I develop key performance indicator software for my company's manufacturing plants. It's basically a real time analytics dashboard that also trends data over time. One of the results of this software has been a better understanding of the efficiencies (or really the lack thereof) and bottlenecks in our processes. Identifying and understanding these KPIs has allowed our pilot plant to cut significant labor costs without losing any productivity (no one was fired, the positions in question weren't refilled due to attrition, which is always high in a manufacturing job).
My point being, it isn't just robots and automation that reduce the labor workforce. Better data and analytics are also having an effect, a trend I don't see slowing down. As the market continues to shrink for the blue collar workforce, something will definitely need to happen so as to not disenfranchise large groups of people. Whether a freedom dividend is the answer or not is up for debate. I think it will help more than it will harm. There's always going to be someone who finds a way to game the system (the perceived welfare queens). For many, though, an extra $1000 a month would literally be life-changing.
It completely blows my mind when I see stuff like this. We're not all perfect programmers, I'm sure, but still. An alarm should go off in your head when the thought occurs to put front-end code into a query. The only exception I've encountered is if I want to inject some HTML formatting into a string for emails sent from SQL Server, but even then it's extremely limited in use, and I still think to myself, there must be a better way..
I recently went to a department store called Kohl's for the first time with my wife, who'd been shopping there for years. For those unfamiliar with this store, think something similar to a JC Penney's. What struck me was that above every item was some digital signage showing a discounted price or promotion (B1G1 Free, 25% off, etc.), along with the MSRP price. So basically, anything I looked at seemed like a great deal. They also have a rewards program whereby you get "Kohl's cash" whenever you reach some threshold for purchases (something like $5.00 Kohl's cash for every $100 spent), which effectively gives you a discount.
Of course, I soon realized that this was all simply a tactic to encourage people to continue to spend their money in the store, an effective one at that. The "sale" price was really no different than the standard price at any other retail store. It was just the perception of getting a good deal and triggering the dopamine receptors in the brain. I told my wife this, but her reaction was one of incredulity. Her thinking was she was saving money by shopping there. It's such a simple, yet brilliant tactic. Make people feel like they're getting a good deal, and they'll spend more money than they otherwise would.
I can't agree more with this. As with anything we use in our applications, understanding and leveraging the strengths of our different tools is vitally important. If, for example, I needed a cartesian product of two datasets, SQL is the first thing that comes to mind due to how simple it is to write and the speed with which it will be processed in the database. On the flip side, I would never want to intermix frontend code in SQL, which crazy as that sounds, I have seen before. Everything has its place in a logical development flow.
It's very interesting how many application developers shun SQL. I believe a lot of it is due to a pervading sentiment that SQL is unruly or inelegant. There are certainly quirks to the language, and it is a difficult transition to think in a declarative rather than imperative manner, but once you make the jump, it's an invaluable skill to have. Fortunately, I have the luxury of being able to manipulate our codebase from any level of the stack. What this means is that rather than jump through hoops on the API or frontend side to accomplish some task that would require reams of code, I can just get my output via a simple query, and it will perform faster in almost all cases.
From an analytics point of view, I can't imagine not using SQL. I've seen people pull reports from multiple websites, text files, etc., spend an entire day manipulating them in Excel, and still not get their data model working as expected, not to mention that it is very slow. A couple of queries with some temp tables and voila, magic happens. It really does make you look like a superhero when you can deliver more accurate results in a fraction of the time it originally took. I'm surprised there isn't more of a market for this skill, surely there's a lot of programmers from the 80's and 90's who have this skillset in abundance.
Different perspective here than most. I worked in the retail grind for a decade before getting into software development. The best decision I ever made was going back to school and getting into this industry. For those who've done this for their whole careers, know that you've got it pretty well made relative to most other people. If you think office politics is bad in software dev, I remember people cannibalizing each other over a 25 cent raise. In any service industry, you really are just a cog in the wheel. It makes me appreciate what I do now so much more, and I always try to remind myself of that if I ever find myself down or upset about something work-related.
The crazy part about overworking in the software development industry is that, at least from where I am (TN, US), job opportunities are abundant. I could maybe slightly understand working the crazy hours if ours was an industry where jobs were scarce or competition was cutthroat, but I've never had issues getting work. Yeah, maybe I won't be working on the sexiest thing, or making as much as I'd like, but I'm going to land on my feet pretty well.
My little bit of advice: save enough money for your emergency fund. I recommend at least six months worth of expenses. Not just for your primary bills, either, add up how much you actually spend in a month on everything and save 6 times that. That way, if you end up in a shitty situation, you can walk away and not have to worry about money, and you don't have to start eating ramen noodles everyday. I feel like money (or the lack thereof) is usually the reason why people put with so much crap. You don't need FU money, just enough to give you a comfortable runway to getting a new job. If you're even a halfway decent developer and you're in a decent market, six months should be plenty of time to get a new job.
