Good vs Vanilla Programmer

Recently, I came across a post, that detailed about how a good progammers acquire skills. How if one goes thru the rigors of coding and understanding the simple routines ( like string reversal) can teach you much, because you build such routines using the basic functions provided by the language.


I agree for becoming a good programmer, one should have undergone the rigors you have mentioned. This gives you the understanding of how, why and what is happening.

But, I believe the market has moved to a point where anybody who can drag and drop controls over a form is calling himself/herself a programmer. Is the use of IDE's made life easier ? Yes, to a point they have taken out of the pain out of the job. When you meet these people and they are not able to comprehend or appreciate the code or the design, people tend to get upset.

The analogy to the same is the car making. Robots dish out cars in the assembly line. All looking same and doing the same function. But that does not mean, the market for custom cars or niche cars is over. The car makers making custom cars/niche cars command a premium for thier work. So, over the time, the tools(software) will become more intelligent to the point that they can generate the code themselves. All kind of applications that offer no more intelligence then what can be programmer will write2, will be rolled out by the tools. The market for the drag and drop programmers will vanish. But the market for custom, hand written software will still exist. The real programmers will command a premium and they will be able to carve out a niche for themselves.

How long the intelligent tools will take to appear? My guess, once the cost of the programmers goes beyond a certain level, the cost of creating such tools will become justified. Just like the oil vs the bio fuels.

munish 

Hugs are good for women's hearts!

Read this news article...
Hugs are good for women's hearts!
Reading this, I feel like giving a hug to my girl...

Men and their high command

This one is real good post. Check out

Rashmi gets it right once again. She has a post about how Men are utlimately rules by a highly bludging force called High Command.

God does Exist!

SOmething happened this week, which reinforced my belief that God does exist. This happened on Monday. I have been going to Shiva temple every monday since last 9-10 years. This monday morning, something happened which shok my core. Till this monday, I use to go to the temple, take off my shoes and visit the temple. But this day, something overtook me and I decided that I will pray from outside only and not visit the temple inside. Once, I prayed from outside, I went back to my vehicle, suddenly the key will not turn on the iginition. Nothing wrong with the key. Never gave me any problem till date but suddenly the key will not turn on the iginition. The key works just fine when opening the door. I tried for almost for 10 minutes. Then it suddenly dawned on me, something must be wrong. So I went back to the temple, took off my shoes, went inside and prayed. Came back and now when I try, the key switches on the iginition on the second try. I stand there wondering about the all power force out there who is controlling us. This incident re-inforced my faith in the existence of the all powerful force that we call GOD.