What happens to tech workers when their skills become obsolete?

Flash was one of the first tools I ever started programming for. Today I work in AI.<p>This article is a thinly veiled advertisement for bootcamps, spouting this nonsense:<p><i>The “learning-by-doing” approach in the Flash workers’ scenario highlights the value of coding schools and boot camps designed to teach students in-demand skills in as little as eight weeks. And whereas traditional educational environments tend to view their curriculum as having an end date (generally aligned with their students’ graduation), Lambda School co-founder Austen Allred envisions students coming back to his coding school every eight years or so to learn new skills.</i><p>No. What will give you longevity is a degree in CS. Frameworks and technologies change, but CS concepts stay consistent.<p>If you have a good grounding in CS, you have longevity. Couple that with a good math background, and then you have even more possibilities.<p>Bootcamps are rubbish in the long term. They try to lure you in with quick results from little time investment by teaching you how to hack with the hip framework of the week.<p>I have been there, done that, having gone to a polytechnic school where I learned Flash + web dev. I later made the switch to a university to study CS. One of the best decisions I ever made.<p>Don&#x27;t fall for the trap of instant gratification. Learn CS (and math) with a formal education, and you will thank yourself years from now.

I am self taught. Never went to a bootcamp or any schooling past High School. I fell into it starting out doing design work... What has it meant over the past couple decades? A lot of constant reading and learning. It never stops. I spend an average of 2 hours a day reading and learning, every day. Some I tuck away, some I explore. In the end, I&#x27;ve seen things shift multiple times.<p>When Flash was at it&#x27;s peak, I worked in eLearning writing simulations in flash, and supporting backends in VB&#x2F;VB.Net, some C# and ASP&#x2F;ASP.Net with SQL. From there, much more web&#x2F;js, and various other database backends (cassandra, mongo, redis, etc). Currently working with C# and Node.js in web apps still. Learning Rust.<p>In the end, progress doesn&#x27;t stop and wait for you. I tend to push for things faster than my workplaces want to adopt. In the end, it&#x27;s a struggle, and it doesn&#x27;t end. I will continue to do so until I die. I have absolutely no plans to retire.<p>Formal CS knowledge and education can help. Understanding and learning multiple platforms and languages helps more. If you want to settle in a rest on your laurels you won&#x27;t last forever. You&#x27;re best off understanding various ideas, workflows and patterns and how to recognize when one is a better fit. I have my preferences but am under no illusions that it will stay the same.<p>In the end, you have to commit to spending time each month&#x2F;year learning and working on new things. It&#x27;s the only way to keep up or get ahead.

&gt; Lambda School co-founder Austen Allred envisions students coming back to his coding school every eight years or so to learn new skills.<p>Eh... While that might be a good story to sell to his investors, most anybody worth their salt won&#x27;t need to go back to a &quot;bootcamp coding school&quot; every 8 years to learn a new language.

I&#x27;ll take the &quot;no true scotsman&quot;.<p>If you know how to program, that skill does not simply &quot;go obsolete&quot;.<p>The sort of &quot;skill&quot; that this article is talking about seems to be on par with like, the time I thought I knew how to write C as a teenager.<p>The local market going to shit, you developing medical issues, ageism, etc are all far more of a worry than &quot;oops, I&#x27;ve been doing QBASIC for 10 yea.....[NO CARRIER]&quot;

Flash is hardly the only tech to have become obsolete. Anyone who has been around this industry more than a decade can list off multiple technologies we don&#x27;t work with anymore.<p>The article was right that ongoing learning is the key. And while formal higher education is not for everyone, it does well at teaching people new techniques for learning and research. It isn&#x27;t the only path, especially in today&#x27;s reality. Its current failings are one reason that bootcamps exist...<p>But the idea that people are going to let their skills stagnate for 8 years, then return to a bootcamp to get the latest tech... Sorry, but that is simply absurd.

I was Flash developer from 2006-2010. Flash used ActionScript which is&#x2F;was based on the ECMAScript standard.<p>Since then, I develop primarily in Javascript, based on the ECMAScript standard.<p>Looking back, I don&#x27;t even think anyone could find the seam in my career.

If your skills become obsolete, you are not a tech worker. The only thing you should have accepted is that this is a fast moving industry and you should learn new technologies all the time. It&#x27;s just the nature of it.

