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Technology Sectors that are Hot or Heating Up Now?
unemployedCoder-in-retraining asks: "As a recently "leisured" programmer, I'm very interested in trying to turn misfortune into opportunity. This means using this career discontinuity to bone up on the latest-n-greatest in the hot sectors of the industry, to offer a better chance of a finding another great job. Of course, then one asks: 'What's Hot?' The Telco/Switching sector seems to have flatlined (Nortel and Lucent as examples). Cable and DSL access device and service development seems to be struggling. Wireless 3G networks seem to be having a hard time in North America. And yet, we here that a recovery is underway and that the technology sector as a whole is picking up again. So I ask you: 'Where?' In what sectors? What are the most important new technologies to learn to enhance employability? Somewhere, somebody is hiring or will be soon. What do I and other victims of the slowdown have to know to 'get back in the saddle' in the near future?"
By the time you figure out what's hot and train for it, it won't be hot any more. Just do what you like to do, do it well, and put yourself in a position where somebody will recognize you for it. Chasing trends will only exhaust you.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
Sounds more like a thermodynamics problem
not that I can tell if the technology is any good, but if I lock you up for 10 days with 5 managers and a horse, both you and the horse will come out with eye-stare, mumbling '.NET is cool, .NET is the way to go...'
this assumes offcourse that all 5 managers are as brainwashed as possible, but that's probably the easiest part.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Porn has always made money, and always will. So if your morals are OK with it, go be a gearhead for a porn site or publisher.
I don't remember who said it, but I once read a quote that was along the lines of "The whole of computer science is nothing more than methods for increasing the efficiency of generating, storing, transmitting, viewing, and enjoying pornography." Heh.
Or, to update the recurrent slashjoke:
Where I'm working (large financial institution) they're starting to look into AI as a means of predicting market movement and trends. One could see this as becoming key in other areas as well. Any field that tries to predict chaos or long-term trends could potentially be looking into this.
Of course, there's the danger you'll invent a supercomputer that takes of the world and sends killer robots back in time to kill the leader of the resistance. This naturally would lead to his psychotic mother trying to kill you and you ultimately sacrificing yourself to save the future. Something to think about.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
Good times or bad times, the adult industry is unaffected. And they are always the first ones to adopt new tech...
-- OMFG = Oh My Floatse Goatse
I've been reading the book Next (my father reccomended it. He's a businessman so it's at that level. It did have some interesting stuff though, like explaining the conflicts of interest that most financial advisers are involved in and how you can get more accurate estimates of profits just by reducing their estimates by 10%.
So that can help to explain why what you're hearing isn't matching up with reality.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Short one: If we knew, we'd be doing it.
/. subjects seem to get most attention. I consider these subjects "hot". Do this with various other publications, and since we all have seen how satire foresees reality, start with the onion ;)
Longer one:
I can't tell you what...but you can start using your imagination trying to find something that people would use frequently.
And now for some brainstorming:
Whatever you do, a good marketing dpt. will make it look better. This is sad.
Not "one" thing there is. Ok, yoda speak, but what i want to get to is that people need to fill gaps in the business...some people do this...some people do that... coding is fun , ok, but if everone only coded, it'd be dull.
Look which
storm's out.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
There are always open and varried opportunities in the ever strong field of technical support!
"Survival of the fittest Max, and we've got the fucking gun!" - Pi
Maybe you'd be better off doing what you like, and quit chasing buzzwords.
I have heard the economy is starting to pick up again for months, yet no real signs of improvements show up. Probably the same for the job market for some time.
My advice: lay back, have a beer, meet new people and do interesting things with them, and when cash runs out go flip some burgers or something. In a few years time, when things look better, they'll come running for you again.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Just look at the stock market. Biotech is the future, my friend. In the new annual ranking of the Nasdaq 100 index--made up of the 100 largest nonfinancial companies ranked by market capitalization--seven of the 13 companies added were in biotech. The new entrants include such familiar names as ImClone Systems (IMCL ), Cephalon (CEPH ), Sepracor (SEPR ), and Invitrogen (IVGN ); they replace 13 faltering tech, telecom, and Internet outfits, including onetime stars CMGI (CMGI ), 3Com (COMS ), and Palm (PALM ). All told, biotech companies now represent 12.7% of the market capitalization of all the companies in the index, nearly triple the share they held only two years ago.
Sounds an awful lot like the Internet bubble all over again, I know. And in one sense, it is: The high market capitalization of many of these stocks suggests that investors are paying a lot in anticipation of future earnings that may never materialize. It costs tens of millions of dollars and can take five to 15 years to get a drug from the test tube to the clinic--and many drugs simply don't make it.
In several ways, however, this boom is different. The industry is more mature than it was a decade ago, when it last rose and fell. New alliances, new products, and new financing should combine to produce lasting growth in this once-turbulent field. There are some 300 biotech products in Phase III testing, the final stage of human experimentation before seeking Food & Drug Administration approval. The FDA issued 32 approvals for biotech drugs in 2000, a 45% increase over 1999. Sales of biotech products rose from $16.1 billion in 1999 to $18.1 billion in 2000, an increase of 12%. And there were 22 profitable biotechs in 1999, up from 17 in 1997. In addition, there is a distinct lack of bearded linux hippies in biotech, making it a much more attractive market segment to the general public.
Furthermore, unlike many Internet companies, the biotech companies are targeting clear and existing markets. Many Internet companies devised products without knowing whether there were markets for them. Others, such as Yahoo!, aimed for ad revenues that proved far smaller than hoped. Biotech companies don't have that problem: A drug for arthritis or cancer, say, has a huge market. If their drugs work, the biotechs will make money.
