Future of Computer Programming

[JasonS76]

I have a friend whose thinking of going into the programming field, but he's concerned about work being outsourced.

What are your thoughts?

Personally, I don't think it's a good move career wise, but he thinks he'll like it if he does it.

[Basu]

It's hard to make any generalized advice regarding this. Sure he could be outsourced, but that doesn't mean that there won't be a single computer programmer left in the Western world in ten years. If he's good at what he does, he'll be able to get work. And he could go the independent/startup route if he gets a good idea.

[Brutha]

The money you make in any job is related to the amount of value you can produce.

You also have to see that wages in countries like India rise steadly, so the advance gained by outsourcing shrinks.

Personally, I don't think it's a good move career wise, but he thinks he'll like it if he does it.

If he likes what he does it is a good career move.

Like what you do -> Produce a lot of value -> Get paied

[Doku]

Computer programming is alive and well in the US... IF you are good.

You could go to game companies like Bathesda in Maryland (Creator of Oblivion).

You could go to the financial sector (Chase, CityBank, Nasdaq, etc.)
or
Investment brokerages and hedge firms. They develop lots of in-house software.

The defense industry. You can't outsource jobs that require a security clearance.

Pharmacitical companies do their own computer programming.

Insurnace companies develop a lot of in-house software.


The problem with all of those within the US is that, for the most part, they are very selective about the quality of people that they hire. Although, having worked in most of the areas that I mentioned, I have to admit that I have encountered many idiot "developers" in all of them.

[Mark Lapierre]

In Australia companies are becoming more selective, but there's still a fair number of companies hiring uni graduates, or offering low wages and therefore getting those with little skill/knowledge.

[tobyhede]

The nature of programming is changing.

For lot's of applications, particularly those in well-known domains specifiying the software and outsourcing the development is definitely the way things will be done. In these situations, software development behaves like any other process and just needs bodies in seats doing the work.

BUT

There is still great value in producing good, innovative software that helps people do more work in an easier way. For this work creative minds are more important than lines of code and a programmer needs to be focussed on the user experience.

This kind-of thing is very very hard (if not impossible) to outsource.

The new iPod Shuffle is a classic (non-software) example of the new "world order". Apple came up with the original design, the interface and the "experience" and in fairly short order factories in China were producing rip-offs.

A factory in China can quickly and cheaply manufacture a device, but designing it in the first place is another story altogether.

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by JasonS76

I have a friend whose thinking of going into the programming field, but he's concerned about work being outsourced.

What are your thoughts?

Personally, I don't think it's a good move career wise, but he thinks he'll like it if he does it.

It depends on how good of a software engineer you are. There's a limited pool of talented superstar software engineers, and lots of mediocre programmers. Mediocre programmers can be outsourced, superstars can't be. A good example is what just happened at Apple. They announced a few days ago that they've had to move some developers from the next version of Mac OS X (originally due in June) to help finish the iPhone on time, pushing OS X Leopard release to October.

Complex software requires exceptional software engineers, and they don't grow on trees. In other words if you're planning on becoming one of the best, you'll never have to worry about outsourcing. If however you expect to be mediocre then you better find something else you can be one of the best at.

[Lauxa]

Outsourcing programmers can create lots of ineffeciencies for the company that goes that route. Like not speaking good English, teams that interface having to be on different time schedules, and network unreliability at overseas locations. I think programming is still a good field to be in.

[Dani]

I stopped working full time in IT 2 years ago, and I still get calls every couple of months asking me if I am looking for work.

Programming is alive and well if you are good and, more importantly, can build a reputation for being good.

Superstar programmers (I would like to think I am closer to this category than the mediocre one) have a completely different mindset than normal people.

I think very logically for example, so I can understand computers very easily, and can pick up a new programming language in about a week of study.

To a superstar programming is like art, they are creating something 'beautiful' (for want of a better word) so throw themselves into it like their life depended on it.

If your friend thinks about his coding as 'art' and loves doing it, then he will make it big.

But if he just 'doesn't mind programming -too much-' and think its a good way to earn an easy buck then he will find himself struggling.

Good luck to him either way.

[Dimitry]

Including everything that others have already stated about your friend's ability to be a hard worker who gets results, it's really hard to tell what will actually happen to the market.

You're talking about the future here with some many unpredictable variables. What happens if tomorrow the price of oil skyrockets and airplane travel becomes to expensive. That might result in less companies outsourcing so more in land jobs would be available. Or maybe the market structure and technology will change that programming as we know it today won't exist. Who knows.

Just try to ask if your friend even likes it. Maybe have him take a mixed IT/Business (think Management of Information Systems, IT Management etc). That's a blend of tech with business. Great knowledge to have because you can venture any way you want afterwards. Unless there's a recession/depression in which case most people are having problems finding jobs.

[mej023]

This makes me smile.

Programming is one of those things that you love or not. You either get it or you don't.

How does your friend even know if he likes it?

I have met people who thought being a programmer would be a good career move and then found that they hated it.

[Dimitry]

Originally Posted by mej023

This makes me smile.

Programming is one of those things that you love or not. You either get it or you don't.

How does your friend even know if he likes it?

I have met people who thought being a programmer would be a good career move and then found that they hated it.

*waves*. Prime example here!

Loved, and worked with computers in high school. Even did some minor programming and have one contract to develop a website. Went into Computer Science and switched after a year to IT Management because I found out that I also like to understand the business implications of the systems I'm building and pure programming learnt in Comp Sci wasn't teaching me that.

[aabukar]

Originally Posted by mej023

Programming is one of those things that you love or not. You either get it or you don't.

