Johnny Can So Program

theodp writes "In Johnny Can So Program, CS Prof Norm Matloff calls BS on CNET stories like Can Johnny Still Program? and Can the U.S. Still Compete?, saying it's a shame that CNET fails to cover the real threat to American technological competitiveness, the hidden agendas of Chicken Littles like Jim Foley of the Computing Research Association, David Patterson of the ACM and former Intel CEO Craig Barrett, all of whose organizations have a vested interest in playing the education card."

Comments

There is a problem

[PenguinBoyDave]

I taught a computer class for a large group of home school students and private school kids this year. They were, at the beginning, interested in learning to program. However, when it came down to actually doing it, and learning to code, they all, except for one, said "We're just more interested in playing games." The sad part about this is that some of the parents were just fine with that as long as they did their other work.

Re:There is a problem

[Bellyflop]

There's really nothing wrong with that. People like to watch TV and movies but don't want to be producers and directors. People like to view art, but don't have the patience to be artists. People like to read books and newspapers but don't want to be editors and writers. If every kid that liked video games became a programmer, we wouldn't have enough people doing all the other things in this society that need to get done.

Re:There is a problem

[blue_adept]

A good way to get kids interested in programming is to open up the possibility of them creating their OWN games. Even if the games are simple, doesn't matter. Suddenly they'll want to know how to get x,y, and z done in their code.

Re:There is a problem

[Perl-Pusher]

"We're just more interested in playing games."

You get them interested by getting them to create their own games. That's how my college professor did it. We created half-assed cheasy little games. But in the process learned the basics of simulation, object oriented programming, algorithms and managing a software project.

Re:There is a problem

[ceeam]

Amazingly - the more complex the computer system the larger is effort-to-wow-factor ratio it seems. What had you try to teach those kids? Do you think that doing some low-level stuff for simpler systems may spark their interest easier?( hmm, handheld game consoles?, smartphones?, or maybe non-WinCE-PDAs?) Also, it will undoubtably give them more insight into CS than any of .NET/VBA, BTW.

Re:There is a problem

[BigGerman]

so why is this a problem?

The guy who stays and wants to code is the one we want. It is perfectly normal, IMHO, that in a group of decent size only few actually can program. Our educational system should be designed in a way to identify those precious few and make sure they can go as high as they can.

It is silly to assume that Indian (Chinese, Russian, etc.) person in general is better programmer than an American one or that there are more programmers born there per 1000 population. It is simply those education systems were (for a while) better tuned to identify and pull up those selected ones.

Re:There is a problem

[Andrewkov]

It seems like the perfet tool would be some kind of high level scripting language for a game design kit, where the kids could produce a high quality game (or at least program variations of the game). They could get their feet wet, learn to think logically and maybe get hooked and want to lear more. Starting with Basic, Fortran or C is just going to turn off most kids.

Re:There is a problem

[JMandingo]

Open source libs such as CDX and SDL take ALL of the pain out of Direct X. With these tools you can get a game framework up and running on Windows with just a few lines of code.

For example, Download and install Dev-Cpp, run the built in web update to download and install SDL, and BAM you have an open source game-building IDE and libs with example code.

15-20 years ago you had to purchase a C++ compiler, purchase hardware books so that you could fiddle around with secret hardware settings to get to Mode X, monkey with sound card settings that could hang your box if set incorrectly, etc.

Re:There is a problem

[dpilot]

Any comment on PyGame? Seems just about perfect to me. Cross-platform with SDL, interpretive so you don't get bogged down in code-compile-link, yet uses enough native libraries that you can go further than a completely interpreted system would.

Re:There is a problem

[bladesjester]

You might be surprised to know that there's quite a bit of programming in those "crappy flash games".

Believe it or not, the language is rather C-like and has quite a bit of potential.

I used to think that making flash was all pointy clicky stuff until a couple of years ago when I attended a presentation at a conference (I went there for some of the other talks, but had a free hour so I decided to drop in for the heck of it).

I was actually impressed.

Moral of the story: don't be so elietest. Inspiration comes in many forms.

Re:There is a problem

[kfg]

And we could use a few more doctors and stuff. An auto mechanic with more than half a brain cell would be a pleasant thing to run into now and again as well. Who the hell decided that being a moron was actually one of the desirable qualities of someone who has to perform complex diagnostics and then fix the problem?

Parents like to decide what their kids are "going to be" when they're about minus 5 years old. This makes growing up hell on the poor kid who wants to be a concert violinst, but whose parents have him down to be a doctor, balanced by a kid who loves biology, but is forced to practice the hateful violin 6 hours a day.

The process is so pervasive that even kids who "grow up and make their own decision" often don't really, because they aren't actually taught how to make decisions of that nature in the first place.

Quite frankly, the one thing we're up to arses in is apps programers, and, ironically, the one thing in the computer field we're desperately short of right now is computer scientists.

And it's the universities getting into bed with companies like Microsoft and Intel that have resulted in computer science being mistaken for apps programming.

So my question to Norm Matloff is. . .

"Is your own house in order?"

Are you, a CS professor, teaching real computer science, or are you teaching programming and calling it computer science at the behest of Intel?

You're right. The competition isn't a valid measure of where the US stands in the tech world. It stands in the fact that we are no longer the number one nation for publishing original computer science papers. We aren't even number two anymore. Japanese kids aren't coming to Boston and Berkeley anymore for the CS educations, they're going to Bejing.

Word is out. We've lost it. We're on the way down The rats started abondoning the ship years ago, but as Van Loon noted when talking about the Roman Empire, empires that have been fallen for hundreds of years are rarely aware of the fact.

I too, like the grandparent, teach privately. I do not, however, take just anybody. Beyond a certain point I'll only work with people, both kids and adults, who I believe are personally involved in the subject. Not who's parents have decided that computer "science" is a good job field for them because they see a lot of ads for Java programmers in the papers.

I do not piss and moan if a kid isn't interested in programming. I try my damndest to find that out, and then direct them to something they are interested in. As it happens, I teach violin too. It's better for everybody that way, and not just the kid.

Because one kid who lives for computer science is worth more than an entire university full of kids who are there because it's a good job field. We are falling behind in the sciences because we no longer focus on that one kid and give him the training and facilities he needs to do brilliant work, but we crank out less than worthless Java apps programmers to satisfy the commercial concerns (yes, that may well mean you, even if you find the concept insulting) by the bucketful.

And one kid who lives to play the violin, but isn't very technically proficient, is going to make more music worth listening to than a whole symphony orchestra full of technically perfect, but bored out of their skulls, orchestra pit monkeys.

Tell ya what, give me 12 kids who have been properly trained as computer scientists and love the field, six theorists and six empiricists, none of whom know a lick of "practical" programming, and just enough capital to set up shop with workbenchs from Sears and computers cobbled together from odd parts, but not enough to hand out free Ferraris to everybody, and in five years the 13 of us will knock all of China on its arse.

But I can't tell you in advance what our output is going to be, because I haven't a frickin' clue and that's the bloody point.

Not that anyone around here would care anyway. Build a better mousetrap, give it away for free; and they'll still buy the latest braindead clusterfuck from Oracle.

I think maybe I'll take another crack at learning Portuguese.

KFG

Re:There is a problem

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> our short attention span kicks in and we

I'm sorry. I missed the first part of your comment. I looked kind of long and had words and stuff, so I skipped to the end. What were you saying?

Re:There is a problem

[Pharmboy]

I can't remember the original source for the quote, but it comes to mind:

Character is when you are willing to finish the task once the sparkle of new is gone.

It seems to apply, and I would think this is true for American's or non-Americans. It is not that 95% of Americans are not willing to finish a task, it is that 95% of all people are not willing to finish a task.

I am old enough to remember how the Japanese were going to make all US auto makers obsolete, and how we could not compete in the 70s and 80s, yet we have done more than fine, even improving BECAUSE of the competition. We can't sit idle and wish for more success (wishing is, afterall, passivity) but I would be hard pressed to believe that America is going to hell in a hand basket due to our "underacheiving kids". We have been there, we have done that, and many more people are wanting to move here than move away. As someone who was once one of those kids who was "lazy, underacheiving and a C- student" I can attest that many get over it.