Excitement in biotech will likely get another boost when the climate for initial public offerings improves. There are 50-100 biotech companies waiting to go public, says Oronsky. That's where casual investors should be especially careful. Some of today's most promising biotechs will undoubtedly fall short of the hype. Unfortunately, that's one way this boom won't differ much from the last.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
i know it sounds like a trendy buzz-word but i think it's here to stay and some seriously cool stuff will start to happen soon (look at Google).
at any rate, if you can walk into a potential employer and say 'I can convert your current software into a remote API for access by your clients in a multitude of languages' I think you have a pretty good shot at a job. at least, this is what I would be trying to learn if I had time.
Oh, and being able to throw around 'SOAP' and '.NET' a lot doesn't hurt too much either ;)
IsMyJobHotorNot.com
Using IT to crunch the genome, protiens, protien-folding, creating treaments by targeting specific molecular recpetor sites, etc. Definitely the next hot area and mostly wide-open from an IT perspective.
Security, this is the big one now
This may be the next big thing, but right now most of what the usual geek could get into seems mostly hype. What I am talking about is the field of Bioinformatics. From what I understand, Bioinformatics is basically "data mining of biotech databases" - more or less. I know there are a few books available on the subject (including one by Oreilly). The main problems with "breaking into the scene" is most positions, when offered, require you to have some kind of science degree (biology related, generally) - even though it is just data-mining. I tend to wonder if it is because you really have to know the terminology behind the data you are looking through (maybe), or if it is just such a young field that the employers thinks they need such people right now.
It is something I would like to get into: I live in Phoenix, and the city is trying to get something going here called the "International Genomics Commission" (IGC - the "C" part I am hazy on) - basically a huge research lab for biotech, etc - so far, it is seemingly being sucessful. Anyhow, I haven't got a chance in hell of possibly getting onboard "early", so to speak, because not only do I not have a degree in any bio science area, but I don't have a degree at all (ok, I take that back, I do have an Associates, but from a tech school - read: Near Worthless). All I do have is 10+ years of professional experience in software development and database applications - but I am not sure that will count for much, at least at this point in time.
Another area to consider: Alternative Energy Research - I am not talking solar, etc - but more on funky engine and prime mover designs, etc - I am seeing more of this stuff crop up all over the place.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Try Northrop Grumman / Lockeed Martin / Boeing, etc
as for the pure, pure computer area -- i think people are returning to the "core business". (chip wise)
LCD is another area;
wireless is picking up a little steam (look at how many DSL routers there are!), as well as other marginal stuff -- HDTV, PDA, etc...
cellphone and pda integration is considered to be inevitable by some -- so cellphones are not "flatlining", they are just not exploding as they were before.
at the same time digital imaging (cameras / miniDV camcorders) are sparking a huge thing within flash market -- look how the size have doubled time and again: imagine how much $$ of R&D / engineering went into that
home entertainment (xbox / ps2 / cube) is also kinda hot -- sony expect to sell a LOT of ps2s by christmas -- and ppl are gearing up for that too.
there are a couple more -- can't think of them off the top my head though
My life in the land of the rising sun.
One word: forensics. Between Enronesque corporate investigations, the kiddie porn scares, and the emphasis on "cyber security," there's lots of opportunity there. But don't do it unless you have the stomach to be the guy that helps put some teenager playing with a website in prison, because at the end of the day, that's what the computer crime "units" seem to enjoy most.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I would argue small business, based on what I have seeing. Big business has jumpe on the e-commerce bandwagon, but for the most part small busniesses have not yet really touched its potential.
I am not in the consulting industry, but I believe there is quite a lot of business to be had by aproaching the right small companies with the right plans. If I were "leisured" at the moment, which I am not, in addition to looking for a real job, I would aproach some small businesses in my area with "solutions" to get started in e-commerce, or e-customer service. My mechanic, who can barely use a mouse has just setup a site, and plans to offer information about his high quality used car inventory. If you had a simple turnkey site for a market like that, there is a decent living to be had. Now kep in mind, you probably cannot charge the $95 an hour you used to get. However, there are many low end turn key systems to be sold. 40 dealers/mechanics at $1000 a site would be the equivilent of an entry to mid level programmer in my market. How many small mechanics, or used car dealers are there in your area? Used cars are just an example, I am sure you can come up with more on your own. It helps if you have an "in" with at least one business of the type you intend to go after to get your foot in the door.
Anyway, if I had a few weeks ahead of me where my employment was uncertain, I'd identify a market like that, and go after it. This is also a market where open source can be used to your advantage if you approach the situation correctly.
Hope I have gotten some thoughts going,
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I see lots of growth in Web services and entertainment. There are lots of companies transitioning to membership based models now, and that generates a lot of work to build those subscription systems and management tools.
I just hired four new developers at my company, so I will give you some pointers for actually getting in the door once you have found a company to interview for:
#1 - Accept the fact you'll most likely make less money than your last position. Times have changed in most markets. I hired for four positions and had 150 resumes (not counting the throw them in the trash right away kind). Lots of people I interviewed were looking for salaries that were gone with the 1999 dot com frenzy. Don't mentioned your MBA or Masters in CompSci fifty times, either.
#2 - Don't accept less money than you're worth. With #1 being said, don't short sell yourself either. Companies are getting away with murder when they hire right now because the market is so bad for those out of work. You want to come across as someone who is WORTH every penny you ask for. How to do this? Focus on things at your previous jobs that increased efficiency or saved your company money. As an example, someone I hired told me about how they cut their company's bandwidth costs by 30% by installing a proxy that used mod_gzip on everything going out. Companies will pay for people who will not only save them money, but FIND them ways to save even more money.
#3 - Be assertive, but not forceful. People who call me every two days to follow-up annoy the heck out of me. It sends a signal that you're desparate and don't have other options. Definately send an E-mail thanking the person for an interview with a couple BRIEF thoughts. If you call back more than once and don't hear back, don't waste your time chasing the job.