I wonder, though, what percentage of those people already have families. I was part of that demographic not that long ago. Had I needed to support a family then, I'd likely still be in that demographic. No doubt, many people will not be able to pull themselves up regardless.
As an aside, my wife and I are good friends with a couple who only recently let us know that the husband (single earner for the family) has been unemployed since last year, and that they were completely broke and on assistance programs. We were floored, we had no idea, but in hindsight it explained some behaviors we'd witnessed. Anyways, I mention it because they have two young kids, and are trying to have another one. I just can't fathom how, given what they're going through, that having another child is in any way a sensible decision.
It's a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. Housing prices are astronomical, healthcare costs keep increasing, all while wages remain stagnant. I have great empathy for what people are going through. I'm always mindful that you never know what can happen, one major health issue and it can all go away.
> For a lot of people it doesn't mean a single goddamn thing how hard you work or how hard you try.
From my viewpoint, breaking out of poverty comes down to these factors, in order of greatest to least importance:
1. Starting off on the right foot at an early age with regards to academic performance. Circumstances can make this tough. Lack of access to good schools, parents too tired to engage their children (e.g. reading to them and instilling academic curiosity) due to working long shifts at strenuous jobs, lack of attention span on the part of the kids, etc. But coming out of school with good academic performance opens so many more doors than not.
2. Choosing a career path that has good job availability and pay (software development, healthcare industry, etc.). You can be a master of your field or trade, but if there aren't enough positions to fill, or if competition is fierce, or if the industry pays poorly, then what's the point unless you have a deep love of it?
3. Luck. Being in the right place at the right time. Not having a major medical issue. I'd almost consider placing this first.
4. Working hard.
Working hard has its place, but it's last on my list. I've known many people who did the first three and don't work hard, and still remain employed since the job market is so good for what they do. We had a developer who was absolutely terrible, but he'd regularly job hop every 1 to 2 years and get more money in the process. To be fair, the software development industry has some serious flaws in its screening processes, but nevertheless, it seems you can't ever hire enough developers. I'm not condoning being a poor worker, but the reality is that, though hard work has its place, there are more important criteria in raising oneself out of poverty.
> Refrain from having children if you cannot afford to have children.
I'm 100% on board with this. You can make a lot of mistakes in your life and still pull yourself up if you're unencumbered by marriage and kids. I know from personal experience. I was deep in debt and making poor life decisions in my twenties. It took until until my thirties to get my act together. It was hard, but would have probably been impossible if I had kids to worry about providing for. I'd even say that if you are financially able to support a family, I'd still wait until I get through my twenties before starting. With life expectancy up, there's no reason one can't wait.
> It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children.
I get where you're coming from, and I don't look down on anyone who chooses to never have children, but I don't agree on this point. I know quite a few people who have chosen this lifestyle. I thought for a long time I'd never have kids as well. But now that I do, I couldn't imagine not having any. I think it's more important to wait until you're emotionally mature and financially secure enough to do it. If it's not for you, by all means, don't have kids. Being on the other side of it now, though, I can say that it's quite a transformative experience.
It's not so much that I believe that the earth will be in utter ruin by 2100, or that I'm a super green environmentalist (I'm not). My pessimism comes from seeing intentional ignorance and utter stupidity every day. Of course, these aren't new problems in the due course of our civilization. I'm just inclined to think that if the proverbial shit ever does hit the fan on a global scale, we'll be reactive instead of proactive, and may find ourselves unable to deal with the problem. I want to be wrong.
I'm reminded of a scene in an admittedly crappy movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. No, not the awesome original, but the recent one with Keanu Reeves. Super quick plot synopsis, an alien is sent to Earth to wipe out humanity because we as a species are doomed to destroy the planet due to our insufferable nature. There's a point in the film where a scientist is arguing for keeping humanity alive, and emphasizing that humanity can change for the better, but only when at the very precipice of calamity.
That quite succinctly sums up my view of our species. The only thing that will cause us to change is to have the utter ruin of our civilization right before our feet. Unfortunately, in regards to climate change, it will likely be too late once people realize that things have to change. Mind you, the earth will be fine. Humans on the other hand...
Perspectives change as we age, particularly if you decide to start a family. It's easy and fun to socialize with your coworkers when you're young and unburdened. After all, once you're out of school, where are your friends most likely to come from? Work, of course. I met my wife and some of my best friends at various jobs. When you're married with kids, you tend to want to spend as much time with them as you can. Spending all my time with work friends outside of work hours takes away from that family time. It's less about "I hate being here and only want to put in my 9 - 5" and more about engaging with my family and in activities that I'm more apt to like as each decade passes.