I, for one, do not fear any new outsourced overlords, nor believe they are coming.

Re:There is a problem

[Perl-Pusher]

She started with simple concepts. An ascii based tic-tac toe program, a couple of puzzles, etc. In another class we created a java battle ship program to teach basic sockets. She gave us just enough code to get started. I had this professor through 2 out of 4 C++ based classes, 2 java clases, object oriented programming, and software engineering. We always worked in groups of 2-3. Along the way we also made a java IM client and server, and a simulation of a forest fire, with parameters taken from a real scenario. We were able to predict the geometrical shape and size of the devastation, quite accurately with what had actually occured. Nothing we created was earth shattering, but it kept us challenged and interested. The only other professor that could do for me was my physics professor.

Re:There is a problem

[JeyKottalam]

So my question to Norm Matloff is. . .

"Is your own house in order?"

Are you, a CS professor, teaching real computer science, or are you teaching programming and calling it computer science at the behest of Intel?

This question is downright ridiculous. He is without a doubt the best professor I've known. He is notorious (feared?) in his department for teaching real Computer Science. Prof. Matloff's students rip out their hair solving his problems, but nearly every student of his will give a glowing review of his courses.

There are some instructors who are easy, there are some instructors who are difficult for the sake of being difficult, and then there are those who enrich. Prof. Matloff certainly enriches his students.

-Former Student of Prof. Matloff

Re:There is a problem

[Hugonz]

I think maybe I'll take another crack at learning Portuguese.

Why don't you give Esperanto a try?

Re:There is a problem

[Skapare]

The guy who stays and wants to code is the one we want. It is perfectly normal, IMHO, that in a group of decent size only few actually can program. Our educational system should be designed in a way to identify those precious few and make sure they can go as high as they can.

It is equally important to have a base of good jobs available to encourage them to pursue these high goals, too. Right now, the USA is simply not doing that. There needs to be a balance; you don't want to have too many jobs wanting people, and you don't want to have too many people wanting jobs. But that balance can't be achieved if the jobs that want people only want people who will accept a level of pay that is substandard in our society.

That's the real problem: US corporations want to pay only substandard wages ... they want people, but only those willing to accept substandard wages. They can get people for these substandard wages in places like India, because as dollars are exchanged for rupees, the result is a pay level that is premium in India. The catch is that they need to do this in order to be competitive in a world market. The real culprit is not that the USA is, or is not, better or smarter technologically ... the real culprit is the exchange rate for the dollar is so slanted against the USA being competitive in the world. The extremely high trade deficit the USA has right now is proof of this. It's cheaper to buy from other countries (whether it is cheap plastic toys or application coding services) than from the USA.

It is silly to assume that Indian (Chinese, Russian, etc.) person in general is better programmer than an American one or that there are more programmers born there per 1000 population. It is simply those education systems were (for a while) better tuned to identify and pull up those selected ones.

It's all about the same. India has about 3.653 times the population of the United States. If they had as vast an eduational system, they could easily produce 3.653 times as many programmers. It will still be years, maybe even decades, before they get to that point. But in the mean time, the very best will be educated and available ... cheap.

The ultimate solution for the USA is to work this economically. Instead of trying to keep the value of the dollar high, let it fall (it natually will as the trade deficit rises). This will be hard to do, though, because this also results in raising the cost of oil (since so much of it is imported). To lessen the impact of that, the USA needs to impose a much better energy policy that reduces the demand for oil, and allows shifting of domestic energy (such as coal) into areas where oil was used as much as can be done. One idea is to require all companies doing any business with the government to allow telecommuting for as many job functions as can be done, and give them all a tax incentive. That will reduce the vehicular traffic and its energy consumption. Many other things can be done as well.

Re:There is a problem

[kfg]

This question is downright ridiculous.

Questions are not ridiculous. Questions are the seeking of knowledge. I have no way of knowing whether the question is "ridiculous" until I have had it answered.

I'm glad to know this information about Prof. Matloff, but I wish he had managed to inculcate you with the above. It would give me more personal confidence in your assessment of him.

KFG

Re:There is a problem

[bigman2003]

Well, that was my gateway into programming.

First I had to make MENUS for my game disks. So when you put them into the old Apple ][, a menu of the games on the disk came up.

Then I had to make LISTS of games, which read from a text file, and were editable.

Of course I had to learn how to COPY the games. Can't do without that.

Finally I had to WRITE my own games- which blew more than Jenna Jameson...but they gave me a certain little thrill.

If it hadn't been for games, I never would have started in this industry. And now 25 years later, I am still doing it.

But just think...maybe if I hadn't gotten into this industry, Jenna Jameson might be blowing ME.

Re:There is a problem

[kfg]

Trust me, if you knew how mechanics were treated, and I mean good mechanics, you would not have made that statement.

I have worked as a mechanic. In fact I worked my way through college as a mechanic (well, not exactly through college, as I was on a full scholarship, including books, but I have always enjoyed working and making my own money), although I think of myself as a craftsman. I no longer work as a mechanic except for a few personal customers, because it is impossible to be a craftsman in the mainline commercial way of doing things.

How this fact in any way contradicts my assertion that auto mechanics ought to have a few brain cells is beyond my few braincells to fathom.

KFG

Re:There is a problem

[sbrown123]

Quite frankly, the one thing we're up to arses in is apps programers, and, ironically, the one thing in the computer field we're desperately short of right now is computer scientists.

We are up to our "arses" in computer apps programmers for a very good reason. Companies make money by producing goods and services. They do not make money by having a gaggle of employees sitting around discussing computer concepts. So those types of people are not hired. Those who know computer science must apply their skills in a manner that is of interest to an employer. This usually translates to apps writers. So, with that said, many of those apps writers you speak poorly of are actually computer scientists.

I do not piss and moan if a kid isn't interested in programming. I try my damndest to find that out, and then direct them to something they are interested in.

Well, I guess it's good that you have taken a personal agenda to weed out those that are not interested in programming. But I am completely mystified to what institution you are teaching from. Teachers in public and private schools in the United States do not "pick and choose" who they teach and do not teach courses to. If you tried to remove a student from your class you'll end up getting removed yourself. This only leaves private teaching. Since most companies only hire employees who have received degrees from credited institutions, I find it unlikely you will ever get students. This is a sharp contrast from violin players who, in truth, do not have such a high requirement on having college degrees. To summarize, I find it hard to believe your claim that you are a teacher.

Re:There is a problem

[adamruck]

Quite frankly, the one thing we're up to arses in is apps programers, and, ironically, the one thing in the computer field we're desperately short of right now is computer scientists.

I would like to say that I agree. I am currently taking a four year CS program, and I am really tired of programming. Personally I dont find my programming assignments difficult at all, and therefor do not find them interesting.

However, I would like to say that CS programs have more than one other route to choose. As you pointed out they can focus more on the theory side, and graduate more researchers in the field. Another option which is almost never considered, is to teach practical things either in network administration, or more detailed information about particular applications that are widely used.

I have no intention of being a code monkey for all my life, I personally would like to get into network administration, but have a real CS background. Personally I think it is kind of sad that my fellow students wouldn't know what a web server, or a mail server, or a router was if it bit them in the ass(on any operating system even). Also if your wondering, yes I do live for CS.

Re:There is a problem

[kfg]

Companies make money by producing goods and services.

This is completely and naively incorrect. Companies make money by selling goods and services at a profit.

Electronic dowsing rod companies and companies that sell magic as medicine often make very good profits, although the quality of the "goods and services" are not only not science, they are a disgrace to humanity.

Profit is a null concept in science.

So, with that said, many of those apps writers you speak poorly of are actually computer scientists.

You need to review the definition of science.

This is a sharp contrast from violin players who, in truth, do not have such a high requirement on having college degrees.

You need to review the hiring practices of those who employ violinists.

I find it hard to believe your claim that you are a teacher.

You need to review the definition of teacher.

Teachers in public and private schools in the United States do not "pick and choose" who they teach and do not teach courses to.

You need to review the practices of schools.

If you tried to remove a student from your class you'll end up getting removed yourself.This only leaves private teaching.

When my sixth grade French teacher tried to remove me, permanantly, from her class, I was removed. She was not. It worked out best, for her, for me, and most particularly for the class.

This only leaves private teaching.

