The Rising Power of Developers

msmoriarty writes "Google's Don Dodge, GitHub's Tom Preston-Werner, New Relic's Lew Cirne and others recently got together in San Francisco on a panel called 'The Developer is King: The Power Behind the Throne.' According to coverage of the event, the panelists all agreed that programmers — both independent ones and those employed by companies — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever. Even the marketing power of developers was acknowledged: 'The only way to convince a developer is by giving them a demo and showing them how it's better,' said Preston-Werner. 'The beauty is, you plant these seeds around the world, and those people will evangelize it for you. Because another thing that developers are great at is telling other developers what works for them.'"

Comments

Power? For who?

[djupedal]

This is all about marketing power, and using devs as mouthpieces. Devs are always either agreeing or arguing, with the new ones either lapping up anything the older ones say or dissing them as crotchety and set in their ways. The only selling I see going on is on what resources to use and which to ignore, and there are always a basket of opinions going in different directions depending on which site you're on at the moment. If someone can find a way to milk them as a group, beyond, you know...developing stuff, then go for it, but to say they are king makers is a bit of a virtual stretch. Any marketer will see them as just another group.

Reality

[Baldrson]

My personal dilemma is that one of the few ways I can capitalize on my 40 years experience in computer programming is to make money training young people to go into the software profession.

Its hard to explain to folks who see my resume and employment status why I refuse to accept money to train train local young people.

First of all people aren't used to people with ethics. So they don't understand why I wouldn't want to take money from kids by leading them into pauperism.

Secondly they've been led to believe that domestic programmers with equal skills have an equal shot at the high income positions that are going to foreign aggressors. Its one of those things that's just too depressing to admit to one's self about the horror of the government's oppression of the citizens. This is especially true in rural areas where almost every family has a young man who has served in the military and either killed, or been indoctrinated that is is ok to kill for the government (if they, themselves haven't been permanently disabled if not killed).