Comments on: Declining skills in developers http://www.monkeyatlarge.com/archives/2005/12/22/declining-skills-in-developers/ Random musings on life, technology and other miscellany. Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:08:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Brian Goodman http://www.monkeyatlarge.com/archives/2005/12/22/declining-skills-in-developers/comment-page-1/#comment-33 Brian Goodman Sat, 24 Dec 2005 19:47:04 +0000 http://www.monkeyatlarge.com/?p=44#comment-33 I agree, complexity is not a virtue, unless your contribution in the workplace is derived by the confusion you impart. However, simplicity has its perils as well see overly simplified chart above. I heard a few years ago that the complexity of J2EE application development would grow increasingly complex, but I do not really understand what that means. If it is true, why is it specific to J2EE, why not all application development? I can imagine someone purporting that all applications increase in complexity over time, but at the end of the day, specifically for J2EE, it is Java, right? Isn’t the complexity held in the hands of the architects and software engineers building these solutions? I also think it is interesting that the average developer skill level drops at the same rate as it increased from 1999-2002. As far as I can tell the chart is saying is that there will be a huge gap between the people who are skilled (i.e. were part of the 2002 boom and continue to be talented developers) and the less skilled average folk. I mean, literally, the bottom half of the application development community falls below the average point on that line, but the highly skilled would continue level and at worse slightly degrade as decay sets in and younger piranha move in. Does that mean the highly skilled folks can look forward to getting paid more? On another note, if skill level drops, the North American based development community has no incentive to partake, it is the perfect level of work to be outsourced to the technically competent but developing nations (i.e. India, China, Vietnam, Brazil). I do not see how the technologies at hand (IDEs, languages, frameworks etc) have any bearing on the general need for talented highly skilled architects and developers. Maybe the point is that the developer world is being flooded with less skilled, less aspiring individuals?! Would anyone argue against the idea that a developer that started with more complicated language is better positioned and often smarter about other simpler languages? I would take a Java coder turned Ruby expert over a Ruby only guru any day. I agree, complexity is not a virtue, unless your contribution in the workplace is derived by the confusion you impart. However, simplicity has its perils as well see overly simplified chart above. I heard a few years ago that the complexity of J2EE application development would grow increasingly complex, but I do not really understand what that means. If it is true, why is it specific to J2EE, why not all application development? I can imagine someone purporting that all applications increase in complexity over time, but at the end of the day, specifically for J2EE, it is Java, right? Isn’t the complexity held in the hands of the architects and software engineers building these solutions?

I also think it is interesting that the average developer skill level drops at the same rate as it increased from 1999-2002. As far as I can tell the chart is saying is that there will be a huge gap between the people who are skilled (i.e. were part of the 2002 boom and continue to be talented developers) and the less skilled average folk. I mean, literally, the bottom half of the application development community falls below the average point on that line, but the highly skilled would continue level and at worse slightly degrade as decay sets in and younger piranha move in. Does that mean the highly skilled folks can look forward to getting paid more? On another note, if skill level drops, the North American based development community has no incentive to partake, it is the perfect level of work to be outsourced to the technically competent but developing nations (i.e. India, China, Vietnam, Brazil).

I do not see how the technologies at hand (IDEs, languages, frameworks etc) have any bearing on the general need for talented highly skilled architects and developers. Maybe the point is that the developer world is being flooded with less skilled, less aspiring individuals?! Would anyone argue against the idea that a developer that started with more complicated language is better positioned and often smarter about other simpler languages? I would take a Java coder turned Ruby expert over a Ruby only guru any day.

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