You need to review the very post to which you are responding.

In short, I think you need to review your education. It seems to have left some holes.

Q.E.D.

You may, of course, choose to deal with this by vigorously defending the quality of your education, but if you're smart (and I have no reason to believe you are not just because you have been let down by your educators) you will instead choose to deal with it by fixing your education.

KFG

Re:There is a problem

[kfg]

Personally I think it is kind of sad that my fellow students wouldn't know what a web server, or a mail server, or a router was if it bit them in the ass(on any operating system even).

Contrariwise to the impression some might get from my above post there is a reason why we make students take physics labs, other than annoying them by making them right lab papers.

You don't really understand something until you have touched it with your own hands. That's why there are so many "interpretations" of quantum physics. Everybody understands the results of the experiments, they're really pretty simple and straightforward, but nobody really knows what they "mean" because you can't touch it.

I have no particular love for ivory tower academics either, which is why I choose to teach privately.

KFG

Re:There is a problem

[The_Wilschon]

This does not answer the original question, ridiculous as it may be. It would be quite conceivable for him to be the best programming professor you had ever known. But the answer to grandparent's question would still be "programming, not CS". I commend him for being an excellent professor, there are far too few of those, but the question still stands:

[Is he], a CS professor, teaching real computer science, or [is he] teaching programming and calling it computer science at the behest of Intel?

Re:There is a problem

[kfg]

If you review my past posts you will find me railing against the use of "value" and "price" as if they are synonyms.

It ain't my fault we live in a culture that is so business oriented that the language no longer has a clear way to make such fine distinctions without linguistic machinations and the intended meaning was clear in the context of "make money" supplied to me by the post to which I was responding.

I am making an assumption from your closing sentence that this is the concept at which you are driving, as your opening sentence makes little sense on its own.

However, yes, I would argue that profit is a null concept in science, other than the profit of personal discovery. Any practical use is irrelevant to the process, including cures for cancer, most of which research is being conducted in the hopes of making a fucking killing in the marketplace.

And it's entirely likely, in fact even probable, that the cure for cancer will come not out of the cancer research labs, but from some totally unexpected corner of biological research done entirely to scratch someone's personal itch. I have no idea whether that research will be done in a lab, on the back of a cocktail napkin, or come in a flash of insight inspired by a Jackson Pollack painting.

The itch scratching is the profit. The cure is incidental, although certain individuals, and perhaps society as a whole, may well coincidentally profit from it. That is the way of science.

Here's an idea to chew on though. It is possible that the end result of cancer research will be a proof that there is no cure for cancer in the strictest technical sense of the word.

And that discovery would be a profit.

KFG

Education Lacking?

[Maclir]

The US education problems are not in computer science, but in the general level of education in history, geography and world affairs ourside of local US issues and what Fox and similar "News" organizations deem rating-worthy.

Re:Education Lacking?

[bombadillo]

Also, there is often a comparison against our public education (which guarantees everyone the right to an education) to other nations which do not have this system and thus only have priveledged classes in the education system. The comparison is not of a similar subset.

Re:Education Lacking?

[Mr. Ghost]

Please point me to those facts.

I have worked in the industry for 13 years. I worked as a consultant for 9 of those years. I have worked with many multinationals.

I can tell you that in my experience there is no difference in the abilities of programmers from any of the countries I have worked with including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Egypt, England, Germany, Czech Republic, Greece, Holland, India, Iran (fled to US when radicals took over), Ireland, Israel, Italy, Phillipines, Russia, Sweden, Taiwan, etc...

What I can tell you is that every one of these countries had programmers and software engineers of qualities that are across the board. This includes the same amount of deviation in ability (i.e. similar bell curve distribution).

I do know that US corporations are choosing East Asian labor not for quality of work but for cost. However, this will come back to bite them and any IT workers left in this country as the corporations say that they are only shipping the low level, menial jobs overseas because the labor is cheap and keeping the senior jobs in this country the problem with that thinking is that the senior people all started in the low level, menial jobs and were promoted over time as they got more experience. Eventually they will not have anyone over here to promote because the pool of promotable talent is all sitting somewhere in East Asia.

Kids definitely can program today

[bigtallmofo]

As evidenced by the varied computer-related programming on MTV:

Real Programming
Code Rules
Cyberpunked
etc

It's obvious that kids today have a healthy interest in computer programming.

From TFA

[smittyoneeach]

Congress, openly admitting that it was responding to industry campaign donations rather than the popular will, complied by increasing the H-1B cap in 1998 and 2000, the latter action coming at the time the mass layoffs began. This past December, despite a continuing abysmal tech labor market, Congress enacted another expansion of the program.

Welcome to Democracy. As long as no one is stepping up to the ticket with a "screw these retarded policies to the wall with a giant Black and Decker" platform, we shall continue to have more of same.
Will slashdot help to identify responsible, long-term thinking candidates/policies, or does the second word of this sentence inform its answer?

Re:In other news...

[cshark]

Only on Mondays.
The rest of the week it's fine.

The way I see it outsourcing is the best thing that ever happened to guys like me. A cheap app gets developed over seas, then the company gets a cheap app back, when they never wanted a cheap app in the first place. The app then gets redeveloped, and it usually ends up on my desk at some point. I've done quite a few of projects like that over the last few years.

If you haven't yet...

[AKAImBatman]

...go read the article! The author has hit the nail on the head about H1-Bs and outsourcing. He never stoops to blaming Indians for either issue, but rather points out that it's a side effect of corporations and universities trying to build tiny little empires. Then in the same breath, he points out how this sort of empire building is slowly leading the higher education system into ruins and dragging all of America's great talent with it!

I think I need to print this one out and post it somewhere...

Why should anyone in business care?

[JWW]

I just love seeing stories where business leaders "fret" over the lack of education in science and technology in this country today.

Of course, then they go and layoff large numbers of technical workers and send their jobs to another country. The message is getting through loud and clear to the younger generations in this country. All the while the business leaders are lamenting the education available here they are shouting at the top of their lungs by their businsess practices - "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU GOING INTO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, WE DON'T HIRE THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE HERE!!!!"

The kids get it. As the one article states programming isn't glamorous like football. But, even more the kids going to college now look at business and see no need for technical people, because they're sending it all away.

Kids are smarter than people think, they see the writing on the wall. Why go to school for 4-5 years only to find a job market with no room for you. So all the best and brightest kids end up going to law school, which is in and of itself a terrifying thought.

Re:Why should anyone in business care?

[dpilot]

Or will "American industry" have become an oxymoron?

In a recent Pulpit, Robert X. Cringely asserts that the problem isn't the compter industry going away, it's that venture capitalists haven't been funding the possible technologies that that should be coming in taking their place as the new "engines of growth" in the US. He cites things like nanotech that should be much further along, and blames venture capitalists for being lazy and not doing their jobs. In the past, they would fund 10 things, with 7 strike-outs, 2 base-hits, and 1 home run, and call that a good track record. Cringely says that today they're all waiting around trying to find the home-run, and fund only that one. But that takes a crystal ball, so they're stuck in a chicken/egg loop.

Re:Why should anyone in business care?

[devnull17]

Well, then it seems pretty clear to me that they need to start funding more crystal ball startups.

Re:Why should anyone in business care?

[Monkelectric]

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU GOING INTO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, WE DON'T HIRE THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE HERE!!!!"

Wish I'd heard that when I started college :)

Something else we're not talking about here is cultural differences amongst programmers. I dont know many Indian folk, but I've dealt with *A LOT* of chinese programmers, and they are very single minded and narrowly educated.

Most programmers will have 1 or 2 strong languages and APIs, and dabble in a few other languages and platforms. All the Chinese programmers I've ever met, know *1* language. They know it like nobodys business, but the only know that langauge, same with their Math skills, they know linear algebra *VERY* well. They don't know databases, they don't know html, they don't know matlab, basic, php, python, perl, anything. Just their one langauge (usually C/C++). Now when you need a C++ coder these are the guys to go to, but when you need an *ENGINEER* stay the hell away.

More weomen in CS

[unk1911]

We need more women in CS... Seems like when I went to school 5 years ago, the male:female ratio in CS classes was something like 99:1. We were all very depressed males. If society could somehow be more accepting of women in CS then all us CS guys wouldn't be as depressed/apathetic in college. It/s a win/win situation. It might even attract more guys to CS... The real question is - how? How do we get more women to go into science/computer science?

