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'I Just Need a Programmer'
theodp writes "As head of the CS Department at the University of Northern Iowa, Eugene Wallingford often receives e-mail and phone calls from eager entrepreneurs with The Next Great Idea. They want to change the world, and they want Prof. Wallingford to help them. They just need a programmer. 'Many idea people,' observes Wallingford, 'tend to think most or all of the value [of a product] inheres to having the idea. Programmers are a commodity, pulled off the shelf to clean up the details. It's just a small matter of programming, right?' Wrong. 'Writing the program is the ingredient the idea people are missing,' he adds. 'They are doing the right thing to seek it out. I wonder what it would be like if more people could implement their own ideas.'"
Geocities in apps format.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I just need a beer...
I disagree. A terrible idea with a beautifully executed development goes no where. A great idea that is hacked together with shell scripts and kilometers of spaghetti code can make someone a fortune and (lame as it sounds) change the world.
That said I think having solid developer(s) is a really good thing. It costs less, makes for a more reliable product, and enables you to say "yeah, we can add that" vs. "hah, you'd have to rewrite everything" when further great ideas come along.
But saying that the importance of programming is on par with the idea.. it's not. Much as us programmers like to think we are _the_ critical component.. I really don't think we are in a lot of cases. The idea and the marketing are what makes the product successful. HR tends to think of programmers as production line workers.. and as much as I hate to admit it, there really is truth in that. We turn ideas into something tangible so they can be sold. If we produce better products or produce them more efficiently, we make the company more money.. but we arn't as important as the guy's who tell us what to make, or the guy's who get people to pay for it.
As for idea people learning to program.. I don't buy it. Might work for some people, but I think programming/working with technology is either something you enjoy or you don't. Most good programers I know don't care about the end product as much as the code. The end product is a necessary evil.. a reason to justify their code poetry. Learning programming as a way of achieving and end goal sounds like some bad code about to happen. And I thought the whole "managers can write code thing" died with COBOL.
If someone says that, "they just need a programmer", they haven't vetted the idea. If they really knew what they wanted, they wouldn't need a programmer - they'd need a contract fulfilled for a specific task. If you say that crap, you're just a bullshit marketing guy.
Really ideas are cheap.
A better social networking site than Facebook...
An electric car that can charge in 5 mintes, go 300 miles on charge, and costs $20,000
A no fat chocolate.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Success is 1% inspiration, 9% perspiration, and 90% marketing (of which "timing" is a significant but minority component). The inspiration is cheap (obviously, since this professor has already amassed quite a portfolio), the perspiration is, yes, a commodity, and the marketing requires Emotional Intelligence, something which, ironically enough, does not often come naturally to perspirers.
So... the real question should be: what it would be like if marketers could implement ideas (not necessarily their own)?
idea people often take the form of upper management. they always assume their ideas are workable, and if their employees are having trouble rewriting reality to make them happen, then it's due to the employees' ignorance and not their own. classic ivory tower syndrome.
Really, I am already re-thinking my earlier reply. The issue here is summed up in one word - "Just". You think you need "Just" a programmer, or "Just" a marketing guy, or "Just" a salesman? You have already told me that you don't really value their contribution to the effort, and additionally that you don't really understand fully what goes in to the work they're doing. Yeah, you have a genius idea. You don't want "Just" a programmer. You want a genius programmer, preferably either with a passion for your cause, or a resume of working in coding similar things. Otherwise, your operating system is being written by "just" a database programmer, and while you will have great search times, you may find other areas coming up short.
I've met people who have excellent working software, and have had it for years, and simply aren't able to make a business out of it. They think I just need an investor! And this when it would take them hundreds of dollars to actually start their business, after which they'd have a lot more value to an investor, if they decided they still need one.
Bruce Perens.
This might be limited to universities, but on job ads posted around the campus, "computer science student" tends to stand for "cheap coder". Every now and then some hot-shot (possibly a marketing, media or finance student) with a bright idea for a new dot-com (sorry, Web 2.0 site) puts up flyers asking for "computer scientists".
It's funny because technically, we can be cheap coders (and will be, often), but it would sound less bull-shitty if the ad actually said "programmer".
We should unionize. Conservative rhetoric aside, labor unions provide training, institute quality standards and work procedures.
The partnership system in the steamfitters and pipefitters unions could be emulated as pair programming is often much higher quality than code produced by lone programmers, or ad hoc hastily-assembled teams.
Think of it as a contracting outfit, only with the hefty cut that normally goes to the contract brokers -- going directly into your pension plan -- a REAL pension plan -- which you get to take with you from job to job.
Training, standards, a partner system, pensions, health plans. All the things we could get small businesses off the hook of having to provide.
