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Is The Software Industry Dead?
A reader writes:" Ok. So I'm about to graduate and then I come across this story:
Do Software Firms Have Bright Future?
None other than Larry Ellison of Oracle thinks that the best is behind us and that software is a dead industry. What does the rest of slashdot think? Will that shiney new degree be worthless? " I think it's safe to say that it's not dead - but that the times it once had aren't going to return; e.g. tulip blubs sell well, but not like they used to.
People are always willing to pay someone else to create a tool for them.
There may be a rebirth of sorts. For every process, that is slow, may be sped up by an automated system. Whether it is mechanical or electrical, it can happen. For the electrical solutions to a slowprocess, computers tend to speed it up. As I write, I'm getting more done via computer, just by the fact that I can touch type. I've adapted and can work better.
Do all problems need a computer? No. Hopefully, we will never turn down that road. But, wherever custom solutions are needed, and there is a lot of need for custom ones, programmers are needed. Systems analysistssts, graphic artists and dbas.
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
your degree would have been worthless anyway if you weren't flexible enough to use your technical knowledge to apply it to business. Even if the IT field it going downhill, capitalism isn't...not yet at least
Dont worry about what he says. This is the guy that has been trying to replace PC's with Dummy terminals (well maybe smart terminals). The software industry may get worse because of outsourcing to 3rd world countries where the labor costs are lower but it will not just die.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Resent studies of the IT companies in Denmarks claims things are getting better. We won't see the unrealistical high payments anymore and companies aren't allowed to go five years without making money.
Generally the IT companies are beginning to look more like every other company. They grow more slowly and more securely than they did in the 90'
Who care what the Oracle guy says anyway. He said to much crap already.... Hey Larry, SHUT UP.
I find it weird that computer industry is the fastest growing industry and people are starting to declare it dead. Especially when it hasn't reached its full potential. There's still plenty of growth left, especially in the entertainement business. 'Real' virtual reality etc. will employ tens of thousands of people.
not the software industry. If you look at open source/power personal PC trends it is the high dollar software and hardware vendors that are in real trouble. It is interesting to note that most people here view MSFT = bad and Linux = good, but really both provided computing power to everybody at a much lower cost than some (Orcale, Sun, etc.) would like...
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
Just like any recession, some industries tend to be insulated from the economic woes that surround them. Anything that will allow people to escape reality feels less impact, and in some cases, has positive growth. Alcohol is a prime example of an industry which operates in direct contradiction to recessions, and if you're too young to drink, games can be a replacement.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
It's pining for the fjords
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
If so, then can you imagine everyone not needing software?
I don't think that software is dead by a longshot. It may not grow explosively like it did during the 80's and 90's, (but then again, it might) but I don't see it going away... ever.
There will always be a need to process data for as long as man exists. If we don't need to think up new and better ways to do that, I'll be very surprised.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I am also going to be graduating with a computer science degree. When I started four years ago this was the degree to have if you wanted to be guaranteed a job. Now it seems run-of-the-mill and it does not set you apart from the masses whatsoever. In job hunting, I have found that if you only have a computer science degree you are not going to easily find a job. Everyone wants experience or special abilities. For this sole reason I am staying on in college another semester to get my philosophy degree to set myself apart from all the other generic computer science grads. No longer will a cpu sci degree be enough. It's sad how things have changed so badly in the last four years......
Give it a look
I will agree with you once the free software subculture actually comes out with something that is NOT A CLONE of a commercial product.
...
I graduated this time last year.. and it seams that the graduate state of mind is very similar to what it was last year. No, your not going to have recruiters tracking you down like telemarketers. But, the industry is not dead either.
If you were in it to come out making 80K+ while working a 40 hour week... then you'll probably end up dissapointed. Otherwise, if your a code junkie, you probably won't have much trouble finding a job that you enjoy.
Is your degree worthless?... well thats really up to you.
Look at it this way. The fundamentals of a car haven't changed since the model T. It still has wheels, an engine, and a transmission to link them. But I would hardly say the best of cars is behind us. Nowdays, we have 200k miles reliability, 30mpg fuel consumption, from cars that can run 11's on the strip with a little work. Computers/Software industry is much the same way. The easy bang for the buck software is written(word processing, etc). These won't change. But there is automation programming, simulations, AI, and many other aspects which we still on the cusp of breaking through. No, the software industry isn't dead. We're just gonna have to work harder to make quality products. I predict the 1-3 year devolpment cycle(okay, I know that's a general statement) as being replaced by a 5-6 year cycle. It takes time, and money to write good software. But the market is still there. They're just much more cautious now.
If you want to make a successful business writing software I suggest going after small and home businesses. They often need customized software and can't afford to hire their own programming staff. You could make a decent living I think by developing vertical apps for these users and offering customization services. At least that's what I'm working on. This is a good market to write opensource software in whie still making a living.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Ellision is saying that software is dead AS A GROWTH INDUSTRY! Personally, I think modest 5-10% growth rates don't spell the end of the world for software. Cheer up!
We've all heard the quote, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." by Charles H. Duell in 1899, insisting that his office be closed (he was the top guy at the Patent office in the U.S.). And a lot has happened in the last 100 years. Anyone who thinks that is true for software should get his head out of the sand.
Although I agree with you on some accounts, I do think there have been games since Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital that fulfill the things you mention; Civilization 2 and 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and 4, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 2 etc. all "kept my attention for days without getting repetitive".
If the software insdustry is dead, this would be quite odd. Perhaps certain portions of the industry are getting saturated, but there apparently still are some developing markets. Now if developing market out there is looking for a summer geek, I have a resume waiting for them...
To say the industry is dead is to imply there's nothing new under the sun. Wrong. Software is not a commodity; it's driven by innovation, and the next killer app is always on the way. I am assuming, of course, that open source folks won't be the only ones writing killer apps.
Last friday I was sitting in a meeting. A guy giving a presentation was trying to input about 900 records of data into a new system when he discovered the data was in the wrong format. A dozen contractors twiddling thumbs on company time because of a litte hosed data.
I took me about five minutes to wrote a little routine to parse the data into the correct format. Within the hour we were back on schedule.
So the answer to the question is "no".
This is the age of information. The more information we have, the more need there will be to manipulate that infroamtion.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
degree in a field that generally needs applied applications (I cannot think of a philosopy program to save my life). I have degrees in MIS and Finance and always find a new job when necessary/desired (in Oklahoma no less, which has a piss poor market for software developers). Being a CS grad you'd probably get more bang for your buck by getting an MBA (you're exactly who the MBA program was designed for).
I have to say that software industry is growing. I would think that the 'low end' is quite healthy nowadays, considering how many individuals and 'independents' are setting there own companies to produce software for PDAs and mobile phones. Want to play MP3's on your phone? Somebody's bound to have done it (or it's an idea for one of you coders reading this).
It's the high end that is having the problems. And even then not all of them - e.g. I agree with the article that MS is still growing: they keep on diversifying. People have realised that over the years some of the 'high-end' systems they've been getting are a rip-off, and that there are cheaper options (you can guess for yourselves) which can replace them.
I can say even in an economic downturn, that if there is a piece of software that has proven worth, and will genuinely help a customer, then it will be purchased. It's just that nobody is delivering what people want (or could want).
The article said nothing about the software industry being dead. This is the quote from Ellison:
... The industry's maturing. The Valley will never be what it was," Ellison said.
"It's (Silicon Valley) not coming back
I see nothing that mentions the software industry as dead. He only says the days of super growth are over, which I happen to agree with.
Which industry do you think pays for all the "free" software. I'd like to see people volounteer their time when they can't put food on the table. If I'm working at Lowe's, carrying lumber, I don't think I will be in the mood to write free software after I get back from work.
...is not the industry that most programmers work in.
If you're getting a degree in software development, there's about a 98% chance that if you write code, it will be for a custom business system that will never be used outside of the company you work for.
Programmers rarely work in software product companies, and in those companies the programmers find themselves to be the minority (both in number and in pay) -- overshadowed by marketers, admins, and lawyers. Their jobs are to produce the product, worked 18 hours a day, paid what amounts to minimum wage, and maybe one day it might result in a royalty check.
See, the software product industry doesn't really exist. The billions of dollars made by Microsoft are in truth a bizarre anomoly that most companies have not been able to recreate. That is not to say that other companies don't sell software profitably too, but in those cases the software is sold as simply a service offering vessel. Microsoft is one of the few that can sell a shrinkwrap product to millions of people and walk away from them until it's time to sell them the next release.
