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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: History and the lack thereof...
Message-ID: <346@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jun-86 18:24:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.346
Posted: Fri Jun 27 18:24:52 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jun-86 08:23:42 EDT
Reply-To: hplabs!topaz!caip!harvard!rclex!cdx39!jc
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 39
Approved: taylor@hplabs

o be known as the first 
American president to lose a war.  It's not too surprising that a politician 
would say this; what dismayed me was that I never heard ANYONE in the media 
mention 1814, and I listen to news radio (both commercial and NPR) a lot.  
Or perhaps none of them consider having Washington occupied, the Capitol 
burned, and the government "suing for peace" as constituting "losing a war"?

(There's also the reference to "Western Civilization", as if the rest of the 
world weren't important, but let's not go into that here. :-)

I've always sorta liked the old warning about a society that honors shoddiness 
in philosophy because philosophy is a lofty occupation, while deprecating 
quality workmanship in plumbing because plumbing is a lowly occupation; in 
such a society neither the theories nor the pipes will hold water.

Similarly, I think we should give honor and respect wherever we find quality 
workmanship, whether it be in a statesman who promotes world peace and 
well-being, or in a programmer who writes a finely-tuned and bug-free 
subroutine.  We badly need both, and it isn't really necessary that either 
understand the other's occupation.  It is important that we reward them
both, else we lose them both.  

Consider that in the recent months, I have been involved in (OK, I admit it, 
I instigated some of) several discussions around the fact that, at an salary 
level of around $50K, I and a lot of my friends are at about the top that we 
can ever expect to earn as hackers (or programmers or software engineers or 
...); this isn't enough to buy a house in the Boston or Silicon Valley areas.  
We are in fact a new class of landless proletariat, in the words of a 
famous 18-th century writer.

There are two aspects to this that are frightening.  One is that, to make 
more money, we will have to get out of the productive portion of our field, 
and go into management or marketing, where the rewards are greater.  We are 
thus pressuring our technically-competent people to stop being productive.

Another important aspect is that there is no observable relationship between 
a programmer's competence and income.  I know many incompetents that are 
earning as much as I am; I know many real experts that are making less.  
There is no sign of any industry pressure to change this.