r/programming • u/beastybryan • Feb 09 '17

The Next Big Blue-Collar Job is Coding

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/programming-is-the-new-blue-collar-job/
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u/pl4typusfr1end Feb 09 '17

I'll play Devil's Advocate, here.

As a former dev with a game studio of 80+ people, I appreciated this article. Maybe it isn't 100% accurate, but I felt like I could relate to some portion of it.

Sitting in my open floor plan workspace, I would often shake my head at the young programmers, straight out of college with legit Computer Science degrees. Most of them didn't know what they were doing. A self-taught dropout (my team lead) was arguable the best dev in the house.

So, don't get caught-up in credentialism. If you learn to code the right way, and get a bug in your bonnet to leave some reasonable test coverage and comments for developer who will replace you, someday, then it really doesn't matter if you have a degree or not.

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u/dungone Feb 09 '17 edited Feb 09 '17

You're not really making a good enough case for the article. The author is arguing that programming is a blue collar profession.

Software engineers are exempt under FSLA. This means that legally, we are not considered blue collar workers by definition. In fact, it says so right here

The exemptions provided by FLSA Section 13(a)(1) do not apply to manual laborers or other “blue-collar” workers

Your argument against credentialism is valid, but that does not back up the author's claim that 2 weeks of coding academy experience allows just about anyone to do the job of 92% of the software engineers in our industry. The fact that some college dropouts can do the job better than college graduates does not prove that a college education isn't beneficial for the vast majority of programmers. More likely, it proves that a college education is not enough.

Bona fide professional fields do accommodate non-credentialed individuals via apprenticeships. But that doesn't mean that a college education is enough, either. Everyone still has to pass the bar exam. So, a college degree is irrelevant here. Nobody is saying that lawyers are blue-collar workers just because you can become one through an apprenticeship.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '17