Ask Slashdot: Everyone Building Software -- Is This the Future We Need? 365
An anonymous reader writes: I recently stumbled upon Apple's headline for version 2 of its Swift programming language: "Now everyone can build amazing apps." My question: is this what we really need? Tech giants (not just Apple, but Microsoft, Facebook, and more) are encouraging kids and adults to become developers, adding to an already-troubled IT landscape. While many software engineering positions are focused only on a business's internal concerns, many others can dramatically affect other people's lives. People write software for the cars we drive; our finances are in the hands of software, and even the medical industry is replete with new software these days. Poor code here can legitimately mess up somebody's life. Compare this to other high-influence professions: can you become surgeon just because you bought a state-of-art turbo laser knife? Of course not. Back to Swift: the app ecosystem is already chaotic, without solid quality control and responsibility from most developers. If you want simple to-do app, you'll get never-ending list of software artifacts that will drain your battery, eat memory, freeze the OS and disappoint you in every possible way. So, should we really be focusing on quantity, rather than quality?
use this one neat trick (Score:5, Funny)
to design complicated software, CLICK HERE
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Link is broken.
Re:use this one neat trick (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the day, we called this concept the "Software Preisthood"
It wasn't complementary.
1) I am not threatened by "everyone" learning to program
2) don't buy a bunch of stupid apps, and,
3) Apparently, you're a programmer, so write your own apps. :)
Re: (Score:2)
The whole thrust of ESR's Cathedral and the Bazaar [catb.org] essay was aimed at the contrast of the old 'cathederal' method of software development and more open systems. In fact, the 'Cathedral' being criticized was the GNU Emacs team. (Many people miss this fact and assume the 'Cathedral' being criticized was Microsoft or some other entity that they don't like).
The 'Priesthood' was the elite in charge of GNU Emacs development. Many Open Source projects have evolved in that direction, which is justified in that r
Re:use this one neat trick (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, the 'Cathedral' being criticized was the GNU Emacs team.
Interesting, I figured it was a reference to Mythical Man Month, which uses Cathedrals to describe a method of software development (that is the opposite of the bazaar).
Re:use this one neat trick (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much exactly that.
In my experience, people learning a little bit about programming tend to also learn to respect the fact that there's a ton of stuff they don't know. Yeah, I've run into some who think a single run through of some "Learn X in 24 Hours" book makes them a developer, but they're the minority.
What's really valuable about "everyone" being exposed to programming is that it helps them learn to think about problem solving in a usually different way. Where I work, we had our entire product management team go through a week long programming bootcamp and it's been AMAZING in improving the quality of the specs they write. They aren't under the impression that they're developers but they definitely have a better appreciation for what we do.
And, we developers went through a product bootcamp as well so that we had a better understanding of what they do and more insight into what is driving some of the things they ask for.
More knowledge and understanding is very rarely a bad thing.
Swift (Score:5, Insightful)
The logic of programming is why it's good for everyone to learn programming. If it helps people learn to think a little more formally, then it's worth it.
Re:Swift (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Swift (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of the complexity is driven by programming languages themselves. The conflict between compact code bulky self explanatory code, not having to rewrite functions creating large algorithm libraries, coding conventions as they differ from normal language and maths use, language logic being simply the arbitrary decisions of the people who coded the coding language amongst other issues. What to know how bad coding languages really are, give code without any documentation at all and get another coder to figure out what is going one and how to fix problems. Why is this inherently bad, it is like handing a text book to someone, and they requiring a second one in order to be able to read the first one, even when they know the language used in the first one.
So what is this really all about, cheap greedy psychopath business types who have no idea at all about how to code but who want cheaper and cheaper and cheaper programmers (minimum wage cheap). So they want to flood the market with coders, whether by internal training as long as those coders pay for it themselves or by bringing in cheap temporary immigrant coders.
Re:Swift (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about anybody else, but I've written in scripting languages (bash, powershell) and have usually been pretty good at determining arithmetically what a program should do. The problem is I get stuck on the syntax a lot.