And, union labor could actually undercut the likes of TekSystems and Adecco in a fair fight, lol.
Most of these people with 'great idea', but *just* need a programmer (i.e. people who have obviously never talked to a developer about their idea and obviously know next to nothing about the nuts and bolts of how things work) have ideas that are terrible, impossible, and/or uselessly vague (many cases of do 'something' with the 'cloud').
If a developer acts as a production line worker, they will frequently turn out irrelevant product. It's one thing to read the specs handed down by someone who knows what they want and write strictly to the requirements listed, it is another thing entirely to really internalize the need and apply your advanced knowledge of what is possible to deliver a perfect fit above and beyond the specific requests. People will prescribe awkward workflows due to perceived technology limitations and/or steer clear of very sensible features they presume impossible.
Clear delineation between developer and 'idea' people just doesn't make much sense except in the most straightforward cases, and none of those straightforward 'ideas' are valuable (mostly one-off customized solutions of common setups required to work with a customers uniquely evolved system).
You really need both a solid idea and a developer who is more than just an assembly line worker to get good results of significant value.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
My father is a professor at a major university who for years has been listed as a "Alternative Fuels expert". He gets calls just about daily from whack-jobs who are positive they've invented some perpetual energy source and they just need some PHD to lend them the credibility to get funding. The vast majority of the people simply don't know what they are talking about, but a fun minority is downright insane, like the hobo who wandered into his office and explained to him where to find the aliens in the early 90s.
...seriously? Elance, Guru.com, vWorker.com... just Google 'freelance programmers'. There are loads.
I think the current situation that programmers are in industry wide is exactly the sort of thing unions are designed to prevent. And I say that as a republican.
Implementation is something else. What so-called 'idea people' don't realize is that without implementation, ideas are worthless. And you know what? Implementation is hard.
Starting a business is hard work!
The intangible benefits are pretty great, of course - freedom to set your own hours (clients permitting), freedom to set your own priorities, that sort of thing. That's all great. But the costs are pretty hefty. It's not just the money - though the money is a big problem too!
It's about the stress of getting a business off the ground. It's about taking half pay, living expenses, or no pay whatsoever while the business gets off the ground. It's about hiring someone new and wondering if they're actually a fuckup who's going to pull you down. It takes grit! And after the first year, you end up wondering if you did the right thing - if working for someone else might not seem so bad after all.
I used to guard my ideas jealously, but these days I don't even care. Go ahead, 'steal' my ideas. Then, whether you fail or succeed, I'll watch what you did. And if I have the opportunity... I'll give it my best shot to do it better.
Unionization would be complete unsuccessful in an industry where entires countries of scabs can easily cross the virtual picket line. You can't off-shrore plumbers, electricians or jobs like that, though
You're either being sarcastic, or you've never heard of the countless craptacular freelancing sites all over the net, mostly dominated by inexpensive 3rd world programmers, if we can even call them such. Script kiddies with a language barrier, really.
The biggest problem I see with such sites is they encourage sending work to the lowest (or 2nd lowest) bidder, with no regard for quality or consistency. You get stuck in a loop where the product isn't complete (or of acceptable quality), then have to haggle back and forth with the guy to get it in a usable condition. You're faced with a chunk of cash already wasted on a non-working product, where it can be difficult to cut your losses and start over elsewhere. It doesn't matter how concise your specs are, or if you provide them with ready-made test suites, they won't bother and when the tests fail, you're treated to a stream of excuses. I'm not saying they're all like that, but of the dozen or so I've tried in the past few years, no good has come out of the experience, and I've usually had to finish or redo a significant portion of the work myself. Now the good news is I'm a programmer, but the bad news is I was subcontracting because I was too busy to do it myself in the first place, whether it was a one-off job for an app platform I didn't care to learn, or a small half-week job trumped by a high-priority client. So I got doubly screwed.
I guess if someone has sufficiently low standards and/or technical knowledge, these freelance boards could be tolerable. Better than no programmers at all, I guess. But then I look at the shitstorm of "I want a Facebook clone" followed by "I'll do it for $500" posts, and it's hard to resist the urge to set my cable modem on fire.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
We are implementers. And like all artists, there are true innovators and there are people who just slap things together. It isn't the idea that makes piece of work great, and it isn't the method of creating that work that makes the idea great. Would the Sistine Chapel be quite as impressive if it had just been another set of paintings commissioned by some bored king instead of a breathtaking ceiling three stories up?
Both the idea, and the one who renders it are important, and both lend to the success.
- Brett
We should unionize. Conservative rhetoric aside, labor unions provide training, institute quality standards and work procedures.
