More Students Prefer Interdisciplinary to CS

prostoalex writes "With increased offshore outsourcing and continuing simplification of such tasks as writing a trivial application, Computer Science degrees are not as attractive for college students anymore, NYT finds. Students prefer interdisciplinary majors, where the programming skills are combined with solid scientific backgrounds in biotech, chemistry or business." From the article: "For students like Ms. Burge, expanding their expertise beyond computer programming is crucial to future job security as advances in the Internet and low-cost computers make it easier to shift some technology jobs to nations with well-educated engineers and lower wages, like India and China."

Comments

Immigration

[FriedTurkey]

I think that foreign workers are better trained for computer programming jobs is incorrect. Corporations aren't pushing for more H1B workers because they are better qualified than domestic workers. Corporations want a guy who will take what they give them or else they get sent home. How much technical education is really applicable to a real world programming job? Probably less than ten percent of what is taught in higher education.

I have worked with some great H1B workers. I also have worked with some terribly unqualified H1B workers. Just like domestic workers some are good at programming and some just can't do it. I would say some of the H1B workers do more resume padding because they are desperate to stay and I would probably do it too. One H1B worker, when applying, listed the company he was applying for as one of the companies he previously worked. I guess he didn't check the name on the cut and past job he was doing because he never worked for the company.

I am not afraid to compete against foreign workers. I think it will be great for technology in general. I just want to compete on an even playing field. Let the programmers immigrate as Americans. You never hear Microsoft ask the government to allow immigration for foreign workers. They don't want to pay them more and worry about a worker leaving for another job.

Re:Immigration

[njh]

Yep, H1B is the modern, clean and ethical approach to slavery. ;)

Re:Immigration

[twitter]

I think that foreign workers are better trained for computer programming jobs is incorrect.

On average, they suck out loud. That's the impression I get from non-US graduate students at LSU. Six years ago, they were lucky to have seen as much as a toggle switch programming rig. That's not a bad exercise, but it's horribly dated, specific and impractical. What the vast majority of students myself and a friend had excelled in was creating the impression that they knew what they were doing, even if they lacked all clue.

Corporations want a guy who will take what they give them or else they get sent home.

Bingo, it works for school too and they learn fast or go home. That's why you will find good in the bad. If they have survived a US higher education, they are usually up to the task.

I am not afraid to compete against foreign workers. ... I just want to compete on an even playing field.

That's a management problem, you can't win unless you are lucky enough to work for a clueful company.

You never hear Microsoft ask the government to allow immigration for foreign workers.

You don't know how to listen. M$ is one of many that continue to shriek about "a lack of qualified applicants" as they jettison engineers and build up places like Hyperbad. Google around for "permatemps" to see how they treat their own. The place is run by a man who has admitted he would otherwise have been in insurance, and has a published growth strategy of buying "loss leaders" to establish themselves in "mature" new technology. You might also look into their advocacy of the DMCA, which is an attack on education itself by making it against the law for you to tell people what you know about someone else is using to make a buck.

Re:Immigration

[Austerity Empowers]

It's the "bullet list compatibility" problem combined with maybe a bit of degree inflation that some managers are too stupid or too afraid to see through.

Problem 1) I am a manager of a PC server development project. I need to hire someone to design critical circuit boards for this project. Do I a) interview candidates whose backgrounds seem related to my goal, and hire the person who seems most motivated b) Search the resume for compliance with the tools and technologies I use, and only interview the remainder c) Decide that since this is a Sr. job, only PhD candidates will do (and then, maybe, apply B as well)?

Problem 2)I am a manager or director of an R&D group for a company that is not primarily R&D based (say, a bank). I need to hire to meet my project deadlines. Additionally my management has been dissatisfied that my projects are always late, over budget, buggy and maybe don't like how my employees dress, act or the times of day they work. I know, from having worked on similar projects in the past, that I am meeting or exceeding the averages other managers are at. I've played games to make my numbers seem better, but am still failing to bridge the "suit gap". Competance of my staff is always in question. Do I a) interview all persons whose background matches my goals, and hire the best/most interested person b) Hire someone who fits identically to the bullet list of precise skills I gave HR c) Only consider PhD or MS level candidates as they add "weight" to my staff (though they may be very dissatisfied/overqualified with the work)?

It seems b & c are the choices being made (primarily in large corps), and the answers SEEM to lie in China or India because the education process in those places seems (b/c I work with those shops daily) are tool oriented more than theory oriented, and PhDs are sought with far greater vigor due to some cultural differences in how degrees are viewed.

To put it in better perspective, would someone hire a guy into marketing because he seems to be very motivated, because he knows how to use Power Point, or because he has an MBA (assuming PhD's in marketing are silly ideas). Ideally of course, we'd like all 3, but do we immediately look overseas because of a lack of people who have all 3? Is it really NECESSARY, or just an indicator that the person is on the ball? Could not one learn MBA material on his own, quicky, with sufficient prior training?

I think most non-trolls on /. probably know the correct answer. So the issue boils down purely to "The dang foreigners are cheaper, and design jobs don't NEED to be in the US", which is an issue for government intervention. The opposite side is continued loss of technical competance. Let's face it, most people bright and motivated enough to endure EE/CS degrees are looking to cash in. Sure, they may LIKE it, but they may also like medicine, law, politics or business administration and can/will succeed in any of those places. In the end, unless we're very wealthy, we go to school to help us get a better job, and we work the job to put food on the table. What we do because we "enjoy it" can be done at home, after hours.

Re:Immigration

[Vicissidude]

Could not one learn MBA material on his own, quicky, with sufficient prior training?

In a word, no.

I have bachelors degree in business management. You would be hard-pressed to get the same education I got at the bachelors level in economics, finance, accounting, business law, statistics, information systems, management, and marketing without going to college. A master's degree in business is far more challenging, requiring far more work and effort to attain. It would be nearly impossible for you to pick up all the knowledge that an MBA program provides without actually going through the program. That is partially why MBA's are so valued in the first place.

To put it in better perspective, would someone hire a guy into marketing because he seems to be very motivated, because he knows how to use Power Point, or because he has an MBA (assuming PhD's in marketing are silly ideas).

Depends on the marketing position. Some don't require a college degree, so someone who only has motivation or Power Point knowledge could be a good fit.

However, if the marketing position actually requires marketing knowledge, then only being motivated or only knowing Power Point isn't going to cut it. That person with the MBA is the only person qualified for the position.

Let's face it, most people bright and motivated enough to endure EE/CS degrees are looking to cash in.

Speak for yourself. I could have easily "cashed in" with my business management degree. However, I went back to school for 2 years to get a second bachelors in computer science. That happened because I realized too late into getting my first degree what I really wanted to do with my life.

After graduation, I struggled for 3 years to find a paying job using my computer science degree. Again, I could have easily found good paying work with my business management degree. But then, I wouldn't be doing what I really wanted to do.

Re:Immigration

[jpegNY]

Slavery huh, I regularly see (and personally know one person) H1B workers making $40,000 - $60,000 in New York.

Not bad for slavery...

Re:Immigration

[Apathist]

You never hear Microsoft ask the government to allow immigration for foreign workers.

While they may never do that publically, they have a yearly H1B allocation that they always fill too early, then struggle to find other ways to get good people.
It's not that there isn't lots of good people in the US, but there just isn't enough to go round, and it is only going to get worse...

Re:Immigration

[Anonymous Coward]

Slavery huh, I regularly see (and personally know one person) H1B workers making $40,000 - $60,000 in New York.

$40,000 - $60,000 in New York?? That gets you a rat infested closet in the Bronx.

Re:Immigration

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a rat infested closet in the Bronx, you insensitive clod!

Re:Immigration

[randall_burns]

Just opening up the green card quote won't solve the problem. There are 5 billion people that live in countries poorer than Mexico-and a big chunk of Mexico's population would come to the US if they had the chance(and a lot are here already).

What Bill Gates wants are programmers that will work cheap-and kiss his ass-to get a green card. That green card would be worth $100K if it were available on the open market(that is what a girls family in India will pay him to get that green card). Until Gates has to pay that amount for a green card, this arrangement will still be a free ride for the likes of Gates.

Re:Immigration

[Anonymous Coward]

That's interesting. Since you seem to be a big fan of IBM (given that they "support free software"), would you like to comment on their recent outsourcing of 14,000 jobs? Where do you think those went? To Idaho? Belgium?

Or perhaps you'd like to comment on the fact that Microsoft is one of the few big tech companies that has never done a mass layoff + outsourcing. And the fact that they outsource some work, like research, to places like Ireland and China, but never at the expense of US jobs.

Perhaps you'd like to spell Hyderabad correctly, instead of using yet another hilarous denigrating word play like you do with "M$" and "Winblows" and "Windoze". One would hope that your irrational hatred of Microsoft does not extend to 1 billion people in India.

Or perhaps you would just like to shut the fuck up.

Re:Immigration

[bariumLanthanide]

There are 5 billion people that live in countries poorer than Mexico-and a big chunk of Mexico's population would come to the US if they had the chance(and a lot are here already).

Reminds me of one of Sailer's articles, something like this one. Sailer and others on VDARE are always worth a good read.

Re:Immigration

[Karma Farmer]

I am a rat infested closet in the Bronx!

Re:Immigration

[Austerity Empowers]

I don't buy it, though it's not the point.

First, I never said without college, although a number of CEOs somehow managed to trump college degrees with common sense. But it follows from my argument that such an extropolation should also be valid and I stand by it. There are lots of successful non-degree holders out there, although it's getting harder even for smart people to "break in".

Second, I have a masters in EE. It cost me 6 additional months (due to careful planning and some strong arming of school policies) and netted $20k/yr. What's wrong with that is that it shouldn't have happened. I only did it to work the system, I had no interest in being in school or what I was learning. I spent that extra semester re-interviewing, this time featuring MS on my resume. College is breadth first, with each degree indicating a higher degree of specialization. A PhD is only an indicator of deep specialization. Do companies really want that specialization, or the feeling of safety and security that comes from having someone with some more letters after his name? Stay tuned.

Third, the MBA. I know only one thing about an MBA: from the right school it's worth a whole lot of money, from the other schools, not a dime. I started a MBA, and dropped it when my first company started to tank. Why? The first crew to go were not the factory workers, nor the engineers, nor even the secretaries. The first to go where the MBAs in our finance, and program management groups. Is it necessary? I think not. In addition to the CEOs mentioned above, my former boss with his BS in EE somehow is a marketing director, with no formal training. In about 6 months he went from some small group in charge of an obscure portion of the world, to the second most popular market for my company (north america, sadly). Somehow common sense took him to where he needed to be, he's clearly not paper qualified for that job. He didn't even take economics as an elective! The hardest part was getting into that spot, without the paperwork. From there he seemed to move fast. Beyond what are often electives for engineers and useless liberal arts reqs, there is almost no similarity of degree programs between business majors and engineers.

Forth, there are probably jobs in which PhD/MS degrees in the appropriate specialization are essential. They need people actively involved in research in certain areas to come up with new, unheard of solutions. Such companies are willing to take product risks on unproven work. In the drug world, those companies are often big. In the engineering world, it's usually the opposite. I have only worked in megacorps, and never worked in one in which a novel, unproven, yet elegant approach was allowed. By design, such approaches are unproven and may meet with unexpected field issues and result in an expensive recall or factory problem. Then why do these guys even want MS/PhD types? Won't those guys be horribly bored? The answer is yes, but I put such creative energies to private usage. What large megacorps actually want is the warm-fuzzy of having an "elite" engineering team. The interesting issue here, is that the companies most able to outsource, are...you guessed it, large megacorps! They can buy foreign PhDs (who really just want work) by the boatload. The small researchy start-ups have a harder time outsourcing and tend to use local labor. These are the guys who NEED specialization and live or die on new ideas, yet they seem to catch their limit.

So in a giant circle, we're back to the issue at hand: is the motivation for such elitism the quality of employee, or the amount he is paid? I believe it's the latter. Does a given company know the credentials of every employee at Wipro, or the academic integrity of the overseas institutions which grant the individual laborers their degrees? Of course not. They're cheap, there are lots of them and they can satisfy the minimum job requirement. If it was specialization corporations wanted, overseas is probably the wrong place to look, as it's hard to figure out who is f

Re:Immigration

[Vicissidude]

...a number of CEOs somehow managed to trump college degrees with common sense.

A small number. And these are generally special cases like Dave Thomas, the deceased former-CEO of Wendy's, who didn't graduate high school. The only thing special about him was that he founded the business and made it successful. Not too many people lose money selling popular hamburgers. The trick is figuring out how to make a cheap burger people like, which is more trial and error than rocket science.

Company Boards of Directors carefully choose CEOs. Education is of vital importance.

There are lots of successful non-degree holders out there...

I never said there wasn't. As I said previously, there are good-paying jobs out there that don't require degrees.

...although it's getting harder even for smart people to "break in".

That's because there are now far more smart people who take the time to attend and complete college. When companies have the choice of a smart person with a college degree versus a smart person without a college degree, they'll pick the educated person every time. And they are correct in doing so considering it's guaranteed that the college educated candidate at one point knew everything covered by the degree. A business has no way of objectively finding what the uneducated person knows, knew, or the breadth of that knowledge. Granted, the college educated candidate could have forgotten everything, but they'll have a much easier time picking everything back up than the other candidate learning it for the first time.

Second, I have a masters in EE. It cost me 6 additional months (due to careful planning and some strong arming of school policies) and netted $20k/yr. What's wrong with that is that it shouldn't have happened. I only did it to work the system, I had no interest in being in school or what I was learning.

So, you cheated? You didn't take any masters-level courses? You aren't actually qualified to hold a masters degree?

Somehow, I don't think so. I know some schools allow students to take masters-level courses in their junior and senior years. In those cases, they have done the work of a masters candidate, so they graduate with a bachelors degree and quickly earn enough credit for their masters. Those people have done the work and do deserve the credit, regardless of their motivation.

Do companies really want that specialization, or the feeling of safety and security that comes from having someone with some more letters after his name?

Again, it depends on the position. Some positions require specialization, such as a MSCS for high-level software architecture positions. Some require letters, such as C-level and mid-management positions. Some positions require neither. And some positions require both.

The question thus far is whether you can get that level of specialization without college education. My position is no.

I know only one thing about an MBA: from the right school it's worth a whole lot of money, from the other schools, not a dime.

Of course. The fact that Devry and University of Phoenix exist does not negate the value of a MBA, unless it's from Devry or University of Phoenix.

