I can agree with that, but he confuses the point by saying:
Programming as a profession is only moderately interesting. It can be a good job, but if you want to make about the same money and be happier, you could actually just go run a fast food joint. You are much better off using code as your secret weapon in another profession. People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect.
I don't agree that programmers are a dime a dozen in technology companies and that they get no respect. I also don't agree that a programmer would be happier running an fast food joint. Finally, I don't even agree that using programming in another profession as a "secret weapon" is necessarily going to be interesting. For instance, if medical records were all in a portable format, we could do all sorts of interesting analysis on them. However, there's about a decade of boring and painful 1970s style database programming needed before that's even possible.
Programming as a profession is only moderately interesting. It can be a good job, but if you want to make about the same money and be happier, you could actually just go run a fast food joint. You are much better off using code as your secret weapon in another profession. People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect.
I don't agree that programmers are a dime a dozen in technology companies and that they get no respect. I also don't agree that a programmer would be happier running an fast food joint. Finally, I don't even agree that using programming in another profession as a "secret weapon" is necessarily going to be interesting. For instance, if medical records were all in a portable format, we could do all sorts of interesting analysis on them. However, there's about a decade of boring and painful 1970s style database programming needed before that's even possible.