#4 - Focus on MY needs, not yours. I don't want to hear about how you are really heavily involved in open source, or have this web site you help maintain on the side that gets uber traffic. Things like that spell distraction to me. Review the Web site or product catalog of the company you are going to interview for. Do a Google search and read recent press on the company. Try to get an idea of what challenges the company is facing and apply your past project experience directly to that.
#5 - Dress and act appropriately. Don't show up in a suit unless it's an executive position and you're in an area of the country that requires it. Being overdressed makes you look out of place, and tells me you haven't been in circulation or interviewed much. Comb your hair, take out those nose rings (unless you're a graphics person, haha), and ask questions. If you don't understand something you're asked, say so. Nothing is worse than watching someone try to fake their way through an answer.
#6 - Base the business on the numbers and the market, not the Herman Miller chairs. Our office isn't super deluxe. It's pretty spartan, just a couple floors of cubes and Costco desks, tables, etc. But we're profitable for over a year, have over three million users, have positive growth, and have been in business on the net for over six years. You won't find a good job that will last if a company spends more on their office than their payroll.
#7 - Avoid the startup...This one is more of my personal experience, but most people I know are sick of hearing about startups. Hearing someone works at a startup in most cases sends up warning signs. You're better off working for a smaller, established company that is challenged by it's growth and needs quality people. You'll learn a lot more when you don't have to worry if your paycheck will be coming next month.
Just some thoughts from the front lines of a smallish Internet company in Seattle...Hope this helps!
Case
Bioinformatics.
Just north of Washington DC area there are almost 200 companies that are working in the bioinformatics area s. Subject knowledge is good of course but even better is knowledge of Perl. O'Reilly even has 2 books Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics and Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills
Then there are companies that are doing lots of work regarding facial recognition.
Hope this helps.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/27/00252
Much of the comments from that story apply here.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
People are starving for inexpensive, easy to setup, wireless. Some day we'll be able to just slap a $20 antenna on any suburban rooftop and log onto a network. Until then, there are a lot of people looking for "solutions". Move fast if this excites you. Entrepreneurs are already moving on it.
If this doesn't turn you on, exploit fears of terrorism. That could include surveillance, security, privacy issues, encryption... anything spook-related.
Of course, you'll be lucky to get something you actually like in this economy.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I started working in military technologie a month before Sept. Needly to say my career as IT programmer in this area has surged.
Even though M$ is doing to well with their X-Box, video game makers are doing great. They have three new consoles to develop for. They Geforce3's are also becoming mass market. That means developers can pull off tricks with the progamable pixel pipeline that they couldn't do with the fixed function pipeline.
The field here is wide open. Lots of university biology departments are spinning off companies to make innovative new sensors, so you can get involved there. Or you can go and manage a Beowulf cluster for a big drug firm. Or anything in between.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Information security is probably the hottest segment of the market right now. Penetration testing, intrusion detection, common criteria. There are a ton of different things that you can do in the field, and there's LOTS of demand. Plus, since there are a lot of positions as government contractors available you have a bit more job security than you would have as a contractor for the commercial market.
(* Yahoo!, aimed for ad revenues that proved far smaller than hoped. *)
Yahoo just seems to be making stupid decisions. I see almost *no* subject-based targeting in their geocities ads. I don't remember a single computer-related ad in my IT-related websites (such as my anti-OO site). It is already classified as a computer-related site in their system.
Further, they are killing thier own "children". They are starting to "clean up" older sites that have not changed, regardless of the number of visitors.
The cost of storing and transmitting webpages will continue to drop over time. (The only cost that might rise is content disputes, like DMCA stuff.)
Thus these two factors:
1. Better targeting ads
2. Continuous drop in storage and transmission costs
Should make things like Geocities viable. True, #2 is long-term, but they could do #1 now.
Table-ized A.I.
Walmat's real hot right now. They give you a uniform and everything.
Oh sorry, you meant coding?
...like GNU Enterprise.
As people continue to see the light and increasingly prefer Free Software, and want to keep their data in a more open system, projects like this should skyrocket in use, and people that know them well should be more valuable.
The Economist has been going on for months in a row about the end of capitalism as we know it and has even run articles in which The Economist of London's staff reporters have said things like-- perhaps capitalism was never appropriate for many parts of the world.
In case you hadn't heard, Taiwan's chip fabs have gone renegade and are pushing the ultimate limits of nanotechnology in a period of months rather than the twenty years drawn out schedule set by IBM. I'm talking about the 65nm fab being built in Singapore as we speak. See the last few months of EETimes if you want some scarry stories. Yeah, that was nanotech, it went by so fast you hardly even saw it, eh?
While investment bankers are being charged with corruption, Wall Street is below where it was before the Gulf War and Israel is loading nuclear cruise missles onto a fleet of submarines in an effort to beat India and Pakistan to the headlines of being the second nation in history to use nuclear weapons for offensive purposes.
Who is suggesting to you that things are suddenly going to rebound?
Oh, did I mention that Taiwan students have stopped attending the TOEFL in vast droves and are now going to grad school in mainland China instead of the US? So much for that strategic partnership. And you can guess what this is going to look like a few years down the road when the chips market has been totally commoditized and relocated to mainland China and Taiwan has de-facto reunified by popular consent from within Taiwan. Americans are going to be like --when did everything suddenly change? Well guess what, it's changing by the minute and much of it is the seeds of bitter fruit that we Americans have ourselves planted with decades of irresponsible government that has allowed the sickness of monopoly to put our economy in grave danger.
I suggest you look outside of anything that has to do with software or hardware for money. For entertainment though --hey don't touch that dial babe. PCs are the entertainment value of choice and value is what we're all going to need lots of.
or for gov't contractors. I am just out of school, and found a well-paying job with a bunch of old guys. There is going to be a lot of people retiring in this sector over the short term.
Oh, and the job is interesting.
> and put yourself in a position where somebody will recognize you for it.
Why the hell didn't I think of that?! 8 months of unemployment and the answer is that simple!