It's not simple logical controls (I do proper for loops, do while loops, if/else/then, etc. just fine after googling for a few examples) but the APIs are where I really get stuck. Speaking of powershell, a lot of the stuff I've wanted to do involves a .Net handler that I've had to look up, and finding what I need to do sometimes takes a few hours or even days. Also, on scripting languages (ESPECIALLY powershell) I get stuck on figuring out why I can't pass quotes into a function or something like that (for example, I needed to make a script prompt the user for UAC admin permissions if not running as admin, and never could figure out how to make it work if somebody happened to rename the script to include spaces in it, because one of the functions used for checking if the user was admin had issues taking quotes. I had to ask on stackexchange how to do it, and somebody else figured it out, and the solution wasn't obvious at all.)
I've also had situations where I've figured out algorithmically what a program should do to overcome a certain situation, and posted my idea to developers on e.g. forums, github, etc, and they've actually implemented what I couldn't do because I didn't know the syntax.
Re: (Score:3)
You are not alone. Look at the game modding community, for example. Those guys do a lot of scripting with simply syntax or high level editor tools to reprogram parts of the game, but I doubt they could actually write the game themselves. It's the knowledge of things like the Open GL API, or how 3D scenes are built up and rendered that holds them back.
A lot of people write software in Excel too. Mostly formula and simple logic based, perhaps with some simple BASIC code behind it. Where many of us would just
Re: (Score:3)
No one will be able to find the jewels among the ocean of crap.
Re:Swift (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Swift makes it easier to program, but the notion that "anyone" can write apps is definitely a laugh. There are a lot of programmers who don't understand that some people have a really hard time with the core concepts and skills involved in creating software. It reminds me of math teachers who don't seem to understand that some people have a fairly difficult time with advanced mathematical subjects. People have different areas of competence, and not all are suited to be programmers. It's not just logic... you need to do some creative problem solving in formulating that logic, and you need to keep a LOT of complex things in your head all at the same time to get them to all mesh together at the end.
Still, I have no problems with the efforts to make programming easier. Anything that helps will not only make it easier for novices, but will also aid professional programmers. If you don't have to worry about the fiddly bits of the language (for instance, low-level memory management in C), then your attention can be directed to more important parts of your task. There's a reason higher-level languages are considered to be more productive for programmers.
I think some programmers get a bit defensive at the idea of novices stumbling into our professional domain. I honestly don't see it as a problem. We're nowhere near that magical "anyone can program" threshold, even with the "friendliest" languages people have tried to invent.
Re: (Score:3)
Productivity with languages does depend on the type of problem vs. the type of language. There are quite a few tasks where being able to do your own low-level memory management is critical to performance and reliability. A good coder knows this and has more than one tool in his box. C is definitely one of the tools that must be in there. On the high-level side, there are more possible choices. For example, some people will want C++, Eiffel or Ada, but currently it looks like the best mix is actually C plus
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, don't misunderstand... I absolutely agree. I was simply giving an example of the benefits of higher-level language abstractions.
I'm a videogame programmer, and we generally use C++ for engine code and game systems, since it's a pretty good balance of performance vs abstraction. But we often use C#/.NET for tools, and various scripting languages for game content.
Essentially, I think a reasonable maxim is that a programmer should use the highest level of abstraction possible for the job at hand. Pickin
Re: (Score:3)
I do agree on that. Just in order to get here, you actually need to know a set of tools. Many programmers these days seem to be single-language coders and that is just not enough, at least when you are deciding about what tools to use. It is just as with spoken languages: Once you have a second one, you begin to notice a lot about the restrictions your first one place on you.
I also agree that going for the highest abstraction level that still gives you the control needed is the way to go. Sometimes that is
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Your sig:
These people do not want an apology. They want to humiliate you. Not accepting is part of that. Demanding an apology is exceptionally bad style for that reason.
Re: (Score:2)
The same exact thing has happened in the field of writing and publishing. Now, anyone can write and publish their book because there is effectively a zero barrier to entry.
So what's happened? Amazon etc. are filled with unbelievably bad publications. What little of self-published literature that is good (and some few things are very is often drowned in the sea of flotsam.
So, anyone can write and publish. Anyone can make an app. But something good? That's another matter altogether.