Other cases where software is sold as a product usually has nothing to do with the rest of the software industry. The box is an end user consumable like entertainment content or some kind of shovelware gimmick.
It is the software product industries Ellison is talking about when he says the software industry is on the decline. He probably even sees it in his own company. No one buys Oracle for the sake of having Oracle software, they buy Oracle so they have Oracle's support infrastructure behind it.
So while the software product industry may be on its way out, it doesn't mean you should switch majors just yet.
The software systems and services industries are poised for a boom. Businesses are starting to collect more information, expanding into more markets, becoming (finally) a little more computer literate. It is in these fields we can seek to sell ourselves, and it is also in these fields we can best sell Linux and open source.
And I don't mean to troll, but Ellison is a known blowhard.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
I will agree with you once the free software subculture actually comes out with something that is NOT A CLONE of a commercial product.
:-).
It indeed happens seldom to find a really original idea implemented as a software product. But that's happening both in the commercial and the free software world. Hey, what was the last M$ or IBM software product, not being a clone
But for the free software world, I do think that the first NCSA web server and the first web browser (running on good old NeXT) can be considered "not a clone" and were also free downloadable. So, there is your example....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
True, you'll never experience the joy of being a dot-com paper millionaire. And, with most raw programming work being sent to India, Russia, and other developing (and exploitable) economies, you will likely work for less than those who came before you. However, consulting or contract work isn't such a bad alternative to a pure software house. In fact, I think it's better since you get a wider exposure to the entire software lifecycle.
Another avenue to explore is "shareware". No, seriously. If you come up with a truly useful product (i.e. not a screensaver), even a niche product will do well. I know this goes against the free and open source movements, but I see nothing wrong with it as a source of individual primary or additional income. In fact, I wish I would have bit the bullet and started out by selling my own software -- which is already pulling in about what my first "real" job paid. But now I'm spoiled and to afraid to leave the protective blanket of "working for the man" (benefits, pension, company car, etc.).
"It's square now... the growth just isn't there anymore, the big bumps of the three sided wheel are gone and the good days of people being interested in wheel development are over."
Really the industry probably hasn't seen its best days. How much crappy software is there out there? How far are we from getting it right? Right now we have square wheels, we haven't figured it all out yet. The industry (open and proprietary) is changing, which is good. We are at a point when software is about to become really exciting. There is so much that can be done and bright minds will do it. Besides its better that investors aren't throwing money at anything with DOT and a COM, it will mean sounder companies, sounder projects, and more interest in open/free software solutions (as true believers will make the project anyways, regardless of monetary gain).
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
Because gaming software seems to be at as healthy a level as it has ever been.
Actually, gaming has been hurting for a few years now. Most of the little developers let themselves be bought out rather than go under. And unfortunately it's only a minority of big hit games that make money. People love to say "Look at Grand Theft Auto 3 and Splinter Cell!" but those are the exceptions.
Try liquidwar. One of the most fascinating and innovative games I've ever played.
http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar/
Being a Marketing Major, I am forced to learn this type of thing... New Industries go though several stages. 1. Growth - growing demand with high profit margins. 2. Mature - high competition low profit margin... and in this stage jobs tend to leave for cheaper labor centers which I beleave is India in this industry. 3. Decline... market saturation... kinda self explanitory. The software industry, is a little odd and follows a slightly different path but it still seems we are in the second stage. There will be fewer jobs availible, but there should always be jobs for the most talented programers...
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
The software industry isn't dead. Hell, the software industry hasn't even gotten out of infancy yet. Consider that there are already tens of millions of computers in the world, and out of that number there are thousands of types of computers that AREN'T PC type computers running windows. There are millions of embedded, specialty machines that will need software.
Consider that every cellular phone is a computer, every car on the road has a computer in it, and hell, even your microwave has a computer.
And as computers become more ubiqitious and get built into every device, and it requires that these devices become more and more "intelligent", they are going to require more sophisticated software to run them.
You think your microwave that'll accept voice commands is going to happen by magic? We're still 10 or 20 years away from having a computer like "HAL" (in 2001), i.e. a computer smart enough to write it's own software, so, I'd say that there's still plenty of time for you to make some money.
And even then, when computers are doing the programming, there will always be those who are better at it than the machines. Of course, the machines might conspire to bump off those folks, but that's fodder for my next novel...
TTYL!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I also am a recent grad (been out 2 years) and every place that I have noticed doesn't truly care about what your degree is in just as long as you have a degree. I work in the banking industry and we have archieologist majors that work here. So your degree will always get you somewhere. As far as software developing being dead, its far from it. Software is just ready for the next generation of what software can do and evolve to something even more great. Someone once said a long time ago that everything that could ever been invented has already been invented. That was before computers were even thought of.
You do realise that the Software Industry is about a LOT more than Windows programming and games
Welcome to the embedded/telecom-industry - please bring your Open Source GPRS-signalling stack
it's in my head
Yourdon made a similarsimilar prediction in 1993 and he was way off....
We are in the middle of the information revolution and information processing will be big business.
What the software industry needs is a professional designation like lawyers, doctors, etc...
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
... and of course not.
First of all, there will definitely, incontrovertibly, be a contraction in the industry (already well underway) and reduction in salaries. The NYT coverage of this same interview didn't focus on the software industry dying, but more on the power shifting towards customers -- no longer can you wave around technology words and expect people to snap up your product. You have to deliver rock-solid software that works, at an affordable price (of course, the definition of "affordable" is flexible; lots of people buy SAP).
It was kind of inevitable, really. Getting a CS degree was the thing to do to ensure yourself a job after college, at least when I was there, and I think for a time after I left. It seems like there's a glut of people who are "in IT." Maybe they're not all GOOD, but they are plentiful. And add to that, outsourcing to India. Lots of people complain about how remote Indian coders aren't up to snuff, but that won't last; as the firms over there mature and improve their training, they'll only get better.
As for the argument "you'll always need software," well that's true. But you also always need electricity and telephones, and no one really considers those to be premium fields to go into. That said, you can make a lot of money over the course of your life as a bonded electrician. And I think this is the way that IT is headed: it's going to become a commodified, buyer's market.
Which is why I also think it would be a good idea to get some sort of unionization or guild system up and running now, before there's a total glut and everyone's layed off and miserable. The days of high-flying super coders demanding 100K a year plus options, are over. We've come down to earth, some a lot harder than others, and I think we need to deal with the reality of a computer industry that's a lot less glamorous (come on, we all started out as nerds anyway) and less in-demand than we got used to.
The effort it takes to create a copy of a piece of software is so small, unless artificial restrictions (copy protection add-ons, laws) are imposed. And frankly, if you need to spend the larger part of your development time to create "prevention mechanisms", something is wrong with that business model (we are not there yet, but I think it is likely). After all, the productive part of your development work is the real value you create.
So in my opinion the software business in the foreseeable future may not survive as a "production" industry, but rather as a service business. I imagine it like this: the product - the piece of software the developer creates - becomes secondary to the know-how required to actually be able to write a piece of software, or to extend it. A coder then would offer this knowledge as a service.
A business model for this type of enterprise probably already exists among those companies creating open source (GPLed) software. One example springs into my mind - the guy who wrote snort. IIRC he makes money by selling his security knowledge - the tool he created is just that - a tool, or a platform for his services, but not a product.
This commentary from eWeek nicely dissects Ellison's troll...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
>They haven't even kept pace with free software,
Free software is helping to kill the Software Business. Dickie Stallman's utopian view of a technology industry entirely peopled by unpaid labor is coming true.
Hey, what was the last M$ or IBM software product, not being a clone?
Microsoft BOB.
Software Wars
I used to work for a major telco that has outsourced 3-5 thousand IT jobs once done near Tampa, FL to India. Now a friend who works for another telco told me this past week that over a 1000 of their IT jobs are going to India by the end of 2004. And that's just in their division (Atlanta). 1000's more will migrate soon and when the major groups groups (billing, financials, HR software, etc) are outsourced and gone, then the smaller supporting groups will leave too. It'll be REAL quiet on Peachtree Street. All over it's like this and now guess who's bitching loudest that H1B visas will soon be scaled back to the levels prior to the big dot-com bubble?
At least with all of the big companies gone we might get some innovation back (something that free software seems to be pretty good at)
Nonsense. The modern free software movement uses commercial developers to do it's R&D. So you have the free software people shouting "We're innovative!" on the one hand, but from the outside it all looks very me-too.
