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Re:Ask HN: What's the worst advice you've ever received? by genter on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @10:37AM (#41046416)
Don't become a computer programmer, the industry is being outsourced to India.

So I became a plumber instead. Don't have to worry about someone from India flying here to crawl under a house to snake out a line.

Re:Ask HN: What's the worst advice you've ever received? by onemoresoop on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @10:43AM (#41046497)
Was this a bad advice though? Are you being paid enough for your work? Does it work out for you?
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst advice you've ever received? by francisofascii on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @11:36AM (#41047128)
Well, maybe the advise was right, but 20 years too early.
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst advice you've ever received? by thro1 on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @01:03PM (#41048357)
> Don't become a computer programmer

I got such GOOD advise from my mother 40 years ago, she took me even to place where she worked to show how boring it is. It was pure amber magic in mysterious world of murmuring machines. If I had listened to her, I would have time just for the music, for sure.

Re:Ask HN: What's the worst advice you've ever received? by abraae on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @12:25PM (#41047850)
The dad of one of my son's friends told me this, and he was a computer programmer himself (as am I). "Don't get your kid into programming, it will all be outsourced to India".

I didn't give my kids any such prescriptive advice, and he got into game dev which has always been his passion and outsourcing hasn't come for his job yet.

The modern day equivalent would be "don't get your kid into programming, it will all be done by AI soon".

Re:Ask HN: What's the worst advice you've ever received? by solardev on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @08:21PM (#41052439)
Doesn't sound THAT different than my programming job. It's pipes full of shit either way...
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst advice you've ever received? by eureka-belief on Thursday July 25, 2024 @01:09PM (#41070979)
India has a boom in outsourcing right but it’s going to get squeezed especially hard from AI. I work with Indian web app developers from major Indian cities. In the last 10 years ive noticed that the technical ability of Indian devs has reach parity with dev in US or Europe. However, there’s still a huge gap when it comes to product design and communication chops because Indian dev teams were structured to be the coders as a service rather than product teams. The issue is that AI is on the cusp of being the coder as a service. If you want a job in software in the post AI era you basically need to be either cutting edge in some vertical or you need to basically be a product manager who also has the skills to manually debug the generated code.

But I 100% agree with your advice overall though. I tell people don’t be a coder unless you are the type of person who codes for fun.