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I got into tech in 1995 and cannot agree with you more. While I work primarily in embedded systems (doing low level hardware bootstrapping, bootloaders, drivers, real time OS work, etc.) I know people who work strictly in the web space, including a few former embedded guys who couldn't find a job in the embedded space and started doing web apps to pay the bills. The overwhelming observation: programmers aren't really programmers anymore; they're glorified designers who care more about how something looks rather than how it functions or how it can be tested and verified to be reliable.
A somewhat related anecdote:
I was employee #3 at a startup where we built embedded systems (test equipment). To control our first product we created a multi-platform C++ native client interface. The product was well received largely because of the interface. It worked everywhere, worked consistently, and pioneered visual description of a network configuration that our lower-level software would then emulate, making it really easy for the end user to use.
Flush with cash due to the success of this product, and unable to leave well-enough alone, several years down the road one of the marketing-type founders saw the proliferation in web apps and thought it would be a good idea to replace our C++ client GUI with a glossy webapp and in the process toss our expensive C++ devs and hire a bunch of JS/PHP guys (win, win, right?). As the tragedy unfolded I sat down at the hardware level with my mind on my own work, shaking my head watching the problems emerge that I had predicted on day one.
Three years and several million $$$ later they finally had something that worked (wink wink, nudge nudge) but our support staff was completely unprepared for the hell that rained down on them after we started releasing the new product. The lines exploded every day with calls about how this or that wasn't rendering properly or how the button clicked but didn't do anything, and oh-by-the-way they just installed the latest version of browser X (or the browser vendor stupidly assumed that automatic updates of the browser were fine and dandy...no need to involve the user in that decision). How do you test a moving target? Hint: you can't. The devs spent so much time maintaining the abortion they created that they never got any new features out in the couple years I remained there before I threw in the towel and left to start my own biz.
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[–] moneyshift 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
I got into tech in 1995 and cannot agree with you more. While I work primarily in embedded systems (doing low level hardware bootstrapping, bootloaders, drivers, real time OS work, etc.) I know people who work strictly in the web space, including a few former embedded guys who couldn't find a job in the embedded space and started doing web apps to pay the bills. The overwhelming observation: programmers aren't really programmers anymore; they're glorified designers who care more about how something looks rather than how it functions or how it can be tested and verified to be reliable.
A somewhat related anecdote:
I was employee #3 at a startup where we built embedded systems (test equipment). To control our first product we created a multi-platform C++ native client interface. The product was well received largely because of the interface. It worked everywhere, worked consistently, and pioneered visual description of a network configuration that our lower-level software would then emulate, making it really easy for the end user to use.
Flush with cash due to the success of this product, and unable to leave well-enough alone, several years down the road one of the marketing-type founders saw the proliferation in web apps and thought it would be a good idea to replace our C++ client GUI with a glossy webapp and in the process toss our expensive C++ devs and hire a bunch of JS/PHP guys (win, win, right?). As the tragedy unfolded I sat down at the hardware level with my mind on my own work, shaking my head watching the problems emerge that I had predicted on day one.
Three years and several million $$$ later they finally had something that worked (wink wink, nudge nudge) but our support staff was completely unprepared for the hell that rained down on them after we started releasing the new product. The lines exploded every day with calls about how this or that wasn't rendering properly or how the button clicked but didn't do anything, and oh-by-the-way they just installed the latest version of browser X (or the browser vendor stupidly assumed that automatic updates of the browser were fine and dandy...no need to involve the user in that decision). How do you test a moving target? Hint: you can't. The devs spent so much time maintaining the abortion they created that they never got any new features out in the couple years I remained there before I threw in the towel and left to start my own biz.