...not software.
The fact is, The Ellisons, Gates, even Jobs's of the world are a dying breed if the Stallmans, Torvalds and other Open Source guys have their way. open Source has provided much of the real innovations in software over the last decade (how's that BSD TCP stack running these days, Bill?) and has now moved into the arena of whole systems. Why pay $300/annually for a piece of software when a free equivilant that runs better is readliy downloadable?
That said, you can see why Larry is worried. He hears the pounding of the hooves of the horsemen of his economic apocylypse. I, as a ride on one of the thundering heard am enjoying every inch of the ride.
The software industry is composed of more than just word processors and games.
There are bussiness apps, defense apps, simulations, etc. Think of AirForce combat simulators for instance. They keep many people in the "software industry" employed.
So, maybe we're as far as we can get with word processors and games, but so what ? Who wants to work on a word processor forever ?
How can someone say the "software industry" is dead?! After all, what the hell am I running on my computer? Is this the last version of every program I use?
Is it slowing down? Sure... but I liken it to the field of Physics. A few years ago, you threw a stone and studied gravity. Nowadays, you need supercolliders to study quantum gravity. Amateur physics has slowed down. A lot.
And apparently, so has amateur programming. We all see it every day. Some project starts up in SF that does one thing alright, but it never gets developed into a PRODUCT. A library and a command-line interface is just plain not enough. Not when you are competing against a billion-dollar company with hundreds of great programmers.
But then again, it is definetly not dead. There are still people trying to decipher nature using "non-professional" means. Astronomy is one such field. And software, professional and otherwise, will always continue. After all, the small projects could be considered practice. But most important, they are at the very least a hobby, at the most a passion. And those never die.
Did anyone else notice Ellison didn't say software was dead? He said: -- Ellison, known for his outspoken views, was downcast in January as he told Barrons weekly newspaper that high-tech's mind-boggling growth spurt is over -- never to return again. "It's (Silicon Valley) not coming back ... The industry's maturing. The Valley will never be what it was," Ellison said.
--
Essentially, it sounds to me like he's saying we're not going to get another bubble like we had in the 90s. Which seems kind of the prevailing opinion, at least I've not heard anyone said that we're ever goign to return to the growth we had in the 90s.
Just ask Larry.
Larry said "Silicon Valley" isn't coming back. That may be, since Silicon Valley has to pay their staff enough to cover California housing. The software industry is nearly unique in the degree to which is has decoupled 'product' and 'stuff'. Software can travel the world in seconds and can be anyone with some analytic aptitude and willingness to read the source and the manual. This can be done from almost anywhere. Only a fool would thing that the only engineers in the world that can write great code are found in Silicon Valley or Redmond, and Larry is no fool.
I suspect that the software industry will devide into 'tool makers' and 'scripters'. The scripters will use the tools to meet the needs of clients, while a tiny fraction (of the programmers in the world) will code the shared tools.
With open source, common code drops in price. Proprietary code can exist, but it must compete with open source that is at least 'good enough' for many users. This will limit what the 'tool makers' can charge. But custom scripters, that meet the need of a particular clients, are still needed. They produce a product that is complementary to the hardware and the 'tools', so microeconomics predicts that they (us) will have increased demand. Countering that is an increasing supply of programmers (from overseas competitors and from displaced 'tool makers'). I don't know how to quantify the supply and demand for scripter and I don't know how elastic the market is, but I think that these market forces will dominate the next decade.
Software 'giants' thought they could develop tools and sell them to every user in the world - they thought that the sky was the limit on their ability to profit. So, for these companies, the sky is indeed falling.
Think global, act loco
That doesn't mean you can't make money writing software, just that you can't do so in the form of a company that sells really really expensive data CD's.
What about the software that companies in other industries are writing for themselves, either with employees or contractors? I mean, it's not like Ford can go down to CompUSA and buy "Microsoft CarPlant" to run their assembly line. There are also service companies whose service requires software to operate - they may write vast amounts of code, but their product is a service, not the software that provides it.
Apple has written some of the best desktop software of the last few years (the iApps), but they're not a software company either. They try to use the Mac-exclusive software to get you to buy their hardware.
There's lots going on. Don't tear up that degree just yet.
-realinvalidname
I've been developing professionally for coming on 7 years now. Frankly, there is little out there that's convincing me where heading towards "Lego" like software construction. (And if we are, it might be in some place like .Net, which I'm only on the outskirts of right now.)
See, the thing is, it's really hard to make a useful core engine that is reusable in a lot of different scenarios. 9 times out of 10, it's easier and cheaper to start from sractch, making use of good toolkits/API and directly solving the problem at hand, hopefully in a reasonably flexible way, than to wrangle some existing infrastructure into what the client wants.
Actually, that toolkit/API level software work IS a bit like using legos (few people should writ a Java hashmap function from scratch)...I think my Lego-like, you're thinking something more on the scale of...I dunno, Capsela.
But what can I do? I switched to Comp Sci in 1994 or so. I read Wired, but I had no idea something like the boom was coming. I added a Comp Sci major to my English because Comp Sci is what came naturally to me and felt personally rewarding... I'd be trying to do it even if there was no boom. I guess if the situation gets ugly enough, I'll rethink my life... though it's gonna be hard to a lateral switch that's likely to knock me so far down the payscale.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Older slashdot readers will remember the aerospace engineering bust of the 1970s ("will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights"), and there was an EE bust then too - http://www.engtrends.com/InsideEE/Article06a/. Engineers in resource extraction (ie, oil) see boom-busts related to demand, as do those in construction.
For CS PhDs we've gone through a couple of minor boom-bust cycles already. Those graduating in the 1970s and early 80s had easy times finding a job - then, late 80s the market was tighter, fewer positions - then, late 90s, PhDs had lots of options so schools had a hard time recruiting - and in the past two years now it's becoming easier to recruit.
I'm tempted to think of these cycles like the predator-prey population cycles (you know, lots of bunnies, then lots of foxes, then fewer bunnies, then fewer foxes, then repeat). It's just part of the engineering field. The key is that if you love your engineering discipline, and are good at it, you will find a job. If the discipline becomes familiar with the cycle, then we can discourage weaker candidates during boom years and encourage strong candidates during the bust years. Schools can't buy too much into the current cycle.
Are there fundamental changes in the discipline that would make the boom-bust cycle different this time? Increasing consolidation of firms, more barrier to entry from patents, more CS/programmers trained overseas? Maybe. CS is, after all, all about automating tasks and if we get too good at it, we can impact a lot of jobs. But, remember, life is NP-complete - there will always be more to do.
Diplomas are Union Cards... or at least they are being treated as the modern day equivalent, these days.
Getting a CS, or *any* degree is not the same thing as going to a trade school, and it's time that people quit treating it that way.
If you went after your CS degree chasing the idea of money, then you are better off changing your major to something you enjoy doing, rather than something that you do for the money.
Let me ask: do you want a job? Or do you want a career? If you just want a job, being a trucker or an assembly line worker at GM generally pays more than being a software engineer.
In the hey-day of Silicon Valley, all you had to do is say you were a "2nd year CS student", and you would be hired by some desperate company, with more funding than good sense, to be a warm body to fill a cubicle, at some inflated salary... what a disaster for everyone: a bunch of partially trained computer scientists who think they are being paid a lot because of the value of what's inside their heads, rather than what's inside their pants (a butt for filling a chair). No more, and the industry is better for it.
The bottom line is that the people who chase a particular degree because "I think that's where the money is", rather than "I think I will enjoy doing this for the rest of my life" are losers. They always have been.
These are the same people who used to want to be doctors, and then used to want to be lawyers. Now they are the people who used to want to be computer scientists.
Creating a life for yourself is all about finding something you enjoy doing, and then finding someone to pay you to do it, not about finding something that someone will pay you to do, and suffering through it.
You will be much happier, and so will your future spouse and kids, when it turns out you don't beat them over being trapped in a job that's "work" for you, when it should be something you enjoy doing.
-- Terry
e.g. tulip blubs sell well, but not like they used to.