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/

Thinking of the Children (Sort Of...)

[Shadow Wrought]

Alas for poor Johnny,
For Johnny is no more,
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4.

If only he had gone into CS instead of Chem...

Re:Thinking of the Children (Sort Of...)

[pvxhound]

Cute little ditty. Made me grin. Until I remembered the girl in first year chemistry who liked the feel of water running through her fingers. Out of habit, she poured a beaker of H2SO4 into the sink through her fingers. No one knew who left it there, as there were several guilty parties, but we all felt responsble.

We're Just Spoiled !

[AT-SkyWalker]

I believe the problem boils down to the fact that we expect to be No. 1 after just getting used to it !

while we think its our divine right to be No.1, a Chinese individual who doesn't have that perception just works a lot harder than your average American, add to that the sense of having to achieve and beat the No.1 and you get a will that is tougher than steel to win this thing (and any other situation)

We are "Slipping" because we got too comfy in our No.1 spot; not because our education is worse. Its human nature.

Re:We're Just Spoiled !

[Quill_28]

I would agree. I think one reason why America has done well for so long is because of immigrants.

Most immigrants are willingly to work their arse off to get ahead. They also value education more so then the average american.

At least that he been my perception.

Re:We're Just Spoiled !

[AT-SkyWalker]

Couldn't agree more.

I'll give you a simple example. Here when you wanna read a book, you go to your local book store, or Library, or order it online with free shipping ! Imagine how different the experience is for some in a poor or developing country !

If you're one of them, you usually can't afford the book, and if you can, you have to find it, and if you find it you have to pay about double its price till you actually get it ! Hence the learning process and the devotion to it is much higher because the price paid and the process by which its acquired is much more expensive hence the appreciation is much higher; which creates a sense of : I have to use this and make sure I'm ahead.

We're being pulled back by our self created luxuries that tend to dissolve our appreciation for what we have killing our resolve to work hard to actually maintain it.

Re:We're Just Spoiled !

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG!!! We have been number 1 because of our economic, political and personal/religious freedoms.

Our own coporate-government now places economic restrictions and burdens on us that aren't on the Chinese.

We have a two-party monolithic government concerned only with power and maintaining the status-quo.

We have our own fundamentalists that are not interested in personal freedoms.

See, everything that enabled us to be #1 is being systematically removed.

Re:We're Just Spoiled !

[Quill_28]

I am interested in money stuff.

Americans are the worst in the world when it comes to saving.

One year 2002? the savings rate was -.2%

That's worse than pitiful.

Re:We're Just Spoiled !

[j0nb0y]

You're missing the point of the article. The article is saying that we're in fact *not slipping*, that there are plenty of capable scitech workers out there, but that business leaders and universities are trying to create the impression that we're slipping so that universities can get grant money, and the number of H1B visas being granted will increase.

But who in his right mind would go into scitech when half the jobs are being shipped overseas, and the other half are filled with cheap H1B labor? There is no shortage of highly skilled scitech workers in the USA. The only shortage is of highly skilled scitech workers who are highly willing to work long hours for low wages. Companies would rather bring in H1B workers than pay American workers their fair market value.

Re:In other news...

[roman_mir]

Still wrong. The article basically says Johny ended up Licken zi Dicken because there is no political will in the USA to actually make sure that the US teams stay on top in such competitions.

But TFA says it has nothing to do with the ability of a given Johny to program. Well duh, but the fact still remains - the policy makers in the US don't give a shit and why should they with so many tech jobs being outsorced to India/wherever anyway. It's not in their best interest now to actually have Johny winning. It's in their best interest to 'show' that Johny can't compete and that it is a valid argument for outsorcing (I am not from the US.)

In other news...

[Austerity Empowers]

Executives want more cheap labor and are doing everything they can to get it. Labor wants higher and higher salaries, particularly if they feel the barriers to entry in their career are high. People are fighting it out, spin doctors are out in force.

I don't know what the right answer is, but it seems to me H1-Bs are far, far better than wholesale outsourcing. My favorite form of this is my own companies current push to hire employees and open it's own design centers in Singapore, Shang-hai, Bangalore and Taiwan. This way they get full benefits of Asian labor, without pesky contracting problems, yet get to live in mansions in the nicer parts of the US.

But Norm's article was good, I just think no one is going to listen to him that doesn't already understand the problem.

United States - 0 South East Asia : 1

[cOdEgUru]

I have been in the U.S for the last six years. Right from the beginning I was surprised to find the constant barrage of sports over everything else (only outdone by Terrorism and Elections) in this country. Here parents pray their kids end up on the school/college football teams for both bragging rights as well as the potential for a lot of moolah in the future (mostly I think its bragging rights). Jocks get limelighted every step, every game, gets the hotter looking babe and scrapes through academics yet has no trouble getting in to college due to his sports background. The science nerds barely gets any mention in school over their accomplishment and rarely gets highlighted among their community or in the media. Almost never. Yet they positively contribute to the country and get sucked in to the same cycle, hoping their kids turn in to football players and get the girls they could only dream of.

Where I am from: Literacy is 100%. Sports hour or P.T is a one hour drill where the students are herded for rigorous exercises, which happens thankfully only once a week. At the school level, there is hardly any sports events, mostly it is to do with academics, science shows, arts and cultural events, literature events. Sports is mainly soccer or cricket and is indulged in during the lunch hour or afterschool. No sponsors, no parents wishing their kid would become the next star. Infact, if some kid grabs his gear and heads off to the local soccer ground during study hour, he is likely to play alone.

Academics comes first and foremost. Infact, I used to wish it were different, but not anymore. And on the state and regional level, those who pass the Secondary School exam (10th grade) with rank (ranks 1 - 15 on state level) are rewarded by the State Govt. Same goes for National Level.

I see none of that in the U.S. I see undue importance being given to Sports, and little given to academics. I see MVP's regarded as Gods while the ones who transparently contributed +vely to the society languish in anonymity.

Re:United States - 0 South East Asia : 1

[minus_273]

clearly you were not here in the 90's tech boom when being a geek was actually quite cool. remember that? then there was the crash and fewer people started going to CS. When the bio tech industry has its boom (and you know is coming) then everyone will be interested in that. Before us there was a whole generation obsessed with space. It comes and goes. Notice how the US still dominates tech research and everyone comes to the Us becasue that is where the money is. The fact that the gov spends so much on research should show how important it is seen to be.

Re:United States - 0 South East Asia : 1

[bombadillo]

Get over yourself. Sports are important in pratically every country and always get more attention then scientific achievment. Travel anywhere in the world and you will see the local sports hero in the news not the scientists. This is not just a condition to the U.S. lest you forget David Beckham's world popularity. You can find a Beckham jersey in pratically every country in the world. Especially in Asian countries.

Re:United States - 0 South East Asia : 1

[Om]

The opinion expressed by you makes it seem like you are a little young (apologies if I am making the wrong assumption).

The reason I see that is because you are thinking with an 18 year old mentality. Priorities shift drastically the older you get. When you get into college, the playing field is quite different. You slowly grow to understand that noone gives a rats ass about sports, and the professors will just as soon kick you out of school than they would smile at you (the beauty of tenure).

But see, college is just different. People actually have to pay to go to school, for one thing, as opposed to being crammed in with hundreds of other walking hormones. You actually have to work to stay there.

I'm not sure about your high school, but mine gave far more scholorships to the students that had the highest grades (coupled with SATs). Think about it, it is in the college's best interest to give scholarships to students that will actually be able to *pass* their classes and not get kicked out.

I don't know, I may be ranting, but seriously... your post really does sound like a jealous high school kid. College is an entirely different setting, with the priority to succeed outweighing pretty much everything else...

oh, and getting laid. Thats important too.

...and drunk...you know, because you are away from home for the first time, and stuff.

*long pause*

Did I just prove his point? :)

++Om

Re:United States - 0 South East Asia : 1

[MullerMn]

You don't get given a place at a University here (UK) just for being able to play football (the game with your foot and a ball, I mean) though.