I started a MBA, and dropped it when my first company started to tank. Why? The first crew to go were not the factory workers, nor the engineers, nor even the secretaries. The first to go where the MBAs in our finance, and program management groups.

Again, this does not negate the value of the MBA. The real question is how long would it take those people with MBAs and experience in finance and program managment to find another job paying just as much or more. Then, ask how long it would take factory workers, engineers, and secretaries to find a new job. The MBAs and engineers would find new work the fastest while the factory workers and secret

Re:Immigration

[computational super]

Actually, it's worse than you think. He meant per year, not per month.

Re:Immigration

[Austerity Empowers]

1) I didn't cheat, I work in large megacorps, they have the resources to check with my school and my references, and do. I overbooked classes to meet credit requirements starting as a bachelors. Anyone who takes 26 credits/semester is probably not getting everything out of the courses their taking, regardless of their grades. I was banking on the fact that it doesn't matter, it's all about the paper anyway. All I demonstrated was a capability of storing a lot of number facts in short term memory for brief regurgitation. Facts I have not needed again. The premium is paid for the APPEARANCE of my education and the apparent safety that comes along with it, not because I actually know anything. There is no question I wouldn't have gotten the jobs without the degree, but could I have do them without? Probably, I spend most of my day writing emails and correcting the mistakes of stupid (but degreed) people.

2) I guess I would rather found a company that become a monster, than be appointed to one. For one, it's a lot more profitable. Also, I can retain control of the board of directors. I won't argue that getting appointed CEO often requires a good pedigree, I will argue that it should not. The best CEO I've worked for had no degree and founded his company, the worst CEO I've worked for had a BA in marketing and was appointed. She had the credentials but not the clue.

3) My boss is smart, and there were people more paper qualified than he. I don't believe there was in fact someone actually more qualified or they would have hired the other person. The chance they took was he'd get lazy and not learn his job, NOT that he was poorly educated. His competitors had lots of spoon fed knowledege about marketing for sure, and would have been "safe" appointments from a CYA perspective. Clearly they did not exhibit any outward sign that they had brain activity or they would have been chosen instead.

4) The point is that in spite of being less well to do, Texans have an infinite amount of cheap labor in the form of mexicans and can get a lot of work done for next to nothing. Corporate executives have an infinite amount of cheap labor in the form of Indians and Chinese. Their qualifications, while apparently high, are in fact irrelevant. Who knows if their PhDs have any standards at all. Who cares? They're cheap, and they can use the PhD as an excuse to the US Gov't who may come asking questions about labor practices. "Oh Uncle Sam, there just aren't enough PhD's in the US! We have to use these nice Indians, there's no other choice!"

Re:Immigration

[dptalia]

Um, companies actually have to post the "going rate" in their location before hiring an H1-B. And H1-B employees legally have to be paid withing the "going rate" average. Sure some companies are manipulating the system, but legally, and H1-B employee should be making about what an American worker would be making.

Re:Immigration

[falconwolf]

Slavery huh, I regularly see (and personally know one person) H1B workers making $40,000 - $60,000 in New York.

While those H1B workers may feel like kings with what they're making it saves the companies from having to pay what an American would be paid. These visas aren't because American workers aren't available, there are there because employers don't want to pay what those workers want. Though it's been some tyme since I've seen any here I've read on /. how an employee trained someone with a visa and then was replaced by who they trained. If the person were able to train the replacement then they obviously can do the job.

Falcon

Re:Immigration

[canuck57]

I am not afraid to compete against foreign workers.

Your not on a level playing field. An H1B worker has to deal with INS. You do not. Makes a difference when your H1 is about to expire and grossly incompetant lawyers botched your GC application.

The problem is American business does not develop it's human capital, and when they want something they want it now and fast. This to me is the number one reason to become a consultant. You move around and drop new ideas and collect them as well. Making you a more valuable resource. As a consultant, you are always working on this.

Your observations about H1Bs being good and bad is true. There are, like local talent, good and bad. And like Americans, they too can buy their degrees. But the best tend to have experience.

View the need for H1Bs as companies botched things. They didn't develop their own people so they have to go out and get it no mater where they are. And more and more of us are choosing where we want to live which can mean outside of the US.

The market will allocative efficiently

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter that the number of CS degrees is decreasing in the US -- it will just increase in India, China to meet up with the demand. The free market at its best!

Re:The market will allocative efficiently

[Anonymous Coward]

"Engineers don't build bridges. Ironworkers do." //Same goes for programs. Think about it.

Re:The market will allocative efficiently

[JulesLt]

It will matter if the Indians and Chinese don't want the output of all our media studies students - or are we just encouraging people to build up a lot of debt doing useless degrees. Well, actually, maybe it won't matter as the US can continue to run a massive export deficit - no one dares call bluff on the dollar.

Re:The market will allocative efficiently

[militiaMan]

Since when was government set exchange rates free market?

Chicken George

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't believe the hype. Don't believe the carefully planned celebrations or the partisan pundits, or the protests that derided it all as the next coming of Sodom and Gomorrah. Last week was nothing more than quiet fart in the political world; an election that was decided almost two years ago. You would think the election of the first female President of the United States would be a grander statement; the progressive values of our nation confirmed for the whole world to see. For me, it was muted by the fact that it is Hillary Clinton who was voted in. It is creepy to think that since I was eight years-old, the President of the United States has been named either Clinton or Bush.

An upside can be seen in the fact that it is unlikely we will ever have another president named Bush again. The scandal that has dominated his last term was so disgusting, grotesque, and just plain bizarre that it must have made the electorate nostalgic for Clinton's sexual appetites. Though like Clinton's troubles, Bush's were not sufficient to have him removed from office, they have completely destroyed the Republican party as we know it. As well as the Presidency, the Democrats now are firmly in control of the House, and are only two members short of a majority in the Senate as well. Champagne bottles were being cracked in the offices of a party many had written off for the past decade.

The dominance Republicans held through most of this decade has evaporated in the space of only two years, and many in the party think that this may be the best thing that could have happened. $100 per barrel oil has finally caught up to the economy and all indicators point to us being in the start of a long downward spiral. It is pointless to keep our token force of 50,000 soldiers in Iraq any longer, especially since the Green Zone is being hit with at least two suicide car bombers daily. Any notion that this fight can be won is only espoused by crackiest of crackpots on right wing podcasts. Clinton will likely withdraw them in her first one-hundred days, leaving it to the Democrats to officially lose the Iraq War. It will also be up to Democrats to honor our commitments to Japan and South Korea and deploy a carrier group to thwart the planned PRC invasion of Taiwan. This will not be a popular move. The US public is in no mood for saber rattling abroad and the Dow loses one-hundred points every time we fart in the direction of China.

Yes, not being the party in power right now might be a good thing, and to that end, Dubya's sudden and glorious flame-out may have been the best thing to happen to Republican Party. American politics is rife with stories of a sudden rise to power, followed by an ungracious fall. McCarthy and Nixon are forever etched onto our national memory. Yet, they all pale when compared against the story of the disastrous collapse of George W. Bush.

Within a year of taking office, he had risen from being a mere politician to being a cultural icon, adored or despised depending on your side of the aisle. Despite a drab economy, constant pandering to the cultural conservatives, and a rising chorus of questions about the Iraq War, Bush was indomitable and uncompromising in his first term. If someone hit the United States, they were sure that Dubya would swing, even if he swung at the wrong guy.

Like all Republicans though, his strengths lay primarily in foreign affairs. When he began pressing his domestic policy at the start of his second term the cracks began to show. His social security reform was blocked even though his party held both houses. Even people who voted for him began to get nervous that he'd given too much red meat out to the religious right, especially when the PRC officially sanctioned unlimited stem cell research and billions in venture capital went once more abroad. It finally dawned on people that the war in Iraq might not have been a such good thing to get into in the first place.

Still, by the end of '05 things were looking up for Bush. He got his Supreme Court justice confirmed withou

Re:Chicken George

[Le Marteau]

Wow. That was easily the most readable thing I've seen on Slashdot in months. Bravo.

In other words

[grasshoppa]

The CS major taught at most colleges don't prepare you for jack nor shit.

I can attest to this. I took 2+ years in college towards my CS major before I gave it up. I had been working the entire time in various tech jobs, and I was picking up on just how little college would prepare someone for the real world.

I did "audit" several higher level courses, and while they provided good information, it's sort of half a degree. With no real training in hardware, software programmers really don't know what they are doing, or how to fix something if it goes BOOM.

Re:In other words

[daboogyman]

Colleges have trouble rounded everything as well - It's hard to offer a "specific" course, everything must be equal.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

>software programmers really don't know what they
>are doing, or how to fix something if it goes BOOM

Yeah but at least they are not fat like us hardware guys.

Re:In other words

[Umbral Blot]

I think it is fine for some people just to focus on software, that is why you work with other people who understand the hard-ware. However I am more concernd (a reason that I am an ex-CS major too) that the university doesnt offer a single course in PERL, Python, Ruby, PHP, or any of the currently popular languages except Java, and some C as a side benefit from some classes. Don't give me BS about the basic concepts being all the preperation you need from any language. What you really need is practice programmming in new languages, followed by more practice. Theory is nice, but if your networking classes never teach you how to code arround a socket you still can't write a network application. However if you learn the coding side first you will pick up the theory anyways as a means to making your programs work. And yes I too currently have a programming job, despite not being a CS major.

Re:In other words

[grasshoppa]

However I am more concernd (a reason that I am an ex-CS major too) that the university doesnt offer a single course in PERL, Python, Ruby, PHP, or any of the currently popular languages except Java, and some C as a side benefit from some classes. Don't give me BS about the basic concepts being all the preperation you need from any language.

Actually, this I subscribe to. Further, you can't cover all the languages in any depth that would be helpful. So you take a few languages that are widely used and have a good breadth of skills and you teach students the methods primarily, and how to learn a language secondary.

What I have a problem with is the single minded focus on mere software development concepts. With no head for how it interacts with the hardware, you get people creating buffer overflows without even realizing it. Teach a student how to learn and the basic concepts, then go over how a compiler works and how modern x86 machines process instructions.

They had compiler theory, but it wasn't a bachlor level course. I want that shit in the second year. Students need to know how their work affects the system.

Re:In other words

[Umbral Blot]

Thats a good point, and I think the problem here is that students are starting with Java. Simply learning C first teaches you a lot about how the machine works. Also I consider bufferoverflows and instruction sets and what not to be part of the software side of things, not the hardware side. Hardware to me is more like the difference between different kinds of RAM, bus speeds, memory mapping ROM, ect.

Re:In other words

[theoddball]

I agree, in general, speaking as an ex-CS major. However, the CS program at my school *did* prepare you quite well for graduate study and/or academia in computer science.

Maybe Edsger Dijkstra was right, and CS really is just a branch of mathematics, as he argues in his paper "The Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science." If that's the case, it's unsurprising that you don't necessarily learn how to use $version_control_system or $Windowing_API or whatever people expect in the working world as a CS undergrad.

I bailed because I knew I didn't want to pursue graduate studies (and, let's face it, I'm not a stellar mathematician.) I'm (like many others) now doing interdisciplinary study: CS + law/public policy. If nothing else, this country seems to need more lawyers, if not good developers.

Sigh.

Re:In other words

[iminplaya]

In case you're interested, From the link in my sig:

Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly one of the most important is the fact that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking...If the total scheme of nature required man to be a specialist she would have made him so by having him born with one eye and a microscope attached to it....What nature needed man to be was adaptive in many if not any direction; wherefore she gave man a mind as well as a coordinating switchboard brain. Mind apprehends and comprehends the general principles governing flight and deep sea diving, and man puts on his wings or his lungs, then takes them off when not using them. The specialist bird is greatly impeded by its wings when trying to walk. The fish cannot come out of the sea and walk upon land, for birds and fish are specialists.

Re:In other words

[Nasarius]

With no real training in hardware, software programmers really don't know what they are doing, or how to fix something if it goes BOOM.

Er, computer SCIENCE should not deal with hardware beyond a couple digital logic courses. It sounds like you were looking for an MIS degree, not CS.

University science courses are not meant to "prepare someone for the real world". Do I know how to do real chemistry research after taking sophomore organic chemistry? Not really. But I understand the concepts, which is far more important. Likewise, a computer science curriculum should deal with computer science, not too much software engineering and certainly not IT grunt work.

Re:In other words

[bgalbraith]

One thing to keep in mind is about most Computer Science degrees is that they are not vocational programs. Rather, they are often geared toward understanding the mathematical and structural underpinnings of computational machines. Sure, you may learn C++, Java, assembly, whatever in the process of learning about data structures and algorithms, but those classes are not designed to teach you how to be a corporate IT developer.

If you are taking CS because you think you will get a high-paying job right after college, and not because you are passionate, or at least interested, in prgramming and CS theory, then I would say most CS programs are going to be a rather large waste of your time, energy, and money.

Re:In other words

[bugmonkey]

I've just graduated from a CS course over here in the UK and it seems like all the problems you are picking up on are not problems over here. The first and second years of the course were based around learning Java as an example of a programing language ; general programing techniques, object orientated concepts as well as Java specific stuff. As well as this first and second year covered more general CS stuff ranging from basic processor design to language theory. Third and Fourth year then allowed each student to pick the subjects which interested them, most students choosing a mix of hardware (low level logic, processor design, memory design etc), software subjects, more theoretical CS courses (ie functional programing, language sematics), operating systems and compilers. I was lucky enough to go to a very good university for informatics so it maybe isn't like that across the board, but courses like you describe certainly exist.

Re:In other words

[TrappedByMyself]

Nice troll attempt, but try again. You dropped out before the good stuff and are comparing computer repair jobs to software engineering jobs. Sorry bub, but that's a no-go
I assume you're upset about something, but slamming 'the system' doesn't really get you anywhere.

The CS major taught at most colleges don't prepare you for jack nor shit.

Umm, I have a CS degree and did just fine. Learned a hell of alot about the theory and problem solving techniques. Wasn't the same stuff I learned in the real world, which means without the degree, I'd have a huge gap in my skillset.

With no real training in hardware

I only had some hardware training, because my interest was more on the math side, however they offered many hardware options at my school. They even had a class where the students built a machine from scratch. Ballbuster, but the kids loved it.

I do architecture and development work for multi-million dollar projects, but I also did some hardware repairs on a co-workers box last week, so I'm getting by fine with this degree dragging me down.

