Rise & resurrection of the American programmer
by Edward Yourdon · first published 1996
7mentions
2recommended by
7HN commenters
2012–2025first – last mentioned
29% recommend71% neutral
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…Invent Modern Computing - https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped-Computi... Decline and Fall of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer-Yourdon-1... Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&key... Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date - https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X-Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=s...…
on “Ask HN: Material on early computing history and innovation?” ↗He wrote a sequel The Rise and Resurrection Of The American Programmer not that long after. Its worth checking out if you can find a copy. A real snapshot of history and insight into the culture of the time.
on “The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen” ↗…that the reason is the lack of resources. I didn't realize that we were talking about the decline and fall of the Python world. I remember reading "Decline and Fall of the American Programmer." And "Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer." It's a special kind of consultant who can get paid both coming and going. Python is in decline? How do you reckon that? In my work, Python is the de factor high-level language for chemical informatics,…
on “I Am Worried About The Future Of Python” ↗…software talent has been predicted for literally decades. In 1992, Ed Yourdon published “Decline and Fall of the American Programmer,” only to reverse himself four years later with the publication of “Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer.” If anything, the rate at which capable software professionals can create value has dramatically increased over time. Software is not a zero sum game, cumulative advances make it possible to solve an…
on “Electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems” ↗…about this very topic, one called "The decline and fall of the American Programmer", which was essentially making your argument, that American quality going down meant we would get eclipsed, and "The Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer", written by the same author, saying "oops, I was wrong", because "good enough" is the winning strategy, not quality at all costs. Note that at the time of those writings, the 'sloppy' guys were Microsoft,…
on “The C10M problem” ↗And when it didn't happen he wrote "Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_and_Resurrection_of_the_A... . > In the original, written at the beginning of the 1990s, Yourdon warned American programmers that their business was not sustainable…
on “Decline and Fall of the American Programmer (1993)” ↗…has been a thing for decades. Seriously, Yourdon wrote a doom-and-gloom book about it in the 90s. It was called “Decline and Fall of the American Programmer,” published 1992. Then in 1996, he wrote “Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer.” The software industry is extremely fad-driven. During the pandemic, the fad was to hire programmers. That created a lot of busywork and coordination jobs that didn’t contribute to the bottom line.…
on “Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?” ↗