I wish I had points to mod this funny. Have you ever had to deal with a Union? Unions enforce the supremacy of seniority, how many times have you had a boss or manager who couldn't find his ass with both hands but he had been there forever so he still had a job? Unionizing would compound this problem a hundredfold. In technology, you know as well as I do, that Rockstar programmers are out there and of all ages. Union rules will absolutely prevent a workplace from bringing in a younger worker above an older that they are better than. You can't have thought this idea through.
The partnership system in the steamfitters and pipefitters unions could be emulated as pair programming is often much higher quality than code produced by lone programmers, or ad hoc hastily-assembled teams.
Think of it as a contracting outfit, only with the hefty cut that normally goes to the contract brokers -- going directly into your pension plan -- a REAL pension plan -- which you get to take with you from job to job.
Training, standards, a partner system, pensions, health plans. All the things we could get small businesses off the hook of having to provide.
Where do you think all of that comes from? Small businesses will be paying for it one way or the other. There will be increased labor costs and as a result, fewer jobs available in our chosen career field. It's not just rhetoric, it's economic fact. Look at Detroit. When the rest of the nation was maxed at about 10% unemployment, they were looking at 15%. Southern states that are often "Right to Work" states and they can't force people to join unions are booming.
And, union labor could actually undercut the likes of TekSystems and Adecco in a fair fight, lol.
How? By magic? For the sake of argument, let's say you succeed in unionizing the IT in a workplace. What's to stop them from offering to double the salary of your best people to become "Managers" and then having a bunch of scabs telecommute for 40% less than they were paying the rest?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'm a college student. Not even a Distinguished Professor. Or even a working programmer. Occasionally, I'll meet a recent business grad who will discover that I know how to write code, and say, "I have this great idea, I think there's a market for it, we should totally do that."
Well, they know I'm cheap, so at least part of the scheme works for them.
Mostly it involves them talking up a vague notion, which is somehow the Next Big Thing. "It's like eBay! Except it's on your iPhone! And I know eBay already has an iPhone app, but they haven't been successful with it and I will be!" And then it involves me doing all the work and them taking their big cut for the "inspiration." It's fairly easy to come up with an idea that's "like X for your Y." And so I smile and nod and discuss it a bit and then go on my merry way.
If said recent business grad were really able to present me with an idea that really were All That and a Bag of Chips, and could be done by one college student with a twelve-pack of Mountain Dew, I'm not sure what I'd need them for. If I could implement it, I would probably do so and then, if it turned out to really be successful, hire someone else to do the "businessy stuff." Why, I mean, once you've got a product, all there is to do is market it, right?
Fortunately, our friend doesn't need to worry about me stealing his ideas and cutting him out of the picture, because I don't think his ideas are all that hot to begin with.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Wait, what situation are programmers in industry wide? Making three times the median income? Getting full coverage healthcare with no limits (and so cheap it's almost free)? I mean, I have it pretty good here, and so do most of the other programmers I know.
When I hear 'union', I think seniority, inefficiency, union dues, and another layer of administrators to deal with. I don't want to deal with some incompetent coworkers who can't be fired just because they've been around a long time. I really don't see how I would get anything at all from a union, at least from a US style union.
Qxe4
Actually, the industry is rapidly realizing that offshoring only works in certain very limited situations, and that any "key performance metrics" you put in place can be easily gamed by people too far away to throttle when they start in with the malicious compliance and the stringing out jobs forever with their poor quality work.
The key to a successful union would be to provide better quality work for a lower price overall. Would you rather work with a union rep who in his or her heart of hearts wants your enterprise to succeed and can get you the people you actually need quickly and effectively and at a fair price, with no dickering over 401K's -- and to work on-site?
Or would you rather work with some outsourcing outfit that undercuts and way under-delivers and then has the cheek to insist that you have them fix their mistakes? Or a contracting outfit that charges like a wounded bull and whose people are no better than cheap overseas labor anyway?
"Just" quit smoking. "Just" exercise and lose weight. "Just" balance the budget. "Just" get off foreign oil. "Just" win baby.
"Just" is the word that betrays the orders of magnitude energetic difference between the running of the mouth and the actual doing of something.
If you have interesting software, in the age of the web, you really can start an income-producing business for hundreds of dollars.
Bruce Perens.
Saying, "I just need a programmer" is a lot like saying, "I could totally get this car running if I just had a tool." What kind of tool were you looking for? An OBD-II reader, a flathead screwdriver? a 9mm socket wrench? A hydraulic lift bay? Not all programmers are created equal, and they are not equivalent cogs that can be removed and replaced at will without regard or consequence. Surely there are programmers that are more valuable than others, just like there are works of art or engineering that are more prized than others. There is a widely accepted myth among the industry that nearly everything is a computer solvable problem. At the same time, the technology professionals who will be expected to solve these problems with the aid of technological tools such as hardware and software are often considered a minor and inconsequential part of the equation, without value or merit beyond performing a specific task. Often we are told not only what problem to solve, but how we are expected to solve it. Usually by people who haven't the faintest notion what they are asking for.