Re:In other words

[bugmonkey]

I don't think starting with Java is a problem. I started university learning Java (I already knew basic and a little C) and the problems with buffer overflows, instruction sets etc was presented to us well. Coming from programing with JVM actually helped me to understand better the principles of memory management by compairing the Java approach to straight up C programming. I think rather than Java being the problem, the problem is courses teaching how to code in Java rather than teaching Java, I'm sure there's a lot of 'Java Programers' out there who don't understand exactly what the JVM is doing or even understand what bytecode is.

Re:In other words

[netruner]

I would agree that 2 years toward a CS major wouldn't prepare you for much. However, if all your school was teaching was programming, those two years would have been better spent at a tech school toward an associate's degree that was actually in programming.

I have a bachelor's and a master's in CS and I can confidently say that my schools prepared me well. CS encompases more than simple programming. There is a lot of study in algorithm analysis, computer architecture, OSes and real software engineering (not as in popular culture where it is interchangable with "programming".)

There is also the issue of studying the hardware. I don't understand how any accredited program can hand out CS degrees without coursework in hardware. (in undergrad, my school taught the circuit analysis, interfacing, etc. out of the physics dept beccause we didn't have an engineering dept. - and every CS student was 2 credits short of a physics minor, math minor was automatic.)

If the program you were looking at was as you describe, I would speculate that they were probably not an accredited program.

Re:In other words

[zootm]

Don't give me BS about the basic concepts being all the preperation you need from any language.

It's not BS. My course focussed on general programming language principles, and now I can move reasonably effortlessly between languages (and in most cases, paradigms) without too much bother. Compare this to a course teaching, say, Java and PHP, where you'd come out knowing how to program Java and PHP.

Re:In other words

[kamileon]

Actually, all of the recent CS grads I have talked to have studied compilers and at least the basics of machine architecture, they're required courses for a bachelors (at least here in California.) Database theory is, also. It sounds like universities are slowly starting to revamp their programs to be simultaneously more practical and cover a broader range of concepts.

Re:In other words

[putaro]

This has always been true. However...

I finished a CS degree back in 1991 while working as a kernel developer (this is pre-Linux. I worked at a minisupercomputer manufacturer with a professional development team and the guys who designed the processor and other hardware). As a result when I finished college (after many years) I had a firm grounding in CS theory, a pretty solid knowledge of hardware and techniques, a lot of knowledge about 4.2 BSD internals and a lot of good knowledge about how to turn out software in a team environment.

After 14 years, what can I still use from 1991?

CS Theory - still the same baby. I don't pull it out often but when you need it, you've gotta know it.
How to work in a team/ship software
Basic computer design/electronics

The other stuff is just technology. It comes and it goes. Every piece of hardware that I knew well from 1991 is obsolete. I can still solder but surface mount is damned hard to do by hand. 4.3 BSD internals? Not super useful.

When I was in school I had similar complaints to yours. I hung in and finished my degree because I didn't want to spend the rest of my career explaining why I didn't have a degree. Now, I'm really glad I did. The longer you stay in the industry the more you will appreciate the theory side of things. It's really a whole different thing from learning technology and it has much longer term value.

Re:In other words

[Woody77]

My CE degree (mixed HW/SW) started programming at the assembly level, and worked up from their through C into Java.

By the time I was into abstract data types, I had a very good view of how the abstract data types would be implemented at the assembly/hardware level. How your choice of platform can greatly simplify things like semaphores, mutexes, and exceptions.

It seems the standard CS track is to start high-level, and slowly work your way down towards the hardware, and you might have a token class on machine architecture and assembly. I've watched my wife learn successively lower-level programming and watched the light-bulgs that go off as something clicks into place, how low-level hardware design ripples up into how languages are developed.

Now, when I'm programming in something higher-level like Java, C++, or ObjC, I still have that mental image of the registers and the stack, and what hoops will need to be jumped through by the compiler to call those virtual functions, or to handle RTTI and dynamic casts, etc.

Mostly, it's just an awareness of what the platform and hardware are doing, but I think it gives me a big edge over someone who only knows the packages made available by the high-level language, and doesn't understand how that function that they keep calling over and over again whose result value they could have cached can dig into their performance.

Re:In other words

[Fareq]

The problem isn't starting with Java.

It's *ending* with Java. I graduated with a degree in Computer Science. I learned Perl, C, C++, Java, and the tiniest bit of LISP (ugh!) while I was there.

However, it is entirely possible to graduate from my school with a degree in Computer Science knowing only one language. Java.

That's a problem, because there's way more to software engineering than just Java. And no, they didn't teach how the JVM actually worked. Just enough to get people to be able to compile their code.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a programmer and can confirm that we are indeed fat.

Re:In other words

[Spy der Mann]

University science courses are not meant to "prepare someone for the real world"

How funny, I thought Education was to teach and prepare people...

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

They usually teach that sort of thing in "Programming Languages", where they give the skinny on the whats/whos/when/hows/and whys of several different languages. Thing is, its a 4000 level course, while java itself is a 1000 level course. Most people that learn java either don't stick around for it, or they don't care.

Re:In other words

[ejito]

My school currently has computer architecture/engineering as required learning for the CS program (like every other University of California and California State school). Even my California community college had x86 architecture (assembly), along with pretty much all the other community college.

The whole idea that CS students aren't learning fundamentals seems like a great big lie to me. Where exactly are these students learning?

Re:In other words

[rumblin'rabbit]

Hear, hear. A sound knowledge of algorithms and data structures is constantly useful in everyday programming.

I've noticed that only people without such knowledge think it's not useful. They're the same people who come up with such ugly, clunky, brittle solutions to problems that have been brilliantly solved for many decades.

They're the same people who do a full bubble sort to determine the median value of an array.

It's a pity the OP quit after two years. The high-level theoretical stuff is where it really gets good.

Re:In other words

[Nasarius]

How funny, I thought Education was to teach and prepare people...

Good CS programs don't crank out good little code monkeys, just like good undergrad chem programs don't produce lab techs.

In universities, you learn the concepts in class, and you learn how to apply it out of class, through internships, working with professors, tinkering with open-source projects on your own, etc. If you don't want to bother with the concepts, you can go to a trade school and learn all the trendy languages and "technologies", I'm sure.

Re:In other words

[sTalking_Goat]

I'm an ex-CS major too. My last employer explained it to me this way. The point of getting a degree isn't so that your qualified to do something. Its to show that given the chance and some guidance you might be able to learn to do something. That the only reason you need one.

It's proven to be true too. I still don't have a degree but have still managed to get a string of jobs I'm "not qualified" for (on past experience and word of mouth)and a lot of the times wind up working with people who know less than I do, but make twice or three times as much becuase they have a degree. Its a shitty world.

Re:In other words

[ejito]

However I am more concernd (a reason that I am an ex-CS major too) that the university doesnt offer a single course in PERL, Python, Ruby, PHP, or any of the currently popular languages except Java, and some C as a side benefit from some classes.

Community colleges offer Perl (not capitalized, Perl is a retroactive acronymn), PHP and whatever popular language is out. Or you can learn it at ITT and DeVry.

Don't give me BS about the basic concepts being all the preperation you need from any language. What you really need is practice programmming in new languages, followed by more practice.

Saying that theory isn't all you need is bullshit. I can learn programming languages just fine on my own -- I learned PHP and Perl before I learned Java at my old college, but I still perfer Java for general learning. Most schools do teach other languages, which are mashed into one course (it's all you need to learn stuff like LISP and Python). Learning mathematics and algorithms is a lot harder than learning programming languages; introducing courses at a university just to learn programming languages is ridiculous.

Re:In other words

[xenocide2]

If nothing else, this country seems to need more lawyers, if not good developers.

Was that supposed to be the giveaway, that your entire comment is satirical in nature?

Re:In other words

[ejito]

Studying hardware (electrical engineering) isn't that important if you're more focused on the mathematical side of CS rather than the engineering. It used to be mathematicians doing a lot of the theoretical work. Corellating to that, it used to be mainly electrical engineers doing all the computer hardware.

Many CS schools now offer several CS majors, since the field is so huge -- plus there's related fields like Computer Engineering, CSCE, computational mathematics, etc. I agree that CS should teach a small part of all of the peripherals, but it should never focus on them (otherwise you might as well just be a double major of electrical engineering and mathematics).

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

The quality of hiring has sure gone down in the last few years -- all the employers (with a few exceptions) list 10-20 very specific experience requirements and don't really care how smart or interested you are. As a result career mobility has gone to hell.

Re:In other words

[bladesjester]

I find these comments of "they don't learn anything other than math" to be weird as well and I'm not in California (I'm in Ohio).

Yes, I had the standard calc, matrix theory, stats, algorithms, etc.

However, I also covered assembly (mine was on Motorola instead of x86), C/C++, some Scheme, operating systems, internetworking (from a former minion of Comer), databases, language and syntax creation, and quite a few other things including group software development for clients (from gathering requirements through completion).

Something tells me that these people are just looking for the worst examples or are pulling things out of their nether regions and don't know what they're talking about.

Re:In other words

[JulesLt]

I think the issue here is businesses telling universities what they need (when they only know what they want), and of course students choosing to go for courses that look commercially oriented (i.e. teach Java). The course I did covered everything - from logic gates to how to build a register and simple micro-code controller from them right up through assembly, 'C', compiler design, through to OO and GUI. Do I use much of it on a day to day basis? I don't think so, other than switching between iteration and recursion. They didn't cover any of the languages or tools I use - but I do feel that I had a rigorous grounding in IT that's enabled me to pick up things easily since.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea why compiler theory is not a sophomore level course?? Hmmm...you must not.

You need a host of knowledge to even begin to tackle compiler theory. At the very least you need:

- data structures
- automata and formal languages

The first (data structures) is usually a sophomore level course. Automota is also sophomore level course while formal languages will be a junior level course.

So you see, it is pretty hard to teach compiler theory until a student has reached their third or fourth year.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

You just suck.

Re:In other words

[putaro]

My Computer Science department (UCSD - this was in the late '80s) didn't offer ANY language courses . We were expected to learn assembler, Pascal, C, C++, LISP, and whatever else we needed for the courses we were taking as a part of taking the course. Most of our classes involved a lot of coding.

You will NOT pick up the theory side without a lot of work. Basic data structures, perhaps, but combinatorics takes some work. Language design, compiler design, etc. are non-trivial.

Pascal is mostly a dead language now. The assembler we learned (PDP-11) is dead. Out of Perl, Python, Ruby and PHP at least one will be a dead language in 15 years. Don't waste your time in college on learning languages. Instead, learn how to learn new languages and new things.

Re:In other words

[superpulpsicle]

I have been in 3 very different Hi-tech companies the past 8 years. Not a single HR division in any of these companies even care for a degree. Companies love to hire people with no degrees or half degrees(2 out of 4 years). Why? Cause they are cheaper to hire. They are still good people by HR's book.

Re:In other words

[Frogbert]

I'm currently in my final year of of a CS Degree at University I'm not too sure how my course stacks up against others because this is the only degree I've ever taken but in the past three years I have:
Learnt programming basics in C
Progressed on to C++ and Object oriented programming
Done a wonderful course on Human Interface Design
Done a course specifically on processor architecture and assembly programming
Database theory, development and implementation courses
A course on technical writing
Indepth courses on computer hardware and software and how they interact.
Systems analysis courses
Networking courses
A paid work placement where, lo and behold, I was the programmer/systems analysist/tech support/printer paper changer.
Computer graphics courses 2d and 3d
A course on COBOL
AI Classes using Prolog
Amongst many others

After all this I can honestly say that I am not a very good programmer, I have very little experiance in advanced C++ and OOP programming and only have limited experiance in others COBOL, prolog, assembler etc. However I do believe that by knowing the basics of programming theory and being able to program, basically at least, in a wide variety of languages will help a great deal when it comes to get a proper job.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

"any of the currently popular languages"

You are one of the ones who will be replaced by an off shore programmer. I've been in this business for 35 years. NONE of the machines I originally programmed exist today, nor do any of the languages. You MUST learn those fundamentals or you will be obsolete.

Re:In other words

[ElectroBot]

I started a 3 year Computer Programmer Analyst program at my local community college here in Canada in 2002-2003 (they also had a 2 year Computer Programmer program available).

First year was intro to programming, student success, math, accounting and other BS. Half the people in my class of around 30 shouldn't of have taken programming (their minds weren't analytical and they just counldn't grasp simple programming tasks like how to create a sorting algorythm). Most of the "teachers" either knew less than almost half the class in the TOPIC they were teaching or taught the lessons right out of the textbook. The program was designed to create financial/accounting programmers (not advertised) with no classes for things like embedded programming or game design (VBASIC and JAVA with some C were the only languagues we were going to learn outside of the history of programming). There wasn't a single class that even touched on more advanced topics like trying to get the most out of limited memory or stretching the limits of the computer's graphical ability.

BTW this was Conestoga College in Kitchener which is one of the more technically oriented colleges in Canada. I understand that Universities do have courses mentioned above, but Universities are meant to create teachers, scientists etc. and college are supposed to give you hands-on training for the job market.

Re:In other words

[Darth_Burrito]

I have a bachelor's in CS and did a year in grad school after spending a few years in industry and I can confidently say the people who designed the CS curriculum have their heads up their asses. Considering most people wanted to go into fields like software development, the program spent entirely too much time on subjects like hardware circuits, non deterministic turing machines, the halting problem, axiomatic semantics.

Meanwhile, it spent no time or virtually no time on some of the most important problems in the field of software development: interface design, usability, and software testing methodologies. Furthermore, the curriculum and assignments were geared in a manner that steered students away from experimentation with important tools like data persistence, logging, or security frameworks. In other words, code reuse was often restricted to simplistic data structures.

Re:In other words

[ampathee]

As a matter of interest, how would you go about finding the median of an unsorted array? Or would you simple perform a fast sort then check the middle element?

Re:In other words

[putaro]

Well, get yourself a degree from a diploma mill or night school or some such. For the most part it doesn't matter that your degree isn't in CS if you have experience in the industry.

Re:In other words

[tepples]

The conclusion was that the country needs more experts in law. I'll take a guess that the thinking behind this is that given a larger Supply of lawyers and the same level of Demand for legal services, this will mean lower price for legal services. However, this could lead to a Jevons paradox, where demand increases to more than meet supply.

Re:In other words

[techno-vampire]

Back when I was first starting out in computers, I had to explain why I didn't have a degree. Now, with about ten years experience, interviewers don't care. All a degree is good for is getting your foot in the door. Once you've got that, you might as well use it for scratch paper for all the good it does.