Ah, gotta love Slashdot and all its spelling fulbs.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
I aint in the computer business, just a blue collar sort who loves computers, had one since it was a Sinclair Mail Order!!! The economy has been cleaned out by a bunch of scam artists who looted the economy. That is the heart of the problem. Since they chose the Tech Industry was a favorite hustle, it is hurting worse than most industries. I dont see how anyone could be pessimistic about the future of the Computer Industry unless they want to continue selling 20th century technology for top dollar. These seem to me the sort that are crying the loudest. If I was young and just out of college, I would be extremely optimistic, because alot of garbage in the industry had been hauled to the street, making room for me and my 21st century ideas. The potential for utilizing todays hardware is mostly unrealized, nevermind tomorrows computer networks. There has yet to be written a computer language that even begins to use the potential of the hardware, let alone the software that exploits the language. Get busy!!!
HenryJamesFeltus.com
Nonsense yourself.
Microsoft is full of very smart, creative developers. What prevents them from releasing innovative stuff is the business model -- what does it do for Microsoft to let loose wild elements into a software environment they already own.
The free software movement allows these ideas to survive the poor motivations of the corporations.
If AOL goes out of business tomorrow or decides that they are no longer well served by expending resources on developing a browser, it becomes obvious that the browser they developed has a life of its own, unlike the best innovative code I have seen at most companies, which never sees the light of day because they were clueless about how to build a business model out of it.
It is still a tiny minority of code by commercial developers that has been permitted to see the light of day as free software, but it has been quite positive and to a certain extent innovative, at least when compared with the commercial alternatives that have actually been released.
There is other software. Your cellphone and your microwave and your laser printer all have processors in them, and somebody has to write code for them. That business (embedded systems) is also in healthy shape. Not growing by leaps and bounds, not vacuuming up every last resume or recent grad, but not about to fall over and disappear either.
There are lots of businesses and business niches that involve software development. There are even still some businesses paying people to develop websites. And for all the sufferings of unemployed sysadmins, there are still people being paid for sysadmin work out there.
Everybody got burned by the dot-bomb. For a couple of years, businesses were so hungry that they'd hire anybody who could write three lines of Perl and give them a corner office and big stock options. That was an unstable situation and there has been a backlash.
If you ask, "is the industry dying?", there will always be an authoritative idiot saying yes. The more important long-term question is, "could this kind of work hold your interest for three or four decades?", so think about that and plan accordingly.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
sort of. Should it be? probably.
One of the biggest lies the corporations ever sold us was that everything useful a person can do is an industry. Is music an industry? no, it is entertainment. Is information an industry? no, it is knowledge. Is entertainment an industry? no, it is a diversion. Is there an industry based in every one of these? yes. Should there be? not necessarily.
They may be nice to have and convenient at that, but they are in no way vital to have them as money-driven gargantuan machines.
Examples of true industry: textiles. metal. machinery. transportation. food.
Examples of false industry: information. music, movies, and other media.
While software has proven itself to be like unto machinery, the fact that there are so many people doing it for free and giving the fruits of their labors away proves that anything infinitely dispersable without loss to the original provider cannot be a true industry without having to actually produce the object being sold. Linus Torvalds created the Linux kernel, but if I copy it and give it to a friend, Linus has lost nothing. If I have a wooden box and I copy it and give it away, I have lost the cost of the wood. That is the difference. I know there are holes in my arguement, but thats where semantics come in and I generally ignore semantics when they are placed on an idealistic level anyhow. Until a serious discussion on the subject takes place, there isn't any point in bothering with them.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
That's like saying the auto industry is a dead industry.
Sure, the auto group doesn't have the 500% a year growth that it had in the early 1900's, but it is far from a dead industry.
It would be more acurate to say that the software business is not a GROWTH industry. Most of the software "capacity" has been filled. Now software is a "replacement" business. No new capacity, just expansion of existing capacity.
-ted
> I will agree with you once the free software subculture actually comes out with something that is NOT A CLONE of a commercial product.
TeX? Mosaic? SSH? Rogue?
How frikken many commercial clones of Rogue and Mosaic have we seen?
Some of the most genuinely innovative stuff we've got had its origin in the free software subculture.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Besides, there are people who specialize in business. Except that if they're not flexible, their shiny degree aint worth much either. (Heard an interview with an unemployed "Vice President of Brand Awareness." Can't understand why he's a year plus on the breadlines.) Which brings me to my main point: everybody needs to be flexible.
Too many techies are overspecialized. Their only educational priority is to prepare for some job that happens to be Very Hot when they start school. Even if the dot.com boom had lasted for 100 years, people like that would be in big trouble eventually. Technology changes, and you need the mental flexibility to keep up with those changes. You won't get that with a narrow education.
My biggest complaint about the cost of living in the US is that the "standard of living" is a moving target here. If you have an old, well running car or if you have an old house, somehow you are supposed to make an extra effort in earning more so that you can move to a "nicer place" with a "nicer car".
The real estate prices too are in a way, silly. The cost of land is not much, the houses are getting bigger and bigger, and no one can find a place that is good but small enough to be affordable. Just like the dream of owing new SUVs, a lot of the cost of living is in the minds.
S
In ten years, we'll be filing his quote in with Ken Olson's quote that there's a market for maybe a dozen computers worldwide, or the comment from the patent office clerk a century or so ago that said everything that can be invented already has been.
Of course, it's technically possible that Ellison is right. I wouldn't wager on it, myself, humankind has a history of doing things that can't be done-- walking on the moon, breaking the sound barrier...
And you can expect companies to screw their employees by going to cheaper and cheaper labour. After all, the effect in the short term is hardly noticeable even though over time it will completely shift the ecconomic base from the richest countries to the poorer countries.
It take more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in God
As a veteran of IT I was there when you had to have real skill to get involved. Also, being around during the boom I saw that attitude change and companies take on inexperienced employees because it was sooo hard to find employees in general. I worked on Bank of America's network security team and it was pretty much a training camp for unqualified employees. By the time they had some skills they realized that they could make more $ elsewhere so it was a never ending cycle. If your parents and their friend thought you were a computer guru and you went to a MCSE boot camp you could get a senior level IT job. Now all the while there was REAL growth in IT but we all know that there was a TON of FALSE growth due to the IPO scam that America fell into. Now I am having a hard time finding a job even though I DO have senior level skills because the market is flooded with all these Wannabes that had their ego built up by the over demand. These people need to go take their real jobs at Burger King and Home Depot so that the REAL IT people can get an interview.
It seems only fair that the most experienced / qualified people stay in the industry that they have those skills in and the least qualified get out of the industry. Anyone still in school taking Computer Science with lofty dreams of making it to the top is fooling themselves and they will find themselves working in a low paying / thankless job. Sorry guys you missed the boom and it is now a buyer's (employer's) market so chances with no experience you are out of luck.
My advice for would be Computer Science majors would be to switch majors to one that compliments a market where there is a demand for workers. I have investigated what that is, but may be forced to very soon. With that said there are a bunch of people that are going into Computer Science because it is their passion and not as a career path. For those I say fine just don't take enthusiasm for a false sense of job security because it does not exist.
There ya go...
lol
Nick Powers
My Resume
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
So you went to college and majored in a computer related field thinking you were going to be the next Bill Gates? Or maybe you thought you'd work for Bill Gates and get a tiny slice of the pie?
You're not alone but you are probably in for a big surprise if you haven't already figured this out...
Think about musicians. There are a whole lot of them out there and almost all of them dream of making it big. Most of those that make money as a musician are doing so in obscurity and without the *BIG* money. Most musicians know this.
Think about how many companies sell software. Think about how many employees they have.
Think about how many people are out there that can work in the software industry.
The fact is that most people making money in the computer industry are not doing it by working for a company that sells software.
So, is the software industry dead? Not really but it was never "alive" the way you thought it was. It's smaller than it has been in the past but your chances weren't that great to being with--greater than being the next top 20 artist but not as great as you probably thought.
What should you do? Do what we all do...go get a job writing software for company that has every intent of using it rather than selling it.
My father in-law is a potatoe grower and he knows when a recession is ending and starting. Like alcohol it is inverse and indicates more in-home entertainment.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Nowadays, just about everyone graduating has some kind of computer programming experience. The ability has become a commodity, programmers are a dime a dozen, especially in foreign labor pools.
So no, its not dead, its just not going to pay like it used to.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I think the main reason there's this feeling of, well, stagnation in the industry, is because of the inability of people to see the "Next Big Thing" that will drive development.
Spreadsheets, GUIs, relational DBMS's (Oracle), and the internet were all new technologies that added impulses (in the engineering sense) to the computer industry pendulum, keeping it swinging higher. People right now are unsure where that next kick is coming from.
What is coming down the pike that people absolutely must have? Bioinformatics? Small wireless devices? If you knew what's coming next, you could be the next Larry Ellison. Unfortunately, Larry wants to be the next Larry Ellison, too, and he's got more money to spend on research.
