If we are talking front-end, then Javascript is already the dominant language for EVERYONE (for the web anyways.)
> Big brand names like GM, Yahoo, Dow Jones, Walmart and Dell have all deployed Node.js and are touting its merits.
It's as if the borg is chanting node while it slaves away on its corporate machine. I bet if I asked Michael Dell what he thinks about Node, he would probably tell me to F-off.
I googled LinkedIn and the first result talked about how they replaced their Rails app with a Node app. Right, when I see an article talking about how X huge corp replaced their Scala app with Node then I might be more convinced.
We don't need to be locked into any one tool though. As we learn how to build things better we find that we can route our pipes to different boxes which handed different things rather than having one huge box handling everything.
The bottom line is that there is an infinite number of things to build and while software won't build these things alone, it's still a big component. Software didn't build the Space X rocket or the Google self driving car, but there is a lot of code which is a big part of making those things possible. All of the things that we can imagine in 50 years needs to have the foundations laid in part by software developers today. A factory worker has limited contribution to this future because of the constraints of the job, but software development is wide open. We may not be able to build the deathstar right now, but we can start working on the code for it.
> When the most frequent complaint you hear is “I wish recruiters would stop spamming me with six-figure job offers,” life’s gotten pretty good.
As other have said many times here, a six figure job in some places is just enough to possibly be compared to a middle class lifestyle elsewhere in the U.S. Go look at the database of BART salaries, and as big as their pay appears, these guys went on strike.
> WordPress does in fifteen minutes what once kept a freelancer busy for two months.
And yet, you can still easily spend two months plus on a Wordpress project. Compare what people were building then compared to what people are building now. The great thing about web development is that we can continually move up the value chain. As some components get easier, that frees us up to work on something else, always pushing the boundaries outward. As those boundaries move, we are probably creating more work to do, not less.
> Maybe you don’t think a total n00b can walk out of a nine-week training program and do your job.
That noob better learn how to learn on his / her own. Really, who learns how to be a developer from a school? I don't have a computer science background, but does a computer science degree even teach this stuff? The bottom line is that it's a relentless grind to continue to learn and build on that knowledge. Not everyone has the drive to do that. It's far easier to pay for someone to feed you knowledge and pretend that you are getting somewhere.
> To upset the labor market, one of two things needs to happen: an increase in supply, or a decrease in demand.
I don't see supply outstripping demand happening anytime soon, if ever. I have been waiting for the hordes to come for years, but this hasn't happened. I would think it would have happened by now. And demand doesn't sit still either. As other markets emerge, they eat up their local talent.Sure, this local talent may work for far less than their U.S. equivalents, but for how long? When you have cost of living in certain regions of developing nations ratcheting up to be as high as any U.S. city and companies like Alibaba hitting huge numbers, then developers in these regions will get paid. They just have a bit of catching up to do, that's why we call them "developing."
> No profession stays on top forever… just ask your recently graduated lawyer friends.
Isn't that a crazy comparison though? This article mentions how low the friction is for getting into development, and then makes this comparison with a profession with a relatively huge friction. The development industry looks nothing like law. Part of the problem there is that the law profession built walls up that technology is tearing down. The development industry has no walls.
>Part of the problem there is that the law profession built walls up that technology is tearing down. The development industry has no walls.
Exactly law school was such a golden ticket because the lawyer's guild set it up that way. The ABA convinced the state governments that that they should be the gatekeepers of the legal profession. They manufactured scarcity that drove up prices.
New lawyers can still make a decent income, even now. The problem is that they need to make way more than a decent income to pay the inflated tuition rates charged by most law schools.
As others have commented, this is totally market, which is detached from the actual working conditions. Can 100K really be considered overpaid in the bay area? Or is everyone making much less than 100K just crazy to live there (I don't live there, so I don't know how much you really need to make to survive there.)
I think sometimes it's hard for us to see how much we really learn over time. It seems so easy, yet have someone who has never written a line of code try to get to the point where you are at.
I imagine this could also be applied to startups running out of cash. Not only do you have the stress of all the implications of running out of cash, but getting more cash becomes the number one priority, over things that you would otherwise be doing if you were flush. You might have to take on cash from sources you would otherwise decline. You might have to start thinking about doing client work. Fun stuff.
It's interesting to hear that hiring is cheaper in Boston than in Silicon Valley. I have always had the impression that Boston is also up there in the "crazy expensive" list of places to live. Maybe it's a savings from Silicon Valley, but Boston must still be somewhere among the top 10.
So what? After 20 minutes the robot just lays there and does nothing? If that's due to battery life, then some of the real life partners I have been with had a far shorter battery life than that.
Why would you need AI in a sex robot? People don't go to strip clubs for the great conversation. Though I suppose the AI is the difference between a sex robot and a sex doll. And I suppose any intelligence is better than faked or clever AI. Otherwise you might as well be having sex with a human look-alike Teddy Ruxbin.
The $9K price tag estimate isn't too bad. That's probably cheaper than than a lot of people spend on their significant others, not counting accessories so that you can feel like you are getting some "strange" every once in a while.
Maybe this could be Apple's next big thing. I don't mind Windows, but the idea of having sex with something which has a Microsoft logo makes me not want to have sex.
I wouldn't bother. Have them handle their own hosting. There are multiple possible traps with offering any sort of hosting services.
1. Look at the business model. Web hosting providers make a seriously small margin on their sales and their profits come from high volumes. It's difficult to add any value there.
2. You can't offer the support that the hosting company can offer. The hosting company may or may not have good support, but they can provide it 24 / 7. You have your own life and it's not worth having to respond to emergencies when you are normally unavailable. Sure, you may be able to charge for that time, but the host can probably offer that same support for no extra charge.
3. Problems with hosting can pop up at the worst times. Imagine that you have overbooked yourself, you have multiple deadlines that are just around the corner and then all of a sudden you have to deal with a hosting problem. It's bad that you have to take time away from urgent and probably better paying work to deal with that issue, but it's even worse to have to do a mental switch away from one project, deal with the hosting issue and then have to do another mental switch to get back into the project you were distracted from.
4. You could be a world class developer but a hosting issue can reflect negatively on you from the perspective of the client. A bad hosting issue can sour the overall experience that the client has with your services. Again, it's just not worth it.
5. Many developers don't have the expertise to deal with hosting issues, which means you will probably provide a worse service than the hosting company can provide.
6. Hosting is a commitment that you may not want to make. If you decide to get out of client work, then you will have to deal with migrating your clients into different hosting situations. I have seen this turn out bad for the client.
As the application developer, offer to setup the application on their hosting and offer some sort of maintenance plan for the application, not the hosting. Set the expectation for the client that the hosting provider should be the point of contact for hosting issues and that maintenance issues with the application may have a 24 - 48 hour turn-around (or whatever you feel comfortable with.) Don't even recommend a provider, or if you do, then compile a short list of good providers and have the client make the decision on which one to choose.
> Big brand names like GM, Yahoo, Dow Jones, Walmart and Dell have all deployed Node.js and are touting its merits.
It's as if the borg is chanting node while it slaves away on its corporate machine. I bet if I asked Michael Dell what he thinks about Node, he would probably tell me to F-off.
I googled LinkedIn and the first result talked about how they replaced their Rails app with a Node app. Right, when I see an article talking about how X huge corp replaced their Scala app with Node then I might be more convinced.
We don't need to be locked into any one tool though. As we learn how to build things better we find that we can route our pipes to different boxes which handed different things rather than having one huge box handling everything.