Re:In other words

[CharlesEGrant]

However I am more concernd (a reason that I am an ex-CS major too) that the university doesnt offer a single course in PERL, Python, Ruby, PHP, or any of the currently popular languages except Java, and some C as a side benefit from some classes. Don't give me BS about the basic concepts being all the preperation you need from any language. What you really need is practice programmming in new languages, followed by more practice. Theory is nice, but if your networking classes never teach you how to code arround a socket you still can't write a network application.

I strongly disagree. I don't see any single computer language as warranting a full course in a four your college after the first year. After the first year you should be able to pick up the basics of any language in a couple of weeks. Heck, I learned the basics of FORTRAN IV in four weeks in my freshman physics lab. Languages are easier to learn then theory, so you want to spend the classroom time on the hard stuff, and leave the relatively easy stuff for students to learn on their own.

I appreciate that you want to go beyond the basics, and you are absolutely right that you've got to write a lot of code to master a language, but I submit that no classroom based course with canned exercises will get you there. To really master a language you'll need to use it for multiple projects over an extended period of time. That's what summer jobs, hobby projects, internships and capstone programs are for.

The courses in trade schools and community colleges are a different matter. They have a different audience with very narrow and well defined vocational goals.

Re:In other words

[netruner]

Here's one I found:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Computer_Science:Algo rithms:Chapter_4
Look under the heading: find-median

Re:In other words

[CharlesEGrant]

Meanwhile, it spent no time or virtually no time on some of the most important problems in the field of software development: interface design, usability, and software testing methodologies. Furthermore, the curriculum and assignments were geared in a manner that steered students away from experimentation with important tools like data persistence, logging, or security frameworks. In other words, code reuse was often restricted to simplistic data structures.

Why didn't you go to a program in software engineering? There aren't as many of them as CS programs, but they do exist and it sounds like they would have suited your interests better.

Re:In other words

[KingEomer]

You can do it in linear time. There is a linear-time algorithm to find the n'th largest element of an unsorted array. It's a basically a quick-sort. You choose the pivot to be the median of the medians of groups of five elements (or something like that), by calling the function recursively. It's really quite neat.

Re: In other words

[Black Parrot]

> With no real training in hardware, software programmers really don't know what they are doing, or how to fix something if it goes BOOM.

That's a curious sentiment. If you want expertise in hardware you should be in EE rather than CS. If you only want to understand enough about hardware to understand how your programs are executed, you should get that in a CS program. In fact, that's one of the complaints most often heard from CS students: "Why do I have to take this class when I just want to be a programmer?"

Or if you're talking about learning when and how to change out a power supply, you shouldn't go to college to learn that at all.

And forgive me for lecturing, but any field has some foundations you must digest before you get to the pay-off. It happens that you made the worst of options: went through the most boring part of the apprenticeship and then quit just before you were let in on the tradesman's secrets. I worked through the first two years of a degree in chemistry, and though I learned some things that affect my understanding of how the universe works, I didn't get jack shit as preparation for a career.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

I want that shit in the second year.

Talkin' like a gangsta' and layin' it to tha' chickx0rs like Andy Stitzer. "grasshoppa", you be straight trippin', my brotha'.

Re:In other words

[prockcore]

I've noticed that only people without such knowledge think it's not useful.

No.. we just think that it's something that should've been learned in highschool. Algorithms and data structures is as basic as you can get, it's on par with algebra.

The problem with CS today is that it is so dumbed down. It's taught by people who never challenge anything they learn. Tell your teacher that an insertion sort is faster than a quiksort and they'll say that you are wrong and that quiksort is the fastest sort. Rule #1 in CS used to be that nothing could ever be called the fastest, best, or most optimized. That rule no longer exists.

Re:In other words

[beej]

However I am more concernd (a reason that I am an ex-CS major too) that the university doesnt offer a single course in PERL, Python, Ruby, PHP, or any of the currently popular languages except Java, and some C as a side benefit from some classes.

Yikes, what a nightmare. I'm so glad I didn't have to jump through these hoops when I was a CS undergrad/grad student. Learn yet another language? Unless the language demonstrates another paradigm, it's just another language to learn. I can do that in my spare time at home--why would I pay thousands a semester to do it?

Don't give me BS about the basic concepts being all the preperation you need from any language.

I agree, or else we'd all learn MIX and be done with it. But there is such a thing as overkill.

Face it, I knew how Ruby worked (even that weird block thing) within an hour of first examining it. Was I a pro? No. Could I code fast? No. I'd have to look everything up. But I challenge you to tell me how it's worth my time (not to mention money) to learn any more about the language in a university setting.

Learning Object-Oriented Concepts in University, though, that's something that can be applied directly to Ruby (which, I might add, didn't exist when I was in school.)

What you really need is practice programmming in new languages, followed by more practice.

You are right, assuming you want to be proficient in a language. Do it! If you want, you can pay me $3000 and I'll send you a piece of paper that says you did it after a year is up.

See, the University's job is not to make you proficient in a language, but rather in the structure of languages so you can become proficient in any of them. (I grant that it used to be C was a very common language and it was useful, practically, to know it. But now I think it's more useful because it's a "close to the metal" language and because it's C++-like.)

Here's what languages you should learn in school: one procedural language (like C), one OO language (like C++ or Java), and one assembly language (like MIPS). Once you learn any of those, the rest are just variations on a theme.

However if you learn the coding side first you will pick up the theory anyways as a means to making your programs work.

I disagree. In this case, it's what you don't know that will hurt you. In some cases, yes, you will eventually stumble upon the best way to solve some problems, but some problems have already been solved, and you can stand on the shoulders of quite a few giants by listening to what they have to say in school.

There are a lot of so-called design patterns you learn in school that can be applied to real-life with ease.

What if you have a pool of n people and you want to select people randomly out of the pool with no repeats?

Answer: use the same algorithm as you use to shuffle cards. :-)

What in your Ruby programming class prepared you for that?

But others might not be so obvious. For instance, let's say I need to write a piece of software that will examine any program I feed it and tell me if that program will complete successfully or if it will loop forever.

Computer scientists will very quickly rattle off the answer to this problem.

Non-CS people might spend rather longer on it.

Re:In other words

[putaro]

Here's what languages you should learn in school: one procedural language (like C), one OO language (like C++ or Java), and one assembly language (like MIPS). Once you learn any of those, the rest are just variations on a theme.

I would add LISP (since you can do wonderful and strange things in it) and Prolog since the whole basic concept of how it works is just different. You may never use them again but you should have tried them at least once.

Re:In other words

[UncleFluffy]

I can still solder but surface mount is damned hard to do by hand.

Make sure whoever makes the board puts a solder mask on it. Then you just dump a big blob of solder over the pins and suck it back off again. Works a treat...

I agree with your comments about the value of a solid understanding of CS theory, but would add a caveat: CS theory is only useful after you've spent enough time in the "real world" to understand that CS theory isn't everything.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Most businesses (sadly) want people who are 100% up on the flavor of the month. CS doesn't give that (so it's a lot harder to find work). But what you learn stays current 50 years later. The flavor of the month changes every month. You can go to CS and be relevant 50 years later, or you can learn current, up-to-date programming from a tech school. 50 years later, the CS stuff still holds. 2 months after graduating, the tech school stuff is obsolete. Too bad so many businesses don't realise that.

Re:In other words

[putaro]

CS theory is only useful after you've spent enough time in the "real world" to understand that CS theory isn't everything.

Very true. Either be prepared on graduating to pay your dues for a while or try to get an internship/job while you're in school to give you some real experience. However, beware the lure of the job market. I was having a lot more fun playing with the toys we were building than going to classes. At one point they asked me to dropout and go full-time. I declined, but eventually wound up being a part-time student and full time worker. A while later they hired someone fresh out of college but very bright. One day we got to comparing salaries and I discovered that she was getting about 30% more than I was. I took this to my boss and the reply was "She has a college degree and you don't" Grrrr....Gave me a lot of incentive to finish off the degree.

Re:In other words

[Darth_Burrito]

You're right in that I should have. However, as a freshman or sophomore, I wasn't really clever enough to realize what the university was offering wasn't what I wanted. It also doesn't help that the classes you took (in our program) the first year and a half all tended to be mostly about development or programming. Going into junior and senior years I was naive enough to consider the possibility that the classes I was taking in things like formal languages and automata were an efficient use of my educational dollar with respect to my goals.

The school I went to was Ohio State, which I think is the second largest university in the US. As a senior in high school, I also looked at Ohio University and possibly Miami at Oxford. I don't think any of them had Software Development programs... or at least if they did, they were all named "computer science." So yes it was a stupid choice on my part, but at the time (97), there weren't any other obvious options at the places I looked at.

That said, I think the computer science program at OSU has become more friendly to would be developers than it used to be. This probably has something to do with an infusion of new young blood and a gradual response to student demand.

Re:In other words

[JimmehAH]

Which university was that?

I'm starting at Sussex in October and I hope I've made a good choice.

Re:In other words

[bugmonkey]

Edinburgh

Re:In other words

[JimmehAH]

One of my choices...

Oh well. We'll soon see. Sussex looks like it has a good reputation for AI at least.

Re:In other words

[MBGMorden]

I don't think of C as a particularly good beginner's programming language. Java fills that niche very nicely. In today's world, you really should have a good grasp on object-oriented programming, and Java provides a way to start students off with that mentality. It's also very good at promoting good basic programming design (breaking applicable portions into methods, and especially using loops instead of GOTO's, which some C programmers still do).

Anyways, before Java become the "standard" CS starter language they didn't usually start with C, they started with Pascal or sometimes BASIC. Neither of these are particularly well suited to learning good programming practices, and aside from an occasional firm using VB, they generally aren't used very often in the real world.

And believe me, I'm not down on C. If I need to write something these days the first thing I go for is C or C++ (and unless I have a very specific reason to do so, I'd never write an actual user-targeted application in Java). I just think that they're better left for

P.S. At Clemson the languages we went through were:

Java (1st)
C (2nd)
SPARC Assembly (3rd)
C++ (4th)

I also took classes in Fortran, Visual BASIC, and SQL (not a true programming language, but close enough), though these were not a required part of the curriculum. We also wrote a LISP interpreter in a language design class that required that I learn enough LISP to write sample programs to test against my interpreter.

I've been out for 2 years now though. Don't know how the current curriculum is, though I doubt it's changed much. To tell the truth I wish that more schools still taught COBOL. Call it a dead language all you want, but it seems like the MAJORITY of places that I look at still run COBOL code somewhere or another and it's often one of the languages they want applicants to know.

Re:In other words

[beej]

Yeah, I knew I was being too bold in my suggestion of the bare minimum. :-) I'd agree with you on Prolog, and maybe to an only slightly lesser extent on LISP.

Prolog is definitely something else, and it gives you a new way of thinking about problems.

Re:In other words

[MBGMorden]

Oops. Forgot to finish a sentence. That C/C++ was was cut off at "better meant for"

I meant to type "better meant for later classes.", but the train of thought got lost somewhere :).

Re:In other words

[Lodragandraoidh]

My CS program required both a computer architecture as well as a logic design class - which got your feet wet in hardware - if you were on the programming side of the house. We also did assembly language programming which required knowledge of the hardware.

The CS program also had a hardware path that included hardcore EE requirements.

I think it all depends upon the school you go to and their concept of what computer science is.

This was in the 80's/90's - so it might have changed by now - and it is important to note that the PHD in charge of the CS department got his degree at MIT - and there were several professors who also were MIT grads - which probably colored their approach.

Ideally a developer needs to understand how his project interacts with the following:

1. Computers (various brands and their capabilities - or do we build our own, do we build from parts?)
2. Networks and the various protocols (layers, properties, hardware and various products provided for high bandwidth communication by telecom)
3. Storage (both database types and physical devices - sql, ldap, raid, NAS etc.)
4. System Administration/Operations (how does the project fit into current operations - interactions? Who will administer the machines and what will be the limits of their responsibilities; do they need training?)

This is all in addition to the normal skills surrounding the software and software development process itself (the users, their training needs, and their expectations regarding the functionality and evolution of the software over time, change management/control, tools, software design choices (algorithms, datastructures, client/server vs. stand alone).

In no way is this exhaustive. Schools are not going to provide all of this capability - even though they should.

Re:In other words

[jjr1]

Not to mention that's the interesting stuff if you're really into programming. As nice as it is to see something work the first time, it's just as nice to tinker with something and come up with and an original way to do something better. I figured out a long time ago that these types of jobs require learning many new things, so you might as well enjoy the process, right?

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur for the most part. The curricula has always been jam-packed, and a lot of languages (especially when several of them are so close to a predecessor language, as PHP and Python are so close to C) can be covered in a single survey course on programming languages.

OTOH, there are religions or schools within the general field such that the terminology they use is different and some terms are used with significantly different meanings such that these should be covered.

Some CS departments don't quite consider web weaving to be REAL software development, so that's another reason they may stay away from languages, design philosophies, etc. primarily associated with web weaving. With multiple departments and degree programs at universities these days (CS, EE, EECS, CE, MIS/IMS, IT, video-game development) there is plenty of room for these kinds of specialization.

Still, employers, or at least those posting job ads, seem to have no clue about how much or little it takes to go from a good foundation to programming in a particular language, using a different framework, or using a particular tool.

I've seen job ads demanding 2 years of experience for some specific brand-name toy that takes only a few hours of work to become productive and a week or two to master. Or they'll give you a telephone test and ask detailed questions on something that works differently in different implementations - the sort of thing no one bothers to remember but just remembers the options and experiments when it comes time to use it to be certain which will work here and now.

The compiler and systems classes sometimes serve to make sense of many of the things the students were doing by rote before that.

I've ended up using even the most boring and obscure things covered in those CS classes.

"Modern 80x86" is an oxymoron.

http://www.kermitrose.com/econ.html

Re:In other words

[0Seeker0]

If nothing else, this country seems to need more lawyers, if not good developers.

This country does NOT just need more lawyers! What we need are lawyers willing to work in public service, willing to do pro bono work, willing to advance worthy social causes and attack government/corporate abuse for principle, and not for money. The last thing this country needs is more "personal injury" or "medical malpractice" lawyers who advertise on TV every 2 minutes guaranteeing $10,000 (or at a minimum $1,500 to dismiss the suit) just because someone looked at you cross-eyed or because you experienced the mental anguish of watching someone have a seizure.

Re:In other words

[xintegerx]

Except that everybody who makes your argument on Slashdot ommits the following: how do you afford taking the CS or Physics degrees to 'broaden your mind' without a high paying job?

I'm a smart guy and I want to get a BS in a good CS program and/or a good Physics program. I think they both will 'broaden the mind' because I am 'passionate.' Not for a job.