In the end, you should find something that is well defined (fuzzy plans make flops), that interests you, that doesn't put you in direct competition with a multi-billion dollar firm, and that there's at least some market for. If you're good at it, you'll do fine.
Or join the multi-billion dollar firm, and save your weekends for fun.
"I feel sorry for you youngsters - the golden age of the industry is behind us. I was so fortunate to have been there. Too bad we're just leaving the husks for you newcomers."
This was also the gist of a speech by a recent lifetime achievement award winner at one of the premier networking conferences. The recipient could as easily have said that a lot of great work has been done but the best part, of scaling the Internet to handle billions of active devices is still to come.
Old guys were probably saying the same stuff back in the 70s or 80s when the mainframe and minicomputer industries went through consolidation. "The days of the great mainframe sort utilities are behind us!"
The software industry _deserves_ to die. They haven't even kept pace with free software...
The software industry doesn't deserve death more than any other, say the auto industry, the oil industry, the drug industry, the political graft industry, or the [fill in random industry here].
The biggest difference between the software industry and others is that it has to compete with a cottage industry of experienced, competent developers motivated not by money but by reputation and perfection of technical skills, whose capital costs are virtually nonexistent. As a result, for perhaps the first time in industrial history, a cottage industry has gotten as strong as the corporate segment with which it competes. In what way does this mean that the corporate segment deserves to die?
It doesn't. On the contrary, note the rapidly developing symioses between the corporate and the - let's call it "free" - side. This doesn't mean that free software development is going corporate, rather it means that free software development is gaining even more strength. This is the ideal result.
One of the ways the free software segment continues to grow is through corporate sponsorship, most typically, where the best free developers are provided with salaried or contract positions, which are not just slave labor, but in which they can devote the majority of their time to doing what they were already doing, i.e., putting more and better software into the public domain. In return for which the corporation gains prestige, competent advice, some influence on project design directions, and the occasional emergency hack. Without such corporate sponsorship, the free software segment would still grow, but not nearly as quickly.
Rather than imminent extinction of the profit-making software industry, what's really happening is a species die-off, coupled with the rise of a new species of software company that understands the new lay of the land. To profit in the next decade, the old monopoly tricks won't work any more. Any monopolies that have so far survived just serve to attract the attention of more free developers: the bigger the monopoly, the bigger the attraction. So monopolized market segments tend to be pushed into niches, and when these niches are finally the biggest targets left, they in turn attract attention, and so it goes. A smart company can profit by *staying* in front of the advance, where free developers are pushing into the remaining niches, but aren't quite there yet. This is where a salaried team working according to preset guidelines can perform best, to deliver products that are good for the customer not because there is no other choice, but because they are easier to learn, slicker or more functional than what the customer can get for free.
This requires understanding the synergies, reading the new directions accurately, and above all, noticing what the free software developers - being free - sense and react to so much more efficiently than traditional corporate structures. In other words, ride the train, don't stand in front of it.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Before I say anything about the industry, let me start out by saying that you never, ever waste your time when you study computer science. Even if you never use it professionally (increasingly likely these days) you'll still find the ability to completely control a computer (as opposed to "using" a computer like most people) very valuable. Just think; by the time you're done with your degree program, you'll be able to understand and work with any computer you're plunked down next to. Not only that; you'll be able to make the thing do your bidding. That's a pearl of great price, don't think of it in career terms.
Having said that, yes, unfortunately the software industry is dead, at least from the perspective of the individual programmer. There are a lot of reasons for this, including:
1. Most corporations and private companies are outsourcing almost *everything*, usually either overseas (India, mostly) or to local companies that use overseas talent. You can't beat them on price, ok? Their cost of living is a fraction of yours, and they'll undercut you until you starve. It doesn't matter that your skills are superior, or that you're a great programmer; some guy in Bangalore can work for 1/5 what you cost, and to a pointy-haired boss, that's all that matters. This is a terrible, terrible thing, and corporations deserve no loyalty or mercy from us -- when their customer base can no longer afford their products thanks to rampant layoffs, they'll die off like the vermin they are. But there's nothing we (or anyone) can do about it, so we might as well accept it.
2. Even if a private company isn't going to go into full-blown outsourcing, they ARE going to rely mostly on contractors. What THIS means is, most of the work will go to inexpensive foreign talent ANYWAY (because now, the contracting companies will do the outsourcing) and those Americans who DO get contracting gigs will have to settle for chump change or lose the bid. IF, that is, you can get them to pay you at all -- there are lots, and I mean lots, of stories about people getting stiffed by companies. Corporate IT is a really dicey business for a programmer or admin these days.
3. Software companies aren't going to provide many jobs. Applications software is deader than hell. It's been slaughtered by the Open Source community, who can produce solid software that not only costs nothing, but which can be copied infinitely, and has no hidden gotchas like the equivalent proprietary software. You simply cannot compete with that; you can't beat them on quality, or on price, or even on style (most open source software these days even LOOKS good). It's a dead industry, ok? Not that this is a bad thing, necessarily, but it does mean you won't be able to count on a salary from this sector.
But it's not all doom and gloom. There are still a couple of places where you can make some money.
First of all, public sector jobs may not pay as much as the private sector USED to, but they sure pay a hell of a lot more NOW. Federal, State, and Local jobs are all unionized, so you're protected, and you get great benefits. So this is a great place to hunker down during the recession. One warning: they can be annoying places to work. But it's worth a little aggravation to have a steady job.
Second of all, if you're good at graphics, game companies are going to keep growing. They're making money hand over fist. But concentrate on console games. People are sick of having to upgrade their PCs every couple of years, and they're switching over to consoles at a breakneck pace.
Third, and this is pretty dicey, you might be able to make some bread writing Java and J2EE libraries and tools that corporations might want to buy. Get the money up front, though. Don't get stiffed. And, buy some kind of dongle or other copy-protection scheme, or corporations WILL pirate your code like mad. Think I'm kidding? Companies like to ask you for a "demo" and then, use that to do whatever project they had in mind. Then you don't get paid. Get the don
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Do a degree in Biology and make shit loads of money in the Pharma industry as a bioinformatician.
With all the genetic information now available now which we know very little about yet, there is a very high need for people with knowledge in CS and Biology to analyse this data -- incidentally, students most likely to take CS have historically looked down on the natural sciences and natural science students have historically been afraid of the quantitative sciences including CS.
I know a few physicists and mathematicians who have learned a bit of biology and scored big in Bioinformatics, the reverse is also true but fewer biologists have learned CS to become bioinformaticians.
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
I think the exact opposite is true. The hardware these days is amazingly fast. Once software matures to use the new hardware to the fullest potential I will be a much happier gamer.
I think software has a long way to go in other fields besides gaming. Windows 2003 is not a giant leap forward and users of Windows still want more features/reliability/speed. Increasing hardware speed only helps so much if the software isn't developed.
For another pessimistic point of view, check out May's Harvard Business Review, "IT Doesn't Matter," summary here. (I suggest reading it at a good magazine store with tables and coffee because buying the damn thing is not a sound value proposition.)
The article essentially argues that an in-house IT department is no longer strategic for most companies--that IT has become a commodity. Although I think this is completely absurd at this point, chances are they have a point. In any case, it's interesting reading.
Milo
OTOH, the software industry is going through, and will continue to go through, large changes. There will be fewer opportunities for three people in a garage to become billionaires. In many cases, large development organizations dedicated to a single product (the equivalent of factories in manufacturing industries) will be moved out of the United States in pursuit of lower labor costs. There will still be lots of small jobs that are done locally, but in many of those cases an understanding of the business or process into which the software fits will be as important as development skills. Research jobs will still exist for the talented few who can do that well. But overall, I expect it to be a very different environment than it has been for the past 20 years.
The effect will not be to shift the money accross geographic boundaries, but rather, class boundaries. The money will continue to shift upward. The jobs will shift overseas, only because they can be paid less there. That will drive down wages here, and then when the wages in that country start to rise, production will be moved yet again to an even cheaper market.
Ultimately though the people who will benefit the most from this are those who control capital and the means of production. They will be able to drive down costs, and thus drive up profits. More money will flow up to the top because of this. This will be a global phenomenon.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
90% of programmers make a software which will never be sold on the shelf.
Look at Nokia for example: they have thousands of programmers and they aren't selling any software for the end users.