Studying what you like doesn't work unless what you like is a current "hot trend". I think this industry requires chasing hot trends, unless you are lucky enough to get "job security" (I heard about such a thing once in a magazine article).
Ratbert: "I'm going to interview successful people and write a book of their tips. I'll start with you, Dobert."
Dogbert: "Set your alarm clock to go off every hour. Keep a big vat of 'Jell-O' by the bed. When the alarm clock goes of, stick your head in the 'Jell-O' and yell, 'Boy, I'm tired!'"
Ratbert: "Thanks!"
Dogbert (thinking): "Beware the advice of successful people; they do not seek company."
Seven Years of Highly Defective People, p. 137.
I currently for a software security company, and I believe security is a hot future.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
XML is simply a data transmission format. Comma delimited format did not generate front-page news when it came out, so why should XML?
.NET, MS made a confusing mess. The advantage of VB was that it had a shorter learning curve than Java and its API's. Now that MS cloned Java, they also cloned the complexity of Java, it seems.
People trying to turn XML into databases and programming languages are missing the mark. XML does not do either of these particularly well. Databases are optimized to be databases, not optimized to fit a certain external format. That would be almost like optimizing a car engine to resemble a Peter Max drawing.
Regarding
All it will do is create a *new* market for K.I.S.S. True, MS might suck up that market also, but they still have to start from scratch and risk all the problems related to being overbearing and mean.
(Whether the Java approach is "better" in the long run to make up for the longer learning curve is another long, flameful debate. I personally think Sun's API's are rotting crap.)
Table-ized A.I.
Basically, find a module on CPAN that is neglected, or look for some idea that hasn't been done elsewhere, work on it and post it to the web, and get your claim to fame!
Another great idea is to help out with the CJAN (sourceforge has the project) and bone up on your Java skills, converting ideas from CPAN into Java and posting them on some kind of CJAN site. You'll
Some other ideas:
- Don't be afraid to brag on the resume,
- practice answering the top 50 interview questions believably, with good and truthful answers,
- post your resume on lots of job boards,
- create a kickin' homepage,
- find old documents like howto's that you've written that are generally usefull to everyone and post them on your page,
- don't forget to wax your car! It's summer!
-- KevinUnitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
is that they tend to cool off, and the hotter they are the faster (and farther) they cool. I would really recommend a more "tempid" area for work, as those jobs will be around for a while. Network administration may not be sexy, but I have yet to see a network that can manage itself.
I personally work in embedded systems development. While the pay may not be at the top of the curve, you will not find a more challenging area nor will you find a brighter group of developers. The best thing is that your skills are kept sharp for when the industry heats up again (i.e., You can do what on a 486 with 128K of memory?).
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Copy protection seems to be a growth industry at the moment.
john
I think what he means is that since he can choose his path, that he should give something a try that he always wanted to do, but probably hasn't. It's easy to say when you have a job, but it would probably be a mistake to jump on a buzzword then end up doing something that sucks.
Plastics.
Considered harmful.
...to finally learn C.
Seriously.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'm unemployed also. When I do find a job, it's more often some 2 month contract, than anything even remotely perm or fulltime. But even so, I'm not whoring myself around, trying to learn the latest buzzwords and act like it's something that makes me employable. The reason I chose this as a career, was because I love everything about IT. Not because I heard there were fat paychecks to be found.
So, in the meantime, I plan on continuing to learn the same things I've been teaching myself, and forget about whatever the latest crraze is with the pundits and industry rags.
And yes, maybe if you don't like IT, this indirectly translates to you being unemployed. Lord knows if I were hiring someone, I would rather have someone that liked doing the job they were being interviewed for...
IsMyJobHotorNot.com
The site seems to be slashdotted already. It's so bad the hostname is'nt even resolving.
I worked in consulting for 4 years and we avoided the small business customers for a very important reason. The problem with a small company is that they go through the same hesitation and concern over spending thousands of dollars that a big company would do over millions of dollars. You end up having to work just as hard for a substantially smaller return.
Now, that's as a consultant. Consulting implies a certain amount of custom work, which is what kills you in the smaller businesses. If you could develop some product that's useful to a lot of small businesses, then you might have some potential to make money at it. Think of something like quick books, a product that lots of small companies use, that's relatively cheap but is sold in large enough quantities to be profitable.
So, what you need to do is identify a need in the market. The trick is not inventing the next big thing, it is simply finding an unaddressed need. You've probably stumbled accross a few of these in your past work; meeting people who are doing things a complex way because they have no idea there's a better way. Find those things and provide solutions to them.
The thing that's different though in developing a product is that you, as the "leisured" programmer are taking on the risk of it. If you are billing somebody by the hour, if something goes wrong, you can still eat. If you make some product and nobody buys it, you are screwed. This means that, in addition to being able to develope software, you need to have the talent or be able to hire the talent necessary to sell your product to people.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Well, I sure hope you're right as far as the .NET == XML equation goes. I'm not experienced with .NET to judge it.
as far as the XML not good for databases or PLs, you're right too, but you're missing one more section : data exchange. XML is pretty good at that : you can dunk anything (dunkeable offcourse) into an XML and send it over. The reading side can undunk it and process. Tab delimited stinks at this. So XML is a big leap over tab if you look at it from that perspective.
About the KISS principles, well, the pure existance of MS is the only axiom that keeps KISS alive. If MS hadn't been here, we would never have had a need for KISS. MS incorporates MICM (mae it complex, moronic) into ANYTHING they build.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
And move into management. As a manager one said, "Details don't matter."
Learn how technology applies to businesses, then make that your business. In the world of business, people that understand technology and business issues are rare, valuable commodities. Managers who've got tech and business cred are more valuable that you'd ever understand.
Think of it this way: would you rather be the guy that hand-coded the unified password repository, or the guy who's team of people defined and implemented company-wide technology standards, and created a stable computing base for the next 10 years?
The answer, of course, is the first one!