I went to an event called StartupWeekend back on '08. I had a great time working with like-minded people building something over the course of a weekend. I've been back to two additional events since then and left after the opening night both times. The shift at these events has been away from the hacker culture and towards the entrepreneur; hours of pitches by people who "have retail experience and know the space, but just need a programmer". It's disheartening. The idea is some of the work, and most times (but not necessarily) comes first. Sometimes, you work on something cool and it turns out other people want it. That's great too. But never has the world clamored or shouted for joy for some guy's concept of a real estate site. People love redfin and zillow, but until you can touch it, it's nothing. It's not even worth talking about. Learn to build a prototype. It should be a requirement for filing a patent.
The thing is what can and can't be done with a computer is the kind of thing non-computer people have trouble understanding. So their "great ideas" may well be "impossible pipe dreams." I have a friend who is all the time bothering another friend with ideas for development that are impossible, things that would require an AI to do. He doesn't know computers very well so he doesn't know what can and can't be done.
So you might not have to be a programmer, but at least have some deeper computer and programming knowledge to be able to actually come up with a workable idea.
As a practical matter I find that the "I have the idea all I need is a programmer," types always have shitty ideas. They are usually very vague, obvious, already been done, etc. We see this shit with business students (I work for a university). They'll come over since we are the engineering department looking for engineers to work on their project. They have a "great idea" and "just need some people to develop it." They have a very small amount of funds they are willing to pay, and of course they keep all the rights, because after all THEY did the hard part. Often their ideas are, literally, along the lines of "Make a search engine that works better than Google," or the like. Things that would take a massive implementation effort even if they are feasible. However they think they did all the work coming up with it and making Powerpoints about it, and they just need a couple engineering students to stop being jerks and accept a minimal amount of pay to make it a reality.
If someone says that, "they just need a programmer", they haven't vetted the idea.
Actually if the "ideas" that this guy receives are like the "ideas" my colleagues and I receive as physics profs I would not even call them ideas but simply wishes as in "I wish physics worked like this and I'd like you to work on proving that it does." vs. "I wish this piece of software existed and I'd like you to work on writing it.". Apparently it is not just profs which get requests for help with "ideas" as amusing exchange shows.
This is wishful thinking.
A real good idea is indistinguishable from implementation.
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
It's simple to see the benefits: compare unemployment in the US during the global slump, to a unionized country like Germany.
Hire and fire has its downsides: you get the axe when rich people decide that they want to save their money, instead of fuelling the economy and creating jobs. With looming deflation it's the no-brainer choice for them: deflation makes their existing capital even more valuable in the future. Inflation would force that capital into the 'real economy' - but inflation is decreasing right now - the US is facing japanese-style deflation.
Those of you who rely on honest work instead of on investment income on inherited or hoarded capital: sorry, the next decade or two is not going to be to your liking. Those who are trying to survive these bad times in their country clubs are sending their condolences. (but not any cheques)
In 1979 the top 1% earners had 10% of the US's wealth. In 2010 the top 1% has more than 50% of the wealth - and the bottom 40% has exactly zero percent. (they are in net debt)
If you thought that such income asymmetries have no downsides you were wrong.
A little while ago, my wife's cousin (who is a trust fund baby living on an island in a treehouse... no shit) decided that he's going to change the world. He is educated as a carpenter (daddy made him work for a little while... to build character) and is damn good at it. But, when you're living in a tree house in the tropics with your wife and babies... there's very little to do but "think".
Over FaceBook, he has been putting a great deal of effort into informing people about government conspiracies that are crushing alternative fuel concepts because all politicians are making profits from oil in one way or another. Now, this wouldn't really be a problem, you know... just another quack with a conspiracy theory. But one day, he decided he would suggest that "What if what they're teaching us in school is wrong to keep us from moving away from oil?" and he moved on to talk about "Howard Johnson's power amplifier" which is a generator that outputs more energy than it takes in and is based on "The fifth element, magnetism".
Howard Johnson published multiple "papers" leading up to how his design works, but since he was scared of being murdered by the government, he decided that he'd keep the last magical component hidden until he found a way to safely release the information without fearing for his life... or something of the sort. He did however point out that the "Key" is in neodymium magnets. And he displayed that he managed to find a new way to "measure magnetism" that all those bozo physicists couldn't figure out in a million years that showed that magnets actually had rectangular fields which rotated. And even made a meter to display them.