Anyone who's seen Beckham being interviewed can see that he barely got any primary education, let alone higher education.

Re:Anyone who has ever graded CS papers..

[elementalist]

I have seen some god-awful code out of domestic individuals. (I have even had the pleasure of writting some.) But my experience with outsourced source is that the quality is as dictated. If you include a coding standard as part of an acceptance criteria it will be adhered too. Its just important to take the time to qualify what is good code for your application.

First impressions...

[alexhs]

What a pile of junk !

FTFA :
News.com didn't tell you that the number of teams competing has grown nearly sevenfold from 1994 through 2005. In other words, for a team to finish at, say, third place, in 1994 would be equivalent to finishing 21st this year.

Yeah. It seems he's confusing rank with notation scale. Like if the skills of both the first and the last didn't change.

Norm Matloff, Computer science professor

When professors are making that poor argumentation, no wonder education level is falling.

And that's bad, because?

[Gruneun]

Did you expect them to say, "We loved that integer thingy! We can't wait to find out what an array is!"

People learn faster and more effectively when the topic interests them. If I believed that all I ever had to look forward to was writing banking software or parsing obscure log files, I never would have lasted.

Why not modify your lesson plan to start with coding a few simple games and work your way up through that?

Let me guess; you are in High School

[Dingbat1066]

Yup, High School is like that; but don't think that all of American society is like that. For college, I ended up going to a very good high tech university and the problem switched to "What sucks is the lack of women"

and that's the problem

[b17bmbr]

Johnny can program, but he can't read or write a lick. In my spare time (/sarcasm) I teach high school history. Reading their papers is like dentistry sans novicaine. Trust me on this, if they can't program, or for that matter, graduate high school thinking a cd-rom is the drink holder, they'll be okay. If they graduate and read and write at their present level, we're doomed.

Re:I am not sure I understand...

[TekGoNos]

Why would they want that? If they are just going to be hiring visa'd employees, why would they want to increase the number of capable usa workers?

Very easy : economics 101 : The more offer, the lower the price.

So they try to increase the offer as much as possible, by increasing "imports" (H1B) and local "production" (education). So that they can lower IT salaries even more.

Even if the H1B works cheaper, he has heigher administration costs than the usa worker. So increasing the number of usa workers might get them usa worker willing to accept the same salary as an H1B, without the overhead administration cost.

The kids are all right

[Bullfish]

Really, there are kids who can code. Most, however, will use the computer for entertainment. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist. It is probably viewed as most distressing on a site like slashdot because for the most part, this is a computing-centric group. We want to see "our kind" doing what we're good at. Things like programming apps, writing innovative code and not getting laid. Someone has to go to the future when we are old and our code is creaky.

I think though, this is no different than the notion that not all kids are good at math. A lot aren't, but you don't get quite the same reaction when scores are released show US kids faltering there. We're used to that now, but computing was supposed to be "our game".

As far as the rest of the world catching up, there is no stopping that. Will the US dry up as a source of good code? Unlikely, but expect to see some very sharp stuff coming out in the rest of the world. Don't be threatened by it. Frankly, it is getting wearisome to see that every time another nation puts up something great, the US reaction is peppered with a goodly amount of paranoia.

A blinkered view from the ivory tower of UC Davis.

[Bilestoad]

(and isn't Davis all aggies anyway?)

From the article:

"News.com didn't tell you that the number of teams competing has grown nearly sevenfold from 1994 through 2005. In other words, for a team to finish at, say, third place, in 1994 would be equivalent to finishing 21st this year. So a hypothetical team that News.com would have lauded in 1994 would now be dismissed as having badly "slipped" in 2005, even though it would be of the same quality."

From this I guess the author means that it's OK to be at the same level they were eight years ago. It doesn't matter that the American teams didn't improve at the same rate at the rest of the world. And in his statistical argument he ignores that although team numbers might have increased so did the number of American teams.

Next comes my absolute favorite argument:

"Long before Olympic athletes from all countries became quasiprofessionals, the Eastern European countries were seeing to it that training for the Games was their athletes' full-time job, giving them a major advantage over other nations' athletes."

OMG, it's not fair, they trained harder! Well hello! Is it cheating to produce programmers who can actually solve problems and write code? What exactly is coursework for if it isn't preparation for the kinds of problems you solve in programming contests? I've done a couple - it's the same thing, you just have to be faster and more accurate, compared to a programming assignment.

"the hidden agenda behind the shrill shortage claims was to push Congress to increase the yearly cap on the H-1B work visa program, which enabled industry to import cut-rate engineers from abroad."

I was a H1-B worker - I made great rates (thanks very much) and so did all the other H1-B's I know. It's convenient for Norm's flawed argument to repeat this myth, propagated by programmers who think they should have had my job because it was their birthright, not because they could have done it better.

"How can American engineers compete with cheap, imported labor?"

Too much time in academia Norm. If you can't do the job right it really doesn't matter how cheap you come. The way to compete is to be the best, there is no other way. Shopping for programmers is not like shopping for socks. Remember, computer-related thingys are digital. At the end of the day it is usually pretty obvious whether they work or do not work. "Almost works" is not good enough for anyone, except perhaps a professor who grades CS101 papers.

When Chinese (or Indian, or anyone else) programmers turn out to cost less AND be better programmers we'll be able to thank guys like Norm, who wanted to deny there was ever a problem.

What's Norm's issue with devoting more to education - is it just that he wants to be able to say "It wasn't MY fault?"

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok you are showing your arrogance in this matter, may be it comes with the territory (America).

Tsk tsk... nationalistic attacks are very unbecoming in todays global society.

Apps developed whether in India or in US have more or less similar problems.

And what did the gf post say that indicated otherwise?

Your company wanted a cheap solution and they found outside but may be just may be they failed to communicate the requirements correctly?

Probably thats true, but those are the types that seek to outsource development. The reason outsourced apps suck is not because they are from India or Elbonia, it is because they are a logical consequence of management seeking the cheap solution. If management expresses an interest in quality and long term maintainability, they will not outsource to some company in who-knows-where, they will bring high caliber people on site that can answer to things when the shit hits the fan.

Building a tech team in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago I had to build a tech team from scratch for a US company. I know the US is stuffed full of skilled people, but my sample set was those who responded to our adverts. We had a hundred replies, and interviewed 30 or 40 people for 5 positions. The interviews consisted of hacking through a problem together which involved a mix of skill and worldliness, for want of a better word. The tech team ended up as 4 Chinese nationals and one Indian national (all with appropriate visas). The Chinese were educated and skilled beyond belief. The Indian was a mistake because he had no grasp of the cost of any particular development path. The US nationals tended to overrate their abilities. At the same time, we were hamstrung by a management team that (a) thought tech people somehow needed no salary or respect to do near-magical things, and (b) thought nothing of giving themselves huge pay rises to get around the next problem. I took an MBA simply to tell them I thought they were wankers from a level footing.

It's a serious problem. I now do cross-border technology transfers, and much of the US commercial technologies I get to assess are almost trivially irrelevant to the rest of the planet, because the US has no idea what is going on outside its own borders. China will sweep it aside in the next 3 decades, and the US will become a strange sports-mad backwater.

Re:Building a tech team in the US

[jizmonkey]

y. I know the US is stuffed full of skilled people, but my sample set was those who responded to our adverts. The Chinese were educated and skilled beyond belief. The Indian was a mistake because he had no grasp of the cost of any particular development path. The US nationals tended to overrate their abilities.

If I might hazard a guess, I would think that the Chinese you interviewed were sent to the U.S. as being the best people from their educational programs back in China. Being students in the U.S. and wanting to stay, they looked for permanent employment. (So either they were currently students, or they were recently students. I think this is a fair assumption, as they didn't yet have their green cards since you mention their visa status).

The U.S. candidates you interviewed were not selected on that basis. You were selecting from a larger pool which included less capable candidates, and it's also possible that the better American students were less attracted to the jobs you were offering. Something that sounds boring, or doesn't pay well, or sets off people's office-politics alarm isn't going to get the better Americans who have other options. (The exact same effect happens when Americans move overseas. That's why you see so many Americans teaching English in Japan, or doing very menial company jobs. They're not stupid, they just have fewer opportunities than the natives. But you do see a handful of extremely talented white people in Japan doing very well, like the new CEO of Sony or the CEO of Nissan.) You didn't say, but I'm assuming you also interviewed unemployed American programmers. Although many good people lose their jobs through no fault of their own, you wouldn't be surprised if some of the people who lose their jobs aren't the best programmers.

