Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

It's incredible reading through the comments on this post and nobody seems to see the game industry for what it is: the canary in the coal mine.

Programming within the game industry is sliding rapidly toward blue collar, and you'd be a fool to assume the problem is contained. The problem for programmers is simple - Supply and Demand.

Thanks to a massive publicity push from big tech, the public is being sold - hook line and sinker - a story about how we're in a "shortage of developers" and how everyone needs to "learn to code". Combine that with the plethora of boot camps, and online materials, and it's never been easier to pickup JavaScript on a weekend and be coding a website.

I've never seen people shoot themselves in the foot more. For god sakes, you're sawing your foot off at this point. There is now a massive wave of young developers, just getting their footing who will be entering a work force near you in the next 10-20 years. And don't forget about remote workers, they gun for your job too. It's becoming more and more technically feasible for a software shop in the US to hire a dev team based in, I dunno, China. I've seen it happen to a group of incredible devs. At the end of the day, the numbers didn't pencil in their favor.

Ask yourselves if you really think the good times will always roll. Really ask yourself if Obama standing up in front of the nation beckoning for everyone to "Learn to Code" was really good for you, or good for the big tech companies that got him up there? Wake up, and smell the ashes. There are industry and economic forces actively working AGAINST you. Don't help them. Stop parroting the narrative that there is a "shortage of developers", for starters. And hedge your bets while you're at it - get really good at something. Specialize. Maybe it's firmware, maybe it's iOS AR, maybe its machine learning, find something niche, and get world class level good at it. In 15 years, hopefully you'll be one of the few still making "6 figure salaries".

While that may be true, I can't but think of the scribes. Mass literacy has destroyed the scribe occupation (think of their children!) but overall it has been a benefit to mankind. I'm thinking the same with computers and programming. Computers and programming have so transformed the world (much like literacy and numeracy) that I have to think the same should be true of computeracy (computer literacy).

And just like there are people who have an affinity for literacy (we call them "writers") and numeracy ("mathematicians" or "accountants" depending upon the math work), I think we're still working through what it means to be computerate.

Seems to me like you've kinda cherry picked scribes. Among other reasons why that doesn't really apply here, could be pointed out that scribes as a profession evaporated HUNDREDS (thousands?) of years ago, so I hardly see the direct analogy to modern life. There are plenty of examples that are more relevant.

Take metal working. Or, coal mining. Post-industrial revolution during the "boom" of the early 1900s, metal working was seen as the end-all of careers. Everyone needed to "learn to work metal!". In fact, it was pushed so much as the best career, that it became integrated into the educational system (shop). It was believed that everyone needed to learn to work with metal.

What has that done for the industry? Honestly, can you look at the metal working industry, or the coal industry, and tell me that they (or us?) are better off because of it being integrated into our educational system. We could probably argue all day about whether or not that was a smart move for mankind, but one thing is for sure - all those people ended up with depressed wages as two effects took hold - over supply of workers locally, and cheap labor abroad.

Similarly, I think we can debate all day about whether or not everyone knowing how to code is going to be a good thing. I don't think I have the same perspective as you on that, but neither of us can really make a definitive statement of fact. We can probably both agree however, that software faces the same destiny as other professions which went through the very same life cycle.

The impression I've gotten is the exact opposite. Game development has never been a good career, at any point between the Atari and today. No matter what year the story is set, stories of game development always seem to have the same stressful backdrop. No game developers are reminiscing about the good old days, before the supply of programmers increased.

I hope the future is not so terrible but I can't really disagree with you. I had one executive tell me "programming is becoming a blue collar job". And general programming companies are adopting the bad practices that were pioneered by gaming industry.

20 years ago when I started programming I had my own office, and that continued for a few years. Then I shared an office with a few people. Now we have open-floor plan factories and Agile fanaticism, and many companies that expect >40 hours of work per week from their salaried programmers. Fortunately I work at home now so I don't have to deal with this, but I take a salary penalty to do so.

It definitely seems like in terms of people and jobs, churn and burn is the future of programming. But maybe not just programming. It seems like there is an employment culture based on "exploit the millennials". Consider the weird "Hustle Harder" posters in WeWork offices.

This. It's coming for the rest of the industry. Amazon and Google aren't encouraging young people to code for the good of the world. It's so the can hire people for less money once the pool is larger. The intent is to drive down the cost so that devs will do the exact same work and the company will take a larger cut of the profit. Once this gets to a point of exploitation like in the games industry a union is necessary unless you are lucky enough to choose the right speciality but this is a gamble.

Following this logic further, should we try to fight against education initiatives in general too? Educated people are more likely to be able to pick up programming, or take one of many other white-collar jobs. We could team up with people of other white-collar jobs and work on slashing funding for public schools, etc., to make sure future generations don't replace us too soon.

Somehow that doesn't seem right. I think it's a horrible zero-sum view of the world.

Or you could have a more nuanced perspective... Maybe computer science should remain where it belongs - higher education.

Not everyone and their mother needs to "learn to code".

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