Well, a high school physics teacher, myself, a Cambridge mathematician, and several others all put effort into trying to explain to him that 1) we know enough about magnetism to poke around and manipulate a single atom using a magnetic field smaller than the atom itself. 2) We know enough about magnetism that the Japanese are currently testing magnetic propulsion on space craft. 3) The basic laws of physics (such as thermodynamics) are more than just silly rants. 4) Power amplifiers are an impossibility, though it might be possible to gather energy from an external source and it might appear like it's amplifying. But just because you can't see the energy being gathered, it has to come from somewhere.
He is convinced that this will work if we just ignore these stupid laws of physics that are holding us back.
Well, this conversation has proven to all of us "Silly skeptics who will listen to anything we're told in school" that there may in fact be such a thing as perpetual motion. After all, after months of trying to educate him (for the safety of us and others around him), he is still posting messages on FaceBook like "Dreaming of a world where neodymium powers our future". So, while in theory, it might actually come to an end in 40 years when he's dead and burried, it is also likely that he's infected others by then and it will perpetuate infinitely.
When I hear that, I recall a comment about the misconceptions about racing: "Winning the Indianapolis 500 is easy. All you do is stand on the gas and turn left.". 'nuff said.
Greetings and Salutations....
Having skimmed through the comments, I will say that it is a good feeling to know that there are so many of us highly competent artists who are massively under-appreciated and under paid. No...I am NOT being sarcastic here. Just the other day, I had a lengthy meeting with three very nice folks that wanted me to set up and administer a website pushing their brand of Zeolite. They had a reasonably cautious business plan, and, had thought about many expenses and such that could arise. Two of them are fairly successful business people, and, I say that because, while they may not be accumulating huge amounts of wealth, they are keeping their heads above water even in TODAY's nasty and fragile economy. In any case, we talked about the content of the site, and, while they had SOME information for it, it quickly became clear to me that they had the idea that I could come in, pop up a few pages for a couple hundred dollars, and, they could then forget the site while the orders and cash rolled in. They had no idea about search engine optimization (such as it is), or, adding content to keep folks interested in coming back to the site, or any of a half a dozen OTHER things that help generate interest in the site and, perhaps the product they were pushing.
Alas, it ALSO became clear as I spoke with them that they wanted me to create this website, including an e-commerce shopping cart, and, maintain it, either for free (Promises of great rewards to come when the company took off) or for small money (something on that $10/hour figure that has been tossed around already). Well, as an independent consultant, my hourly rate is just a tad larger than that, and, I just walked away from a client who spent a lot of time blowing smoke up my "dress" about how I was going to get these great rewards for my efforts on their behalf, as soon as the economy picked up. Being somewhat slow to learn, it took a while for me to look at them, driving their expensive BMWs, Lexi, and Hummers, and living in their million dollar houses, to realize that the only pocket the money was going to go into was theirs...not mine. So...to get back to my point....I thought about doing this online shop and website for these fine folks for a bit, and ended up writing them a proposal that, essentially, cut my hourly rate by about 25%, but, with a guaranteed monthly payment, and strict limits on how many hours per month they would get from me FOR that retainer. I also made it very clear that any time I spent over and above the allocated time would be charged at my regular rates, and, that I DID charge for time spent in meetings. My general rule there is that the client gets the first meeting free...after that...it gets billed.
So...it has been a few months now, and, oddly enough, I have not heard anything back from them. I suspect that, since it was mentioned in our original meeting, that they have gone ahead and talked the nephew of one of the folks into putting the site together. Should I have taken the job? At the time it was the only sign of work out there. However, since then, I have picked up several smaller clients, who call me on an as-needed basis, and, pay COD...so since I do not do this as a hobby, and, so far, the utility company has yet to give me free electricity, I think I made the correct decision.
Just to prove I am not totally wandering away from the topic at hand with this rant, the zeolite folks that I talked to were pretty much of the mindset that they had done all the hard work - coming up with the idea for the website and all they needed was a hack to go in and change some URLs or a bit of text to talk about THEM and THEIR product, and make it pretty. It has been my experience over the years that folks like this are not really downplaying the role of the programmer so much as they are running on that autopilot program th
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
Ideas are a dime a dozen. As a software developer I have many ideas. I can also potentially develop software myself. Even so I cannot simply implement every idea I have. The reality is that time is money; even open source developers know that their time is valuable, and that you need to focus on developing one idea at a time. A simple application might take a month of development time. Complex applications take years of effort, and can require whole teams of developers. If you don't have your own money this means you will need a business case and some funding behind it.
I don't know how many times some Joe has offered to tell me about their brilliant idea, and that they will let me implement it and share in the rewards. Naturally I won't be paid, but get to share in the rewards when the software is sold or licensed. I can count the number of times I have accepted this kind offer on the fingers of one foot. Am I so arrogant that I believe I'm the only one that can have a good idea?