Re: (Score:3)
Agreed. Swift makes it easier to program, but the notion that "anyone" can write apps is definitely a laugh. There are a lot of programmers who don't understand that some people have a really hard time with the core concepts and skills involved in creating software. It reminds me of math teachers who don't seem to understand that some people have a fairly difficult time with advanced mathematical subjects. People have different areas of competence, and not all are suited to be programmers. It's not just logic... you need to do some creative problem solving in formulating that logic, and you need to keep a LOT of complex things in your head all at the same time to get them to all mesh together at the end.
And that's how I became I developer. In college I was going to major in Economics with a minor in Computer Science - but then I took an "Intro to programming" class after 8 years of home computer BASIC - and I was amazed that these engineering students had no ability to understand the logic and problem-solving required for programming.
I have a degree in computer science. I've been programming since I was 9. I learned Swift. It's quite good as languages go. But no amount of language knowledge or computer science knowledge will make the Apple APIs simple. They're not. They're complicated and hard to use. Swift will not make the APIs simple or logical. Making the APIs simple and logical will make the APIs simple and logical.
Re:Swift (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm presuming there are no second graders here. Don't overthink it... it was just an example. Calculus, differential equations, etc. Even basic algebra is quite difficult for some. For others, it's logical, intuitive, and even beautiful. Math instructors would obviously tend to be of the latter group, and as such, might have trouble empathizing with students who "just don't get it".
Similarly, I've seen a lot of programmers who are convinced that *anyone* could easily learn to program, because *they* happen to find it easy.
I'm just not convinced that's the case. Not everyone finds the same things intuitive.
Um... you're not nearly cynical enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What do you call CEOs? They are ripping you off everyday.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Really? My company has no union and we have toilets and breaks. Please explain how that's possible in your world.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Pick your poison. Get robbed by your coworkers or get robbed by your boss. You're still getting robbed. But I bet your coworkers will rob you less, given that they're being robbed by the same process.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That Union Steward isn't one of my coworkers. He works for the International Union. He is part of the mechanism to siphon off my union dues to pay for the politicians the International can afford to buy and/or the ones that the Union Bosses like the most for whatever reason they choose.
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. You've been watching too much Fox News/TV
I suppose you don't (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Fuck you. I don't need gangsters taking another slice of my paycheck.
Then don't elect gangsters to run your union.
Re: (Score:2)
Additional advantage of Swift is that it may have a partial lock-in effect, i.e. that a cheap one-trick Swift coder cannot easily get any other work and is tied to apple. Just like a .net coder is (mostly) tied to MS, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
"anybody can write crappy apps." FTFY
To go a bit further, given cushy enough tools (Dreamweaver comes to mind), any damn fool can put something out there. Will it be useful, or will it actually hamper the work that people are trying to do? That is a good question
What it comes down to, in my mind, is whether are not decent tools are being made available to people who are capable of producing something useful, or beautiful, from them
The common availability of the tools to create software, and the elimination
Re:Swift (Score:5, Insightful)
Any fool can write buggy programs, but it takes a Senior Solutions Architect to really fuck things up.
Re: (Score:2)
Virtual +1 Funny.
Re: Swift (Score:2)
Or programmers who use a bunch of bested if statements because they don't understand XOR, or freak out when they see a ?: statement.
Re: (Score:2)
Or programmers who use a bunch of bested if statements because they don't understand XOR, or freak out when they see a ?: statement.
To be fair, I've seen some genuine coding atrocities committed with ternary operations. The programmer thought he was being clever. He was so clever, in fact, that a year later he couldn't quite tease apart all the edge cases in his very compact (and largely impenetrable) code.
I'd call that bad code.
Re: (Score:2)
If you think other programmers are dumb because they don't understand your code, then you are the one being dumb by writing that code knowing your collegues won't be able to work with it.
I'm sure they understand XOR and the ternary operator just fine.
A bunch of if statements are a lot faster to read, though, and allow for easier debugging and changing.
Remember that most time spent with code is reading it, and mostly by people who did not write the code.
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of these new languages are highly specialized languages. It's like everyone who has a special need and a hatred of general purpose languages thinks they'll just write a new language and solve the problem. Ie, there is no point whatsoever to have an language for developing IoT because we've already have such languages for decades, yet people are creating these new pointless languages.