But still, it's a much different feeling to say "Wal-Mart kicked the cr*p out of everyone because of the logistics system we came up with is the sh*t." than it is to say "I single-handedly delivered a php-based dynamic website in 2 weeks."
In short, ignore the technology, and concentrate on the business end. You'll be more useful, and you won't worry that your skills are eroding.
...is not from corrupt, ImClone-style insider trading, but from the long-term outlook for patented, exclusive medical therapies.
There's a large, general outrage at the overall cost of medical treatment and within specific socioeconomic groups HUGE outrage at the cost of perscription medicines. It's not felt (as much) by the middle class due to their generally good, employer-provided medical coverage.
However, I predict a time in the next 20 years when the cost of medical treatment across the board (doctors, hospitals, medicines, and so on) will be so high that political pressure will be brought to bear to severely regulate the costs associated with medical treatments if not to begin socializing medicine.
What's this got to do with biotech careers? Biotech right now is hot as a sector because of the promise of developing amazing new treatments that are proprietary, patentable and licensable for HUGE profits. However the money will dry up quickly if government begins to socialize medicine.
Well, XML and SOAP are the basis for the web services component of .NET, but .NET is also MS' too-late, feeble (bound to be low-quality before multiple service packs) attempt at creating an OO API for Windows that (supposedly) is easily accessible by any language (that is, any language compilable to their .NET IL; MS is foisting C#).
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
HEY!
If you're Larry Ellison, you're one big opening.....
The computer game industry is worht more than the film industry worldwide, it is predicted that it will grow year on year for the next five and there is a specific lack of people who have experience or specific training (cause none really exists).
Downsides are that it is very competitive, only 10% of games released make money. It is very difficult to make headway in the industry unless you work for a publisher or a well established software house.
At least according to Active Media Research and the folks at MIT Technology Review:
Mobile Robotics: The Next Revolution
XML solves some problems that CDF doesn't, like validation and extensibility. I can add a new field to an XML file without it affecting the receiver, try that with CDF ant the receiver gets very confused.
Then there are all the support facilities like SOAP and so on. They let me write a server like:
public class Adder {
public int sub(int a, int b) {
return a+b;
}
}
Drop that source code in a web service enabled application server and I can send a message to it uusing any SOAP cleint and get my sum back.
Try that with CDF.
Yeah, honestly, the "appropriate" dress for an interview is always something I struggle with.
The best advice I ever got (from a recruiter) is to try to take a look at how their own people dress, in advance - and copy their style.
(If, for example, you see most of the employees dressing casually - with only management in a suit and tie, then you're probably fine just dressing up with a plain shirt and tie, and no suit. That is, unless you're applying for one of those management positions.)
Much depends on the age of the people interviewing you, IMHO. I've been to places where the dress was quite casual - but the management was made up of older people who expected that all interviewees would show up in a suit and tie, and freshly polished dress shoes. Anything less told them you weren't the type who "goes the extra mile" to make a good impression, and that was a negative.
I'm a mobile robotics person. That report sounds fishy to me. Sure the robotics people (Activmedia and MIT) are going to hype robotics as being the big thing in 5 years, they have a vested interest in that happening. I think they have been saying very similar things for at least 10 years, and as of yet there are very few mobile robotic household equipment. Sure, the solar lawnmower and indoor vaccum cleaner robots are around but I've never met anyone who was seriously interested in something like this. Sony has some of the new "entertainment" robots that are the closest thing, but they are still way expensive and not very useful.
I mean really, listen to the tone of this quote:
" In the next three to five years, intelligent networked mobile platforms and manipulators will permeate the fabric of our society just as computers do today."
Be wary of anyone advertising to know the future, especially when they predict enormous growth in their own sector of buisness.
That said, I do think there is a good future in mobile robotics in general, but if you're looking for "hot" jobs right now it's ridiculous to look for opportunities in that industry. I've yet to hear of a company aside from military robotics, Activmedia, or iRobot that needs genuine mobile robotics people. Sure there are AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles) for factories and such, but that technology is so large that I don't think it stands a chance in the home market. (Maybe their software would be helpful though?).
Well, my $.02.
__ No registration required to read this message. They did it in the Matrix.
Railroads....not really high tech by todays standards, but it was once "the next big thing." Once there were a lot of railroad companies, then the bottom fell out. A lot of them went away, and a lot of jobs with them. The strong companies survived and went on.
Automobiles...there were once dozens of car companies in the US. Now there are but a handful, but those companies provide tens of thousands of jobs, many of them very high-skilled.
Calculators...The calculator revolution in the 1970's popped up after Intel produced, almost accidentally, the first microprocessor. Initially it was just going to be a calculator-on-a-chip, but later they realized just what they had produced was more than just something that they hoped one manufacturer would use to make calculators. The calculator business grew very big, very fast, and crashed about as quickly.
There is something, skill-wise, in each of those times that workers were able to adapt for later use. Just give it some time and you will notice the door opening for the next opportunity, even though they all appear to be closed for good right now.
I've been scanning the job postings on Monster.com and other sites, and one thing that comes up repeatedly is a need for JD Edwards or PeopleSoft administrators (with experience), or administrators for CRM (Customer Relations Management) packages.
Personally, I think both of these types of software packages are just "fads" right now - but they cost so much for corporations to implement that they easily justify hiring an additional person to keep them running.
If you're one of the few people lucky enough to have received some training (or hands-on experience designing forms or supporting) either ERP or CRM software, you're missing out right now if you don't leverage it to get a good-paying I.T. job for the next couple years. After that though, don't be surprised if this stuff fades away again.
My personal hope is that all the above will be developed as open source projects, but certainly, a good programming group with drive could make some very good money off these ideas as well.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
My grandfather once told me:
"Be an undertaker, kid. No matter how bad things get, you will always have customers."
Table-ized A.I.