How do I pay for it? I will NEED a high-paying job. So, part of the point *for all of us* in taking Computer Science *IS* to get a high-paying job and then 'develop and increase the passion' while you are paying off the college loans.

Of course, one could argue that if all you want is PASSION for CS, you don't need a degree, if you're not after a high-paying job, right? You could sit-in in classes for free, etc. You could read the internet and library textbooks. But you won't have a degree. Then how can I take my PASSION for CS to Google and Yahoo! and Microsoft without a degree?

Re:In other words

[xintegerx]

The reason I posted this is because I've read such comments as "you should be taking CS because you have passion, not for a high-paying job", and that has made me think that hey, I have passion, and I'm good, I will have endless opportunities! However, the truth is that you can't get a job with your 'open mindedness' without a degree.

This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a major (fortune 100) financial corporation we are de-outsourcing our development back to the US, due to the sheer incompetance of the Indian and Chinese developers we outsourced to.

We are not alone in this. The problem is not so much that they are indian or chinese (although that does bring a whole host of issues of racism/reverse racism etc), but it is impossible to manage them remotely without spending so much effort on it that you might as well bring them over on an H1-B.

Combine that with the fact that it is impossible for a US corporation to enforce intellectual property rights in China and to a lesser degree India, and its hardly susprising that US corporations are favouring English speaking developers once again.

Re:This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you're trolling or not, you are completely correct. This is absolute shite, cooked up by the site whos owners heavily push offshore outsourcing. There's been a few articles in various news sites over the past few months about a reduction in offshoring.

For reasons mentioned at joelonsoftware.com in a slashdot article a while ago, and reasons you mention, it's really not economical to save a relatively small amount of money on something that can be reproduced very easily, and has a direct effect on a company's profit and reputation to their customers.

Fuck you OSTG and VA Software, you two-faced shitheads.

Re:This is BS

[Snap E Tom]

More annecdotal evidence:

I just interviewed at a company that basically wanted me to completely rewrite their web app. The original code base was a complete mess, and impossible to maintain. My job would be to rewrite it in OO-style and make it modular. Who originally wrote it? It was outsourced to an Indian company.

Re:This is BS

[antifoidulus]

I think a lot of the quality problems come out of the fact that it seems like programming/IT jobs are a huge fad in India, so people who have no real interest in technology are going out and being "trained"(training = dumping a whole lot of info on them and memorizing it) by some fly by night institution and then going out and getting a job. 9 time out of 10 that person is going to suck. Not to mention that from what I have read, resume fraud over there is MUCH more common than it is in the US, so it quickly becomes next to impossible to filter the resumes. Turnover is also much more common in India than in the US, and no matter how talented someone is, if you only have them for 3 months, they aren't going to be worth much.
It's very difficult to guage just where outsourcing stands, you have companies like Gartner who shout "Outsource everthing! It's awesome, and oh we just HAPPEN to have an outsourcing consulting division, kind of convient huh?" on one end, and you have the talentless dot-bomb era programmers who are out of a job they weren't qualified for screaming that India's software development is worthless. The truth is most likely somewhere in between.

Outsourcing will never totally go away, but the key point to watch for is the signal to noise ratio. If there is a lot of crap coming out, it makes it much harder to find the gems.

Re:This is BS

[bleckywelcky]

Exactly. I was writing up a customized web store in html/php interfacing with mysql for myself (partially for fun ... had never done one before). I had the thing set up beautifully, all the process flow made sense, variables made sense, documented nicely, the whole thing was as modular as can be and ran smoothly. About 3/4 of the way through (with slow process since I did this in my spare time), I decided to get serious about running the web store as a business. So I had some Indians do the whole thing. When they got back to me with their almost-finished product, the code was completely unreadable and several functions were broken, and there was practically no documentation. Now I had to run back and forth with them to fix all the problems and get everything to work properly, because once they considered it done ... good luck trying to tromp through that trash pit of code to add features or fix other problems.

It's sort of like a problem that you can solve by testing 5 different conditions with "if else" statements, but that you can solve more elegantly just by rethinking your algorithm and reducing it to 2 "if else" statements. The indians just pump out code with "if else" all over the place to account for every little condition, instead of creating a modular and elegant solution.

Re:This is BS

[beforewisdom]

I work for a major (fortune 100) financial corporation we are de-outsourcing our development back to the US, due to the sheer incompetence of the Indian and Chinese developers we outsourced to. We are not alone in this. The problem is not so much that they are Indian or chines (although that does bring a whole host of issues of racism/reverse racism etc), but it is impossible to manage them remotely without spending so much effort on it that you might as well bring them over on an H1-B. Combine that with the fact that it is impossible for a US corporation to enforce intellectual property rights in China and to a lesser degree India, and its hardly surprising that US corporations are favoring English speaking developers once again.

I have felt my share of resentment and fear about outsourcing. It is irrational as it is the big American corps that are responsible, not the middle class ( or less poor ) Indians and Chinese who sending jobs overseas. The last couple of years I have met and worked with a lot of Indians. I got to know them as people and could not resent them anymore. Aside from being programmers like me and having an interest in eastern culture I saw that they were a lot like me, human beings struggling to get by. I feel bad that there are not enough decent jobs for everyone. For the record, the Indians I have met have been above average smart and competent. If it has proven difficult to manage outsourced workers then it must be the case that telephones, emails, and conference calls are no substitute for actually being there. I did like reading your post. When I saw the title for this thread I thought "Oh no, how about some good news for a change?". It is nice every now and then to read that not everything in the American IT job sector is going into the toilet.

Re:This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

hey asshole....i am an indian and can code better than most programmers i've come across. i'm sure i can find some faults with whatever code u can write....and then say "the americans use if else statements for a boolean return". think about that dimwit.

Re:This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you're trolling or not, you are completely correct.

Trolling with the truth dude. It's the only way to troll...

Re:This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, I've thought about it...you still suck. Indians wouldn't recognize an original programming thought if it landed on their nose and started doing the Macarena. You're bug fixers. You're maintainers. You're low level testers. You're a dime a dozen..literally.

Re:This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you idiot. I am an Indian. I work for a major S/W & H/w company here in the US. About 50% developers are Indians, 20% Chinese, 10% others and 10% americans. We develop Application Servers and dont you go about telling me that Indians cannot code. If at all most times I find myself directing my american compatriots.
So get your facts right.

Re:This is BS

[majid_aldo]

maybe you're outsourcing the wrong type of work. only the most simple, direct, and well-defined work should be outsourced...i.e. stuff that needn't be 'managed' so much.

Re:This is BS

[jjr1]

I also work for a large financial company and we've had the same issues with cancelling offshoring. As for the H1B's, I mostly feel sorry for them here because they are treated as outsiders by the people threatened by them. It's definitely more a fear of being replaced than overt racism although that doesn't condone treating them that way. The parent poster who was saying that H1B's are a lower quality of worker should try working in an environment where everyone there before you arrived is rooting for you to fail so they can feel better about their job.

Re:This is BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing it is application servers not spreadsheets.

Not Necessarily the Best Strategy

[Azarael]

It's nice for people in the work place to have a basic understanding of computer science, but I don't know how useful it is. Someone going into marketing, business admin, hr etc still aren't going to have a good understanding of the kind of software projects being undertaken these days. At the very least you would probably need a minor (or equivalent experience) for cs to be any use to you.

Re:Not Necessarily the Best Strategy

[jmccay]

It depends. It is inevitable that the computer will eventually become a tool where people of all trades will uses it to accomplish tasks. While they do that today, in the future, those getting a degree would be best suitted to learn some basic programming like scripting to be able to automate common tasks.

Re:Not Necessarily the Best Strategy

[kfg]

Conversely it might be nice if CS majors were also educated in basic science, language, history, business and even the arts.

If this trend continues perhaps in future American undergraduate students will once again be demanding an education.

Ah, the irony of it all.

KFG

Re:Not Necessarily the Best Strategy

[Azarael]

That's certainly true, you need something to apply your knowledge to.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Computer Science degrees are not as attractive

[Nuclear Elephant]

Computer Science degrees are not as attractive for college students anymore

College students have surprisingly decided they prefer drunken parties and naked women more...especially if the two are combined.

Re:Computer Science degrees are not as attractive

[Money for Nothin']

And this differs from previous (and some would claim "greater") generations how, exactly?

Software Slavery

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471 202843/qid=1124836922/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102- 0387518-0390541?v=glance&s=books

I'm assuming that some have read the above book. The question is. Do you think this is the future of software development? And what will it mean in conjunction with all the other trends happenning in the IT industry?

Re:Software Slavery

[Nuttles1]

While I will consider putting this book on my reading list to get a broader view of ideas of the sofware industry... have you read a classic of software developing, The Mythical Man Month. This book is 30 years old now and assertions that it makes are largely all true. Software is no where near being made like stuff is made in a factory.

Well, I called it.

[digitalgimpus]

I said that 3 years ago. Everyone here, and on other sites said I was a "nutcase", or "moron" or "idiot".

I'm in my senior year going for a Business Management Information Systems (MIS) degree. IMHO way more useful. I contribute to open source projects like Mozilla Firefox for extra coding experience as well as a few personal projects.

End result:
I know a fair amount of the technical side of things. AND the business side of things.

Problem with a CS degree is it's a dead end job. The days of a geek making it into upper management are over. Sr. Programmer is as high as most will be able to get.

The technology evolves over time. In 20 years C++, Java, and .NET likely won't be cutting edge anymore (we hope now). So those skills don't work to well... you need to retrain anyway.

The business degree will still be good in 20 years.

Nothing stops me from being a geek on my own.

This way, I have the best of both worlds.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

In 20 years there's still going to be a lot of legacy C++, Java, and C# code. There's still plenty of COBOL and Fortran code still in use.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Com2Kid]

Problem with a CS degree is it's a dead end job. The days of a geek making it into upper management are over. Sr. Programmer is as high as most will be able to get.

You don't get it do you? If I wanted to be in management, I would GO into management, get an MIS degree or something. It has been said that entering management is the death of a programmer.

The technology evolves over time. In 20 years C++, Java, and .NET likely won't be cutting edge anymore (we hope now). So those skills don't work to well... you need to retrain anyway.

I went into CS knowing very well that I would be spending my entire life "learning". Heck that is what I want. Yet, in 20 years time, I shall not only have studied the latest and greatest in technology trends, but also had the experience that I gained through creation and management of systems throughout those 20 years of time.

You can teach almost anyone to program, but an actual understanding of the computer is something different altogether.

The business degree will still be good in 20 years.

There will be changes in management styles and trends over 20 years, business laws will change as well, so will accepted ethical practices. Do you honestly think that you will not have to go for any "retraining" in any of those 20 years?

Re:Well, I called it.

[rolfwind]

How about John Carmack? :) Not sure whether he's a CS major or what - but definitely a hard-core geek. He seemed to make it.

After college, one finds out the degree ISN'T everything.

It's fine to pick a degree if you want to climb corporate ladders and stuff - but in my college many MIS majors still couldn't program their way out of a paper bag.

Conversely, years after my CS major, I'm now majoring in EE for fun. I think EE is better because it teaches hardware at the same time and many EE majors I met are also competent programmers - it's like having the best of both world. Depending on the college, attaining CS degrees can mean so much BS side courses that had nothing to do with anything - but that can be the same with any degree.

Anyway, middle management can wait. I hope to have my own business one day thus negating any possible degree requirements I have of myself^_^ - but I still value those who prize intensity over extensity - meaning a great CS major still has something over the interdisplinary students in my eyes.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be really boring if all you care about is your career. Do something you love, not something you can just make a career out of. The happiest people I know are the ones who stopped following the money...thinking about it, they're some of the wealthier ones to. Go figure.

Re:Well, I called it.

[jinzumkei]

CS does not teach you C++, Java, .NET. I think you are mistaking that for CIS or CPT whatever the tech equivalent was called at your school.

If you think your business degree will mean the same thing in 20 years, let me spoil the surprise, it won't.

Forget the whole division between majors for a second but working hard or semi-hard for 4-5 years does not give you a free pass for the next 20. You'd better be able to continue to learn new things. That's the trick in college, LEARN how to LEARN on your own and you'll be fine.

Now back to the whole CS vs MIS thing, I'm willing to bet that CS guys will be able to learn and grasp new concepts and technologies must faster and easier than an MIS major will. Not saying it's true in every case, but hey that's why I'm betting right?

Re:Well, I called it.

[Rew190]

Programming languages are a mere subset of what you learn with an actual computer science degree. Shifting technologies aren't a big deal, since they generally adhere to some basic principles.

A decent computer scientist can look at a new programming language, generally figure out which principles it works off of that he/she is most likely all ready familiar with, and be laying down code within hours. Obviously it could take years to truly master, but given the small amount of time needed to become familiar with a new language, this isn't really a good reason to not get into the field. That's one of the things you learn how to do quickly with a CS degree since you're familiar with what actually makes a programming language tick.

A CS degree will also be "good" in 20 years because a good CS program teaches you abstract ideas and concepts, not one or two programming languages.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

If all you got out of your Java or C++ course back in college is how to code in Java, or C++, then you really missed out.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Superken7]

imho, having experience in both areas is great for not having to stick with CS, as more job possibilities may come to you. However, i think a CS student not only has technical knowledge when it comes to programming in C/C++, Java or whatever, but he should be able to know the ways of "Software Engineering", which is much more than that. Many people can read a book about C and try to develop a program, or contribute to a project, but managing and coordinating many people working together on a big project that needs to be reliable and mantainable is another thing. Also, which language is "hot" at the moment should not really matter, because after doing CS you learn the life cycle of software(lets call it like that) and not a specific language. so for having opportunities with a "greater view" not sticking to one side may be fine, but that way i dont think/know you will get as much profund knowledge as for dedicating the whole career to a "single area".

Re:Well, I called it.

[merreborn]

In 20 years C++, Java, and .NET likely won't be cutting edge anymore (we hope now). So those skills don't work to well... you need to retrain anyway.

Yeah, and? A real programmer is not "A C++ Programmer" or "A Java Programmer". A real programmer can attain a level of proficiency equal to that of his/her perfered language in *any* language in a matter of months, if not far less. "Retraining" is just part of being a programer.

I started programming at my current job -- your standard LAMP operation -- six months ago. I'd never touch PHP, or any query language before in my life. My boss has been using both for at least 2 years, and our other developer claims 5 years of experience. In 6 months, I've become the go-to guy for both of them -- I can (and consistantly do) rewrite the inefficient parts of their code to execute exponentially faster, and make it much easier to read.