COBOL too ... (Score:4, Insightful)
And before SQL, there was COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language), which was meant for regular people to program computers instead of requiring programmers writing in assembler ...
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, yes, the "Simple Query Language". Complete failure in that regard, although it did form the basis of a more standardized RDBMS interface. Of course you still need to know what you are doing.
You have the one thing about logic exactly right. There is also a second critical thing: You really need to understand the problem you are solving in order to write good software. Here again, it is beneficial for everybody to learn that to some degree, but most people will not be able to master it on the level needed
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to be humor-challenged. But what can you expect from an AC?
Re: (Score:2)
Swift isn't going to make it so "anybody can write apps." That is something that's been tried for decades, with things like drag-and-drop programming. SQL was originally intended for non-programmers. It doesn't work, because the difficulty of programming isn't the syntax. The difficulty of programming is logic.
These attempts seem to all lead down a common path. Take webpages:
1) only hard core programmers can do it.
2) It gets a little easier with geocities and wysiwyg editors.
3) It gets a little easier with myspace and then even easier with facebook.
Now everyone has some sort of webpage which requires no programming at all.
This same progression happened with the first cars, the first computers, the first cameras, etc...
So, no I don't think everyone is going to become a programmer but everyone will soon be doin
Re: (Score:2)
BZZZT! No.
Web pages (the kind you're talking about, anyway) do not employ logic. They do not employ any kind of procedural operations. They do not employ the concept of several / many / hundreds of moving parts. Web pages of the kind you are referring to are little more than RTF documents. There is plenty of convincing evidence that the general population can use word processors. There is no such evidence that the general population can deal with even the most basic coding constructs.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, this is ridiculous. Swift is marginally easier to read than Objective-C, sure.
Mostly, thought, it's got some nice modern-language capabilities - functions as first-class types, type inference, generics, arrays and dictionaries as built-ins, less crunky string handling, and better switch statements than Objective C.
None of this speaks to programming for dummies. Just a cleaner, more modern way to write iOS apps for experienced developers. Nothing to see here, moving right along.
Re: (Score:2)
functions as first-class types, type inference, generics, arrays and dictionaries as built-ins....None of this speaks to programming for dummies
Yeah, that's enough to scare away beginners quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You really are wayyyy off here. Unless we get strong AI (which is doubtful), we cannot have programming languages that are not modeled on the machine programmed in some way. Compilers are not smart enough by far for that. Of course that means that any good coder needs to understand the machine and that any programming language needs to be designed with that understanding in mind. If you want something that understands your thoughts, get a secretary, not a computer.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, you've got the wrong website. This is slashdot. Maybe you were looking for Reddit [reddit.com]?
Yes, more people is better (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, right, just like 10,000 monkeys banging on a keyboard are going to produce quality, eventually. Who wades through the dross to find something worth while? Not me, you can keep the garbage.
Re: (Score:2)
that's not how it goes, sadly. Instead hyper-intelligent twats with no engineering ability nor common sense nor understanding of end user needs squat and crap in the open source and closed source pools and either render existing good software nearly useless, or displace the good with their diseased bloated wares that have shit for UI. E.g. GNOME3, Unity, systemd, Windows 8.x etc. and etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to be exactly the other way round. In a perfect meritocracy, this would work, and in some parts of the FOSS community, it seems to work, but generally, coding is not a meritocracy at all. It is a cheapocracy at best, where "managers" hire the cheapest people they can get, with predictable results. Good coders rarely get an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, and many eventually leave the field or do not even start seriously.
Why is this even a story? (Score:3, Insightful)
And it took you half a page of text to ask the question? A huge number of the 'advances' in technology have been made by people working out of their garage. People who would never have been allowed to program given this ridiculous elitist attitude.
Oh. Right. I forgot to check who posted the story.