The thing to be mindful of, especially when you're in your twenties, is those things you love about your work environment today, you may not like when you're in your thirties, forties, etc. I remember vividly and fondly of partying with work friends until the bars closed every weekend (and weekdays, too), going zip-lining, playing games together, and so on. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything, but I also would never want to relive that again.
My point is, have fun, enjoy your youth, and make some good memories. But don't discriminate against others who just want to be professionals and do their job. One day it's very likely you will feel the same as they do...
I see pros and cons to both sides (4 year university vs boot camp). I have a CS degree, whereas our front end developer came from a boot camp.
For my part, I have found the underlying theory to be helpful in ways I couldn't have comprehended while at school. Understanding binary made understanding octets in IP addresses and subnet masking much easier. Taking a class that involved programming sorting algorithms by hand in C++ was very beneficial, even though I have no need to do this in my day to day work. Learning about logic gates has even been helpful. Basically, I'm better equipped to have a fundamental understanding of how software and hardware works, even if it's a very basic understanding. What I lacked coming out of school, though, was having a clear road map of how to just build something in a modern stack on day one at a job.
My compatriot is in the opposite boat. He came out of boot camp with a clear understanding of how to build web applications using Angular. He could hit the ground running, and did from day one. However, he lacks the underlying theory that helps to understand how things work. Does he need these things to do his job? No, but I do believe it makes for a more well-rounded developer to have this knowledge. Fortunately, he's got a great attitude and aptitude, so he's been picking these things up as he goes.
I'd rather see something more in the middle, where one can get the theory coupled with the real-world programming skills. Maybe my CS program is to blame, and others exist that do a better job of this. Looking back, my senior "full-stack" project was very limited. I would have benefited from a little more meat to the project, and also having some more of the ancillary things taught, such as anything to do with networking in a more practical rather than academic way.
I wonder with more frequency every day if there will ever truly be a solution to the problem of rising health care costs in the US. I see a lot of posts here suggesting that privatization should be removed, and any jobs lost that are related to the current industry will be unfortunate byproducts of getting rid of a broken system; a necessary evil that will ultimately make way for a health care system that is both cheaper and available to all.
It's tempting and easy to adopt that line of thinking given where, I would suspect most of us here, are at in our lives from a career and financial perspective. As a software developer, it's easy for me to switch jobs and make a good wage. I can weather most unforeseen costs. In the decade plus that I spent working blue collar jobs for a very low wage, I would've been screwed if I'd lost my job.
This speaks to a much larger problem that is consuming the US every day. I don't have any answers, but I can empathize with those who fear their livelihoods being taken away, even if saving those jobs has a net negative effect on the economy and job market. There isn't a day that goes by, especially in today's political climate, where I'm not thankful for having the opportunity to put myself in a better position. I'm the outlier, though. Most people can never bring themselves up out of poverty.
Someone please help me understand. I use relational databases everyday for my projects (db, api, frontend). I'm well-versed in SQL and general best practices, and my projects scale well (admittedly I'm not in the petabytes level of scale). Does the desire to use NoSQL databases come from a disdain for having to think in terms of declarative programming instead of imperative? Is it desirable to have dynamically typed fields in a database? I've always thought that the biggest motivation to use NoSQL is simply due to high-level language programmers' unfamiliarity with relational database logic and SQL syntax. Once I grasped the concepts, the relational model has proven indispensable for me.
I will say, though, that it is important to get your schema correct at the beginning. I've also always worked full-stack, so I don't know what it's like not to have the ability to manipulate the database.
Does it really matter if it's ethical or not? I mean, we're not talking about the ethics of, say, killing a tyrannical despot or allowing a terminal sufferer to commit assisted suicide. If it were me, I'd keep on collecting that paycheck while picking up a second job and double my pay. Again, is it ethical? No. But who cares? This person's mom is right, he has a free lottery ticket. Keep cashing it in. You can keep your ethics while I laugh my way to the bank. Just don't get caught :)
My point being, it isn't just robots and automation that reduce the labor workforce. Better data and analytics are also having an effect, a trend I don't see slowing down. As the market continues to shrink for the blue collar workforce, something will definitely need to happen so as to not disenfranchise large groups of people. Whether a freedom dividend is the answer or not is up for debate. I think it will help more than it will harm. There's always going to be someone who finds a way to game the system (the perceived welfare queens). For many, though, an extra $1000 a month would literally be life-changing.