Comment by winter_blue | Hacker News Reader

Comment by winter_blue | Hacker News Reader

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The idea that good programmers are as easily trainable as good welders is ridiculous. If that were the case, we wouldn't have a shortage.

My company actually does try to train people. We hire people who come out of coding camps like General Assembly -- and we actually pay these camps when we hire them. Students attend these camps for free.

After that, we pair program with them, and painstakingly explain various concepts to them. We hold them by the hand, and literally teach them. I found it amazing that my company had to do this, and shocking that they literally could not find good developers. My company is just looking for developers that can get shit done. We are not looking for rock stars, or master algorithm puzzle solvers. Just people who can build decent, functioning non-broken software.

FYI, I graduated very recently with a B.S. in Computer Science, and my total comp (incl. bonuses) is slightly over $150,000. And, at my company, the typical workday is from 10 am to 6 pm. I am not over-worked, or under-paid.

It is clear that you've neither been in a position of hiring developers, nor have an idea of what good programming skill is.

That explains why you have so little knowledge of labor history that you don't know what a "scab", is nor know of the strikes by people in a STEM field. You have neither the training nor the experience.

What you might take from that is that, while you are neither "over-worked, or under-paid", you are under-educated about history, and more specifically labor history.

Your last line continues your tiring practice of name calling. Please stop.

How is labor history relevant here?

I'm talking about the developer shortage I've witnessed and dealt with myself first-hand, and heard about from many people.

You haven't said a word about the shortage, instead you resort to ad hominem attacks criticizing me of not being "educated in history".

Paul Graham, Sam Altman, and many other respected figures in industry have said many of the same things I have. You also clearly hold a deep belief in the lump of labor fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

This just goes to shows that your "no shortage" argument is a pure fiction that you obstinately refuse to let go, even when confronted with reality.

"How is labor history relevant here?"

It isn't relevant here per se. It's a merger with a cousin thread where you did not know what "scab" meant and didn't know about any STEM-related strikes, when I had heard of some, and was quickly able to find several such examples.

"haven't said a word about the shortage"

Do try to read what I wrote rather than what you think I didn't write. In the g'g'parent comment to this one I said that STEM is a meaningless term, and that "the shortage is only in from a much smaller subset of primarily programming related skills." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11311160 . I explicitly acknowledge that developer shortage is meaningful, even though I reject that STEM shortage is meaningful.

"ad hominem attacks"

Says the person who claims that I do not "have an idea of what good programming skill is".

Says the person who claims that ones_and_zeros is advocating a "very nativist, xenophobic, extremely right-wing and anti-progressive" view.

The Wikipedia entry for 'ad hominem' points out "Ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, for example, when it relates to the credibility of statements of fact." Let's go back to your statement "I've never heard of strikes occurring in STEM fields." If you had deep knowledge on the topic then that would be meaningful. If you had shallow knowledge then it carries little weight. In that thread I pointed out your apparent lack of knowledge. Now I pointed out the reason for it. This means I know to attach less weight to future statements you make. My attempt to assess your credibility is one of the non-fallacious uses of ad hominem reasoning.

"lump of labor fallacy"

Interesting. I'm saying that STEM is a meaningless term because it lumps people together too much. Where is the increased financial and political support for evolutionary linguistics, urban anthropology, and palynology, which are all part of the "S" in STEM? Since by my reading, most people at the policy level equate "STEM" fields with the subset of science, technology, engineering and math that helps solve more business-oriented problems.

How you turn that into a belief that I believe in a fixed lump of labor is beyond me.

> practice of name calling

There is a time and place for everything. When a person makes remarks that are beyond a shadow of doubt hateful and xenophobic, naming those things (specifically) and calling them out is absolutely the right thing to do.

It would be morally wrong, cowardly, and reprehensibly politically correct not to do so.

Jesus said to the Pharisees: "You snakes, you brood of vipers, how will you escape being condemned to hell?"

So, no, I absolutely will not stop speaking the truth, and naming and calling out evil when I see it.

I have experienced an incredible amount of hate here. You hate me and despise me because I immigrated to this country (that too, legally). Your hatred and your contempt is based solely on the fact that I wasn't born here.

You believe that I deserve a lesser shot at life, and fewer rights and freedoms than you have, simply because I wasn't born here.

That is a disgusting, contemptible, elitist, and entitled set of beliefs. Especially considering that the families of most people in this country immigrated in the last few hundred years.

You and your ilk are a shame and a disgrace to this country, like the KKK. You do not embody the American spirit. Nor do you understand the values and principles this country was founded on. Specifically, you and your ilk embody the spirit of Andrew Jackson, and not that of Abraham Lincoln.

And what of your professed morality gives you the right to say that I don't "have an idea of what good programming skill is"? What evidence justifies that name calling? Or do you justify it because you have concluded I am the despised Enemy who deserves no better?

It's easy to dress yourself in the clothes of righteousness. The feeling of moral outrage is powerful. But your call to "ich kann nicht anders", used so profoundly by Martin Luther King Jr. while in the Birmingham jail, no more justifies your conclusion than it might justify King's namesakes' 'Von den Juden und ihren Lügen'.

I tell you again I AM AN IMMIGRANT. MY FATHER WAS AN IMMIGRANT. Your shots are clearly wild and disconnected from reality. You appear to believe that anyone who disagrees with you in the slightest is "beyond a shadow of doubt hateful and xenophobic".

Isn't life so clear when you live in a absolutist world of black&white world, and work on the side of Jesus? Too bad for you that that's not the real world. Nor is it world I aspire towards. I don't want to be subject to the whims of people who ignore evidence counter to their conclusions.

It is clear that you've never been through an entire market cycle.

The need for software doesn't vanish during the low point of a cycle.

The dot com bubble primarily wiped out companies with vacuous valuations.

Companies that generate useful value will continue to do live.

The best developers keep their jobs through the market cycles.

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