Re:Why is this even a story? (Score:5, Interesting)
yeah — learning code should be hard and arcane and locked up in air conditioned rooms full of punched card readers, and the only way you're going to get to programme a computer is if you solder a CPU to a motherboard and your name is WOZ — like its such a horrible thing for a good elegant language to exist that finally replaces god-awful basic with line numbers, and is able to compile a mach kernal and the whole OS using the same language. — who wants a good easy deep language (or be stuck with java and objectiveC for the next 20 years!?) — the nerve of those folks, making good tools like this available for free.
we've been in a desert for so long, and now you grow up with good compilers and plenty of RAM — and i just dont get it — why the author is complaining!?!?
you can be handed good tools and still not know how to draw — but you may be drawn into the art and craft and learn and get better.
by the same logic — should we ban typewriters!?!? — because millions of people might now be enabled to write crappy literature!?
please dear author of this post — wtf!?
If a head and a book come into collision and the resulting sound is hollow,
the fault need not necessarily be that of the book! (Lichtenberg)
Re:Why is this even a story? (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I can tell from the summary, it's not about people learning code. Totally it would make the world a better place if everyone who uses a computer regularly could at least write a simple shell script. (Impractical to spend the time to learn or just plain out of reach for a lot of folks, but whatever, it's a dream.) Instead, the objection looks like it's about lowering the barrier to make marketable things for an app store or whatever.
"With this toolkit, anyone can make furniture and sell it!" Learning carpentry is good, opening up the market is good, but if you're going to distribute to the wider world, maybe you should know enough about engineering principles to build a chair that won't collapse after a couple months.
A car analogy would just be gratuitous.
Re: Why is this even a story? (Score:2)
Yes it is what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the countless small ways in which knowing some code, or scripting has been useful over your life - sorting simple lists, renaming things in batch, formulas in a spreadsheet... etc. etc.
Even if most people will not be doing code professionally, it will help them do little things for themselves. It will also help them understand to some extent why software driven things behave the way they do, and even to make more informed choices as to software driven hardware they buy (and that is the future).
It's not like a flood of really bad programmers will get through most hiring barricades, already famously difficult to storm. They will go on to do things besides programming, where light programming can help them.
Re: (Score:2)
Completely agree. You don't have to be able to bang out an OS, but man, if everybody just knew how to grep through some files or automatically run an SQL query, dump the results into an Excel file and email it to somebody, the world would be a better place.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A flood of bad programmers are already getting through the hiring barricades all the time. Where do you think all the bad and insecure software out there comes from?
And the point is... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't really get the point of this post. Kids to make Facebook apps aren't going to be immediately allowed to start writing car OS's, it's a way of encouraging kids to try programming and some of them will love it and become programmers!
I started off typing out code from magazines, that got me in to programming and now look at me! I'm producing code that... ahh, OK, I just got the point of this post...
Re: (Score:3)
This! It's like electrical engineers complaining that they had to use Matlab as part of their course with comments like "I'm an electrical engineer, not a programmer!"
It's an incredibly naive post that doesn't realise learning to code != pumping games / social applications onto the Appstore. The only time I've ever programmed anything was to solve a specific problem that I myself had, whether that was some nasty script in Excel, a backup script on my server, or a small microcontroller to control fish tank l
Re: (Score:2)
Have you read about the security problems that were found with a lot of cars just recently? These are caused by the coder equivalent of functional illiterates. We have way too many coders and most of them bad.
Let me rephrase that quesion (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the question is whether everyone should be writing software AND then attempting to sell it to others via the app store. The answer to that, IMHO is no, as making software for others requires a level of professionalism and quality not everyone can reach.
But it would be nice if we could somehow rewind back to the 80s in which every computer came with a simple programming language so that if I wanted to throw together some code to do a simple task for my own benefit, I could do so quickly and easily.
(Note to Apple: Bring back HyperCard, please!)
Re: (Score:3)
But it would be nice if we could somehow rewind back to the 80s in which every computer came with a simple programming language so that if I wanted to throw together some code to do a simple task for my own benefit, I could do so quickly and easily.
I think they do though ... VBA? :)
Re: (Score:3)
Macs and Linux come with the various shells that you can script in plus Perl. Those are great for learning how to do simple things.
On the Mac you have Automator which lets you visually build up a sequence of events and you can have it run AppleScript, JavaScript, or a shell script.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the question is whether everyone should be writing software AND then attempting to sell it to others via the app store. The answer to that, IMHO is no, as making software for others requires a level of professionalism and quality not everyone can reach.
