<div dir="ltr">I've come to the world of startups and their economies (which seems to be the crux of his article, not programming or Rails, specifically) when I joined nilenso. But I've been watching the job market and the New Startup Bubble for years while I worked elsewhere (game companies, high finance, oil companies, you name it).<div>
<br></div><div style>I'm inclined to agree with much of what he has to say but what's funny to me is that these "real kitchens", as he puts it, have just as much Rails (or Java, or .NET... it doesn't matter) code propping them up as the startup space does. The majority of programmers in every country I've worked in (Canada, the US, the UK, and now India) are "awfully mediocre" -- just like him. That doesn't matter, either. For the time-being, whether you work in a high frequency trading company or a government or a fast food chain you will be writing software to support a fractured system of emergent complexity for which software can either be a crutch or a cure. In part, the choice is up to us.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>This is part of what we're trying to do with nilenso: Build things that matter. Whether you are inside an old enterprise or trying to start a new one, most of these things seem like they are going to take the shape of a "startup" in the sense that computing, fast food, and automobiles were each once "startups". We ask ourselves every day if the software we're writing improves people's lives. Does it simplify the business model? Does it automate a repetitive job? Does it abstract away the bureaucracy and complexity? Good. Then we're winning.<br>
</div><div style><br></div><div style>I love identifying both the cures and the crutches: Kayak and Cleartrip are my cures for booking international flights. The silly world of the web he bemoans was the only place businesses like these could emerge and I'm delighted to participate. Every piece of enterprise software I've ever written, which required stories detailing Functional Requirements defined by Business Analysts who interviewed Subject-Matter Experts ...these were crutches. Every time I didn't push back on the business to clean up its act and simplify its operation, I was making the problem worse.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>Is Instagram a cure or a crutch? Ask that question in 5 years. If Instagram still exists, you have your answer.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>
<span style="font-size:small;font-family:arial">Steven Deobald -- </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:16px;line-height:19.1875px">⌀</span><span style="font-size:small;font-family:arial"> -- </span><a href="http://nilenso.com/" style="font-size:small;color:rgb(17,85,204);font-family:arial" target="_blank">nilenso.com</a><br>
</div></div></div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 7 June 2013 01:38, Najaf Ali <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ali@happybearsoftware.com" target="_blank">ali@happybearsoftware.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">patio11 et al said so on twitter, this article misses two pretty big points:<div><br></div><div>* Venture-backed b2c companies with questionable value to society are over-represented in tech news and the headspace of a lot of people who write articles like this. If you build robots, write software for b2b, aerospace, healthcare, non-profits etc you're not in the tech press much because being in the tech press doesn't matter all that much to you or your stakeholders.</div>
<div><br></div><div>* Developers in regular companies automate things, i.e. put people out of jobs. If you can replace entire departments with software, *of course* that job commands a higher pay. When you build the mining robot that does the job half as well at a tenth the price, then yes, you're worth more than the miner by any metric you could conceive of (apart from perhaps saltiness and machismo).</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><div><div class="h5"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 8:27 PM, Stephen Strudwick <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stephen@strud.me.uk" target="_blank">stephen@strud.me.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div>Yes and no :)</div><div><br></div><div>Some coders are not paid nearly enough, others earn more than they deserve.</div>
<div><br></div><div>There is a trend of very young rails devs who only know rails and have a year or 2 experience</div><div>but can earn amazing money... </div><div><br></div><div>But they tend to know the framework very very well and for the problems they solve do a good job.</div>
<div>However sooner or later as more people also jump on the bandwagon the pay for that skill set will level out.</div><div><br></div><div>I guess for a lot of them when they have to step out of web dev into broader software development they suddenly come</div>
<div>unstuck and build some nasty solutions. This is the learning curve to becoming a good dev but they are getting</div><div>paid well to screw up which is unusual.</div><div><br></div><div>However a good rails dev with great and diverse development background will make your company and be worth 5 mid</div>
<div>level devs at least :)</div><div><br></div><div>Rails development is in a bit of a bubble atm with high demand, but give it a few years and the market will be saturated !</div><div><br></div><div>Stephen</div><div><div>
<div><br>On 6 Jun 2013, at 17:16, Benji Lanyado <<a href="mailto:benjilanyado@gmail.com" target="_blank">benjilanyado@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><h1 style="text-align:-webkit-auto;margin:14px 0px 5px;padding:0px;font-weight:400">
<font size="3"><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)">I'm sure many of you have read this already, v thought provoking:</span></font></h1><div><font size="3"><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)"><br>
</span></font></div><div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap"><a href="http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-somers-web-developer-money/" target="_blank">http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-somers-web-developer-money/</a></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap">The writer (a Ruby dev) essentially, argues that he is overvalued, and that what he does has little meaning. </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap">Fwiw, I think he's wrong, but mostly because I think he demonstrates one of the things that troubles me the most about devs (I've only been one for a year): the seemingly permanent succession of talented, interested devs taking jobs they know they won't enjoy, or won't interest/challenge them, purely for the money. The problem, imo, is not an underlying vacuousness of coding itself, but rather a lack of self-worth, and not being able to see the wood from the trees when lotsa money is floated in front on your nose.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap">But that's just, like, my opinion. </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:'.HelveticaNeueUI';font-size:15px;line-height:19px;white-space:nowrap">Can we all cuddle now?</span></div>
<br><span> </span></div></div></blockquote></div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>Chat mailing list</span><br><span><a href="mailto:Chat@lists.lrug.org" target="_blank">Chat@lists.lrug.org</a></span><br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div></div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">-- <br><div dir="ltr">Ali, <a href="http://happybearsoftware.com" target="_blank">http://happybearsoftware.com</a></div>
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