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Comment by voxxit | Hacker News Reader

I call bull.

Beyond bull, the article doesn't even come close to making sense. They predict a 3% drop in 'computer programmer' jobs over the next decade, but a 32% increase in 'computer software engineer' jobs over the same timeframe. Futher confounding the issue, the distinction they draw between the two is "computer software engineers [are] the guys who write the software" while "computer programmers [are] the guys who write the instructions for the computer to use that software". I have no idea what they think that means their version of a programmer does, or how it's supposed to be different from a software engineer. At worst, it looks like 3% of the programmers in the US will have to change their job titles to software engineer and start writing software instead of writing instructions... or something.

(As a side note, did anyone else notice that programming was the only profession in the list that was explicitly gendered in its description?)

I think:

  "computer software engineers" = "application developers"
  "computer programmers" = "systems programmer"

In other words, programmers are spending more of their (paid employment) time writing applications instead of low-level stuff. Maybe because of how much of the development of lower-level stuff is happening in the open source world?

I think you're right. I'm thinking the computer programmers are the COBOL programmers that are still writing code on the mainframes at banks and utility companies while the software engineers are replacing spreadsheets with .Net and Java apps (or on the web of course).

1. I don't think that's exactly what Legion was saying.

2. I don't think that's exactly what the article's author was saying.

3. I think that makes a lot more sense than whatever cockamamie BS the article's author was saying, though, and I think you give her too much credit by applying such a reasonable sounding interpretation to her ridiculously uninformed statements.

I dunno. I think you're reading a lot into that train-wreck of a sentence.

software engineer: write the software

programmer: write the instructions for a computer to use that software

That doesn't actually line up very well with what you said. I think you're trying to interpret these words within the realm of your own knowledgeable perspective, rather than seeing it from the point of view of someone who probably doesn't even know what the word "software" really means -- like Cindy Perman (the author of this terrible article).

I think Cindy tried paraphrasing some random definitions without actually understanding them well enough to understand them, attempting to transliterate the definitions from terms too technical for her walnut-sized brain to terms she found more comforting, and hosed things up so badly that (like the credulous customers of a fortune teller) we impose our own interpretations on what she said to it seem true.

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