in reply to Where are future senior programmers coming from?

Any company that fails to factor into it's business model, the cost of apprenticing the next generation of core competants, is only looking at the short term model. They are looking only to the salaries and pensions of the current generation--maybe 25 to 30 years. They are in business for commodity markets and the short term buck.

And any industry that consists in large part of companies that have short-term business plans is destined to dwindle to niche markets as the commoditisation of the skills involved forces large scale resellers of the product to cut costs by seeking lower labour costs abroad. Look at the histories of the motorcycle, car, shipbuilding, consumer electrics/electronics and many others for the precedences. Whilst is is certainly true that the software industry has significant differences from these manufacturing businesses, there are also similarities.

Software perhaps has more in common with industries like films, music and books news and other 'media' industries, which erstwhile have seen strong resistance to commoditisation due to high profit margins, mass 'star' appeal and carefully regulated distribution channels. But look around at those industries and witness the significant, watershed changes that are becoming manifest as I write.

All the media industries are seeing the writing on the wall and feeling the pinch as the freeing up of the distribution channels begins to bite. DMCA is their last gasp attempt to retain their distribution monopolies and cartels, but history shows very clearly that protectionism doesn't work. Developing nations won't wear it; consumers won't pay for it; the industries cannot police it; the legislative bodies eventually see the other side of the coin and rescind it. Telephony is a good example here.

Google (or someone like them), is destined to become the Warner Brothers or Dell of the software industry. There will be a few 'star' programmers that earn obscene amounts of money and the rest of us will be session musicians or chorus line bodies--if we are lucky.

Sad, and almost inevitable, but like the UK miners, we've only got ourselves to blame.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
  • Comment on Re: Where are future senior programmers coming from?

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Re^2: Where are future senior programmers coming from?
by tilly (Archbishop) on Sep 07, 2006 at 18:21 UTC
    I strongly disagree about your "any industry" comment. For instance any new industry will be mostly populated by start-ups. And any startup that tries to plan for its 15 year future is unlikely to reach its 5 year future. Thinking about your long-term future is a luxury that you only have when you've reached the point that you're likely to have a long-term future.

    Yet new industries routinely come into existence and manage to establish long-term successes.

    This is very relevant in the field of software because software so frquently spawns new industries.

    As for the compensation structure of programmers, Silicon Valley is a phenomena that has sustained itself for a period of decades now. I rather suspect that it will continue to do so until either the phenomena is reproduced in another country or else Moore's Law slows down to the point that there aren't continually new potential businesses opening up in the field of software. I am not prescient enough to attempt predicting what happens after that, but given the value delivered by good programmers, I suspect we'll get by.

    (But with one big caveat. There is a lot of ageism in IT. Don't expect to see that change, and if you're a programmer, make plans for how you'll deal with that when you get there.)

[reply]
      I strongly disagree about your "any industry" comment. ... because software so frquently spawns new industries.

      I rather suspect that we have different definitions of the word "industry".

      Supercars (Ferrari, Lambougini, Noble, Koenigsegg etc.) and luxury tourers (Rolls royce, Bentley, Aston Martin etc.), are highly profitable niche markets--but they are all a part of the motorcar industry. Equally, the guys in the IT department at your local supermarket chain consider themselves a part of the software industry, not grocers.

      As their careers progress, programmers frequently move between markets as old ones give way to new--but they remain a part of the software industry.

      As for ageism, it's rife in many industries: sales; marketing; promotions; financial trading; software is far from unique in that respect. However, on a personal note, you may be adding two & two and coming up with five.

      Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
      Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
      "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
      In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
        I agree that we do have different definitions of the word "industry".

        For instance I do not consider my immediate employer to be part of the software industry. We certainly do not sell any software - we advertise apartment rentals. The company was founded by real estate entrepeneurs who wanted to get into the web. The largest department in the company (sales) is filled with real estate people - they come from real estate, work with people in real estate, and if they leave for other jobs, they leave for real estate jobs. Our most successful competitors leave piles of free magazines lying around outside of grocery stores. How are we in a traditional software business?

        That company was, of course, bought by eBay. But is eBay part of the software industry? Not by any concept of the software industry 20 years ago! eBay doesn't sell software, or services, or anything, really. Its main competitors when it started were antique stores, second hand shops, and flea markets. It is a completely new type of business, which happens to be enabled by software.

        So yes, overall I'd consider the web to be a new industry. Sure, it was created by improvements in software. But the closest historical analog to the web is the catalog business. (The analogy is actually quite close.) Which is about as far from software as you can imagine!

[reply]

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