No. Its just that I know that it takes more than a good idea to be a success. You need the resources behind you, the expertise, experience and contacts in the industry you are trying to sell into. Good ideas are common. Good execution is rare.
Measured differently.
America doesn't measure the long-term unemployed, Europe does.
I "had an idea" for Kinect over a decade ago. Having toyed with VR stuff and motion capture and the like I though "Man, it'd be really awesome to have a device that does visual and shape capture at the same time, to be able to get a full 3D capture of a world in to an editor." I personally was thinking something along the lines of an IR laser rapidly scanning a scene (like a laser shape capture device but larger).
Wow! Amazing! I so thought of it years before MS! I should be rich!!
Well... No.
All I did was think it was a neat idea. I had no fucking clue how to make it work. I just thought such a device would be great and would be doable, and had maybe a vague idea of what you might try. That is in no way shape or form something you could start development from or really anything unique. I'm sure tons of other people had the idea. What makes Kinect unique is that they got a team together, had engineers sit down and figure out how you might build such a thing, and do it cheaply, and now other people have figured out how to use data from it to reconstruct 3D scene data on a computer. The idea is not the hard part, the implementation is.
Even in purely idea fields, having a vague idea isn't amazing or worth anything, showing its worth is. Feynman didn't win the Nobel prize because he had an idea about how the spin of particles might relate to larger phenomena (such as the spin of plates, as he talks about in his book). He won it because he turned that idea, that spark, in to a theory of quantum electrodynamics that is detailed in its construction and makes extremely accurate predictions. Had he just said "Huh, it is interesting that the amount a plate wobbles when tossed is an integer ratio to how much it spins. Maybe that has something to do with the way particles work," well then nothing would have come of it. His work was all ideas, but the important part of the idea work was developing it in to a complete, useful, theory.
Oh dear God in heaven do NOT even think it, much less say it! Good God man, do you have ANY idea the soul sucking den of evil you are making light of? Imagine, you are just a humming along, all happy as can be with your shotgunned modems and your overclocked Celeron pumping 600MHz with Win98 stripped down like a used Buick all hot rodded when BAM...you hit the tar pit that is Geocities.
Suddenly all the fans scream to life, desperately trying to keep the Comet Cursor that suddenly is hanging a fricking pocket watch off your arrow like a swing ball of snot from blowing your CPU, your modems strain under a bazillion animated GIFs, while you are blinded by a neon purple background with snot green text in the always evil "OMG Ponies!" style, complete with little stardust shit dripping off their "brilliant" prose, when SLAM the overload of total lameness kills Win98 and you are staring at a BSOD, which sadly is kinda comforting at that moment because at least it ain't fricking purple or swinging snot clocks. So don't joke about Geocities pal, those of us that lived through it will end up having nightmares! That is like joking about Bonzi Buddy to PC repairman, you just DON'T, okay?
As for TFA, the reason they probably think it is "just a programmer" is thanks to offshoring that is how pretty much ALL IT is treated today. Experience and education don't mean jack when they can hire a guy from Bangalore for $15k a year. So they are just thinking like future CEOs and looking at the programmers as "just the help" which sadly is the way many are treated in this crap economy.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You don't understand Doom 3's goal. Doom 3, as well as every other id game, was never meant as a game. It's a tech demo for an engine that they want to sell to other developers. It just so happens that they can call it a game and make some extra money selling it that way. As such it doesn't need a story or to be inspiring, it just needs to show off all the features the new engine has.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
All the positives you talk about can be had from forming a professional association without the incredible bullshit involved with being a union shop.
Unions are the biggest waste of human talent and resources in the world. I have seen a slack pompus prick keep his job over a hardworking young labourer on account of him simply having all the right friends in the union when he started a fight with the poor kid at a factory. I have seen industrial plant operators all order tickets to the company function that most of them had no intention of going to because the union said it was "their right to have the company spend money on them".
Seriously you should learn from the doctors, accountants, lawyers and engineers. Form professional associations and lead them in a way that don't make membership sound like complete bullshit. You get all the training in the world and recognition that you're actually worth employing. Sure you can sit an exam every time you apply for a job, or you could just point at the letters granted by your association like "CPA" for accountants. Unions get treated with the disdain of a plumber who shows up late for a job, whereas if you associate yourself with a group who not only have a strict entry requirement, but also a periodic revalidation to prove you deserve to stay part of the association, then my friend, THEN you will be treated like the professional you deserve to be rather than a code junkie.
It's only racism if you didn't experience it time and time again.
