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Comment by bdcravens | Hacker News Reader

> A lot of weaker talent, sketchy business models, and fast money investors are going to wash out and the industry will emerge stronger.

Sounds like 2002. (In other words, been there, done that, got through it by working for "boring" companies)

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In 2002 I realized that I wasn’t the hotshot I thought I was. I bet a lot of people will learn that soon too.

For sure. I really worry about the one-trick ponies that know one front-end framework and have had no shortage of opportunities. (In the early 2000s, I knew a lot of ColdFusion devs who honestly weren't cut out to be programmers, but the ease of the language enabled them to earn king's ransoms ... until the jobs dried up and it became a buyer's market)

Funnily enough, the shop I am in uses Coldfusion and Python, but CF is used on the more important, heavily trafficked apps.

Do you remember the guy teaching AOL server and placing them in jobs?

https://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/aolserver/introduction-1.ht...

After the dotcom bust, people with cash seemed to turn to real estate, but I don’t think that is an option this turn. The real of ‘physical’ is a liability.

Fond memories. My first pure software development job was using that stack at USU circa 2005.

To be fair, Phil Greenspun also ran photo.net and produced a absolutely beautiful coffee-table book along the way.

>> Suppose you're running Perl CGI scripts on Apache. Would AOLserver run 10 times faster? Sure. On the other hand, www.cisco.com manages to sell $1 billion in merchandise annually with Perl CGI scripts. It is always easier and safer to plug in more processor boards than to switch tools.

Things haven't changed.

Don't get me wrong, I think CF is a great language. (I've spoken at CF conferences and run CFUGs) I would just always have options :-)

It will be an unpleasant surprise on a lot of levels, ranging from the big - job opportunities, salaries - to the small. One of the things that happened both in 2002 and 2008/2009 was a sudden swing back to demands for suits, ties, and so on. There are a lot of people who resent their staff flexiworking, wearing jeans, and generally acting like it's not 1962 any more.

Well, the difference I see this time is the need for physical separation, so remote work can be a bit more casual dress-wise.

Shirt and tie sales take off, pants free-fall.

Management can’t stand I have a car park at the elevator like them yet wear T-shirts and hoodies and saunter in at 11am. Those benefits are probably not long for this world, but I do enjoy them while I have them.

>> There are a lot of people who resent their staff flexiworking

But that demographic is more at risk of dying from covid-19. The irony is that they are more protected by everyone working from home and that their younger colleagues will have more career opportunities if everyone comes into the office and spreads it.

Gasp.

People hating non-customer facing staff dressing like it's the weekend isn't rational; what makes you think irrational behaviours are isolated?

Perhaps a more charitable explanation is that as the labour market becomes more of a buyers' than a sellers' market, the buyers can afford to be a bit pickier. All other things being equal, we all want a vendor to do things our way: show up on our schedule, meet our standards for look & message (would you be keen on an air conditioner repairman who shows up in swim trunks and hiking boots, or one with a vile political message on his t-shirt?). When it's a sellers' market (say, there's only a single repairman in town) we can't be picky; when the positions are reversed, we can.

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