Edit: I double-checked and there is now a 750hr requirement for foreign pilots. What a bummer as there used to be opportunities for 0hr's in Indo.
So what has happened is those who own and operate the planes have a glut on their hands. They can choose the cheapest pilots available, and keep them flying for cheap, simply because there are 10 more pilots out there willing to fly just to maintain their certs.
The same is happening in software development. There are too many cheap developers out there, willing to write software for beans, and thus producing crappy software is the norm. Nobody wants to pay to do software 'properly' these days - they want it down 'now'. Knowing that there are 100 developers out there willing to work for peanuts, for every developer who expects to get paid properly for doing the really hard work first, means that customers of software development have a glut on their hands too. Its a buyers market, simple.
Unlike the flight hours issue, software developers don't have to work to keep up their "license" - in fact, in my experience, most software developers would prefer to take months perfecting everything they build. The reason low-quality software gets shipped is either:
- that's what's actually needed in the situation. This has been said on HN plenty of times before in the context of everything from software to house building, but if you know what you build is going to be used for a limited period of time, and then the requirements are going to either change or be better understood and you're going to have to change what you've built, why spend months or years building it perfectly the first time? The core algorithm behind Google's search, or Facebook's timeline are well-crafted, beautiful, pragmatic examples of software excellence [at least from all externally available evidence] but they didn't become so by being shipped as perfect first time - PageRank, although lauded, is almost comically simplistic in comparison with the problem space that Google addresses now.
- the client can't tell the difference. In a world where everything is an app, clients are becoming less and less technical. When all computers could do was handle spreadsheets and crunch numbers, anyone who wanted software built was a technologist, or a scientist, or an economist. Now every field needs software, so people from every walk of life are software clients, and the level of ability to differentiate between good (maintainable, extensible, reliable) and bad software that you can reasonable expect from them has plummeted.
Meta: is there a rule that says how many responses a HN post can get before it descends into a discussion about software development?
Nonsense. There is a huge shortage of devs and it's only going to get worse, software is taking over the world.
* did not say who's paying for the training
* number of hours required for ATP is less than 1,500 for certain structured training programs
* there definitely is and will be a shortage of ATPs who are willing to be paid at regional rates of $18k-$25k under the new knee-jerk regulations
* other airlines are already offering school loan "forgiveness" for new hires
Would experienced developers have similar objections, if their companies proposed essentially running their own code academies?
It might indeed lower pay for the people who have the most experience, but probably not by much. It's hard to believe that it will be a net negative for the company or its customers.