Buzzzt! Guess again NOT. Most things sell "by the trend". A lot of people made money programing Java when it was hotest, a lot of contractors will make huge revenues from companies adopting .net.
.net because their contractors or programming department will tell them they need it. And Microsoft will be leveraging their "hard earned" 40B plus their monopoly to make sure the argument wins.
The other day i was in a meeting with some CEO of a programming firm with many clients. What they do i follow the TREND. He claimed that ".net will require a lot of $$$ from companies adopting it, and that (they) will be ready for it! Huge profits to be made".
Believe me, you can make lots of money by just following the trend. Companies will adopt
This is just an example. The trend make you eat extra food. On the other hard, you have someone like me, which tries to make sense out of this. End result: they make money and do not help producitivity. I don't make much money and do save money. Yet, they are the heros during the "revolution" and they only care about me when they want to "cut costs".
It's really simple:
STEP 1: adopt whatever crap is on the IT mindshare at the moment. Adopt it fast and act as you believe it's true
STEP 2: PROFIT
STEP 3: PROFIT
unfinished: (adj.)
(* The reading side can undunk it and process. Tab delimited stinks at this. *)
I agree that delimited formats needed a few more protocols to make them more robust, such as a header, but unless something is heavily nested, delimited works quite well.
Do you have a specific problem with delimited formats that you can describe?
I am not saying that it is superior to XML, but XML is only an incrimental improvement at best. Not something to bet the farm on. Besides, XML is warmed-over static LISP by some accounts, and LISP existed in the 50's.
Fat ties will be back in style if you hold onto them long enuf.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm suprised no one mentioned yet... but the Fibre Channel industry is one of the few segments of the computer industry that is actually growing these days. (see here). Storage in general will probably grow (or at least not significantly decline) for a long, long time. A quick search on Monster shows a lot of jobs out there.
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
(* I can add a new field to an XML file without it affecting the receiver, try that with CDF ant the receiver gets very confused.*)
No, just add it onto the end. How is the receiver not being able to handle more stuff at the end different than an XML reader not being able to handle a new tag? That is a bad reader, not a bad format.
I will agree that removing a field in XML is a little easier, but delimited format is already more compact, so you are still ahead size-wise if you leave an empty place-holder.
(* Drop that source code in a web service enabled application server and I can send a message to it uusing any SOAP cleint and get my sum back. Try that with CDF. *)
Send: 2, "+", 3
Receive: 5
Next!
Table-ized A.I.
(* But in general I think Net Admins, being somewhat the "Jack of all trades" of the industry, have a better chance of staying employed or regaining employment quickly than the "specialists." *)
That is what all those Novell guys used to say.
Anyhow, what I predict is *remote* admin of networks. A hardware person might visit every week or so, but the rest will be done in network sweat-shops in India or China.
"If you can digitize it, we can outsource it!"
Table-ized A.I.
Hmmmm. Lets see.
"XML Biometrics Security Web Services Downsizing Specialist"
Table-ized A.I.
DRM is probably one of the hottest, most relevant areas of the tech industry right now.
Scary, ain't it?
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
(* It is crystal clear that the western world is preparing for a war with anybody that will stand in the way of the new order. *)
Um, what and where is the "old order"?
Table-ized A.I.
(* I heard the unemployment office was looking for bright talented software engineers to answer phones all day... seems they needed someone who spoke the same language as the guy at the other end of the phone. *)
ROFL. Mod this dude/dudette up! (at zero now)
Table-ized A.I.
How is the receiver not being able to handle more stuff at the end different than an XML reader not being able to handle a new tag?
My first programming job included maintaining a perl script that processed a database table. The table had 97 data fields; the original programmer didn't know that he could extract the data into a hash, and reference the data using hash keys that matched the field names. The result was code that read something like:
$price = $row[17]*[$row[72]* sqrt($row[12] )
this meant a) the code was totally unreadable, and b) the only place you could add a field to the database was at the end. This is exactly the kind of programming structure that your CDF proposal leads to. If I were you I would worry that when I died and went to hell I might have to work on code like that.
Send: 2, "+", 3
Receive: 5
Where is the data typing that tells the server that you didn't mean to call add(string,string) and get 23?
Where can I get an IT job in the U.S.? Anyone? I have applied for EVERYTHING here in the Midwest (meaning ALL IT jobs I've come across and anything else in the newspaper, even bank tellers, secretary positions, retail stores (damn college degree), and I can't get anything).
I'm quite aware the Midwest is years behind the rest of the planet in everything except antique automotive storage techniques, but I am willing to relocate. Where should I go?
I see that others share my sentiment about this. The question is the wrong question. Learn and master the fundmentals. If you are into hardware, learn your electrical engineering. Master it. If it is software, learn the fundamentals of programming, systems design, algorithms, threading, etc. Learn a few fundamental languages (for the *nix world I'd say C, C++, Java, perl, shells, and then maybe some others that extend your world-view, such as lisp, scheme, and smalltalk). Learn how to express solutions for common problems in each of these languages.
I see so many programmers coming up these days whom I describe as "tool-junkies." They are programmers who know how to solve problems with one library collection, one integrated compiler suite, and nothing else (and, yes, I am referring mainly to Visual Studio, but there is a Java "tool-junkie" culture too -- Java programmers who can't work outside of their only IDE).
If you find yourself using a library without the slightest inkling of what must be happening in that library it should send warning flags up in your head. You should be able to write anything any other programmer could write. If you can't imagine how to even begin, you may be a tool-junkie. (Note that I am not saying you would have to write it as well as any other programmer -- obviously skills vary -- but you should have some idea how to tackle the problem, because you should have seen and solved something like it before. Genuinely new techniques are extremely rare. For the most part in programming you are making a symphony of familiar tropes, not breaking new ground.)
Learn fundamentals, not buzzwords, and maybe you won't find yourself looking for another job involuntarily.