I'm not sure how relevant it is that the Chinese were more humble about their abilities than the native Americans. Certainly any manager would want to know a candidate's true abilities rather than rely on self-representations. I agree that your stereotypes about Chinese, Indian, and American workers' self-representations are consistent with my experience.

To make this clearer, you have to realize that the Chinese students who speak English well enough to come to America on a government scholarship and finish school are smarter than the average bear. But analogizing from your experience is like deducing the state of physical education in China and America based on how many gold medals each won in the last Olympics. Especially when many of the best students from foreign countries who come to the U.S. for their university work choose to stay in the U.S. In that way the U.S. cherry-picks the best fruits of other countries' educational systems. (Although that trend is starting to slow, as native countries provide more economic opportunities.)

I am skeptical of your three decades estimate. The figures I have read suggest that if China's growth continues, in fifty years it will be half the size of the U.S. I'm sure I'm mistaken about the numbers, but China has a long, long way to go before overtaking the United States, in spite of the monstrous trade deficit we have with them.

Meeting the presicent....

[wpiman]

When Bush meets with the NE Patriots- about half of them are more intelligent than he- and half less so.

If he meets with the founders are some succesful startup- or other tech gurus- they will all be smarter than he.

Maybe this is why he doesn't give them an invitation to the White House.

Not a valid conclusion

[Kupek]

I don't think that extrapolating from programming contest results to a nation's programmers' general ability to code is valid. Matloff points out excellent reasons why this doesn't work, but he pays attention mainly to statistics of the rankings and varying amount of training time.

Simply, I don't think that being good at these contests necessarily is the same at being good at producing software in industry or even research. I don't like solving problems under strict time constraints, so I've never volunteered to take part in math or programming competitions. It's simply not fun for me. I like problem solving when I'm free to take the time to explore the design space and maybe go off on tangents that might eventually prove worthwhile (but often don't). Some people enjoy solving problems under strict time constraints; I'm just not one of them. I enjoy other activities that others do not. It's just personal preference.

In the end, we always have time constraints - projects have deadlines, research papers have submission dates - but measuring the amount of time in hours vs. days, weeks or months make a very big difference in how much freedom you have to explore the problem.

Re:A blinkered view from the ivory tower of UC Dav

[Otto]

From this I guess the author means that it's OK to be at the same level they were eight years ago. It doesn't matter that the American teams didn't improve at the same rate at the rest of the world. And in his statistical argument he ignores that although team numbers might have increased so did the number of American teams.

While your statistical point is valid, your improvement one is not. He's saying that there's a large number of new entries, not that existing entries got better.

OMG, it's not fair, they trained harder! Well hello! Is it cheating to produce programmers who can actually solve problems and write code? What exactly is coursework for if it isn't preparation for the kinds of problems you solve in programming contests? I've done a couple - it's the same thing, you just have to be faster and more accurate, compared to a programming assignment.

If you've not participated in these types of challenges in specific, then it's hard to explain. These types of contests are based on the field in general, not on specific coursework that is commonplace. Doing coursework does help, but a more focused study on the contest and the types of problems in the contest does yield better results... in the contest itself. But it's just a contest, it bears very little relation to anything outside of itself. I've done several, and the contests should *not* be like your normal programming assignments. Different goals, different problems.

I was a H1-B worker - I made great rates (thanks very much) and so did all the other H1-B's I know. It's convenient for Norm's flawed argument to repeat this myth, propagated by programmers who think they should have had my job because it was their birthright, not because they could have done it better.

He has a point though, while H1-B workers do get paid well (it's a technical field, everybody gets paid well), on average they don't make as much as a non-H1-B worker. Simple statistical truth, that is.

The way to compete is to be the best, there is no other way. ... At the end of the day it is usually pretty obvious whether they work or do not work. "Almost works" is not good enough for anyone

You're right, and that's why "be the best" isn't a long term good strategy. While I agree that a good programmer can always get a job, I disagree that you need to be the best to do it. The best person doesn't always get the job. The guy who is good enough to "make it work" will get the job, and that guy is not necessarily the best at it.

What an assload of crap

[lorcha]

Within 4-6 years, your entire worldview will be turned on its head.

As soon as you set foot on a college campus, the guys who get the chicks will be the pre-med, pre-business, etc. majors. Sure, the athletes will still get chicks, but that will change after their NCAA eligibility is used up.

After college, those athletes will become washed-up athletes and will get zero pussy. Hopefully they payed at least a little attention in college, or else they will be the ones picking up my garbage twice a week.

You know, it's funny. All I hear about is how China and India are going to "beat us", whatever that means. They study harder, there is more emphasis on academics, an blahdy blah blah. If that's the case, how come the best and brightest Chinese and Indians all seem to wind up in the US? Yeah, sure, I know a lot of really smart Chinese and Indians. I work with them every day.

In Virginia.

By the way, I have no problem with the H1B program. If foreigners want to come here and compete with me for jobs right here on my turf with my cost of living, I say let 'em. They better be prepared to lose, though. I am one extremely competitive motherfucker.

Must have been all those years of high school sports.

Re:Do you know the truth?

[SpyPlane]

I went to UCDavis, and all the students I knew loved Norm Matloff. He speaks Chinese, he was one of the first to do heavy research on supporting Chinese characters in software, and if I recall correctly, his wife is Chinese (I couldn't find it anywhere on his webpage to back that part up).

Here's his Chinese software page:
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/chinese.html

I hate to use the classic "but I have lots of black friends!" anti-racist argument here, but I think he has earned it. I think the reason your friends don't want him as their advisor is because he is one of the toughest Prof's at Davis, and he isn't going to give out a free ride through grad school.

Of course, you have been modded up, and no one is going to read my reply, so the false prejudiced accusation is what people will see. But again, this IS slashdot. The first to respond is always right!

As an aside, he was also a big reason that Intel Corp. in Sacramento changed their stance on G.P.A. being the major deciding factor in hiring a student. They used to throw out all resumes that were under a 4.0 G.P.A. (they had THAT many applying). Dr. Matloff basically showed them that the students that could REALLY program weren't the ones getting A's. He has a paper somewhere on his site, but again, no one is going to read this reply anyway!

Novice vs. expert problem

[notany]

What is programming? This question determines what kind of people companies want to hire and how programmers are made.

Buisiness people and managers are playing the power game. They don't want craftsman, they want interchangeable parts. With that midset comes necessarily the belief that what you do is factory work. To master any craft means that the novice must dedicate years and years into learning the skill. MS certificated "programmer" is not real programmer. He/She is code slave. Behold! New class of people working nonphyscical equivalent of cotton picking is born.

If you have any true programming skills nowdays, you are promoted. End are the days of programming. You are now supposed to herd group of caffeine-addicted-monkeys or write nice pictures (UML) to them so they can write it painfully down.

Quoting one of the true masters:

The Novice has been the focus of an alarming amount of attention in the computer field. It is not just that the preferred user is unskilled, it is that the whole field in its application rewards novices and punishes experts. What you learn today will be useless a few years hence, so why bother to study and know /anything/ well? I think this is the main reason for the IT winter we are now experiencing. -- Erik Naggum @ comp.lang.lisp

Re:Do you know the truth?

[SpyPlane]

I guess I should have RTFA better the first time. Support for the "his wife is Chinese" is here:

"as someone who married into a Shanghai family, I congratulate the bright, dedicated members of the winning Jiaoda team, which also took first place in 2002"

TFA is right

[WillWare]

There's nothing wrong with the education system, or what Johnny can or can't do at the moment, that won't resolve itself overnight if we can fix the real reasons America is slipping, which are outsourcing, outsourcing, and outsourcing. Because there's no demand for American programmers, there is no selection pressure to kill off crappy education. As soon as a selection pressure appears, the good and bad educational institutions will be sorted immediately.

We can't blame outsourcing on Indian or Chinese programmers. They're doing what's good for themselves and their families. We could blame corporations, but corporations never listen to criticism, even from shareholders, and certainly not from Slashdot comments.