100% correct

programming means working hours and hours and hours to figure out why a message does not appear where it is supposed to or finding out why 1 +1 != 2 while you are sure you it should
programming means reading thousands of lines written by someone else to figure out where is the bug and to solve it

you need to be creative to find workarounds when needed...
you need to be aptient to set these long hours talking to yourself and to your pc

you will not be able to do so if you dont like it ... because pc will be your best friend and programming is your hobby ....

ask your friend if that is how he feels then go ahead


If you dont like programming you will never be able

[Mike_T]

I've been in IT consulting for 15 years, but most of it has not been programming. As someone in the field though, I can give you my two cents.

If your friend is looking at IT because he thinks it's a particularly lucrative field, I'd question that. A lot of people went into IT during the dot com boom with $$ in their eyes, and were disappointed when the market got tougher.

If he's got a strong interest in programming, then I'd say the outlook with respect to outsourcing really depends on what type of work he does within that field. In large companies there certainly is a trend towards outsourcing development, but they're not really eliminating their programming staff completely. In smaller companies I don't think they're as likely to go with outsourcing, because they aren't really equipped to manage the challenges it brings, and the economies of scale aren't really there the way they might be for a really large project.

The determining factor I think is whether he wants to be a well rounded developer, or more focused on turning out code based on someone else's specifications. To define my terms, a well rounded developer is someone who is going to analyze their customer's requirements, design the program, code the program, perform some or all of the testing, and some or all of the delployment and support. I contrast this with a more narrowly defined programmer role, who would receive a detailed design specification and turn it into code.

For a talented, well rounded developer, I don't see outsourcing as that big of a threat. Most of the value the developer brings is through the interaction, iterative design, and shared understanding with the customer, and that's hard to duplicate overseas. The coding itself, while it might make up a significant percentage of their time, is only one part of the job.

For someone who just codes to a specification, that's where outsourcing is a threat. You can manage projects either way, so a given company might be cutting jobs if they're going the outsourcing route, but to be successful they're going to have to keep or even increase the internal staff who does the requirements analysis and design work (the part that's hard to handle with lots of communication barriers), so that you can have a clean handoff to the outsourced programmers.

A lot of companies, I'd even venture to say most, are not that disciplined in how they develop software. Requirements change as a project progresses, and there is a lot of back and forth with design and interface prototypes. Requiring every change and elaboration to be documented is a real drain on the project. That's one reason the "agile" development methods are catching on, where you quick and iterative development cycles, and I think the agile mindset is really not very compatible with overseas outsourcing.

I guess the bottom line is that there will probably be more outsourcing in the future, so if you look at it from a macro perspective, sure there may be less (or more slowly growing) jobs for programmers in total, and the remaining jobs may have more competition. But if you're able to compete--if you're good and you develop good capabilities in the skills I described for the well rounded developer, I think you'll do fine.

I helped launch and manage the IT function for a web-based software startup from 2004-2006. There was a prototype of the application built before we really started up, and the firm that built it outsourced the development to a firm in India. Although the prototype looked nice in demos, the code was absolutely horrible, and the firm that designed it had no clue about the true customer needs. We had to basically rewrite all of it to make it into a commercial quality product that served the market. We didn't outsource the programming--we hired local developers and built a good in house ability to turn rapidly changing customer requirements into solid code that met their needs. I don't think outsourcing could have worked for our company, when priorities and requirements are changing frequently and you need to get the next release out the door in the next few weeks. They're still looking to hire more good developers.

[JohnPlace]

I spent the last 7 years working for a company with a massive IT deparment of 8,000 people. My company went through a three-part progression with regard to outsourcing.

Part 1: Outsourcing was the new buzzword, the hot meeting topic. Managers believed it was the silver bullet. We started replacing many of our domestic externals with off-shore externals.

Part 2: Outsourcing turned out to not be a silver bullet. This makes sense because there is no silver bullet. We had security problems, time-zone problems, hardware problems, communication problems, culture-related misunderstandings, and confidentiality concerns. Management freaked out and started pulling our work back home.

Part 3: We still use outsourcing, but more selectively. Some of our very best programmers live in India. Those guys will be with us for a long time. But we're taking a more cautious approach now.

If you think about it, this is the same 3-part process that happens with every new flavor-of-the-month in IT, especially in a heavily matrixed organization.


I think of greater concern than outsourcing is the growing impetus to turn coding into commodity work. When I started using WSAD for the first time, I was surprised at how IBM kept pushing all the automatic code generation features. Of course, people have been saying that developers would be replaced by code generators for years now, and it hasn't happened yet. Still, I see a growing trend toward model driven code generation. I guess we'll see.

[Brutha]

Still, I see a growing trend toward model driven code generation.

Still someone has to make those models. With code getting cheaper the demand of code will also increase.
I think the day comes where my toaster runs some kind of software. And someone had to programm it.

[JohnPlace]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Still someone has to make those models. With code getting cheaper the demand of code will also increase.
I think the day comes where my toaster runs some kind of software. And someone had to programm it.

Oh, I agree with you!

Like I said, they've been saying that code-gen would replace us for years, and it hasn't happened yet. There are two complications with model driven development. The first is that someone actually has to take the time to thoroughly model the application, and the second is that most models require customization.

It's very powerful (and does reduce the number of required human resources) when it works optimally, but I agree that we developers will have jobs for a long time, if we want them.

[Dimitry]

Take a look at this article, might give another picture: Technology News: Developer: As the Software World Turns, Part 1: Engineers In, Programmers Out