Well even if all programming will be done for the web, at least you’ll need at least one programmer who makes the OS and the browser 
ZIG, you build the car, let me develop the GPS. I don’t have to know how the car works to do that. And you have no idea how to build a GPS (or web app respectively).
You are not smarter than web developers just because you know stuff from YOUR part of the programming world.
“Learning all of that is great, but it sounds like something you’d learn from a computer science course. Many web developers feel paying such a high cost of education for things they won’t be using are a waste of both time and money. It’s pretty clear that most believe CS is out of the loop with today’s web and thus they feel they won’t benefit from it. If you thought you wouldn’t benefit from it you wouldn’t pay for it either.”
Why do you have to take a CS course to learn it? The fact of the matter is that most so-called web developers or “web guys” don’t learn it all, then they work on a site that gets traffic that requires such such knowledge but they still use the naive approaches they used when building a site that gets 1000 uniques/day. CS and software engineering applies to the web, desktop, embedded system, and on the moon. It is all software, and algorithms, data structures, and patterns have emerged from professionals working in industry and academia over the years have have been proven to be useful.
downright kludgy
Understatement of the millenium. It’s a wonder any web apps appear to any decent standard at all.
This seems to be an endless argument. We have our respective fields. Even if I try to explain, figure you won’t get it! So, I am gonna give you the SOIL so that you can PLANT something on it!
Wow. People are QUITE angry about this. Great job at getting attention/activity on this article, Jeff 
“They don’t understand compilers, concurrency, 3D or class inheritance. They haven’t got a clue why I’d use an interface or an abstract class. They don’t understand: virtual methods, pointers, references, garbage collection, finalizers, pass-by-reference vs. pass-by-value, virtual C++ destructors, or the differences between C# structs and classes. They also know nothing about process. Waterfall? Spiral? Agile? Forget it. They’ve never seen a requirements document, they’ve never written a design document, they’ve never drawn a UML diagram, and they haven’t even heard of a sequence diagram.”
Learning all of that is great, but it sounds like something you’d learn from a computer science course. Many web developers feel paying such a high cost of education for things they won’t be using are a waste of both time and money. It’s pretty clear that most believe CS is out of the loop with today’s web and thus they feel they won’t benefit from it. If you thought you wouldn’t benefit from it you wouldn’t pay for it either.
The desktop and web are two different mediums. Like a photoshop canvas and a piece of paper are two different mediums. A good artist can draw well on both mediums. The medium does not craft itself, if code is bad it’s because someone lacked knowledge and this can be done on desktop apps as well. The technologies that build web apps solve problems and at the end of the day that is what counts, whether it be HTML, CSS, or PHP. I know a MS programmer that writes her website in PHP, which alone devalues your degradation of web programmers in totality. A lack of understanding can be a bad thing, but why not do a good thing and teach those who lack said “necessary” knowledge instead of bitching about it? Just because someone lacks understanding and branding them an idiot for it is old and played out, quite frankly I’m sick of just branding them. I can’t say you’re much better if you don’t even reach out and teach the important aspects that they are lacking and instead belittle them.
Anyway, the medium is just a medium and nothing else. Stacks of technologies solve problems. Anyone who wants to write good code will write good code because they’ll research and study best practices. Where there are bad incidents, there are good ones and nothing is ever ‘all.’
“I don’t try to understand Atwood’s law, I merely enforce Atwood’s law.”
That’s what I got out of this blog post.
-Jer
Michael Braude is very right to call you guys less smarter. You are barking on and on for web because that’s all you have done so far. You DON’T need to consider the whole computer when you build a site. All you care about the disk space, memory, processor, bandwidth… You upgrade them but you don’t code considering them [Not that way Computer Systems do]. How the hell you even compare? Are you stupid or you are just stupid?
At least tell me you know how to use A* algorithm properly. Oh wait, No, you DON’T!
Jeff…this article IS tongue-in-cheek, right ? 'cause otherwise it may be necessary to lay down a smack with Lopez’s Corollary:
“The number of defects detected in relation to the amount of javascript code driving a pages behavior, will be described as an Atwood per incidence of said defect”.
So now you can hope that as you predict that all apps will be written in javascript, as you expect that all will work as expected, will lead to NO Atwoods."
Kind of has a nice ring to it.
I did some web programming a few years back and it was a pain to have to make it acceptable for every possible browser, which is now plenty more browsers+versions. Also spent more time on layout than I want to, being a data and logic girl. Creating components for others to call is fine and I’m ok with that work, I just don’t want to have to work so hard on look and feel (since I stink at that kind of thing anyway). ASP wasn’t any particular hardship since I have been a VB-er for years.
I work for a non-profit and it’s a lot quicker for me to go the client-server route than deal with the different browsers, layouts, editions of IIS, and I can control who can run the thing by either distributing or not distributing, which is another layer of security on top of what is already in the database, etc., but the “if you don’t have it you can’t run it” is something that non-profit people understand.