But it would be nice if we could somehow rewind back to the 80s in which every computer came with a simple programming language so that if I wanted to throw together some code to do a simple task for my own benefit, I could do so quickly and easily.
(Note to Apple: Bring back HyperCard, please!)
In my limited experience, the simple tool that someone makes to scratch their own itch is often better than the bloated, passionless produkt from some corporate labyrinth.
um... yes, actually (Score:2)
Can't tell if this is a job security question, (Score:2)
Wrong question. (Score:4, Interesting)
The pronouncement that 'software is eating the world' may have been a bit hyperbolic; but it sure isn't doing the life chances of people without advanced qualifications any favors. "Everyone writing apps" sounds slightly better than "Everyone selling each other securitized bullshit", so it gets more face time.
Re: (Score:2)
Compare to H1-Bs. Those are similarly favored as a way to drive labor costs down; but are more or less politically toxic; so they have none of the popular chatter. T
Re: (Score:2)
I thought it was about a long-term effort to flood the job market to reduce the average programmer salary. Why should anyone pay 100k+ per year to someone who can do a job that any High Schooler can do?
Unfortunately for hiring companies, it will become like cable TV. Instead of 3 channels with somewhere between 0 and 3 interesting things to watch, we now have 400+ channels with somewhere between 0 and 3 interesting things to watch.
Companies will have to hire armies of HR personnel just to weed through all the drones to find the people out there who are actually worth hiring, which I predict to be approximately the number of people who would have gone into STEM if the government just let people pursue th
The hardware "ecosystem" depends on crap software (Score:4, Interesting)
I run a P4 3.8GHz single core system as my main desktop, even though I do development with it. Switching to a newer Core i5 system will make it run 10 times as fast, but as the runtime on my huge (tuned) code base is under 5 minutes already, it really won't save me *that* much time compared to *editing* the code. It will save on build time, which is a boon to me, but even that savings is only due to the nature of my build process -- I do full instead of incremental builds.
I do plan on buying a new machine in a few months when I've saved the money, but my main point is that the hardware we use has been "good enough" for a good decade. It is the crappy software the people shovel out that drives hardware upgrades nowadays, not the actual need for faster hardware.
So it is to the hardware manufacturer's benefit that as much software as possible be absolutely incompetently written crap so that people will buy the latest shiny-shiny because their old one is "too slow."
The world needs a little more understanding (Score:2)
Yes. They have to at least understand (Score:3)
Software is running our lives. Anyone who can write software knows that, for example, electronic voting can be easily fixed. People who haven't written basic software find this question hard to analyse. Even if these people don't become full-time coders, it's still good that society has more and more people who know how the software running our lives works.
Apple already has a QA department of millions (Score:2)
the most moronic subject matter on slashdot (Score:3)
can we stop with this nonsense please? it is similar to idiots who oppose teaching all kids programming
restricting access to developing a skillset which just builds on abstract reasoning is a joke, nothing more. it's as if lots of people making lots of programs somehow hurts good programs and good programmers. how? can someone define me how that works? there has to be a formal logical fallacy for what this low iq idea suggests. it's like saying gays getting married somehow hurts heterosexual marriage. and we see how well that mental diarrhea has persuaded
lots of people trying programming only hurts mediocre programmers. the only kind of people who take this nonissue seriously. it's popularity on slashdot therefore does not bode very well for the readership of this website
meanwhile, i welcome anyone who wants to try programming and i wish them well. it can be fun, it can be infuriating. and if in your quest you wind up being more skilled and hired to replaced than the kind of weak mouth breather who wants to somehow magically limit the pursuit of programming to some of kind of bullshit guild, this a surefire win
Re: (Score:2)
what the fuck are you talking about? where do you morons come from?
Re: (Score:2)
what the fuck are you talking about? where do you morons come from?
From slashdot, of course, where just yesterday we had this [slashdot.org] article in which the government has made computer science a core class.
Hobby vs. profession (Score:2)
I think we need to also educate people on the difference between software development as a hobby and as a profession.