Cell phones, cell phone networks, banks and many others require tons of software. Unlikely ordinary desktop software, this software must be bug-free and very optimized.
From having observed a number of different threads on slashdot that are on topics related to this one, I have come to the conclusion that people here equate the usefulness of a degree (and a computer science degree in particular) based on the amount of $$$ that a company is willing to pay someone because they have said degree.
Right now some of you may be saying, 'Well, duh!!'
The fact is, there are a million and one reasons why someone could have gone to university to get a degree in a particular field. If the original author of this thread simply got a computer science degree because he saw a cushy job with a large salary and good benefits at the end of his time in university, then, unfortunately, yes, his degree is worthless. Now, on the other hand, if he had gone to university with larger goals in mind, then his degree might be worth a lot more.
What are these larger goals? Well, the author has to ask himself, why did he originally choose to pursue a degree in computer science? Was it because in highschool he enjoyed mathematics and tinkering with computers? If so, then he has just spent four years studying and learning about a topic for which he has a genuine interest. Gaining knowledge simply for the sake of gaining knowledge is most definitely NOT a worthless endeavour.
Again, I hear the naysayers: "That's all well and good in your socialist dreamworld, but we live in a capitalist economy and one needs to make a living."
There *are* still software development jobs out there. And I bet you any money, a company would be much more willing to hire a university grad who has a genuine interest in being a developer, someone who is fascinated by the world of computers, than someone who views programming as a chore and only chose the comp.sci. route because he felt he could make a lot of money in that field.
The same goes for any profession. You're going to be spending at a minimum 40 hours a week doing your job (and in some cases, that's a gross underestimate). Even if you have a job that pays six figures, you have to *enjoy* what you're doing, otherwise you'll be miserable and you'll consider you're training and career to be worthless. If you don't believe me, check out some surveys of job satisfaction among BIGLAW lawyers (these are corporate lawyers who have 120+k salaries out of university). If you do enjoy what you're doing, then you'll be more likely to consider the time invested in a degree, and your current career, worthwhile, even if you're not making huge money.
Science and industry are full of these "best days are past" type of quotes. It really doesn't matter how influential or knowledgeable the individual is, they are most often wrong. My favorite of these pronouncements was that of Francis Crick of Watson-Crick-Wilkins fame. Fifteen years after receiving the Nobel prize for the structure of DNA, he stopped do genetics research and proclaimed that all the great discoveries had been made in genetics. He told his friends that the next "hot" area of biology was going to be neurobiochemistry. He left Cambridge and went to the Salk Institute to do research in this field. Within a year of his career change, using restriction endonucleases, labs around the world began cutting and splicing DNA. The "dead" study of genetics was once again resurrected.
Has always been a blow hard. If you have followed any of his wisdom you'd find hes generally ALWAYS wrong. The guy has always thought he's larger than life but in reality he's a pimp trying to sell whatever new fandagled device he comes up with. This isnt new, but larry always has this way of saying things so absurd that people actually listen. The software industry isnt dead, but it may be getting over crowded with people that go to school for computers but have no passion for it. Someone along the way told them, "so what if you build cardboard boxes allday, anyone can learn to program!". Yes people can be trained but its the truly skilled and passionate people that will get the jobs and get them w/o a problem. Passion means spending much of your own time learning. The amount gained on your own surpasses anything you will be taught in school. And that my friends is what seperates the "paper" kids from the "die hards". Programming has nothing to do with physical labor, its brain power.
In a long-ago land, large companies ran Big Iron and green screens and it was pretty damn easy to buy software packages and get them into production. The biggest worry was the amount of customization needed to make the stuff 'fit' your specific business processes, etc.
Nowadays.... We have *nix, Windows, MVS, etc. running on all manner of hardware. We have middleware out the wazoo. So when we go to the street to buy a software package, it's a decent bet that the vendor may drive you to a new platform in your shop. Complexity, cost, etc. increases - and that's even before you have to deal with customization, integration into security infrastructre, etc.
All in all... the software industry gave us many of these platforms, so now they are dealing with it. Pushing industry standards for 'stuff' is the only way the industry will ever find its legs again, and I'm not very confident that this will industry will come back to good health any time soon. In the meantime, let's talk about a new licensing plan, shall we?
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
Begin rant...
As I've said before, this is nonsense. You can only build on existing work. If that work is not available in source, it is effectively lost. Hardware changes too... It isn't "innovation", it's growth. If I can't study it, I can't build on it. Between "closed software", "close hardware", and, in the US, the "DMCA" you can't effectively build on the existing body of software. What this does is force programmers into re-inventing (and hopefully avoiding patent restriction -- this makes the MS SQL patent problems delightful).
This retards software development. An open model would be much more useful. View this like a novel -- EVEN THOUGH I CAN READ AND STUDY STEVEN KING'S BOOKS, AND CAN BASE NEW FICTION ON HIS BOOKS, I JUST DON'T HAVE THE TALENT TO DISPLACE HIM. And *IF* I did have the talent, that would be to everyone's benefit and enjoyment. DEC VMS was available in source form; how many people felt inclined to "rip it off"? Unix V6 was available in source (Lyons book), again, how many people "ripped it off"? Linux was a RE-IMPLEMENTATION done for personal reasons. Turns out to be useful, and others jumped on the wagon.
Of course the industry looks very "me-too". The "free software movement" must re-implement the "closed software movement", to allow the software industry to advance. If that were not the case, monopoly lock-in would be very VERY complete (imagine - MS WORD were the ONLY word processor, and it is illegal to make another, or use its data-files for ANY purpose not sanctioned. Yes, investors in MS-WORD would be happy, but why would anyone invest ANYTHING is new features? I am a share-holder in MS, and I would SUE MS for missappropriation of share-holder equity). Besides which, MS WORD is an incremental improvement over previous Word Processors. MS had to spend more to implement, because (at least in the WP area), most WP software was proprietary (except for the best formatters - troff and TeX, but they did not address the WYSIWYG feature). Because troff and TeX are "open source", I can build on them (study how automatic hyphenation works, problems in trying to lay out pages, how to do effective typography). Knuth has even written books on the subject, which I can learn from. Where is re-usable knowledge from proprietary vendors?
What happens is that someone decides to base on the free ground knowledge, and invest money expanding this knowledge. This is then productized and sold. Of course, the product itself is "closed" in the proprietary model. The advances made cannot benefit anyone except the immediate product users. (eg. Microsoft invests a lot of money in MS WORD usability studies -- the only way I can know what the results of that research are is to compare two versions of the MS WORD product). After the product is gone, or the company is gone, the work is "lost". If the work is "locked in" no one can make use of the information (SCO's current IBM lawsuite). Does Microsoft or any other company really think that I can produce a (provably) non-infringing product based on their research? Boy, they must take my abilities in the highest esteem. Thanks guys!
Enough of a rant.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
It amazes me how people can miss the obvious when they are faced with a recession. Sure, everything looks gloomy in a recession, but that doesn't mean whole industries are "dying". Software has a LOT of room to grow. The dream of having computers integrated into every aspect of our lives is not going to happen without software. Right now computers mostly live in one room by themselves, and only talk to themselves. But one day we will have refrigerators ordering milk for us when we run out, portable devices will expand to be as common as a wrist watch, every car will have its own computer with GPS, computers will be used to make supply and demand much more effective, and of course, then there is the whole dream of robotics. Computers have a HUGE area into which they can expand. All these devices will need software, and all those devices, including the current ones, will continue to need to have their software refined and added to. This hardly sounds like death to me.
"Dickie Stallman's utopian view of a technology industry entirely peopled by unpaid labor is coming true."
That is not RMS's view. In fact, RMS _wants_ people to charge for both software and software services. In fact, that is the way the FSF was initially funded.
The software business in its current model deserves to die because the _last_ thing it does is service the customer, instead of the first thing. It is a testament to computing power that people have benefitted at all over the past several years - the software industry seems to be trying to dig it's own grave.
Free Software gives the power back to the users. It doesn't mean that people will stop getting paid, it means that the ones doing the paying will actually be in control. In the current model, the end-users pay heavily but have no control. That is changing dramatically.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Saying 'software is dead' is like saying Oracle is dead. Wait, he may have a point then... Anyway, that company needs to just ditch that guy. You will start seeing their p/e value go up real fast.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
The dirty secret in the ERP market is that the differences between PeopleSoft, SAP, and Oracle are relatively trivial. Certainly database access can get half a second faster, run over a tablet instead of a PC, or run on cheaper hardware. But the dramatic gains happened in the nineties when all the information got into the databases in the first place.