What would work would be corporate tax breaks for creating American jobs. Bigger would be better, but they don't have to be huge. There may be many thousands of jobs where the difference in utility between hiring an American and outsourcing just isn't that large, and a small incentive would push it back to the American worker.

Another thing that might help would be a system of labelling that tells how many American jobs were involved in the manufacture of a product. How you guarantee the accuracy of such labels is a question; corporations will face incentives to lie about the numbers.

He's flat out wrong.

[Tiresias_Mons]

American education is slipping, not just slipping, its in free fall. Our society doesn't value education, it values vanity. We pay professional athletes millions of dollars, the Paris Hiltons of the world millions of dollars, and for what? Vanity and entertainment. When it comes to education, we just say, "well, suck it up"...its complete BS.

So what if "Johnny Can So Program" his job will be sent offshore because "Johnny Demands a Livable Wage". There's very few niche markets where "Johnny" can still get a livable tech wage in America. Can you really blame "Johnny" if instead of studying science and math and learning about technology he blows it off, parties his life away through college, and becomes a business major so he can move on up to a clueless management position and cut jobs and make a decent wage?

Everything I learned about computers in high school, and a lot of my time in college, was learned on my own. I'd say a good portion of /. is the same way. Sure I still like to work in the tech field, but if I bought into materialism I certainly wouldn't be here, and if I had a family, I know I wouldn't be here, because I'd demand enough money to feed my family and put a roof over their heads, which would be an issue.

I'm not against outsourcing. I'd say we should be encouraging it, but the kicker being we have to do it responsibly, which corporate America doesn't quite understand.

What is wrong with importing talent?

[Supercoz]

I am all for the smartest people in the world coming to work here. America is founded on immigrant labor: people who are willing to move across an ocean for economic opportunity are always smarter, tougher, and harder working than their peers who stay in their homelands.

H1Bs don't take our jobs at gunpoint. If you lost your job to an H1B it is because they were smarter or willing to work harder for less money. Being born in the USA does not entitle you to a free lunch. If you don't like it, too bad. Maybe if you spent less time complaining on slashdot and more time being productive, you would be getting paid more.

We need to teach programming earlier and better.

[Paradox]

Part of the problem is how poorly american culture has adapted to the modern world of computing. Despite the fact that people use computers nearly every day in dozens of capacities, it's still considered an esoteric and specialist degree.

For example, look at how late in our educational system the process of programming education begins. Most "good" programmers I know were fooling around with code long before their schools ever even dreamed of introducing them to such concepts (usually around or before age 10, even!) Remember the Smalltalk project at PARC? They had children making animations, programs, games, and even simple applications. Obviously, children can understand it if you present it correctly.

Between this delay and the general American stigma against intellectualism, many of the programmers we produce are not terribly good at the job. Maybe they did it for the money (before the .com crash), or because they could get an associates degree at ITT (better than flipping burgers), or maybe they made some fast money making cheap ameturish webpages and now they think they can do anything (classic townie wannabe).

What we need to do is teach kids to program at an earlier age. We also need to stop being so concerned about teaching them a "low" level language first. Let's start with Python or Ruby. Let's have them doing things instead of wasting time making for loops or calcualting array medians. Start making network-enabled applications, making interactive websites, etc.

Then, let's combine that with their math courses. As they learn math, they can learn the corresponding ways to do it on a computer (when feasible).

That way, they'll already know if they like programing or not, and they'll be able to make intelligent and informed decisions about what direction to steer their life. I can't tell you how many people I watched drop out of our CS Pre-major in college because they didn't realize what CS really was.

Also, why don't we see more vocational programs for cheap coding work? Not to offend web designers, but there's an example of a career that could be considered for vocational schools.

America is having problems keeping up with their demand because our entire society is shaped to ostracise young people who are interested in the subject, and discourage them. Only the most persistant and passionate people make it through, leading to a vast gulf between a "good" software engineer produced in America and a "bad" wage-slave class coder.

Your point being...?

[cyranoVR]

However, when it came down to actually doing it, and learning to code, they all, except for one, said "We're just more interested in playing games."

Hrm, sorta like those goof-offs at MIT who developed Space War, huh?

Of course, we all know that nothing good ever resulted from that effort...RIGHT?

A View From the Eastern Europe

[$criptah]

When I arrived to the United States in mid 90s, my view was exactly the same: American's could not do anything and no American was smart enough to do advanced stuff. Dear Americans, please accept my apologies. I was wrong and pumped by skewed views.

In high school, it seemed that a great fraction of kids were being dragged along in order to meet some sort of a requirement. I was puzzled becuase I went to one of the best schools in the U.S. at that time. What I did not know, was the fact that the school was required to try its best in order to educate the students. In my former country, Belarus, a great majority of those slackers would never see the 10th grade.

I remember how everybody told me that the U.S. had no science and no math. Unfortunately, this is partly true becuase there are no hard requirements: a student can get by several years of simple math and science without even getting into advanced stuff. It turned out that if you wanted to succeed, all you had to do is work harder and take the advanced courses yourself! Yes, that is right. Most of the kids in my AP classes were just as smart as my former peers. They wanted to study advanced stuff and they got it. If one covered all the courses offered by my high school, that person could go on and take courses at a local university. That totally busted my old opinions about this country. Granted, not every teenager is dreaming about yet another calc test. So what? As long as we have people who are willing to take on and progress, we'll be fine. In fact, I enjoyed that advanced clases were small because you had to qualify in order to get there!

The same thing applies to college. You can take easy courses and slack or you can take advanced courses and try to do your best. I opted for the latter. I worked really hard to get an A in a computer graphics class while my buddies were driking beers while creating a database driven website project for a lower level course. We ended up with the same grades, but I had to work my ass off. You get the point. In the end, everything is up to you. In many countries of the world students are simply required to study more whether they want it or not. This is subjective as well. Do students appreciate the material that their teachers force upon them? Does it make any sense to have the same math program for every student? Does it make sense to benchmark students at all?

I guess Johnny can program. The real issue is that Johnny wants to earn some money doing it. Competing with people who come from India or China is hopeless when you have a mortgage, kids, and educational loans. Had it not been for my monetary baggage in terms of ed loans and high rent payments, I'd work for ten dollars per hour. The question about visa workers and offshoring should not be discussed via one's skill level. It is the salary that counts. I know of several companies that had to bring their development and support back because the price of their offshored contractors went up.

FYI, I have seen some posts about bright foreign exchange students. That is all nice and cute. However, you have to remember that students who come here on visas are not your average kids! After my family moved here, a couple of my former classmates were chosen to represent my former country in a foreign student exchange program. These were the cream of the crop kids. Straight As, good behavior, good discipline. In order to qualify for the program, you had to jump through many hoops and truly show that you're the best from the best in terms of your brain power and language skills. These guys were pretty smart by default and they truly stood out regardless of the student body. Being a smart person and an immigrant makes you stand out. There you have it.

Re:We need to teach programming earlier and better

[jayloden]

I have to agree...starting programming with Java and C++ was the worst thing that ever happened to my programming. It never really clicked with me until I recently started with Python. I was able to churn out some useful, working programs almost immediately, and now when I DO go back and read C++ code, or update my C++ apps, it makes a whole lot more sense. The logical, simple syntax of Python made me able to understand underlying precepts so that moving to the lower level language becomes a small step instead of a huge hurdle.

If I ever had my say, I would definitely support using Python (or Ruby, from what little I've seen) for teaching introductory programming. There's plenty of things that are hard enough for most people to understand in programming, the language itself doesn't need to make it even harder.

#!/usr/bin/env python
print "Hello World"

sure makes more sense to a young budding programmer than

#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
cout << "Hello World";
return 0;
}

There's nothing wrong with learning C++, but I can definitely attest that at least in my case, it wasn't conducive to a rapid learnign experience. Discovering Python literally renewed my interest in programming because it made it so accessible.

-Jay

Re:Why I don't have a PHD

[Bassman59]

As long as companies look for the "cheap" programmer instead of the most well educated and trained, degree's will trend downward.

You don't have a Ph.D. because you don't know how to use apostrophes.

Re:Do you know the truth?

