don't stop
tinkering and building — they're not going to have trouble keeping their jobs.
They are the top 13 law schools, the target school investment bankers.

The difference between the automobile industry and the technology industry is
that the tech industry won't be going away for a long, long time. One can
easily imagine other forms of transportation, but computer science is here to
stay, as far as we can tell. Even as we automate how easy it is to make a web
application, we see new engineering challenges in different domains that still
require the rockstars to be rockstars.

Yeah, we should obviously still be learning. That's why we're on HN in the
first place. But I'm not exactly worried for the long term.

Maybe I'm too bullish.

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jared314
> the tech industry won't be going away for a long, long time

After a century of existence, auto manufacturers are still here too. The issue
is how the industry has changed over time, and what their experience can teach
others. Auto manufacturers have increased output relentlessly through better
tooling, automation, and engineering advancements, while reducing labor
requirements to levels that would have been ridiculous even 10 years before.
And, they have done that for decades. Software has the same vectors of
improvement and shows a similar growth of form factors. Consumer software, as
it is now, is only ~40 years old. I think there is a lot of experience, and
lessons, that could translate from older industries, especially around the
handling of people, knowledge, and industry shifts. And, it might be wise to
avoid relearning some of their lessons the hard way.

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penguindev
This was a good read. I don't have a degree and my wife stays home too. Enjoy
and save up while it lasts, most are not so fortunate.

I think some blame for economic decline has to go toward world overcrowding
and fewer resources per capita, but I also agree that no profession stays on
top forever - although bankers sure give it a good run.

I'm wondering if the social/mobile/videogaming crazes are ever gonna burst.
It's hard for me to even visualize all the sectors that utilize programming.
Health Care, NSA spying, autonomous drones, genomics, ...

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gailees
Also, I think between the hacker schools and 80k CS degrees, you failed to
mention that solution that lies right in between: hackathons.