Real programming is a fundemental understanding of how to write algorithms efficiently, code clearly, picking the right tools for the job, and knowing how to use them correctly. You never have to "retrain" any of that.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In 20 years C++, Java, and .NET likely won't be cutting edge anymore (we hope now)."

I guess C isnt cutting edge, but its certainly the most used language in the free software community. It has been around for 30 years, i see no reason why it wont last another 20.

If you learn C++, Java and .NET your probably one of those people who only think short term anyway, so you should expect to waste large chunks of your life.

Re:Well, I called it.

[mrchaotica]

Obligatory Real Programmer story.

Isn't it odd that it's the opposite of your definition? Maybe that's part of the change in students' attitudes...

Re:Well, I called it.

[DustyShadow]

The technology evolves over time. In 20 years C++, Java, and .NET likely won't be cutting edge anymore (we hope now). So those skills don't work to well... you need to retrain anyway. The business degree will still be good in 20 years.

This just shows that you truly don't understand what a Computer SCIENCE degree consists of. CS is a mathematics degree, not a "technical" degree or a "trade" degree. A CS degree is supposed to teach you theory and concepts that WILL last. The languages that are you taught are just tools to help you learn those concepts. It just so happens that those languages are what is used in the real world. It's kind of like the calculator versus the slide rule for the older engineers. An engineering degree from the 60s or 70s is basically the same (or very similar) now but with new tools, just like a CS degree 20 years from now but with new languages. There is a reason it is called Computer SCIENCE. Everyone seems to have forgotten that.

As far as your business degree goes, good for you. I'm glad you are doing what you want to do but to to call CS "dead end" is just totally ignorant on your part. My company is a 130,000 person, $30b plus a year company and I can tell you that everyone of our executives have engineering degrees. Very few have business degrees and if they do, they are MBA's. The opinion at my school was always that MIS kids were the CS dropouts and that attitude bleeds into the work environment as well.

Good luck...

Re:Well, I called it.

[frenetic3]

This is a troll, but sigh, I'll bite.

Thinking that a CS degree is a "dead end" is the wrong takeaway. The answer is that it depends on what you want to do. Talented architects and computer scientists will always be in demand, as there are lots of interesting problems to solve, and true CS talent is scarce (and, amusingly, will only get scarcer over the next few years as enrollment in CS programs stays low.) The theory will still be much the same in 20 years, even if we're not programming using today's technology.

In addition, the assertion that "the days of a geek making it into upper management are over" is patently false. Google, Microsoft, Apple and Oracle are obvious counterexamples, and I'm sure everyone else can come up with more. If you want to have have a leadership in a company that produces new technology, you had better be a geek. On the other hand, if you're no more than a typical rank-and-file coder, things do not look good.

However, most pure CS students definitely lack communications skills, business sense, and an understanding of social graces and human behavior -- and these things aren't played up enough in most CS curricula. Your great ideas aren't worth much if your coworkers can't stand to be around you or are laughing to themselves when you're talking or presenting.

The good news is geeks can often pick up the business side (CEOs of aforementioned companies being good examples), but I've never met a pure business major who could truly pick up the important CS stuff like algorithms and systems analysis (your brain just stops being able to pick that stuff up after a while.) The pure management majors here at MIT learn to write great memos and know how to dress up for interviews, but that's about it (compared to the science majors) -- they can talk the business side, but are clueless about the underlying technology. (To be fair, most CS majors around here can't form complete English sentences or withstand direct sunlight.)

I'm glad I started out towards the geek side and stayed in CS, because picking up the business side isn't that intellectually hard --it's just different. And you'd be surprised how much your CS intuition applies to the business side as well -- a lot of my pure business buddies just don't understand logic, systems, or basic concepts of probability, for example, and consequently make stupid business decisions. Joel Spolsky has a good take on both sides of the issue.

Anyway. A CS degree is still very valuable, but only (or especially so) when paired with the ability to communicate and lead others.

-fren

Re:Well, I called it.

[frenetic3]

"If you want to have have a leadership in a company..."

To be fair, most CS majors around here can't form complete English sentences...

*sigh* case in point. :P

-fren

Re:Well, I called it.

[mwfunk]

I totally agree. Also, sure, the business degree will still be "good" in 20 years, but that also means that you'd spend the next 20+ years working the kind of job that requires a business degree. I don't want those jobs, I'm much happier as a programmer.

Anyone who wants to make the transition from engineering to management can always go back for an MBA (a technical degree plus an MBA is worth a heck of a lot more than a business degree plus an MBA).

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The happiest people I know are the ones who stopped following the money...thinking about it, they're some of the wealthier ones to. Go figure.


Chicken or the egg argument. Did they stop caring about the money before or after they had a ton of it?

Here's a thought. You could probably survive within your means on most jobs requiring a degree, (with a few exceptions). The whole thing is determining what your means are, then living within them.

Its a hard concept for some people, who just spend spend spend without thinking about budgets or savings.

Re:Well, I called it.

[DrCode]

Good points. The only two languages I learned in college were PL/1 and MIX. Neither of these appeared much in the real world, so I picked up various assemblers, C, C++, and Java as needed.

Re:Well, I called it.

[the-build-chicken]

I can (and consistantly do) rewrite the inefficient parts of their code to execute exponentially faster, and make it much easier to read.

Ahh, so you're the smart-a$$ know-it-all that keeps deleting the fix I put in 5 years ago to solve problem X with client Y that only occurs in situation Z, and replacing it with that wonderfully elegant piece of code you just read about in Fowlers latest book...which will remain in place until Booch releases a book contradicting it at which time you'll probably rewrite it again, blowing away the fix that I put in again after taking a 4am call from client Y wondering why their lastest release crashed with a bug that was apparently fixed years ago :)

Good programmers rewrite bad code because they know they can write it better...great programmer realise that the person that originally wrote it was probably just as smart as they were and the reason for all those "ugly" pieces are the real world saying hello.

Re:Well, I called it.

[merreborn]

While I don't doubt there are some people out there like that, my fixes all involve things like: replacing code that takes 2 minutes to run 2,000 similar queries with 3 queries that do the exact same work in under a second (neither of these guys had ever used a LEFT JOIN, much less a temporary table!) and replacing code that loads an entire 100,000 file into an array that takes 1 gig of ram and brings the server to it's knees with code that processess the file 5,000 lines at a time, reducing memory usage to under well 30 meg. Regardless of all that, I do what any good programmer would: communicate with my co-workers. Lack of communication, such as you mention, is certainly unacceptable.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can have PL/1 when you pry it from my cold dead fingers :)

Actually, I've never used PL/1, but I have written some trivial stuff using MIDAS (PDP-10 Asm), now that's fun stuff.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the person who deliberately puts ugly code in place to solve an obscure problem put some comments to explain that, they wouldn't have to worry about people removing it, would they?

Using ugly hacks where necessary is fine. Doing so without documenting the reason for the hack isn't a sign of a good programmer either.

Re:Well, I called it.

[anOminousCow]

Could be because many older books, articles and training courses on SQL fail to even mention the LEFT JOIN. They probably didn't know it existed.

Re:Well, I called it.

[tepples]

so I picked up various assemblers, C, C++, and Java as needed.

How can I pick up various assemblers when I can't afford to purchase the machines that they target? It appears that nowadays, all a BSCS grad fresh out of college is qualified for is flipping burgers.

Re:Well, I called it.

[techno-vampire]

It appears that nowadays, all a BSCS grad fresh out of college is qualified for is flipping burgers.

Maybe that says more about the quality of CS students than it does about the job market?

Re:Well, I called it.

[tepples]

Maybe that says more about the quality of CS students than it does about the job market?

The job market doesn't want computer scientists; it wants people who have been trained on specific proprietary toolkits that a home user cannot easily afford. They don't want somebody who is easily trained; they want somebody who is already trained.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Oligonicella]

"And if ... wouldn't have to worry about people removing it, would they?"

Bullshit. I've had another programmer remove all commentary from one of my programs because it wasn't real code and then come to me because she couldn't figure out the program.

Re:Well, I called it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good programmers rewrite bad code because they know they can write it better...great programmer realise that the person that originally wrote it was probably just as smart as they were and the reason for all those "ugly" pieces are the real world saying hello.

Believe it or not, there are incompetent people out there writing code. I generally avoid rewriting code, though, because its usually a risky move, especially when the asshat developer who wrote it didn't bother to write any kind of automated tests (and probably doesn't even know what "unit test" means).

Trivial?

[saskboy]

"simplification of such tasks as writing a trivial application,"

What's the most trivial application is a business is putting out on the market? I think there is no such thing as a trivial application when it's the interface from the customer to the company.

Take eBay's Turbo Lister software (please!). They replaced a stable and easy to use Mr. Lister software that was working nicely, and then to add more features they created a whole new product and shipped it before it had even half of the serious bugs out of it. People would find it crashed their computers, the update feature didn't work for most people, and the billing component was designed in a way that if you came from using Mr. Lister, then you'd probably end up paying for something you expected to see a preview for first. One time it created a 200MB database file for no reason on my machine.

I think eBay farmed out the programming to an offshore location, and because they thought it was trivial programming, since it was done so nicely in Mr. Lister, they didn't think too much about how much it mattered that it work reliably. So eBay's flagship listing product was about the worst software product I've ever used, and it's just a glorified html editor with a uploading component. It doesn't even have a way to translate listings from one country's ebay site, to another ebay site which should be "Trivial".

Re:Trivial?

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel your pain with Turbo Lister. I was forced to use it at work until we moved to Andale, which was even more of a joke. Eventually I convinced the boss to let me order some real hosting for their images and move over to List Pro. The software - while it still sucks ass, is atleast somewhat useable. Regardless, it was all out sourced and all crap.

Specialisation has long been a factor fo students

[fostware]

Especially when their prospective career's rep told them in high school, they could get AU$80K first year out of university...

Then again, a friend who triple-majored in Chem, Engineering, and CompSci landed a job in process-control for mining companies, and that was the company's *first offer*
There was also the factor that it took five years to get there in the first place :P

Interdis is better

[mveloso]

Interedis is better beause, to be brually honest, most programmers will be working on business applications. With business apps, domain knowledge is more important than technical skill.

Why?

Because you can always learn technical skills. Pick up a book and read. Anyone who is any good should be able to pick up a new language in a few weeks.

Domain knowledge, though, takes a ridiculous amount of work to gain. And once you have it, you can apply those programming skills to problems inside your domain and make money (or at least useful tools). It's difficult for someone without domain knowledge to make tools that solve problems for people inside a domain, because the problems are arcane and non-obvious.

In short, by going into a field instead of CS, you gain a niche inside that field. CS is basically tool-building, which while useful, isn't as useful as knowing which tool to build and why.

Why not to study CS

[Anonymous Coward]

I did an undergrad in geoscience and decided upon graduation I would do a postgrad conversion in CS.
 
Big. Fucking. Mistake.

The real reason no one wants to study it is the courses are taught by a bunch of weirdos, there are hardly any women on the courses.

this is bullshit

[pHatidic]

expanding their expertise beyond computer programming

CS isn't computer programming. CS is computer science.

Re:this is bullshit

[Billly Gates]

"CS isn't computer programming. CS is computer science."

You just stated the problem.

Re:this is bullshit

[Nasarius]

You just stated the problem.

What problem? If you want to learn "computer programming", you're free to go to a trade school.

Re:this is bullshit

[linguae]

What problem? There is a huge difference between computer programming and computer science . Computer science is the study of computation, and computer scientists learn deeply about algorithms, computability, AI, data structures, compilers, operating systems, graphics, and much more. A BS or MS in CS isn't supposed to train you to be a systems administrator or a Java programmer, and that's the main problem. People enter CS majors thinking that CS is about "Java or Unix programming" and about learning how to fix computers, yet get disappointed when they realize that CS only tangentially discusses those topics. If you want to spend your time programming and fixing computers, get a MIS degree. If you want to know the science of computation, get a CS degree.

A computer programmer is to a computer scientist as a mechanic is to a mechanical engineer. Computer programmers and mechanics do know quite a bit about Java/Unix/Win32 programming and about various different auto parts, respectively, and we cannot live without these people. A computer scientist and a mechanical engineer might not know the latest programming language/methodology and might not know everything about every car, respectively, but a computer scietists knows the theory behind those programming languages and tools, and a mechanical engineer knows how to engineer a vehicle.

Re:this is bullshit

[Billly Gates]

But what good is a great cs degree with knowledge of engineering problems when employers dont give a shit?

Employers want someone who can fix their problems. Thats it.

Sadly HR feels a cs degree is still required to troubleshoot computers and do tech support that a trade school wont teach you.

Indians are trained business skills and programming skills alot more compared to their more expensive American counterparts. This is the value employers see.

Science degrees are useless you want to be come a researcher in the real world.

Re:this is bullshit

[Pyromage]

The crux of the problem is that universities think they're preparing someone for employment in the real world and that's what they market, even though the curriculum hasn't been updated for that at all. That's why my school has silly classes like a management class that covers all the useless stuff like Gantt charts, and has a data structures class that only makes you use the structures, not implement them.

Re:this is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they forgot to teach english?!?

Re:this is bullshit

[Etyenne]

If you want to spend your time programming and fixing computers, get a MIS degree. If you want to know the science of computation, get a CS degree.

You see, that's part of the problem. MIS is still too focused on administration. Marketing and finance courses ? Now that's useful to an IT worker !

So, between CS and MIS, there is no path to adequately prepare IT workers for the real world in current University curriculum.

Re:this is bullshit

[ngsayjoe]

Undeniably that the demand for Computer Programmers is definely higher than the demand for Computer Scientiests. So is the demand for factory workers is higher than docters?

The point here is if you're highly knowledgeable about computer science theory than the chances that no many people out there are better than you. So automatically your pay is higher.

Who the hell do you think Google, Microsoft and Adobe want to hire to design algorithms for their search engine, compiler and synthesizer?

I tell you that in my country, there's at least a ratio of 20-to-1 computer programmer to computer sciencetist, and i'm fortunate enough to be the latter. And my salary is double of the former. So what do you think now? Java, .NET, ASP, SQL, etc. skills more important or AI, Maths, Compiler Design, Optimization, etc. theories.

Re:this is bullshit

[killtherat]

But what good is a great cs degree with knowledge of engineering problems when employers dont give a shit?

Employers want someone who can fix their problems. Thats it.