[Tarindel]

You didn't know me then. :)

Out of all the CS professors I had at UCD, Matloff was the only one I DIDN'T like. Why? I found him to be arrogant, condescending, egotistical, and at times incoherent.

The one thing that really stuck in my mind about him from when I used to attend his networking class: he would read STRAIGHT FROM THE BOOK to us. I thought I was taking an upper division class, not kindergarten.

That said, he's obviously well regarded in some circles. From from this former-student's perspective, he is pretty much the LAST person in the CS department that I would have wanted as my advisor.

This is a lie

[VP]

It is bad enough that it is somewhat accepted that politicians lie, and we don't think it is a big deal, but now we have a University professor twisting and omitting facts to support his flawed premise.

From the article:

Congress, openly admitting that it was responding to industry campaign donations rather than the popular will, complied by increasing the H-1B cap in 1998 and 2000, the latter action coming at the time the mass layoffs began. This past December, despite a continuing abysmal tech labor market, Congress enacted another expansion of the program.


The facts:
The H1B cap (which covers not only computer professionals, but also foreign workers in a wide variety of fields, including sports, and fashion model) was 65,000/year. For those who remember the situation in the IT market in 1997-1998, it was clear that there was a shortage of qualified computer specialists, especially in areas away from the major IT centers like the Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston, etc. The raise of the H1B cap, if I remember correctly, was done only once - in 1998. It was temporary, and in two stages, with initial raise to 120,000, then to 195,000 (in 2000), and then it went back to 65,000 in 2004, with the additional rule that the number is not for the visas issued, but for the visa applications - i.e., if a company applied improperly for an H1B visa, they used one of the allotted numbers even though they were refused the visa. This is far from the implied continuous expansion that Norm Matloff wants you to believe.

While the cap was up there, close to 200K a year, the supply and demand equilibrium was achieved and not all available visas were used (obviously the bubble burst had a great impact on that). In the fiscal 2004 (Oct. 2003 to Sept. 2004), the 65,000 visa application were exhausted in about 4-5 months. In the fiscal 2005, all 65,000 applications were submitted in a single day (Oct. 1, 2004) since that number included the applications filed in fiscal 2004 after the cap was reached. This meant that high-tech companies had to wait for an year to offer a job to a non-citizen, regardless of their qualifications. This is why there were an additional 20,000 H1B visas allocated in December, restricted to MS and PhD holders from US universities.

Quote:

Government data show, for instance, that Intel, which claims that its H-1Bs have master's degrees and Ph.D.s, pays them far less than the national medians for engineers with these degrees.

The H1B visa regulation require that the salary of the visa holder is comparable to the local level of compensation, and not to the national median, and for a very good reason. The IT and CS professionals in California are probably skewing the average and median values nationally to such an extent, that companies in Tennessee or Alabama, for example, would have a hard time hiring someone at or above these levels of compensation, since it will make their local costs too high, and make them less competitive in their local markets.

If Norm Matloff (or anybody else) has credible evidence that Intel, or anyone else, is paying their H1B employees less than their US counterparts, he should file a lawsuit - it will bring them the gratitude of current and future H1B employees around the country. BTW, HP tried this in the late 80's - early 90's, and got slapped very hard with fines. I haven't heard of anything comparable from a large corporation since then.

Quote:
Contrary to these parties' putative goal of maintaining American technological competitiveness, H-1B has brought great harm.

What "great harm"? The scandals at Enron and WorldCom? The Internet bubble? In my opinion, clueless and arrogant executives, who believe that they are above the law, or that they can manage in areas about which they have no understanding have brought much greater harm to the US economy than a million H1B workers will ever do.

Of cour

Re:This is a lie

[smittyoneeach]

If a permanent resident program was available, where a person could start working in 1 to 6 months after accepting an employment offer, and their status was confirmed in under a year, the H1B path will be abandoned in a second. This is the solution to H1B abuses, not the fairy tales that Matloff wants to tell...

Don't get me started on the USCIS; my German wife and I are 'enjoying' a Kafka-esque ordeal, at our own expense, through them.
Thank you for a revealing post, though.

Re:Do you know the truth?

[chade01]

As a current UCD student studying Computer Science (not to mention an ethnic Chinese), I feel compelled to chime in on this subject. From my experience, to say that Professor Matloff is prejudiced against foreigners is quite simply unjustified. No man I know has been more influential in another ethnicity's "community" than Professor Matloff. He is regularly active in the Asian-American communities in a number of capacities: appearing on local Chinese tv/radio talk shows (with no translator, as he speaks fluent Chinese!), testifying before Congress on foreign labor issues, advocating on behalf of minority science/technology employees who are being discriminated against... it goes on and on. With the exception of the grandparent, I have never heard anyone claim that Norm Matloff was prejudiced in any way, and would be surprised if I found the claim had any merit whatsoever.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

try RTFA

[maxpublic]

Did anyone actually bother to read to the fucking article? Y'all are yammering on about the very diversion that news.com engaged in: that the educational process is to blame. Didn't the 'whooshing' sound over your head clue you in to the fact that perhaps you missed the point?

The problem isn't education, as the article pointed out. The problem is the simultaneous importation of cheap, skilled foreign labor (H-1B work visas) and the exportation of the tech industry overseas. The whole 'education shtick' is nothing more than a campaign of hype used to convince Congress that H-1Bs and overseas outsourcing are Great Things(TM) for the American economy. When in fact they're sucking the life out of the tech industry and are directly responsible for the ability of other countries to compete with the U.S. in the market. First we train their workers up to the expert standards of American workers, then we ship the jobs overseas...great national economic strategy, that.

So cut the crap about education being to blame. You've been hoodwinked just as easily as Congress and news.com have. Try rubbing a few brain cells together, think a few seconds over H1-Bs, overseas outsourcing, and the joblessness in the American tech sector, and see if you can actually zero in on the real problems here.

Max

The fatest way to ship a job overseas...

[samkass]

If you would REALLY like to accelerate the shift of jobs overseas, make sure you get some good foreigners trained in US universities with a whole lot of internship contacts in American companies, then refuse to give them a work visa.

They'll go back to their home country, where developers probably get paid half as much, and use their contacts to start a code farming business, taking away American jobs.

The best way to keep jobs in America is to have the best and brightest from around the world COME to America and build their industries HERE. Sending them home, in the long run, sends the jobs with them.

Re:A blinkered view from the ivory tower of UC Dav

[Wavicle]

OMG, it's not fair, they trained harder! Well hello! Is it cheating to produce programmers who can actually solve problems and write code?

He doesn't say it isn't fair. He says it is not fair to take the results of the contest and extend them to "American CS students can't compete." Have you really done these programming contests? Are you seriously implying that dynamic programming with memoization is something you are even remotely likely to need in the average IT software project? Bipartite matching? Prime factorization?

He's pointing out that some schools spend incredible amounts of time training for the contest... not training to be better programmers, but training to be better in programming contests, which is a very different thing.

I was a H1-B worker - I made great rates (thanks very much) and so did all the other H1-B's I know. It's convenient for Norm's flawed argument to repeat this myth, propagated by programmers who think they should have had my job because it was their birthright, not because they could have done it better.

Um, excuse me but we are citizens of this country and you are not. You would not even get to come here and work if it were not for a flawed relationship between labor and politics. Is it your birthright to go to any country you wish and work, or is it a courtesy extended by the government of that country?

When Chinese (or Indian, or anyone else) programmers turn out to cost less AND be better programmers we'll be able to thank guys like Norm, who wanted to deny there was ever a problem.

The opinions I'm hearing from various places doing outsourcing is that the programmers are not better, but they are a lot cheaper. I've yet to read anything credible suggesting outsourced work was both cheaper and better.

Everyone is always using computers.

[Paradox]

Learning programming is a waste of time.

Not at all. Even basic skills in programming give people tremendous advantages in modern society. While I agree that it'd be great to teach kinds more fundamental stuff like analytical skills, that's outside the scope of this discussion. I think we both agree that the education system needs to be reformed.

But, simply put, there are many opportunities that a programmer has in life that a non programmer doesn't even realize. The number of such opportunities goes up as the overall computer usage in society goes up. This is not like using a hammer. Most people do not use a hammer every day, because a hammer is a relatively specialized tool compared to a computer.