I would never enter into an argument about what takes intelligence and what doesn’t because it really all depends on the project you’re working on. Simple people can do simple things in a very long and successful career. Thinkers can do the extraordinary. aren’t we all a bit of both, having cranked out the barely-worth-my-time stuff and the personal masterpieces?
I think it is great that the web has opened a door for the average guy to start coding. Of course with all these average guys out there building websites, we are going to see alot of very average, if not bad websites. But eventually the cream will rise to the top. I am just an average guy who fell into programming, self taught and sloppy, but I am having a blast.
I can’t beleive they pay me to do this. I am taking college courses so I can become a professional, I have a long way to go. But I don’t ever want to have the attitude expressed in that blog. I want to encourage others into the world of software development. Not make them think we are a bunch of elitist geeks.
i would join Michael Braude’s team in a ny second!
jeff, your comment and attitude here: “Let’s put aside, for the moment, the absurd argument that web development is not challenging, and that it attracts sub-par software developers. Even if that was true, it’s irrelevant.”
is a bit worrisome – you are pretty dismissive about the competence of web “developers” vs. the more embedded “software engineers”…
you are pretty quick to dump your “date” which got you to this technology “milestone”… in order to dumbdown the programming technologies that are used today, a lot of real software engineering needs to take place “under the hood” … the areas where web developers dare to even explore…
i don’t want to get into a language or technology flame/war here, but i am wondering what languages and tecnologies are used on the java and .net virtual machines… does anyone know?
john quest, michael braude, … we are forming a pretty good team here…
Oh guys! The real questions are: How can BUSINESS MAN plan and design online business application? How can manage Business Process on the net?
How can meet business, technology and human aspect? We are working on it.
Seriously, I’ll come right out and say it and won’t be shy. Is Michael Braude a complete idiot? If anything web programming is harder, why?
Because duh stupid, you DO have to architect. It’s not all .aspx, code-behind, .ashx, etc. Unless you’re a really shitty company who has no layers (Data Layer, Business layer, service layer yada yada) and you’re only calling datasets sure, then that’s true.
But if you’re truly programming, wtf is he talking about. No Interfaces vs. Abstract classes? No true OOP? That has got to be the most naive stupid statement I’ve ever read.
Not just do you have to architect (if you’re a lead or software engineer doing more than just the top layer) you have to worry about much much more than desktop programming. Shit, just configuration, managing so many subtleties in the Presentation Layer ON TOP OF your entire architecture is a LOT.
Seriously is this guy taken for real? I think he’s a joke. I just worked on a 5 person team and we had a shitload of Interfaces, abstract classes, patterns for a WEB PORTAL.
you idiot.
Hello everyone, great discussion here.
I’m a true soul engineer, which love getting my hands into some C, C++ and other, what some may call “true programming languages”, but let’s face it: engineers exist to design and implement the bid of the business markets, and end users of course.
Nowadays, the “geek” developer is being replaced by the “Business Developer” in some enterprise critical areas. This Business developer, or “The business MAN” refereed by Egon, doesn’t need to know about C pointers, pass by reference vs pass by value, classes, inheritance, polymorphism, etc, they just need to understand very well the business and implement the applications required by the business. And that’s where Enterprise Rich Web Applications are gaining more ground.
“All programming is web programming”? Not a chance, and I believe it will never be that way. But some industries and business are focusing more in easily develop their applications to reach more users, and less costs, and Web Applications can do so much more easily.
Perhaps the joy and satisfaction of programming complex architectures, what a true craftsmen would do, won’t be found easily with Web Programming, and maybe that’s part of the question raised in this discussion.
But the reality is other, has it has been said before, the business demands, the engineer provides, with the least of the costs. That’s why you’re seeing a bunch of Web Development platforms been released in the last years, to speed the programming of the web applications.
I myself been working with an Agile Platform for developing and manage Enterprise Rich Web Applications, using Agile Web Development Methodologies for the past 4 years, and I can see in first hand the market demand for faster solutions development to keep the pace of an even faster business model changes.
And regarding the “knowledge level” of these new web developers, well, you can find that any where were there’s application development, either it’s web or not.
To those craftsmen out there, don’t despair because the industry and markets will still require or artist hands and minds to many non-web solutions.
Cheers
Miguel Joao
so a typical .com has no Interfaces, no abstract classes, no structs, no nothing? differences between C# structs and classes?
If Microsoft hires someone as stupid as this, then I feel very sorry for MS.
This guy sounds like he just started his career with such wrong statements. He sounds very inexperienced.
This blog will create a thermonuclear explosions
and all developers will witness the boson particle vaporizing all web apps! Lol
I agree with @Omar Al Kababji && @Skizz.
no worries. is it the chicken or the egg ? 
It makes perfect sense to write applications in javascript, since (if it used correctly and intelligently) is one of the most powerful programming languages available.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Douglas Crockford is Jesus.