Are you quite sure that employers don't give a shit? Now maybe if you're programming end user programs that manipulate little characters on the screen, it's no biggy. But personally I never wanted to get stuck writing word processors and websites for the rest of my life.
But if you're employer wants to be able to solve the crew pairing problem (very popular with air line companies), the traveling sales man problem (good for data routing), or anything involving linear/integer programming, dynamic programming, graph theory, proper relational database design, or advanced pattern recognition they NEED a computer scientists. People without proper computer science training tend to mess these things up.

Re:this is bullshit

[servognome]

A computer programmer is to a computer scientist as a mechanic is to a mechanical engineer

Actually the difference is even greater. Programmer:Comp Sci is equivalent to Mechanic:Physicist.
Mechanical engineering equivalent in the programming world is software/computer engineer.

A computer scientist or physicist can spend their entire career being productive without solving or dealing with a real world problem. CS doesn't even necessarily involve computers (think encryption algorithms)

Re:this is bullshit

[jandrese]

You know most Universities have been slowly migrating their CS degrees from their Arts/Science Colleges to the Engineering Colleges. It's really been years in coming at this point too. Most people going to the CS program at 4 year institutions are looking to not only be well rounded, but well adapted at creating large software projects once they graduate. Most of them are far less interested in the 8 different esoteric math courses that spend forever talking about stuff like the Halting Problem (which is something you don't actauly worry about much at all in real life) or proving that some particular configuration of a Turing Machine is optimal. I actaully put the AI course on my schedule in my Senior year because I was interested in game design at the time. It took me two class periods to relize that the class was never going to cover anything close to practical with regards to game design or anything in the mundane world. Looking through the textbook it seemed like the course would be nothing but a long string of arcane proofs that were not going to ever be useful outside of an academic setting.

What they want is the courses that will actually be useful to them in the real world that you're not going to get at DeVry, like determining the upper and lower bounds on an algorithm (the Big O, Big Omega, Big Theta stuff) and some good solid grounding in application design and project management.

Re:this is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm bad at sarcasm, but this is a joke right? I don't use gantt charts every day, but I've seen it as a deliverable. And why in the world would you re-implement anything unless you absolutely have to?

Why ever would you re-write a red-black tree when the STL exists?

Re:this is bullshit

[Darth_Burrito]

What problem?

The problem is that 90% of the programs out there teach computer science when 90% of the students out there want a program that teaches something like software development.

Classic example. My program spent lots of time on topics that are irrelevant 99.9% of the time like np-completeness and axiomatic semantics. Meanwhile, it spent no time on topics like end user interface design which is relevant most of the time.

There is this peculiar notion in academia that the world of computing consists of computer scientists and the lowly computer tradesman whose craft is unworthy of a college degree. Software development, like mechanical engineering, is a discipline that requires extensive study and software developers are in far more demand than the lofty computer scientists.

Personally, I've always suspected that the real problem lies in the accreditation process which has created a static set of standards for this holy computer science program before the computer field itself has had the opportunity to mature. Hence colleges are restricted from experimenting with curriculum. Hence curriculums do not change to meet student and industry demands. What is it that they say about premature optimization?

Re:this is bullshit

[jhoger]

Well, I don't think you have it quite right.

If you're in a good computer science program, you *will* learn how to program. Theory is great, and you need to know it, and they do teach it to you. But they also get into the practical details of at least one or two programming languages. They teach you data structures, different programming methodologies, software engineering, etc. Depending on your focus you may get into relational databases, or more into the formal math end of things.

If you come out of a CS program not knowing how to code you picked the wrong school, period. The flip side is if you come out of a CS program not knowing about finite automata, context free grammars, and algorithm analysis you also got gipped.

The skills of a computer scientist are a superset of the skills of a "programmer" in the abstract (i.e. language differences aside).

-- John.

Re:this is bullshit

[Knara]

What they want is the courses that will actually be useful to them in the real world that you're not going to get at DeVry, like determining the upper and lower bounds on an algorithm (the Big O, Big Omega, Big Theta stuff)

Take an algorithms class?

some good solid grounding in application design and project management.

Take a project management class?

Seriously, CS is CS. If you want to learn software engineering, find a place that actually has a degree in that. If your CS program doesn't have an algorithms class, something is amiss. And project management... that's what your college of business is for.

Re: this is bullshit

[Black Parrot]

> A computer programmer is to a computer scientist as a mechanic is to a mechanical engineer.

I would go farther and say -

computer programer : software engineer : computer scientist

mechanic : mechanical engineer : physicist

Re:this is bullshit

[syousef]

CS isn't computer programming. CS is computer science. ...And bridge building isn't engineering, but that doesn't mean I don't want engineers involved in the design and overseeing that bridge.

Computer programming and software development is a skill, that to be done properly requires computer science knowledge. Not everyone on your team needs to know the theory of design, but if no one does you're in trouble. Make no mistake computer engineering is a skill worthy of specialisation.

Re:this is bullshit

[KingEomer]

Nah. Everyone is satisfied with exponential time algorithms. :P

Like, come on, the only way to do it in less than exponential time is to approximate, and who wants that!? /sarcasm

Re:this is bullshit

[TheSunborn]

So, you choose the wrong education. The real problem is that there is no real education for people, who just want to write software.

Re:this is bullshit

[jandrese]

Uh, yeah. I was pointing out that you DID get that stuff at a 4 year college, where you don't necessarily get it at one of those 6 week deals.

The difference is that 4 year institiutions are moving their core CS degree away from something designed to ready you for graduate work so you can go on and be a CS teacher (IE, the traditional course with a gobs of obscure math courses--especially the theories of computation type courses where you spend a lot of time working up mathematical proofing techniques that you're not going to use outside of a college campus) towards a more Engineering based CS course, where the students take the fundimentals of engineering type courses instead.

Re:this is bullshit

[jo44]

I don't think the whole mechanic/engineer analogy fits so well for programming. I think there is a
  much closer relationship between compter science and programming than for mech eng and being a mechanic.

Programming well requires a good deal of abstract thought, so I'd expect that a typical CS grad from
  a university is probably a better programmer than a typical computer programmer college* grad.

*I live in Canada, where there is a distinction between college and universtiy. Colleges can only
  give out diploma's, not bachelor's degrees, and programs are typically 2-3 years, not 4. Colleges
  are also more skills oriented/practical.

Re:this is bullshit

[killtherat]

See, another reason to get a CS degree. So you can get that joke!

Re: this is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL: I know some physicists who are really pissed that a computer "scientist" can get a BSc like a physicist.

As an electrical engineer myself, I can safely say that the maths used by ourselves and the physicists for electromagnetics etc. completely blows your CS maths out of the water.

Go read an RF textbook.

Re:this is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

(Disclosure: I am a UofL employee as a graduate researcher.)

My alma mater, the University of Louisville, doesn't even *have* a Computer Science degree offering. The J. B. Speed School of Engineering offers a "Computer Engineering and Computer Science" degree that is accredited by ABET, the same folks who accredit our Mechanical, Industrial, Chemical, Civil, Electrical, %s Engineering degree programs. It's a bit different now, but when I started, I had to learn thermodynamics, force mechanics, about twelve different calculus-or-higher math classes, and AC circuit design. The only thing that's changed is that thermo is no longer required.

I think that the term "computer scientist" is too vague in the employment world. What we need to emphasize is the fact that proper planning, tradeoff selection, testing, regulation, problem study, and project management are required to create successful software, hardware, and especially both together.

Kind of like every other engineering discipline.

"Computer Engineer".

Train them like engineers, treat them like engineers, pay them like engineers, and you will get engineering results.

Designing a bridge is a difficult project. You need to understand material strengths (like strengths of programming languages), force interaction (class interaction), public works requirements (memory constraints), and ramp-approach considerations (user interface) to avoid situations like Tacoma Narrows (software bugs, anyone?).

Why should it be any different for computing? It is true that the field is not as mature as mechanical engineering (or, more so, civil engineering), but its dynamic nature does not itself preclude the needs for the engineering methodology. It's just that the implementation details will change frequently, in the same manner that we are no longer using steam engines for automobiles. 100 years ago, the same scenario was occurring in automotive engineering, boom-and-bust and all.

It's no different today.

Re:this is bullshit

[servognome]

don't think the whole mechanic/engineer analogy fits so well for programming. I think there is a much closer relationship between compter science and programming than for mech eng and being a mechanic

As programming tools have improved, the level of thought for programming has decreased. Programming is segregating into the pure coder, whose purpose is to write and maintain code (eg outsourced programmers); and the software engineer who designs and programs. You also see an expansion on the other side. Because the types of tasks for computers has expanded, CS has moved more into mathematical/theoretical space, where programming, or even developing computer algorithms may not even be necessary (eg encryption, compression, linguistics, etc)

Programming well requires a good deal of abstract thought, so I'd expect that a typical CS grad from a university is probably a better programmer than a typical computer programmer college* grad.

It depends, theory and practice don't always agree. While 90% of the time a CS major would be better than a programmer, there may be instances where theory doesn't translate.
You can find excellent programmers who are more problem solving oriented, so can write tight maintainable code. While a CS may have a more elegant design that isn't suitable for a real application.
You can also find instances where the CS may not even have the skills to fill the role of a programmer. Programmers typically will be skilled in many languages, as their role is to code. While a CS may only have theoretical knowledge of how each one works. Especially at graduate levels, where you don't necessarily need to write a line of code to be a CS.

Re:this is bullshit

[jo44]

In Canada, I don't beleive that there are any aspects of computer programming that are better taught at college than at university. The only things (I think) that aren't explicilty taught at universities that you do get in college is practical stuff (like using a particular language or IDE). At university it is not taught because it is expected that you learn this on your own in order to complete assigments, etc.


It depends, theory and practice don't always agree. While 90% of the time a CS major would be better than a programmer, there may be instances where theory doesn't translate.


You can make that type of argument about anything. Sure I knew some people in 4th year CS that were terrible coders, just as I'm sure that there are bright people in college programs. But perhaps those bright people in college should have gone to university, because I don't think they'd learn anything in college that they wouldn't get in univ. or couldn't learn quickly on their own.

Anyways, let's try to ignore the exceptions and stick to the core of each group. Which, according to your statement above (90%...), you seem to think that CS grads make better programmers.


You can find excellent programmers who are more problem solving oriented, so can write tight maintainable code. While a CS may have a more elegant design that isn't suitable for a real application.


While a CS may only have theoretical knowledge of how each one works. Especially at graduate levels, where you don't necessarily need to write a line of code to be a CS.


Again, exceptions are everywhere. Do you beleive these to be typical in any respect?


You can also find instances where the CS may not even have the skills to fill the role of a programmer. Programmers typically will be skilled in many languages, as their role is to code.


I simply don't beleive a new college programmer grad is going to be skilled in many languages. Exposed, maybe, but not skilled. I think (depending on the school) that a CS grad would be exposed to more languages and have more experience in those language than the college grad.

Basically my opinion is:

Take 2 people, one that can handle a univ. cs program and the other not. Send them through their respective educational machines. When they come out the other end, the cs grad will be the better programmer.

Also, take another two people, more or less equal in ambition, skill, etc.. that can both handle a university level cs program. Send one through univ and one through college. I still think the
university grad will be a better programmer. However, this difference would diminish as years of experience is added.

Re:this is bullshit

[jhaygood86]

My school actually teaches 3 different classes:

Computer Science (Applied Theory, Programming, etc.)
Software Engineering (Programming, Good Design Principlies, User Interface Design, etc..)
Information Technology (for ppl who wanna be sysadmins)

Three very great programs..

My school? Southern Polytechnic State University. http://cse.spsu.edu/

Computer Engineering

[boomgopher]

I can only speak from my own experiences, but I felt a Computer Engineering degree (comp. hardware + software) was a well-rounded approach, and still gave me good in roads into the software industry (which I vastly prefer over hardware).

I personally got a lot more out of the programming courses in CompE than my CS courses.

I'm not trolling, and might have just been my school, but the Eng. students were... better than the CS students I ran into. A lot of long-hair computer freaks in CS, and the profs were a pain in the ass to deal with (sort of like the math profs :)

Re:Computer Engineering

[bdcrazy]

I noticed that a bit when i was working on my ceg degree. Those who didn't quite do well in ceg decided to switch to cs, and those who didn't do so well in cs got moved to mis. I was fairly scared to actually go into the computer field and went back to work for a consulting firm as a cadd tech that i had been doing on breaks. Needless to say i was really lucky.

Re:Computer Engineering

[FatherBusa]

I remember having a conversation with my father years ago about CS grads. He was a software engineer/programmer at a tech company in Cambridge, MA, and had gotten to the point in his career where he was responsible for lots of hiring decisions. Being in Cambridge, they basically had their pick of the Ph.Ds coming out of the CS program at MIT. Once I asked him what they did with newly-minted Ph.D.s in CS. He said, "Retrain them."

I was surprised by this, and so I asked him if he thought all those years of CS education were essentially useless. "Oh, no," he said. "They're worth their weight in gold. They'd spent years working through extremely abstruse problems, and they'd learned how to absorb massive amounts of information quickly. Basically, they knew how to learn anything. Those guys would know nothing about building actual, production-level software for delivery to a customer. But they'd learn that quickly, because the foundation was strong."

Now that I am a professor (of English, not CS), I find myself taking a similar view of university education. It's not the content, per se (though certainly, the content is important), but the habit of mind one acquires by being confronted with difficult problems and issues over and over. If you want to learn VB or SQL, buy a book. If you want to think differently--more deeply and with fewer jerks of the knee--about the world, about engineering, about literature, about art, go to a university and let it change you.

Of course, I am one of those who did pursue an interdisciplinary degree of sorts (I use computers to study literature, and I teach software design in an English department). But that is another story . . .

Re:Computer Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

University - An island of bigotry and repression in a sea of freedom.

In university you are encouraged to toe the party line, regurgitate the thoughts of your professor, and keep any non-approved thoughts to yourself. If you don't, you'll be ostracized and possibly subject to punishment for violating the "speech code."

After 11 years in higher education, I now feel that it is a sham.

Few are actually training in any usable careers. Few learn any usable skills. Few actually learn to think on their own, which may have redeemed a "luxury" major. I fail to see what many people learn after paying $100k that they couldn't have learned (if slightly motivated) in their free time. Our society demands a college degree for a job, but not an education. So, colleges now charge though the nose for the degree and teach dogma instead of knowledge.