To give you an example, to say Mexicans are generally lazy is racism. To say US voters are generally uninformed is watching international politics.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He's probably not racist, so put your own prejudices away for a bit.
When you do find though, is that the generic programmer you get from Indian development shops are the inexperienced ones. There's a very strong hierarchy in these places (and in India in general) which means that once a dev gets experience, he will expect to be promoted to a more senior supervisor/manager/etc position. Once there, coding is not part of his job description, and from what I've found the guys in these positions quickly start to resist being put back in a coding position.
The other issue is that, once you outsource to these dev shops, you never get the same guys twice. So we take junior devs from them, take ages to bring them up to speed, and next time we need them... we get another junior guy. I'm sure the Indian chaps over there are laughing their heads off at us, yet our pointy-haired management keeps on falling for it as all they see if the immediate $$ salary costs.
void dwim(void);
The Professor is missing the irony in his own remarks. Since he is the "oracle" in this situation, the one the idea guys seek. He's pontificating as though he's addressing one of his classes on what should happen in the "real" world.
On the other hand, what he should do is look in the mirror. What do most Professors do when they get an idea? Why, farm it out to a grad student, of course. They're the academic equivalent of the real world instance he's deriding. Grad students after all are cheap labor to be exploited for his infinite favor in the course of their thesis work and perhaps the whiff of a nod in the credits when it's time for him to collect the prize. Other than that, they are merely a commodity.
Freakin' hypocrite.
I would have to disagree. The difference between wealth and having a second job isn't in whether you can code the idea. Any 15-year-old idiot can probably code an idea, unless it's very complex. How well you can do it is nearly paramount. You know, for example, that most sort algorithms max out at an efficiency of Clog(n)[element_count], as a rough description. You know who makes six figures a year? The guy who can reduce "C" by five percent. And no, you can't do that with shell scripts and lines of spaghetti code.
c = 299,792,458 metres per second - it's not just a good idea - it's the law. Of course you can't do it with shell scripts. You need at least a Mr. Fusion.
Lived through it? Dude, I actually had to program something like that in 1999. The other folks in the team were calling the graphics designer turned app designer The Antichrist, because his ideas made everyone cringe.
Green text on purple background? You kids don't know how good you have it. Oh, what we wouldn't have given for something as readable as green on bright purple. See, the Antichrist's idea was orange-ish yellow text on yellowish orange background, or in some parts the other way around. Even telling him that medically a lot of people will be unable to read that poor contrast did nothing to move him.
He had an idea for navigation that thankfully got dropped because he made the mistake of showing it to some investors and nobody could understand how they'd use it to get from page A to page B. Even that was better than the idea he had for some other site, where you literally had to find a scrap of paper with the action you wanted to do in a heap of newspaper cuts. I don't even mean newspaper style scraps arranged in a neat menu, but literally finding the one you want in a heap.
And yes, 1 MB+ of graphics per page.
Remember that this was the age of dot-coms, when they sold such craps to investors based on the idea that browsing some site should be an "experience". You don't go to some news portal site to read news, you go to have a unique experience, see? ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Would that be the Pradeep Principle?
When you do find though, is that the generic programmer you get from Indian development shops are the inexperienced ones. There's a very strong hierarchy in these places (and in India in general) which means that once a dev gets experience, he will expect to be promoted to a more senior supervisor/manager/etc position. Once there, coding is not part of his job description, and from what I've found the guys in these positions quickly start to resist being put back in a coding position.
That said, from your example and mine, I'm starting to get the idea that it's not just programmers these people need. Before even needing that, they could use a few more experts, starting with interface designers and usability experts. And maybe someone who understands the business side of that idea too.
Honestly, the more I think about it, I don't even think it's just programmers they miss. People spew all sorts of half baked ideas, and thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect, the more unqualified they are to judge that, the more that half-baked idea sounds like a stroke of pure genius. I've had to sign NDA's for ideas boiling down to "we'll make a portal site and have an IPO and people will give us lots and lots of money", and those people seemed to genuinely be convinced that someone would be just itching to steal _that_ pure genius idea.
Heck, it's not even about programs. People have "genius" ideas about business, games, mods, etc. Now someone just has to do the boring trivial stuff like balancing the gameplay or making that business idea work. They did their part and had the idea, and should get the credit, right?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In a sane world, the US would protect its domestic industries and prevent hemorrhaging money all over the world by making offshoring outright illegal and not allowing foreign labour into the country. As is, it's rabidly de-industrializing and going bankrupt as a result.
But hey, the CEOs get bonuses for looting the economy, so it's alright.
No, you won't be. An Indian accepts a smaller salary than an American because he won't be spending it in America, he'll be spending it in India. Meanwhile, that smaller salary depresses wages, which both decreases tax revenue and makes people poorer.
