We have a whole new streaming solution that should fix all the issues we were having, so expect better audio quality this time. Join Craig, David and myself for the latest on Delphi, C++Builder and software development in general.
[YouTube]
We have a whole new streaming solution that should fix all the issues we were having, so expect better audio quality this time. Join Craig, David and myself for the latest on Delphi, C++Builder and software development in general.
[YouTube]
You can watch live right here:
During this episode we discussed:
Tomorrow will be a live episode of the Podcast at Delphi.org
You can join us live on YouTube with your questions and comments, or catch the replay posted here. Stay tuned tomorrow for details on how to join.
This is our first time with this new format and would love to get your feedback. We’ll also appreciate your patience as we work out the technical details.
U.S. News an World Report just ranked Software Developer as the best job for 2018. They use data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics to rank jobs based on pay, job security, mental engagement, stress, room to advance, satisfaction, and work-life balance. Since you are here, you most likely agree with that ranking and are surprised it took so long for someone else to recognize it.
This means we will see a lot of people interesting in software development. Anyone looking for a better job is likely to start at the top of that list and work their way down until they find one they are interested in. Not to mention everyone who sees the headlines about Software Developer replacing Dentist as the #1 Best Job. Whatever the reason, software developers will get a lot more attention.
When I’m talking to people about career advice I think it is more important to choose a career that suits the individual (internal factors) than basing the decision purely on external factors like pay, etc. That being said, I honestly believe Software Development is only going to get more important. Going forward, software development and related jobs (many of which aren’t even invented yet) will consume the many of the other jobs as automation and artificial intelligence take over more aspects of our life. It all depends on which side of the automation revolution you want to be.
When I was really young (like 3rd grade) I knew I wanted to program computers for a living. A family friend told me that I should look for a different job because by the time I entered the career market computers would be programming themselves and there would be no jobs. I remember thinking once that happens there would be no jobs, and someone would need to teach the computers how to program themselves better.
Just recently I was in Tokyo for the 10.2 launch event. I was talking to members of the press, and one of them made a similar assertion “What is the point of releasing better developer tools when soon computers will be programming themselves?” I shared the story from when I was a kid and said that “Yes, AI is automating and consuming other jobs, but the programmer will be the last to go. Once AI’s no longer need humans to make them better there will be no jobs for anyone!”
So what does this mean for you, as a software developer today? Congratulation’s you choose wisely! But be prepared for a lot of people to come to you for career advice. Remember that Delphi offers a great Free Starter edition, and Embarcadero Academy is full of content for people learning to program.
If you aren’t familiar with the Law of the Instrument, otherwise known as Maslow’s hammer/gavel, or the golden hammer it is often expressed as
If your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as like a nail.
My understanding is that the law of the instrument means you are limited by instruments or tools you know how to use. For example, if you have a screw, some wood, and a hammer, then you might successfully get the screw into the wood, but a screwdriver would be a better alternative.
The law of the instrument also means an obsession with the perfection of the instruments you know. I remember back in the day when I was convinced there was no reason to bother with any other programming languages because Delphi was the best. Now I’ve spent some time using a lot of other programming languages, and so I can confidently say Delphi is the best, while I can see the value and use of other programming languages.
I believe it is worthwhile learning about new technologies, frameworks, languages, or methodologies. Then you can pick the correct one for the job. This doesn’t mean you need to be an expert in all of them, but you should know enough that you are confident in your choice.
The reverse of this is the obsession to chase new and exciting technologies and recreate things every few years. This keeps the developers entertained, but doesn’t really provide business value. Again I believe Delphi does a good job with this as it respects your existing code while moving forward to new platforms, features, and frameworks.
So what is the Curse of the Programmer?
When I’m talking to other programmers I see two behaviors. The first is, every problem they encounter in life (at work and beyond) they respond with “I could write a program to do this,” or some variation. By extension, they also cast a critical eye toward any software system (even those developed by themselves) to see how to do them better. This results in a huge backlog of projects that they create to fix problems, fix a problem better, or just out of curiosity to see if they can.
This is similar to the Law of the Instrument, but I see it more as your learning the flexibility and power of programming results in your seeing many opportunities to apply it. I’ve talked to people in other industries, and I think the general tendency is fairly universal, it is just that programming is (in my opinion) so much more powerful and flexible than many other applied technologies.
The second behavior, which is something to be more cautious about falling into, is the urge to create a “library” or “framework” instead of finishing the program at hand. For example, you are creating a program to solve a problem, and in the process, you create series of libraries just in case you need to solve similar problems.
There is value in having reusable libraries, functions, components, and frameworks. The trick is to not let the creation of them get in the way of shipping. The best way I’ve found to deal with this is to only create the library when you need it. Write your code with the appropriate level of coupling to solve the problem at hand. When you need to reuse a bit of it elsewhere, consider refactoring it into something reusable. Then as you use it in more places you can keep refactoring it and expanding it until you have a full blown framework.
How do you see the Curse of the Programmer in your life? What do you use to prevent every project from spawning a series of reusable frameworks?
The joke goes that, when asked, the software developer responds that their New Year’s Resolution is “7680×4320” or 8K. Joking aside, tradition has it that at the turn of the year we evaluate our lives and look for areas of improvement. Here are a few of my software development related New Year’s #CodingResolutions!
How about you? What are your New Year’s #CodingResolutions?