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Comment by postfuturist | Hacker News Reader

Agreed, the condescension is nauseating. It's extremely rude to tell someone who writes software as a day job and who is so enthusiastic about it that he is not a real programmer. Sure, he's closer to the beginning than the end of his journey as a programmer, but so what? He jumped in head-first, and just wanted to share that joy. I have to take a break from HN. Sometimes this community is a real downer.

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Let's be honest and realistic for a moment.There are lots of young and very enthusiastic programmers out there but at the same time there are some older and more cinical ones too.My feeling is that when the older/professional programmers read articles that seem to oversimplify their profession, they feel threatened somehow at a very low level.And personally i can understand them and I feel the same sometimes. I feel that the programmers today are like a big suicidal herd waiting to be exploited by management people.I know that this will sound very awkward in US where the programmers may be at the same time entrepreneurs or self employed but in europe where the entrepreuneurs are crushed easily or have more dificulties, the view might be more conservative.How can I be happy when someone joins the profession, learns overnight some trendy technology and competes with me on some of the fewer and fewer jobs which seem to require less and less depth of knowledge and experience.Why are programmers so naive when all the other professions are restricting their gates through various tactics in order to mantain their advantages ?Again, this may sound extremely cinical and selfish but someone has to say it.Personally i feel myself betrayed by this profession which consumes my best but gives back less and less.Maybe it's just the crisis, maybe its like this only in europe or maybe not.

If we truly have senior members of the software community who feels threatened by a guy who picked up the basics of their trade in 12 weeks, they are perfect examples of why we should not have barriers to entry to our profession.

If you, after doing something for five+ years, isn't demonstrably a lot better at it than the guy who did it for 12 weeks, you have thoroughly squandered the opportunity given to you and, yes, you are extremely selfish for suggesting there should be external barriers raised to protect your advantage.

I, for one, am proud to work in an industry where the barriers to entry is only a cheap computer and an internet connection. Bring on the masses!

It goes the other way too.. If we truly have lots of software companies that prefer to employ and exploit juniors and put the quality and safety of their products on the last place for some bucks, companies that don't distinguish the capable from the wannabe's or simply don't want very capable people because of the fear that they will ask for better conditions, payments or promotions, companies that pay ridiculous wages while the enthusiastic geeks build platforms that will bring hundreds of thousands of $ to millions of $, then I think you will agree the programmers have to protect themselves somehow too.But they don't.Perhaps in US the demand for programmers is still high and u didn't experience the predatory software industry yet.But never mind.

Don't be. There are still barriers to entry in the profession. Sure one can cook up simple apps and google everything else after just weeks of learning, but if you sit down with somebody for a while you'll know and feel the difference. Which maybe the reason why more and more programmers are becoming entrepreneurs - management and other 'clients' usually have a poor eye on talent (esp. the young ones... you see the theme here), and to really make the most out of your expertise the logical conclusion is to build your own company out of what you know.

Of course management have a poor eye for programming talent. It's not their field.

Would you know a good mechanical engineer if you could only interview them for two hours and maybe see some of their past work? A good massage therapist? A good financial planner?

What if management included programmers? What hope do you have then? I was just recently at a company that never even gave me a chance to write one line of code.

I live in Europe and I don't see how it's different here than anywhere else. The great thing about programming is that it allows you to be an entrepreneur regardless of your geographical location. Nobody can "crush" me except the market if I'm not smart enough.

No irony or sarcasm here but I would love to get some links or directions towards startup hubs in europe.I'm interested in attending conferences for young entrepreneurs or events like this.If they are very few or almost none, then I see myself forced to conclude that europe it's a bit different (than USA at least). Sorry for running off topic.

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