You moderators are idiots. This is a news story printed in Business Week Magazine last december. Didn't it read more like a press piece than a /. comment? User 956 is not an insightful poster, he is a blatant plagarist. 4 moderators were either stupid or naive enough to believe that he was insightful when he posted this comment. Please, think before you moderate. I know I will get modded down for this* but I just had to say something.
*Standard 'I know I'll get modded down' to ensure that I get modded up
Enigma
The jobs are there but you have to work at finding them and getting one. Standing out solely on technical qualifications can be tough if you don't have 10 or more years real experience, so be the candidate they remember. Be polite, easy to talk to, interested, curious, eager.
I can't emphasize writing and speaking and good manners enough. If you come across as illiterate, uncomfortable, or socially handicapped (as so many geeks do), you are handicapped in the job market. The last time I interviewed candidates for a mid-level programmer job we had candidates show up unwashed, in skateboarder clothes; we had candidates who seemed uneasy around other humans; we had candidates who mumbled "I guess" and "I mean" and "You know what I'm saying" every few words, as if they had speech lessons from Eminem; we had candidates launch into scary (and irrelevant) anti-Microsoft or anti-Linux tirades that made us hope they weren't armed; we had candidates who obviously devoted too much time to body piercing and not enough to reading our job description.
Learn to write. Read outside your discipline. Practice speaking, composing your thoughts, talking to a group. Practice problem-solving skills. Practice debugging--SourceForge is overflowing with opportunities for working on real code. Don't wait to learn on-the-job: spend some time every day learning something new. Use Borders as a library with coffee.
Learn something about the businesses and industries that might hire you. Learn a little about accounting, inventory, logistics, sales, marketing, manufacturing, publishing, etc., so at least you know what the jargon means and what questions make sense.
Learn databases and SQL. Learn them really well. It takes a while but you have to start sometime. Most companies have databases old enough to have seen many industry trends come and go.
When job hunting you'll be competing with people who have the same stuff on their resume as you do, more or less. Stand out by presenting yourself well. Show some ability to string two thoughts together. Show enthusiasm about solving problems, debugging skanky old code, working as part of a team.
Job hunting is not like taking tests in school where the best student ranks at the top of their class. Employers usually make up their mind about you in the first few minutes (or first few seconds if you smell bad, dress like a slacker, or display poor manners). Take 20 Java programmers with equivalent experience and certifications and the one who makes the interviewers believe he will fit in will get the job.
Join a user's group, go to trade shows, network. Ask people you know who have jobs what kind of people their company needs. Get names of skilled recruiters and work with them--they aren't all dishonest scumbags. If you have time do volunteer work--you can meet people who can point you at full-time jobs.
The short-term bubble that burst and put so many techies on the street persuaded too many of them that growing unusual facial hair and learning Flash would set them up for a lifetime, or at least get them in a Volkswagen commercial. Sorry to break it to you, but employers have sobered up now.
Good luck.
(* The result was code that read something like:
$price = $row[17]*[$row[72]* sqrt($row[12] ) *)
First of all, don't process it directly from the storage format. Make a translation table so that you *don't* have numbers in the code. You may have to do similar translations between XML field names and your own names anyhow, since the chances of them matching up 100 percent is probably nil unless you are starting from scratch.
(* Where is the data typing that tells the server that you didn't mean to call add(string,string) and get 23? *)
Put those rules in the table also. If you don't have a table-friendly language/environment, then I pitty you.
Table-ized A.I.
(* never happen kid. people like people to be there for their problems and not recorded messages or unanswered emails, no matter the outcome. *)
Tell that to all the programmers *currently* losing jobs to India and China "outsourcers".
I am not saying that *all* will go, but even if 40 percent go, there would be a *glut* that may last a while.
Table-ized A.I.
Speaking as a bioinformaticist (non-PhD, but with significant academic experience), protein folding simulations are extraordinarily overhyped. The potential for computers in structural biology is immense- every protein structure published has been refined by computer simulation. The theory involved is quite sound and the results are considered excellent. However, this still requires a great deal of experimental work. Folding via computer is still in the realm of pure theory, and while some people can come up with reasonable guesses at very low resolutions for small proteins (which is already quite difficult), this is next to useless for drug design. You need to have a high-res structure (about 3 angstroms, less is better), and computers just can't do that.
It's not a matter of power so much as theory. A lot of people don't seem to understand this, which is why you can get lots of money to solve the folding problem. So sure, it's probably a good field to be in financially speaking. Scientifically speaking, it's comparable to AI in CS research- lots of big talk, few results. You'd be better off working on improving existing tools to help structural biologists, if you want to do something useful. You don't get to play with giant parallel machines, though.
Yes! Vindicated!
okay, I admit that I peed a pit too much on tab delims. For 95% of all jobs they'll do everything XML does, and faster.
But I do have some quite nasty nested stuff, with non-static iterations (ie : inside transmission repeaters the iterations can grow or shrink) and with pointer links to other nested structures.
you'll adimit that that is no beaf for tab delimited crunchers, right ?
but indeed, "Not something to bet the farm on"
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Someone posted on the accu-general@accu.org list a few weeks ago (the Association of C and C++ Users) that he'd been studying the demand for various job skills at employment websites in the U.K.
Suprisingly he found that the demand for C++ programmers was dramatically higher than that for Java programmers, and further that the pay scales offerred for Java programmers were very low.
This is in sharp contrast to the situation at the height of Tulipomania. Sometime in 2000 someone lamented on a post to a C++ newsgroup or list or something that it appeared that the hourly rates available to Java consultants was twice as much as those available to C++ consultants - as much as $250/hour. This despite the fact that C++ is a much more difficult language to master.
I think one thing this indicates is that the market for web server programming has fallen off the edge of the earth. But I'm not sure what all those C++ programmers are being hired for.
News of this study came as a relief to me because I've been doing mostly C++ the last few years, and although I know Java I haven't really put much effort into it. At some points I wondered if I had made a big mistake. But I've gotten very good at programming in C++, and enjoy it a great deal now, and in fact I'm finding demand for my consulting work is starting to pick up noticably.