Database-centric software is about to become like cars. We have the basic 4-wheel, 3-box, internal combustion model. Some makers squeeze 10% more fuel efficiency out. But the real competition is all hype and price.
Monte argues, and I believe, that growth in software has to come from intelligence. Analytics, engines, and rules need to encode process and real world knowledge. That is where the next opportunity for software is.
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
You know it fits your challenge; you didn't ask for projects under active dev. Troll.
You want one under dev? Emacs.
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
-- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"
Where was the outcry when manufacturing and textiles took a flying leap into ASIA?
Whenever I hear about outsourcing to other countries, I have to retrospect that this has been happening for at least 20 years in one industry or another.
Whenever there is a labour force to do simple training to do the same job you do at half the price, I would be stupid not to say yes. STUPID.
Of course that is where the laws of tarrifs, etc try to balance the deficits of greedy companies.
In My Biased Opinion, I believe that many social woes from America come from a society of consumers constantly wanting more. This makes them greedy, greedier than other countries anyways.
Bye!
Two things to remember:
1) The Silicon Valley is not The Software Industry
2) The fortunes of a handful of companies do not define an entire industry
Software is a lovely new tool, without much history (as compared to things like structural engineering, agriculture, political science). As such, there will be widely-differing approaches to using this accretion of abstract thought that makes machines do things in the real world. Once unleashed, a technology is almost never removed from the world, for good or ill.
Remember how the automobile industry looked before WWII - there were literally hundreds of varieties of automobile you could purchase, from companies largeish and small. Though the number of companies making them has decreased, the industry as a whole is quite active (and has a large hand in controlling most aspects of how we live, at least in most places).
Software, and the related technologies that keep evolving, is an important asset to our species. What would remove it from our considerations would likely also remove us from this rock.
There are 19 or so processors in todays cars. The last module we built sold 1.2 million units. Alot of the comments to this thread revolve around the application world. If it interests you take a look at the embedded world. The worst that can happen is that you will be more diverse and worth more money.
(in Homer voice)
Stupid wiener Larry Ellison
Learn that abbreviation. Return of Investment.
Basically, the computer industry has failed to deliver on time, on budget forever. Only, it's not getting (much) better.
We need real economists to create real business cases for our customers. Then we need to deliver. There are lots of big software projects that fail, either partially or totally.
It's unglorious and hard. But it needs to be done.
Stop the brainwash
I'm still in college, and I have no problems finding summer work as a software developer. The jobs are fewer and further between, but there are still good companies out there willing to hire talented individuals. The market is flooded with fools that know almost nothing about REAL software development, or just have a degree in CompSci or something. Computer Science teaches you barely anything about being a programmer, and being a talented programmer is equally or more important than having some abstract knowledge about computer science, or going through a few assembly language courses and a basic course on algorithms in JAVA. If you go into a company, and demonstrate that you have a passion for programming and are going to do great things for the company, you can get a job. I don't ever want to fall back on my education to try to land a job ... my education isn't what makes me valuable ... it's my drive to be creative, to innovate, and to be a great asset to a good company.
Just my thoughts.
The real estate prices too are in a way, silly. The cost of land is not much, the houses are getting bigger and bigger, and no one can find a place that is good but small enough to be affordable. Just like the dream of owing new SUVs, a lot of the cost of living is in the minds.
because you are looking to live in the areas clustered with idiots.
I bought 10 acres lakefront with a 1500 sq foot house that is on a sports lake where I can fish, powerboat, sail. whatever for 1/2 the price of the same house in the city in a OK neighborhood on a postage stamp lot. I commute farther because of it, but time in the car is 100% identical to my shorter commute... 1 hour drive either way.
rule #1 if you see a subdivision and rich boy houses everywhere... you do NOT want to live there.. the neighbors will be jerks and you will horribly overpay for what you get. look for rural land that is in commute time the same as what you have now. you will be happier, have neighbors that are dang friendly and nice and you get the side effect of leaving your keys in your car and the house unlocksed and NOT WORRY ABOUT IT.
suburbia is for the stupid, and the $200,000.00+ homes are for the massively idiotic.
you are looking at the wrong places and hanging with the wrong people. be yourself and be sure your home is your paradise not you the slave to your home, mortgage and car payments..
BTW, if you live smart, it pisses off the "gotta be better" crowd... as you will always have money to spend on vacations , $4000.00 camcorders, home theatre systems that make thiirs look stupid, etc... it's the fact you dont feel crunched like they do that is the ultimate satisfaction...
nothing is more satisfying than... "Nice new BMW dave... when you getting a boat? oh too bad, well you can borrow one of mine anytime... come out and sail on my lake.. I gotta go It's time for brakes on my Pontiac..."
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The reason software development is dying out is coming from the popular development tools. Developers chained to Microsoft tools can only build apps for Microsoft, and worse, usually end up using broken Microsoft Components (like Internet Explorer).
Innovation is being killed off by capitalism in the US. Small, innovative companies with new ideas are rapidly bought out by big business, while big business is so concerned about their bottom line, they can't really be innovative.
But there is another group of developers - the Open Source developers. This group is not worried about status quo, or quarterly profits, only good software. This group is working hard, and is coming up with many exciting innovations, but sadly, there's a trade-off: There's no guarentee that software app A will work with software app B. No promises that there will be user-friendly or up-to-date documentation, and no certainty that the software in question will even work on the next generation of hardware.
Innovation is risky. Most businesses do every thing they can to avoid risks.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
The centralization of net assets that has occurred and the drop in jobs is not fairly characterized by using the peak of the bubble as the level of expectation of the typical "disgruntled" information technologist from the US.
Far, far from it.
Seastead this.
If you want to go into software development, do it because you like it, NOT because you think it pays well. It may not pay well in the future. Factory work used to pay better than it does now (adjusted for inflation), but shrank over time. This is because of stiff foriegn competition and much cheaper overseas labor. I expect the same thing to happen to software more or less.
If you want money, go into retail management or marketing. That is safer from cheap foreign labor rates because it is "closer" to consumer preferences (local culture). Pick technology if and only if you like technology, not because of expectations of a fatter paycheck. And, have a second career as a backup, because tech is highly cyclical and unpredictable.
Table-ized A.I.
The industry needs another VisiCalc or Mosaic before it really starts moving again, I think...
The software industry isn't dead, it's just turned into a _normal_ industry. That means that a hard working & well qualified graduate working for somebody else can reasonably aspire to home-ownership (after years of saving), a car & the occasional foreign trip. If you're smart & frugal you might even achieve all this without being a slave to your credit-card bill for the rest of your working life. If you make it up the career ladder or start your own company that suceeds, you could end up significantly richer than most people, just like Ben & Jerry of the famous ice-cream or senior management at General Motors. Note that neither of these companies was built without a good idea, careful financial management and years of effort by the founders. What is no longer likely to happen is that you will dream up some piece of sketchily thought-out vapour-ware or online store that may help people save 3% on their dog-food purchases (based in naive & flakey financial projections) and immediately be offered $200 million in venture capital and a huge-well equipped office all paid for in pre-IPO company stock. Those days are _long_ gone, and they're never coming back to the web industry. If the latter is what you expected to greet you on graduation, and you won't be satisfied if it takes you any longer to become a bazillionaire, then think about writing a movie or becoming a rock-star. It happens. Occasionally. Try and stay off the crack whilst waiting tables in LA though. Failing that, the same kind of bubble will probably occur in some kind of tech field in the next 25 years or so. Perhaps nanotech, perhaps something we haven't heard of yet. Take your pick and take your chances..
It's not quite that simple. We have customers; OS has users. When OS comes up with a truly innovative UI or design or program, people celebrate.
How does this differ from what I said? Microsoft owns the market, and would rather keep disruptions to a minimum, rather than point their masses in new directions that they may not control as well. It would be possible for a company with billions of dollars to provide both a stable UI and new innovative features, were they so motivated.
Is pre-emptive Windows with a flat 32-bit address space an innovation? Is a language environment built on a VM and less-complete libraries an innovation? Only when seen as a tool for keeping a grasp on power. COM is/was a horrible thing, as was their non-preemptive segmented programming model, setting back state of the art by many years, but all of these things, before Microsoft was forced to have an alternative, were strongly opposed and argued against by Microsoft until it reached the point that they had to do something different from the monstrously-bad ideas that dominated within Microsoft for so many years.