Reminds me of the HiSOFT guy who used to build assemblers and compilers etc. for ZX Spectrum, back in 1980, and is still programming. I thought it was interesting to contrast that older work with his current line of work.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hisoft.co.uk&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hisoft.co.uk&#x2F;</a><p>&quot;HiSOFT has been in existence since 1980, founded by David Link and Dave Nutkins.<p>Originally we created software for the NASCOM 1 kit-built microcomputer but swiftly moved on to the ZX Spectrum, for which we created many esoteric items such as HiSOFT Devpac, HiSOFT C, HiSOFT BASIC, HiSOFT Pascal, UltraKit, Colt and much more.<p>After great success with the various incarnations of the Spectrum we ported our core titles (Devpac, C++ and Pascal) to many other Z80-based computers; Tatung Einstein, Newbrain, Memotech 512, Amstrad CPC&amp; PCW, Elan Enterprise and more!<p>&#x27;Twas a lot of fun and, undoubtedly, this list will stir as much excitement in some people as David&#x27;s favourite band since 1971, Genesis, do in him!<p>After the Z80 processor began to flag (shame!), we moved on to the 68000 which meant moving stuff over to the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. This, along with many hardware projects (such as Megalosound, Replay 16, Clarity 16, Squirrel SCSI, VideoMaster etc.) kept us going through the 90s until, reluctantly, we were forced to take the PC seriously.<p>Having forged a close relationship with MAXON Computer in Germany throughout the Amiga and Atari years, it was natural for us to take on the UK mantle for their flagship product, CINEMA 4D, an exciting and now rather important 3D product.<p>HiSOFT promoted, distributed and sold CINEMA 4D from 1997 until 2001, at which point David Link formed MAXON Computer Ltd and moved all things CINEMA 4D under the MAXON umbrella. David worked at MAXON UK as CEO until resigning for personal reasons in early 2003.<p>David Link continues to work at HiSOFT, as you will see from this website, while also trying to earn some money running the odd pub, café and seaside bar&#x2F;restaurant&#x2F;guest house!&quot;

Flash developers were fine since the tech market was still expanding rapidly, so they could learn new skills. What happens when the market is no longer growing, and workers become obsolete since their job is automated away?

What do you think Soylent is made of? Obsolete tech workers are a valuable source of protein! :P

I&#x27;m one of the authors of the original paper the article is based on. Here&#x27;s a link to the actual research: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.john-joseph-horton.com&#x2F;papers&#x2F;schumpeter.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.john-joseph-horton.com&#x2F;papers&#x2F;schumpeter.pdf</a>

I know one flash programmer who suddenly found herself without a job and in a tough situation. She had to completely learn a new skillset: HTML5 and javascript and the Front end web. It took a whole year for her to get up to speed and get a new job.<p>To prevent this from happening to me, I like to keep an eye on which technologies and programming languages are in highest demand, and which direction they&#x27;re moving in terms of job demand. So, I created this app that measure programming language demand based on job postings and analyzes on a city by city basis, cross-referencing with salaries posted: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;skilldime.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;skilldime.com&#x2F;</a>

Let&#x27;s see. Commodore Basic, Borland Pascal, Borland C++, MS Access, Delphi&#x2F;Oracle, Java&#x2F;MUMPS (don&#x27;t ask), C#&#x2F;.Net&#x2F;MSSQL, C#&#x2F;Net Core, Postgres. Those are the big chunks, Postgres being the newest. Across DOS, Windows, Solaris, HPUX and Linux. I get bored with stuff after a few years and just want to build systems with something different. I personally don&#x27;t go for the new hotness, I go for the hotness that has been around a while.<p>This was the same discussion around 2001. You had people who got into tech for the money and people who just like it. Many people who did it for the money didn&#x27;t survive past the dot bomb in 2001.

One thing I&#x27;ve asked just about everyone who I&#x27;ve managed lately is if they have a job or a career? Folks with jobs normally have few skills that they do 9 - 5 Mon - Fri. They don&#x27;t learn new skills, nor take on different work, they just come in do what&#x27;s asked then leave. These are the folks who have the most problems when there is a shift in tech and some stack become obsolete. Folks with a career know they have to stay current in their skills as well as anticipate what coming down the pipe in their field.<p>This is more of an observation than a criticism, btw.

The article itself is a bit weak and,as suggested by others,looks like an ad for a bootcamp. One of the reasons why tech workers had little to no problem to change the course while they started seeing that their skillset is dated is because it takes years to happen.For instance someone comes up with some new language called SnakeScript and it starts taking over the world,while at the same time reducing the number of Python jobs.Well those python devs would simply start learning SnakeScript and eventually completely transition to it.

