alt Hacker NewsThis was written at a time were Software Engineering (not Developers) was valued more.
I had my first programming job around this time, and there wasn't scrum and all that crap. I was a Jr engineer, still in the last semesters of univ. And yet, we were treated like you read in the post: We were handed a feature and asked to do it. First estimate it , then ask the Design guys for UI and finally start coding it.
Now Software dev feels like sweatshops, business people think we are sewing jeans. And Software Developers became code monkeys.
Its quite sad.
I've been in the industry since before this article was written. Notice I said most companies. Back when programmers were valued more, we still didn't always get much say in schedules. Certainly more than we do now. Your term "sweatshop" is on the mark, too. Since the advent of "open plan" offices, we even look like rows of tailors sitting at sewing machines stitching together jeans.