Microsoft is certainly not the only company to behave this way. It is a common pattern, although as Microsoft takes all established domains away from the original innovators, Microsoft becomes the centralized anti-innovation counterweight. If anything, this is more evident in Microsoft Office and other non-OS products. Their "innovations" were part of competitors products as much as 10 years ago, because these ideas are proven and safe now and the innovating companies mostly defunct.
When MS comes up with something new, people don't upgrade. We have millions of customers that have never heard of Linux (insert your own joke), millions that don't read Slashdot, millions that want about as much uncertainty in their software as they want in their televisions. Actually, less, if possible. No matter how good the new UI is, it's new, and therefore inferior. There's a resistance to change that might not be evident among the alpha geek herd.
It is more the market dominance than the details of the UI that make people choose Microsoft, which was evident when Apple or others had the better established UIs, and former DOS users chose Windows and even many Apple users have been forced into Windows because they learn to use whatever is there, however flawed. Millions of users had to relearn to use Microsoft replacements over the original UIs, and still look back with fond memories to products that served their needs better.
Which is no excuse for why new, innovative UIs aren't coming out of the OS community (although there's plenty of non-UI innovation). The only thing holding OSers back is that they, too, know users won't switch if they have to learn something new, so they're trying to create an environment as identical to Windows as possible.
My wife and kids, none of them tech experts, use Linux because it is there, and although they complain when they have to use a Windows machine that lacks some UI and other features, they use whatever is there very effectively. It is all about market control. There is not that much relearning involved, however much Microsoft would like to have people locked in to what they learned. They also use Mac OSX without too many major adjustments. UIs which were made to be used are not that difficult to use. It is a lame excuse that people will not learn to use a better UI or even just different UIs when that is what they find on the desktop. And the UI is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to innovation.
All very sad, if you ask me. If the change doesn't start with the alpha-geeks, we're going to be using the same window model for some 30 years.
Just like we would all still be programming in C++ had it been left up to Microsoft, not that they do not have people able to produce something like Java, as was demonstrated after Java took lots of mindshare.
The biggest threat to innovation in the present environment is Microsoft's ability to put anyone out of business that threatens their established model through innovation.
We are working on remodelling parts of the house as time and money permit, but we've had this thought in the back of our minds the whole time: "Someday, when we have children, we'll probably move to a bigger house." Recently, we have started questioning this logic. We plan on having three children, with about two years between each. Keeping this in mind, I consider all the points I made in the first paragraph and wonder what the hell is wrong with me. We want to update a few things, but there is no reason we can't raise three kids in the space we have. OMG, two children may have to share a room for a couple years?! I remember sharing a room with my brother. It's not exactly going to make or break your childrearing efforts. It may even (gasp!) teach your children that not everything they use is theirs alone and/or foster a close relationship between siblings.
On closer inspection, I found the urge to get a bigger house is nothing more than a manifestation of a desire for status symbols. I hate that I experienced such a desire, as I have traditionally considered myself above that kind of nonsense. We've decided to put our time and effort into making our modest house something we (and our children) will enjoy.
The first update will be a garage large enough for my new Cadillac Escalade.
Yes, I am kidding.
One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to avoid ever having to hire one. -SPYvSPY
Considering the fact that the number of patent applications has increased every year since the Patent Office was formed (I'm 90% sure of that), it would seem unlikely that anyone at any point of time would have made a statement like that.
Also, it isn't whether new code can be created in the future, but what the utility of the new code will be and the efficacy of new business models which can profit from new software. For instance, can word processing software really improve much over what is already available and if not, why should people continue purchasing new versions of MS Office? (BTW, I don't feel that the software industry is dead, just trying to play devil's advocate)
First of all, public sector jobs may not pay as much as the private sector USED to, but they sure pay a hell of a lot more NOW. Federal, State, and Local jobs are all unionized, so you're protected, and you get great benefits. So this is a great place to hunker down during the recession.
Government is cutting back too. Even teachers are getting laid off in my state. Plus, they often have a long submission-to-hire turnaround time. If you apply now, by the time something happens, the tech economy might be back to normal again. Further, I hear from insiders they are getting flooding with IT resumes/applications also. If you fill out one little spot of the forms wrong, you are in the round file without ever knowing your mistake. There is no escape. The downturn has F'd everything.
Table-ized A.I.
"Yes, things will come into balance eventually, but that will take decades."
:)
Take a look at NAFTA. In the early 90s, companies soared into Mexico and set up shop. They made everything, clothing, cars, etc. But then the quality of life began to increase, educational levels rose, and thus demands for pay raises came about.
By 2000, all these companies were hightailing it for the next great low-cost destination, China. Believe it or not, MEXICO was now TOO DAMNED EXPENSIVE to operate out of. Left behind were these halfway-developed dying manufacturing towns with standards of living no better than when they started.
The same thing will happen to the US. The effects are not so immediate because the US has some wealth that is hard to get cheaper or from alternate sources ( agriculural capacity, mining ), and the US economy is diversified. But in the last two decades we have seen entire domestic industries die ( textiles, steel to name a couple ), and we have chosen to ignore this and try to replace it with the budding electronics / software industry.
But our electronics and software will soon be made everywhere but the US as well. The rising trade deficit for the last decade has been an alarming warning sign. It's not going to balance out until the US is milked completely of it's buying power, because the huge multinational companies aren't going to stop producing cheap goods unless nobody wants to buy them.
And then, when the US market dies, somebody else will become the buyer of these trinkets, and the system will continue. The US as a nation is of no importance, they're just the current best customer.
And when the Chinese workers start to rise above 3rd-world status, the companies will all move to the next big low-priced contender. Who knows, after they're done fully milking the US and dragging us down, we'll be RIPE for the manufacturing explotation! Imagine, the US supplying cheap goods to a China with cash to blow!
Welcome to global capitalisim, folks. Profits rule, not nations. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it, pawn. Now, SMILE, and stop looking so depressed
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
You could take the flip side argument and say that the greedy consumers provide Adam Smith's "invisible hand" that will increase the wealth of third world nations by siphoning money to their labor force.
I tend to think the global 'leveling' is way overdue and is only hindered by tariffs, poor education standards and violence in certain nations. The free traders have the right idea - the only thing that is going to eliminate poverty is to permit everyone, from any nation, to participate in a global economy.
When I was a kid back in the 70s I had the same thought, but things looked a lot more bleak then. I am happy that there are some success stories: look at Taiwan, South Korea, even Malaysia. Over time, I have noted that standards of living have improved in these nations. So now the next wave of industry is looking further for better labor markets. If we let this continue, eventually there will be no better labor market to go to. Meanwhile, much of the force that motivated war, famine and poverty will be also eliminated.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I'm not trying to troll.. I'm just telling a meandering little story..
I've always been good with computers. My dad has over 20 years in IT so I was always surrounded by technology.. it came naturally.
In high school, I was always being told by my teachers, family, and friends that I should get into tech. The Internet boom was in full effect, and that's where the money was. But I knew, just knew, that it was not what I wanted to do for a living.
While my passion for software and computers was strong, I watched my dad come home day after day, looking miserable. He was working in upper management in the IT department of the municipality, overseeing day to day IT operations of the entire city. He dealt, on a daily basis, with nothing but grief. Morons who wanted the impossible, end users who didn't know their ass from their floppy drive, and miles of red tape that is omnipresent in the beurocratic mess that is government operations. Yes, he made great money, but he was NEVER happy.
So, watching this, I ignored the advice of everyone and hopped right into trade. I'm in a field that's very rare, and the people who can do it are even rarer. I'm 23, no post-secondary education, and in a few years I'll be earning more than most IT professionals. My friends who went to school for tech degrees now have huge student loans to pay off, and not one is working in the tech industry. They now are cooks, factory workers, in retail sales, and one is even an assistant manager at a fast food joint.
I'm glad I dodged the tech bullet. I'm glad I didn't turn my beloved hobby into a hated profession. I've found a field where the work is hands on and satisfying, and when I come home.. I can sit down at my PC without cringing.
My point - if you're out of school with a degree that you're finding useless.. consider getting into a trade. You earn decent wages while you train, and the money only gets better. Due to everyone going into tech, new recruits in the trades are few and far between. As the boomers retire, skilled tradesmen are going to be in high demand, so wages could stand to increase even more. You get paid by the hour, so you don't have to work about crunching code 16 hours straight, and not seeing any gravy for the work due to your salary.
Just an idea.. and it beats the hell out of managing at McDonalds to pay off those loans.. =P