What happened to hard workers?

I’ve been in the tech industry for a few decades and I have seen the trends of “the server should do the work” to “leverage the client to make the server cost cheaper” to “put it in the cloud and scale when needed”. I have coded in C, C++, ADA, ABAP, C#, JavaScript/Node.js, and even 6502 Assembly. I have worked with React.JS, jQuery, HTML, CSS, ASP.Net, Classic ASP, PHP and a little Ruby. Ok, credential dumping over, I did that so you know I have been exposed to a lot of different stuff and not just speaking from a drag-drop/copy/paste coding mentality.

What happened to passionate people who realize it takes hard work to be successful?

I have met several people in the past year alone that believe that success is easy and they just have to post the right video, get the right hashtag, and copy some magic code from github and change the look of it and they are the next big thing. When I ask new people to write code without scaffolding, without copying from 3 other websites, but actually write their own code, they ask me why? They ask, why would I want to make it so hard? I believe that the effort put in at that level makes it easier to debug the stuff at the next level.

Not everyone is smart enough to be a developer. Not everyone is talented enough to be on Broadway. It takes much more than just talent. It takes persistence and hard work. When I have been asked to do something, I investigate. I work at it. I figure things out. I problem solve. I ask for help. I deliver the best possible work as fast as I can.

I continue to watch a level of arrogance of new developers who can run a couple of “rails generate scaffold” commands and claim to be an expert developer. They don’t know what that magic does, but it works and that is good enough. They leverage hundreds of thousands lines of code in modules that they have NO IDEA on how they actually work or what is even in them.

I tell people this and the response is often something, “well, you drive a car, but you don’t know how the fuel-injection system works”. That is true, but I also don’t claim to be a mechanic. If you know me, I will never claim that.

I am getting saddened by the amount of developers in the world that don’t know what they don’t know. It is further proof of the Dunning-Kruger effect that is diluting the developer pool.

I thought it was just in my industry and it gave me hope that it is just a rarity, but it is prevalent in all areas of society. If I am on YouTube with the right video, I’ll go viral and then be on Ellen and then have a career of being famous.

BEING FAMOUS IS NOT A CAREER

Find something you believe in. Help other’s succeed in improving the world. Produce something that takes effort. The effort you put into something will reward you so much more than how fast you can get famous by the right picture, right place, right time scenario.

I’m irritated by the lack of work ethic in America and how people are so incompetent in so many areas. Customer service, doctors, lawyers, dentists, vets, grocery clerks, fast-food employees, postal workers. The most consistent job that I have seen in the past 4 years is our sanitation department. They do a great job consistently every week. I don’t care what job you have, or don’t have, but take pride in things you do, lead by example. Improve others by showing them the best way to do something.

Go out there and do something great. Make something great. Respect yourself enough to take pride in whatever you do.