Yes there is a decline in quality among software developers. And it’s super obvious as to why…

Think about the number of apps in the iOS and Android app stores. Each has over 2 million apps available. That is astonishing.

Now think back to the year 2,000. Only 20 years ago really the place you would go to buy software is a store like Staples or Best Buy. Software came in boxes. It came on CD’s.

Consider how many boxes you can put on one shelf. How many different software titles did Best Buy or Staples carry? Hundreds maybe?

Actually, it was probably less than that because you’d get a lot of variations of major software packages like Office, Quick Books, and TurboTax (especially in the spring). Otherwise, outside of computer games, there wasn’t a lot of variety.

Now, a couple decades later we’ve gone from hundreds of easily available software packages to millions of easily available software packages.

Two things happened - digital software distribution and billions of mobile phone computers creating a tsunami of demand for software.

That’s great, but that also means millions of relatively new programmers joining the field. Again, it’s not a bad thing but they really haven’t had much time to hone their craft and learn the hard lessons some of us have been learning since the 90’s.

In short, if there used to be like a few million programmers worldwide, and now there are 20–40 million programmers worldwide, that’s maybe a 10x jump in the number of programmers, but the percentage of “good” ones is going to decline until the new batch of programmers gets experience.

Overall this is a good thing for everyone involved. It just looks like a drop in skill level of the profession. It’s really more of a drop in average experience in the field because the field of coding is growing too fast.

Eventually, growth will slow and the average experience level will creep upwards again. Also, a lot of people will sort of fall out of love with programming and go do something else.

In a lot of ways, it’s useful to look at the current growth in coding as a kind of modern gold rush. The news talks about software jobs being the best paying, most in-demand jobs out there. So, everyone goes out to get their digital pickaxes, and start digging for gold (err I mean code).

Sadly, not everyone will strike it rich and many will go home disappointed. However, those who stick it out will find that it’s actually a lot more fun once everything shakes out and the focus goes back to building software, not just chasing the trendy career path.

Those of us who were around and building software before it was cool and part of the big STEM push will likely still be here when the noise dies down. Still making software, still enjoying it.

-Brian

P.S. I write about code and career issues elsewhere too…