from Hacker News

The Golden Age of the Developer

by dchs on 12/21/11, 4:03 PM with 32 comments

• by DrCatbox on 12/21/11, 5:35 PM

  On a side note, another word for kingmakers is "time-space engineers" as used by Fred Perlman in his "Against Hist-Story, Against Leviathan" work. Now more than ever are time-space engineers sought after and given opportunities to do their magic, to creating new (business) empires and hold Leviathan together for a little while longer.

  As a developer, I would prefer to do the opposite. Dismantle Leviathan, dismantle empires. As developers we have the power to change the society, to stop making (business) empires, and to demolish those that exist, such as all those based on copyright and patents. We must base our work on vlaues such as freedom and not on currency.

  What Im trying to say is, business as usual or really?

• by gavanwoolery on 12/22/11, 1:18 AM

  I would argue that we are in the Dark Ages.

  Why?

  We live in an age where even the simplest software is relatively complex to develop, due to feature-bloat, bad standardization, and lack of standardization. More importantly, we live in a world where the ruling companies have grown so big, none of them really care about innovating - they care about quarterly revenues. All of the big companies try to cater to watered-down standards (I'm looking at you W3C, ISO, RFC, EMCA, IANA, Khronos Group, etc).

  We need to take what we have learned, and hit the reset button. A new system architecture (goodbye x86 and 32-bit software), and new operating system (it should be a few megabytes large, at most), and new compiler, language, and virtual machine.

  Or we can just continue to live semi-comfortably and bitch about it every so often.

• by dchs on 12/21/11, 5:18 PM

  I'd love to hear any suggestions for how a publication like this could contribute. We've got a few ideas of our own but are very open to suggestions.

• by brikis98 on 12/21/11, 11:22 PM

  Golden Age of the Developer? No, not even close. This is the just the tip of the iceberg.

  Prediction: in ~30 years, programming will be just as important as literacy.

• by systemizer on 12/21/11, 6:13 PM

  We developers are getting evermore control and power on the internet, which can be both a good thing and bad thing.

  Do we trust ourselves? Will we make the world a better place as a result of this power? I'm hesitant to answer this question. I know developers that I would trust my life with, however, it just takes a few bad apples to mess everything up.

• by dsolomon on 12/21/11, 7:04 PM

  The author is delusional, at best.

  | There’s never been a better time to be a developer.

  Let’s take the internet wayback machine before the dotbomb days.

  Companies provided the hardware and software to work on. Required travel was reimbursed. You had your own work area and it was for working in. Productivity was measured in new features and bug fixes. Bonuses were plentiful. Salaries were good (100K/yr with about 5 years experience and a high level security clearance).

  Today, companies expect you to provide your own hardware and software. Travel isn’t reimbursed. Work areas double as company storage areas. You often have to time-share a cube. Productivity is measured by the number of lines of code produced. There are no bonuses and experienced developers get 80K/yr, maybe.

  Today is the golden age? Not to people who’ve been doing this for a few years.

• by GetATrip on 12/22/11, 2:23 AM

  There is a saying that goes, "Everytime you point your finger at someone, 4 fingers are pointing back at you!" So, here I sat writing about how this particular writer needed more positive mental process so that he would not look at the world so gloomy, thus this was my perception.

  Then, there is another saying that goes "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation." So my apology again, as I finally went on the website in question and it was exactly the opposite that I had conjured up in my mind, of being sour and pessimistic. I have been drawn to this topic so needed to learn something here. I thank you for your patience and the opportunity to speak my mind.

  I am also not a developer though desperately trying to learn a little as I keep paying hundreds and thousands of dollars on a Drupal site I can barely understand. I need at least back office proficiency. Speak up if anyone knows the best practice of narrowing down good Drupal "teachers." The author here is obviously highly intelligent and well read, so if I had simply practiced a little zen mind and offered out an empty cup perhaps a little knowledge could have been poured my way. Great post here--

• by GetATrip on 12/22/11, 2:11 AM

  I love this type of debate, as the original author has not been shy for speaking his mind. I am brand new to this website and have a good feeling that I can learn something here perhaps not seen on other websites. Really, I love where it is safe to hold an opinion other than the status qou and still all walk away friends. I am in hopes this is that website.

  Today a certain Facebook post told how this Christmas should not be about Santa but rather Jesus and that Jesus was sad of what came of his birthday. Well, I guess we could all jump onto that story, same as we could all believe we are in the dark ages. We are and we are not. Its much like mind-mapping. Reality is flimsy material, but a tool for the mind to feel it is clothed and has a home to go to and some money in the bank, general feelings of familiarity and safety. I choose to live life to the fullest with my cup half full not half empty -- no, still not favorable enough of a perception to me, so let's simplify, "My cup runneth over!"

• by iRobot on 12/21/11, 11:18 PM

  Ironically, the second someone invents AI, every programmer will be out of a job!

  (So lets enjoy it while we can!)