Again, the only winner is the aristocracy, and again it happens at the expense of the working class.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Hey, mock it all you want, a lot of us learned html and got our first webpage thanks to Geocities. It's not like there were a ton of sites back in 1994 offering free web space (something we pretty much take for granted now). And it cost a lot more than $5-$10 a month back then if you wanted to buy webspace too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Will the madness never end?
Oh, wait... maybe we all need each other?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
So we're back to protectionism? Please stop. Really.
Free trade and Wall Street shenanigans have nothing to do with one another. The fact that Wall Street folks support free trade isn't proof it's a bad idea.
I would like to propose a radical idea. (Someone else can program it, I'm the idea guy.)
When a story revolves around the juxtaposition of two words-- in this case, "idea" and "programming", try reversing the two. If your story makes as much, or very nearlyi as much, sense one way as the other, reconsider posting the story.
To wit:
'Many programmers,' observes Fallingward, 'tend to think most or all of the value [of a product] inheres to writing the program. Ideas are a commodity, pulled out of a closet to give a well-constructed algorithm a purpose. It's just a small matter of the idea, right?' Wrong. 'Thinking of the idea is the ingredient the programmers are missing,' he adds. 'They are doing the right thing to seek it out. I wonder what it would be like if more people could think up their own ideas.'"
Yes, a lot of self-described "idea guys" have lousy ideas and aren't interested in details like programming. Is perhaps the thesis here that idea guys can be taught to program, but mere programmers can't be taught to have ideas? Because that's a bit insulting.
The fact that Wall Street folks support free trade isn't proof it's a bad idea.
Perhaps not, but it's a pretty good piece of circumstantial evidence. The wall street traders don't give two shits about you and your family. They will sell you down the river for thirty pieces of silver. They support what is in their best interest, country be damned, so maybe you too should be looking out for numero uno instead of saying how great it is to get a fantastic deal at WalMart while your neighbor is unemployed.
This is a common occurrence in many fields with a high technical bar. Usually, the person with the "plan" has a pretty high opinion of themselves, which may or may not be justified. I see a lot of "genius children" (labeled by their parents) with big ideas that just need "a few things" worked out to have their Invention built and make a ton of money for them and their parents.
To give an example from a nerd hobby forum, it's common in an amateur ROV group I frequent to get questions from new members, usually teenagers, saying something like the following: "I have a great ROV design that will dive to 5000 feet, be small enough for one person to carry and use, and will only cost $10,000. It can be used for (insert random phrase describing any "cool" ROV use here). I have the design almost done and I'm going to take it to various companies to get the manufacturing done (read as: try to get someone to buy my design and give me lots of royalties) and I just need details on a few things. First, can someone tell me how I can seal a motor against water getting in? Second, I plan on using outdoor extension cord cable with fiber optics inside for communications, can someone tell me where I can order this online? Third, I'm going to need a special caulk to seal the wires where they enter the hull of the ROV, where can I buy that in a small tube for under $10?"
Usually the person doing this has drawn up a couple pictures or mock-ups in a CAD program or even a modeler like Blender or Maya. They've usually picked a use for their ROV without understanding anything about how the use relates to design, specifications, or capabilities. If anything they've designed their model with superficial features that make it "work" for the use intended, like drawing in an arm with a sawblade on it "for cutting off damaged well heads". Note that I'm not talking about an actual design, they've just drawn a picture of a (possibly) cool looking ROV, spending as much time on the paint job as the shape.
The thing all the people that do this have in common is a very human attribute - they want to believe they are special, that they are geniuses, and that they will be able to make a living/get rich/get famous without having to do it the way "ordinary" people do, through education, luck, and hard work.
That's not a horrible fault, but usually they don't want to hear that the "great design" they have, no matter how detailed, is in fact the "easy" part of creating something like they want. They don't want to hear they're not a genius and that what they want isn't simple. They interpret you telling them that it isn't that simple the same way they'd interpret someone saying "I'm not smart enough to do what you're asking" or "We big industry guys don't like to listen to new ideas". Heaven help you if you try to actually produce a quote for the work they want you to do.
People like this are why the term "hubris" exists.
If it's a kid I try to encourage them to keep thinking great ideas, but to get some education in what they want to do. If they just won't listen, sometimes I just ignore them and let them find out on their own that they're dreaming.
The same thing works for non programmers designing software. They are great if they know they're designing a user interface or interaction, and that what they want may not be possible. That kind of perspective can really help a deep technical person produce a great product. If they're convinced they have a product ready to go and that all that needs to be done is write some code, it's the same Hubris. They probably won't listen. Just ignore them unless you have the patience to get them to understand (for example, if you're a social worker or a canonized saint).