If I just need to build a storage shed or garden sun-shelter for my backyard, I can build it to any standard of quality, or lack thereof, that I want. It can be completely wonky, as long as it works for me. But if I want to build storage sheds for other people, the rules change. I need to build them to at least a minimum standard of quality, people will expect the trim and paint and the like
Re: (Score:2)
I very much agree.
electric power tools (Score:5, Insightful)
With the widespread availability of cheap electric power tools, now everybody can build bridges and sky scrapers!
Re: (Score:2)
Technically, I could. Thanks to the widespread availability of (free) CAD software and associated calculators and the availability of the information about bridge making, I could make a bridge or a sky scraper. It would be horribly over-engineered but it would meet current code and probably be both the most expensive, least maintainable although most reliable bridge in the world. It would also take me a few years.
I actually just engineered a fire sprinkler system in my home, totally up to code as verified b
It's like encouraging everyone to become lawyers (Score:2)
The salaries for lawyers vary like those for software developers. There are a vast number of grunts doing basic work and making adequate salaries. BUT, towards the top of the pyramid, which is exceptionally difficult to reach, there are those making eye-popping salaries.
Ditto with the IT field. That guy who "stole" code from Goldman Sachs, Sergey Aleynikov, was pulling down 400K a year at Goldman. He was set to get 3 times that amount from another company upon leaving Goldman. That's like an elite lawye
Summary:Help! The kids are going to steal my job! (Score:2)
The history of computing shows us that this technology is becoming more accessible. Both to consumers and the providers. You no longer have to use punch cards to write computer programs. Or use assembly. Modern languages and development tools are much easier to work with for an average person. And that trend is going to continue. There is nothing you and I or Apple/Facebook/Google can do to stop the march of progress.
Unfortunately for you, that means you will have to continue to learn new technologies
Personal projects ... (Score:2)
Why does every program have to end up on the market? I'm constantly creating small programs that solve small problems. It is amazing how many small problems that full featured applications don't even attempt to solve unless you are doing something that resembles programming anyhow (e.g. use a spreadsheet). It is also amazing how many of those apps can be replaced by 10, 20, or 40 lines of code. The result may lack a fancy GUI, but it's often worthwhile to avoid having your data locked into an app or ser
GUIs are tough (Score:2)
That's assuming you can get the GUI to work the way you want it to. I'
More programmers means more libertarians (Score:2)
Ask Youtube, or Iphone or Android Store (Score:2)
Programming is the tip of the ice berg (Score:3)
What about requirements gathering? Business modeling? Testing? Versioning? Maintenance? Hosting? Building the app? Distributing the app.? Administering the build machines? Documentation? Communication and control of a project?
I'm sure I missed something. But there are a huge number of components to a reasonably sized software project. Programming is often the smallest, in numbers, slice of the task.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, what about them? These are fields of endeavour that I wouldn't be surprised to see specialized highly talented staff for at a large software company, sure. But, for a small start-up or a self-published developer, many or all of these things can be "muddled through" in a perfunctory way, maybe reincorporating some feedback from customers if the result is really terrible, but ultimately just leaving it up to the market to decide the fate of the product. To me this is basically just the fusion of agil
My wife is a lawyer.. (Score:2)
Please, everyone write as much crappy software and put it in as many questionable places as possible.
Lawyers are evil, but GM cars don't have ignition switches anymore, do they?
Not exactly, no (Score:2)
One huge trend in work over the last century or so has been towards automation. We need fewer people, or can do more with the same number of people, by automating some or all of peoples' jobs.
We don't need everyone to "build software" as you may think of it. However, we do need a substantial part of the workforce to automate their own jobs. Think about it. For most typical jobs, the ability to automate your work makes you more productive, more valuable, and can make you feel better about your life.
Automatio
snowflake (Score:2)
Because everyone is now a special snowflake, so they should get to make the next big app. No one really needs training or experience.
quantity, rather than quality? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. This is a must-read for any coder and software engineer. Most have not even heard of it these days and hence the same mistakes are being made over and over again.
Re: (Score:2)
So we should teach everybody brain surgery as well, and maybe nuclear engineering? Yeah, that makes sense...
Re: (Score:2)
Did you just imply that the FDA is qualified to perform software security audits?