I don't know how the U.K. results could apply to other countries, but you could check it for the U.S. by searching for various job skills at DICE and counting the number of hits you get for each.
You could do this more systematically by having a robot browse each of the job descriptions on DICE and scraping keywords and payrates out of each of them.
I can't post a link to the ACCU archive because the archives are only available to ACCU members and I'm afraid I let my membership lapse. :-/
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
(* But I do have some quite nasty nested stuff, with non-static iterations (ie : inside transmission repeaters the iterations can grow or shrink) and with pointer links to other nested structures....you'll adimit that that is no beaf for tab delimited crunchers, right ? *)
Use relational ID's or references. Every row should have a unique ID or key of some sort. You can simply reference instead of physically nest. Sounds like it is not even a tree anyhow, so you have no choice, except maybe to duplicate nodes to *force* it into a tree. Trees are an over-used structure anyhow. They don't scale when requirements turn them into graphs instead of trees. Unless you deal with a domain that naturally has trees in it, such "degeneration" is fairly likely over time because there is no tree-cop on duty in the real world.
Table-ized A.I.
(* Now this is a good example of eXtreme Programming. *)
He he.
IMO, XP is a result of object oriented technology not living up to its promise of scalling and simplicity. OO has only created armies of overpaid consultants with 50 different OO methodologies that either don't work, or simply map the world into the author's mind (but nobody else's).
(I will probably get tagged a "troll" for this. Oh well, I have a few points to blow this week.)
oop.ismad.com
Table-ized A.I.
(* I am just out of school, and found a well-paying job with a bunch of old guys. There is going to be a lot of people retiring in this sector over the short term. *)
What you don't realize is that the government discriminates against experienced people. You got the job probably because you have no experience. I am surprised there has not been huge lawsuits against age descrimination in gov orgs.
It happens because the unions protect people from competition (experience). Thus, it tends to hire graduates and interns and fill vacancies by moving up the existing employees.
Now, contracting for gov might be a different story. That is probably a better bet if you have experience.
Further, they are slow to process most positions. I am still getting rejection notices for positions I applied to almost a year ago. If you apply now, the economy may be shining again by the time something happens.
Table-ized A.I.
(* Clueful employers ask about solving problems, and quite frequently a binary tree or a linked list or another basic data structure - which many people still can't grasp - are fundamental in the solution. *)
I learned all that crap, but was happily able to toss it in the garbage when I started using table-friendly languages/API's. Roll-your-own data structures just don't scale in complexity and size and persistence. The only use for them is perhaps embedded systems that cannot afford the cost of a real database or table engine. (However, dBASE's III's table engine used to fit in about 64k, BTW. So size is not really an technical issue.)
Unfortunately, OO hype has turned the tide back to roll-your-own databases and hand-indexing, so knowledge of linked list and array crap is now needed again.
But, I figure the IT world will wake up from its OO sleep one of these days and we can then forget about hand-building lame data structures from scratch again. GOF should be renamed, "How to hand-build indexes because we don't understand tables".
Keep On Tablin'
oop.ismad.com
Reply, don't moderate me down, wimp!
Table-ized A.I.
Only use new stuff when it makes whatever easier/better/cheaper.
Before McDonalds - get food out of overcrowded fridge, secure children so they aren't harmed while cooking, prepare food, wash utensils, cook food, spend 1 hour cleaning up baked-on egg.
After McDonalds - drive up to window, give money, get food.
Before OOP - procedural FORTRAN-style stuff, VCs lose interest, refuse to give money to further software development.
After OOP - software companies get so much money from buzzword-mania that a bubble is created, they can outsource to third world countries and creating gigantic power stations and infrastructure (no other private businesses have paid for an entire national infrastructure, too high risk).
Well, After OOP might be a little exaggerated, but you can see that I'm getting at the fact that the big buzzword sell is important, unless you want to be a free software programmer on welfare. Even if OOP is just a buzzword-generating algorithm, it brought in the money Micro$oft-style so I'm not gonna complain. If my Manager tells me that OOP is the best thing in the world, I'll say, "Yeah great" then take a paycheck from him and call him "Sucker"
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Yes, it did occur to me, but generally if an author is re-publishing his work he will give credit to the original publication. I would also suspect that the article in question is owned by Business Week, being a work for hire. Also, I reasoned that if you did write the article you are pretty sharp and would be able to write an original post that supported your thesis, rather than copying old work verbatim. These reasons plus your recently registered /. account led me to conclude that you did not write the article. Now my question: Did you write the article for Business Week? In your reply you didn't say you wrote it, you just asked me if the thought occured to me. I still maintain you are not the original author, and are therefore a plagarist. If I'm mistaken I apologize but I don't believe I'm mistaken.
Enigma
Every company knows they can train you, but having 1,000 resumes of trainable people and then 10 people who actually have used .NET for 3 years, well who would you choose?
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
hendridn says:
Applying to all those jobs would sure take a long time. I guess you didn't spend much time on each application. Did you just send in the same copy of your CV (Resume in USAian, I believe) to them all? A generic CV radiates laziness, even comtempt. The employer is looking for someone who can fill a particular role, which means a particular set of skills, some of which the employer will consider more important than others. If you send a generic CV, the employer will have to wade through distracting and irrelevant material to learn the information they want.
You don't want the employer to believe any of those things.
Your CV should show how you are suitable for that particular job. That means each job application could require a separate, taylor made, CV. Also, it is better to apply for a smaller number of jobs, placing more effort in each application, than to use a 'shotgun' approach.
I recommend an excellent book called What Color is Your Parachute?
Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman.
The only problem is getting through their HR. (Horribly inept according to Engineers on the inside.)
With a Republican strong hold you can expect defense contracts to be strong for the next couple of years at least.
Just my