Primer (2004) said it best:<p>You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? They take them out and shoot them.

When I was in college I lamented the fact that my school didn&#x27;t teach any &quot;modern&quot; technologies. Forget mobile or web; we even used Java Swing at one point (this was 2013!). Now I appreciate how much focus they placed on fundamentals instead of literally anything else. I couldn&#x27;t sign up for a class on iOS development like you can at some other institutions, but the things I learned were the things that won&#x27;t go away.

Two things:<p>Flash is not the first tech to die and it won&#x27;t be the last. Hell, I spent almost a decade of my career focused in Flash dev... and even when I was learning Flash and ActionScript there were 3 or 4 main platforms I used to work with that I had already abandoned. This is a constant.<p>Also. Even a long time after Flash was already on the way out, the demand for good Flash devs was absurd, made worse because it wasn&#x27;t a &quot;hot&quot; platform anymore. I remember we had a Flash project that needed to be maintained at the company I was working at and we needed to hire an external developer to do it. A lucky guy with the skills ended up being paid top dollar for a super easy job for years because it seemed no one else could do it. He was smart and kept his skills up to date, so he had no problem getting out of that scene later, but he surely used this &quot;outdated&quot; knowledge to his advantage. This also happens all the time.

Programming language knowledge <i>overlaps</i> with skills in that different languages affect the ways you think about problems, but knowledge, skills and intelligence are different things.<p>Only having knowledge is probably the hardest place to be, and those are the least desired staff (&quot;paper $CERTIFICATION&quot;), but if you have the others then knowledge is (arguably) the easiest thing to add.<p>If you have programming skills then you can extend from that base into front end, back end, etc. It&#x27;s going to be harder to jump to sales, because you don&#x27;t have the skills <i>or</i> the knowledge. Similarly if you&#x27;ve only ever done sales, or accounting, or cooking, or whatever then it&#x27;ll be harder to develop the skills and knowledge for programming.

This reinforces what I tell new devs: &quot;Don&#x27;t rest on your laurels&quot;. You have to always be learning new languages and technologies, developing new hobbies and interests. A friend of mine constantly trots out her masters degree; she works at a greenhouse and spends most of the time planting and weeding, she loves it and seems happy, but the fact that she earned the masters then stopped learning marketable skills scares me.

Started with web, was impressed by what flash could do and learned that. Worked in advertising and we really pushed Flash to the limit (FWA, etc). I mean actual Flash apps, close to the structure of today’s React apps. Software 3D back then, but Stage3D arrived too late. Adobe AIR had potential but Adobe didn’t push enough for this tech. Then I went back to web app development and today I work at an investment bank making trading apps.

In the context of this article choosing to focus on Flash..<p>Flash uses actionscript.. Which is ecmascript, which today we know as Javascript.<p>It&#x27;s not a stretch to imagine having Flash skills is one thing but building digital experiences in js, or js friendly&#x2F;inspired syntaxes likely has plenty of transferable skills.<p>In another way of looking at it, today&#x27;s js developers share some kinship with actions riot developers.

I learned new skills (or more accurately improved my minor skills to become major ones) and make more money now. I wouldn&#x27;t even say my skills became obsolete, I just needed to add other skills to them that I wasn&#x27;t eager to add - so I found another way. I&#x27;ve done that twice now - hopefully I can do it a third.

They spend too much time on HN.

I can&#x27;t understand which part of this article was upvoted. There is very little information in it and it doesn&#x27;t answer the question it is asking in the title.

Does anybody knows the artist who made the &quot;slamm&quot; phone poster on the article illustration ? or where can i find it ? I really like it.

What happens to tech workers when their skills become obsolete?<p>1. Learn new skills<p>2. Move into management<p>3. Leave the industry

I used to be quite good with 026 and 029. Probably not much demand now.

Try being a Java developer in a modern world.<p>In my non-Bay Area city, the majority of jobs are Node or RoR. Been struggling to find a job, especially since Java is synonymous with big data, which I have no experience in. No Spark? Sorry. No ML? Next! Ageism in tech is real.

Well, the easy answer is to go work for IT in a non-tech industry shop

They go work for a mid-sized insurance company in the midwest.

They become managers?

They evolve into birds and fly away outside

Nothing is impossible.

They learn new skill. Or suffer and switch political parties.

tldr: highly educated and well-off engineers are able to adapt.