The Hacker Way: How I taught my nephew to program

Re:The Hacker Way: How I taught my nephew to program by dmartinez on Thursday August 06, 2020 @08:16AM (#24070241)

Something I've been thinking about is what happens once the market for software developers becomes saturated. I think the answer is something along the lines of blending traditionally off-line skills (illustration, etc), domain knowledge, and software together. The ability to leverage the scale of the internet is still a form of tech-thinking, even if the software engineering part is not the main focus.

I think software alone has relatively fewer problems left to solve compared to solutions that require multi-domain thinking. So for the situation you've outlined, I think there is tremendous value in blending healthcare and software, or art and software. There are people who have found a niche in blending these ideas together [0], and I think the trend will continue.

So you shouldn't despair that your kids are not interested in "tech" now. It could be that once they are comfortable with their first domain choice, they will recognize the value in tech-enabled growth. You can then be there to help them realize that value by introducing system and algorithmic thinking, as well as tooling like vi or emacs.

[0] https://maggieappleton.com/

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Re:The Hacker Way: How I taught my nephew to program by ido on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:05AM (#24071550)

    what happens once the market
    for software developers 
    becomes saturated.

This was being predicted for as long as I can remember (at least since the 90s).

And yet despite short term fluctuations there has only been more and more demand of programmers for decades now.

There has also not seem to have ever been saturation for electrical engineers despite this being a much older profession.

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