Re: Computer Engineering

[Black Parrot]

> Once I asked him what they did with newly-minted Ph.D.s in CS. He said, "Retrain them." I was surprised by this, and so I asked him if he thought all those years of CS education were essentially useless. "Oh, no," he said. "They're worth their weight in gold. They'd spent years working through extremely abstruse problems, and they'd learned how to absorb massive amounts of information quickly. Basically, they knew how to learn anything. Those guys would know nothing about building actual, production-level software for delivery to a customer. But they'd learn that quickly, because the foundation was strong."

The problem (if it is a problem) with freshly minted PhDs is that as you advance through a graduate program (in any field) you focus on narrower and narrower subject matter as you go, until by the time you write your dissertation you're the world's foremost authority on something so narrow that most people will think your the foremost authority on "nothing".

You also become so familiar with abstruse concepts and the abstruse jargon that they are discussed in, that you may not speak the same language as ordinary people, or even experts in other sub-fields of your discipline.

Re: Computer Engineering

[davidgay]

Bla bla bla (ask a French-speaker to translate if you don't get it).

Have you actually got a PhD, are you repeating random bullshit?

Re:Computer Engineering

[Oligonicella]

"If you want to think differently ... go to a university and let it change you."

My guess is that you already possessed the ability to think differently. My experience with upper level education does not support your view. Most instructors and students do indeed become ossified to a particular view point. Even if wrong.

For instance. A friend of mine is one of the foremost supporters of vendor software dealing with Fed wire transfer. There are virtually none who know this field better. His brother-in-law is a prof at a U who recently wrote a book on the subject. Unfortunately, his book got it wrong; terribly wrong. John pointed out the way the Fed actually works and this prof told him that John couldn't be right because he was the one with the degree in finances.

Re:Computer Engineering

[FatherBusa]

John pointed out the way the Fed actually works and this prof told him that John couldn't be right because he was the one with the degree in finances.

I'm certainly familiar with this phenomenon, and I'm deeply saddened by it every time I encounter it. Such obstreperousness is both elitist and unprofessional. For someone who teaches others, it borders on the unethical.

But I think ossification is something every scholar (and student) has to struggle against. It's impossible to be a supple thinker if you're so committed to your own viewpoint that you won't admit of any possible counterarguments. When education is successful, that struggle is similarly succesful. Sadly, education is not always successful in this way.

But I still think that the general method of higher education remains the best chance we have of heading off this kind of tunnel vision (which is so dangerous in so many contexts far outside the academy).
 

Software Programmers don't fix Hardware.

[FatSean]

It's Computer Science. If you want to fix equipment, take Electrical Engineering or maybe a technical school can help you.

Quite frankly, I don't care to dick arround with broken gear. That's why we have an administration group that handles all that ugly stuff.

I can concentrate on the interesting parts: designing systems and writing code.

Re:Software Programmers don't fix Hardware.

[SeventyBang]

I think you're being fussy. CS means "Computer Science"; i.e. "the science of computing". It says nothing about software.

It's incredible how many people walk into an interview with "CS" on their diploma and essentially have a degree in computer programming. If you are in that situation, you're better off walking in with a degree in Forestry or no degree at all.

I managed to walk away 20+ years ago with a CS degree with a lot of liberal arts on the side (e.g. Modern European History, Old English Literature - although my Latin was solid enough at the time I wasn't allowed to read translations - I was forced to make my own translations from the French source as a challenge) but also managed to take a course [each] in electronics and microcomputer interfacing, courses requiring us to write our own operating system, compiler, DBMS, debugger, and some AI, which I started by teaching the LISP section. There was a lot of calculus on the schedule, but I studied in advance and tested out of almost all of it. I spent a lot of time sitting in classrooms full of math majors, studying Galois' work as a hobby.

As a religious facility (non-denominational), we also took on projects for local religious and not-for-profit groups which couldn't afford to pay the big buck$ for high-powered consultants, so we had class projects which entailed doing work for them. They got work done gratis and the students got real-world experience (those who didn't have businesses of their own, such as myself, which made for nice Summers and longer school breaks). Those projects also provided people with project management experience as well as time management beyond what the typical college student encounters.

As far as languages go, I'm not so worried about seeing people walking in with all of the "current" or "hot" languages, but if they've had some diversity. Sitting on languages which have the same or similar syntax and environment will do nothing for some thought diversity. And writing Windows & Linux (only) as operating systems won't do you much good, either. Even some (even brief) exposure to something more exotic such as a mainframe or midrange like a Data General or DEC should provide some cross pollenation of the brain cells.

The point is that if you've spent four years working to become Linus' acolyte and know nothing but Linux, C|C++|Java, PERL, and PHP, then you'll likely do nothing but that for a long time and always apparently have a job. Personally, I need a bit more variety. And I needed a lot more in college (hence a lack of resistence to the classical courses). The variety doesn't have to lie in what you do with your work, but the tools. If you are willing to limit yourself, including to software only, more power to you. Personally, I enjoyed learning about the hardware and enjoying the knowledge of how the pieces fit together. I'm wagering most people haven't built their own boards, debug them, interface them to some type of computer, and manage to get things to work. The more diversity, the better. I'd hate to go to a pot luck picnic every day and have everyone bring green beans all of the time. (I don't even like green beans.)

I'm working on the DARPA Grand Challenge (Go IRV!) at the moment and my piece of the action could permit me to remain distanced from a lot of things [if I wanted to] but I've learned to peek into a lot of things, ask a lot of stupid questions, and I've found a lot more to enjoy which I might have missed out on.

Remember what Richard Bach (Jonathon Livingston Seagull) wrote in Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah? (The Messiah's Handbook)

Argue your limitations, and sure enough, they are yours.

Re:Software Programmers don't fix Hardware.

[SeventyBang]

p.s.

The chairman of the CS department had advanced degrees in math and English. We were graded as heavily for punctuation, grammar, and spelling, as we were for design and coding skills. This included comments as well as external documentation. T/F sections of tests consisted of marking T or F, and correcting the False statements to make them true. Several "short answer" questions - one or two sentences. A few questions which required writing a few paragraphs. How often do CS students have to turn in blue book answers for their semester finals?

Our Senior Comprehensives were the toughest on campus. My "Orals", which covered all four years as well as defending my Senior Project, required me to stand before three department chairs (Comp Sci, Systems Analysis, Physics). No one else had to stand before more than two.
They wanted to make sure we didn't fit in with the industry who's member's believe the best way to identify it's member's is by killing the English language. [sic]

Re:Software Programmers don't fix Hardware.

[Ubergrendle]

Gaaaah...i read your post and cringe. I think every developer should be forced to work in a computing operations department for one year before they're allowed to write code or design an application.

I'll grant you that personal preference is a big factor in deciding to be on the software or hardware side of things, but i think both practices need an intimate knowledge of what the other side does in order to do their own work well.

Hardware without software is useless; software written without knowledge of hardware doesn't run, or runs badly.

The biggest thing I notice between developers and computing operations is the knowledge of the business case... operations is always worried about getting the most bang for the buck, optimising the environment, managing risk. Developers are more concerned with finishing the project, and if they optimise its for their own benefit -- they don't play well with others, and resent sharing 'their environment' when necessary.

CS != Programming

[mpupu]

When will people understand that Computer Science is not related to programming as the article says. In fact, I know a couple of great CompSci graduates who couldn't write a complex program even if their lives depended on it.

"It's so not programming," Ms. Burge said. "If I had to sit down and code all day, I never would have continued. This is not traditional computer science."

She's talking about code-monkeys, or Software Engineering at most. Computer science is related to research, finding new and more efficient ways of doing different tasks (new algorithms, data structures), and understanding the underlying concepts behind a computer program (programming paradigms, logic) and tools that can be applied (verification, simulation).

Re:CS != Programming

[Umbral Blot]

Well no wonder these people aren't getting hired. When my boss tells me to go write a component I don't reply to him with a study about the most efficient way of implementing it, nor a report on the "paradigm" it belongs to. No, I just write it and debug it, which lets the whole project move forwards. In fact sometimes the most effficient implementation isn't desireable for a small task simply for clarity, and to speed up the time it takes to write the code.

Re:CS != Programming

[Billly Gates]

Does an employer give a shit about hte science or about someone who can code well to solve its various problems?

No wonder these no name certification schools in India are attractive? They actually learn how to program.. shock.. and many are MBA students who have a solid business background. Geeks do not understand business buzzwords that those who pay them to write the code.

Re:CS != Programming

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you are just a code monkey. Nothing more.

Re:CS != Programming

[pilgrim23]

So if CS is about the pure science of it, and if we have all these CS majors out there eagerly engaged in this pure science, who pays the research grant to support all these pure science seekers? Indian code monkeys?

Re:CS != Programming

[pilkul]

But only the people who go on to graduate school and get jobs in academia actually do all this, and 90% of CS graduates get jobs just programming. Like it or not, the main function of today's CS undergraduate degrees is to train programmers.

Probably when Software Engineering programs take off Computer Science really will become what you're claiming, but they aren't now.

Re:CS != Programming

[Geckoman]

Amen! Programming is a skill that one often learns in the course of a CS degree, but it is not the purpose of the degree itself. I got my BS in math, and I had to learn a fair amount of programming for the upper-level courses. In fact, I probably wrote more programs for my math classes than my CS classes.

Programming for CS is probably comparable in many ways to electrical engineers using oscilloscopes, MBAs using spreadsheets, or physicists using cyclotrons. They're all just tools that get used during the course of their research and/or jobs. The fact that it's currently possible to get a job specifically as a computer programmer is an accident of history, economics, and technology. You could once get a good job as a dedicated typist, as well.

I have to confess, I make pretty good money writing programs. I think of myself primarily as a computer scientist who happens to make a living programming, though, not as a programmer. And, frankly, if programming is still all I'm doing in ten more years, I'll be sorely disappointed in my career.

Re:CS != Programming

[ngsayjoe]

This is why people like you are getting half of my pay, and i'm getting double of your pay for the same years of working experience. People like you can only work for small IT or DotCom companies, you will never get to work for Microsoft, Google, and Adobe. Even if you do, you will just be there writting script instead of being the main contributor to thier state-of-the-art software

Re:CS != Programming

[killtherat]

When my boss tells me to go write a component I don't reply to him with a study about the most efficient way of implementing it, nor a report on the "paradigm" it belongs to. No, I just write it and debug it, which lets the whole project move forwards.

You know that's not as much of a compelling argument as you might think it is. If you can do your job without really thinking about it, it means two things: First, any other shmoe can do it, and don't bother bragging about how your mad skillz set you apart from the pack. Secondly, if you don't have to make sure you algorithms aren't optimal, then obviously this job is small beans. The difference between a big O time of ln N vs N^2 (if you don't understand that, don't bother replying) is no big deal if you are working for your uncle to manage his inventory database for his book store, but it becomes a bit more important when you have 100,000 transactions a minute.

Re:CS != Programming

[flazz]

great quote/paraphrase:

A computer has as much to do with Computer Science as a telescope has to do with Astronomy

Re:CS != Programming

[Krach42]

She's talking about code-monkeys,

Hey, I am a code-monkey you insensitive clod!

Re:CS != Programming

[jschottm]

Computer science is related to research, finding new and more efficient ways of doing different tasks (new algorithms, data structures), and understanding the underlying concepts behind a computer program (programming paradigms, logic)

Not that I disagree, but out of curiosity, what would you say computer scientists have added to the world in the past decade and change in the above fields? My late 1970s algorithm books are very similar to my mid 1990s algorithm books. Our databases are predominantly based on 1970s/80s relational theory. OOP, the major programming paradigm, is nothing new.

Part of what I suspect is leading to the increase in programmers as compared to computer scientists is the fact that there is so little innovation in the field - we've hit a stage where we're pretty damn efficient when we bother to be and there's little low hanging (or even high hanging) fruit to discover any more.

Re:CS != Programming

[Thu25245]

The problem is, there is no university level program to teach professional software development.

"MIS" or "Information science and technology" at most universities is taught so that people don't have to write much code. There might be two programming courses in Visual Basic or something, just to "get a feel for it." The rest of the student's time is spent learning specialized business and accounting topics.

Software Engineering is taught as a subset of computer science. The line on the diploma says "Computer Science," just like the kids who specialized in machine learning, algorithm analysis, and computability.

HR people, looking for highly qualified programmers, make "Computer Science" a requirement, since everybody with the requisite skills has a CS degree (though not everyone with a CS degree may have the skills or interest to become a programmer.) This perpetuates the cycle. Had I paid more attention in my theory classes, I might try to analyze this loop, but I'm just a lowly programmer.

Re:CS != Programming

[ph1ll]

One of my tasks as Lead Developer is advising my company which sh1tty consultants to avoid. Why has this task fallen to me? Because the suits recognise they don't have the skills to distinguish between smooth-talking shysters and truly competent people.

The people skills required to politely inform the suits that they shouldn't make vendor decisions while at the same time stroking their egos and assuring them of how valuable they are is an essential part of software engineering that is (alas) not taught at University.

Just as a lawyer does not spend all day practising law (a lot of it is negotiation and just plain bluffing) so, as Software Engineering matures, not all the time of a programmer will be spent programing. For instance, even though I spend 80-90% of my time programming, I am saving my company hundreds of thousands of dollars cutting through vendor FUD in the remainder.

This alone justifies my position (and many others like me). Why should I worry about my future?

Re:CS != Programming

[mpupu]

I forgot to include the application of these concepts to real world problems. A professor at my university was involved in the design and formal verification of software for the Stockholm underground system. Another graduate student is currently working in the distributed systems department of a famous search engine. There's a lot of theory involved, and it's not an easy job.

And there is certainly a lot of research going on, even if the results are not readily visible. Companies like to stick with tried and true methods, but research done today will surely influence development practices in the future, just as the examples you cited are being applied now.

Re:CS != Programming

[bluGill]

No, but I do look them up myself when/where it matters. My boss wants the job done right. I'm trusted to get it done right without telling him how it goes. My current boss is a programmer, but I've had many who were not, and thus would not have understood the study. I'm expected to understand the study and decide if the pros and cons are worth it. (An O(n!) algorithm may be the correct choice if n is tiny and the constants in the O(n) algorithm are very large - though this example is unlikely)

Re:CS != Programming

[Nasarius]

there's little low hanging (or even high hanging) fruit to discover any more.

Hogwash. There's plenty to do in computer science, much of it with practical applications.

• Encryption algorithms.
• Recognizing speech, text (see the recent 'captcha' article), 3D objects, etc.
• Linguistics (eg, translation for natural languages still sucks), which ties into...
• AI. As my high school CS teacher said, artificial intelligence still hasn't had its Einstein. There's so much to do, so much potential in this field. A real model of human intelligence seems inevitable, though probably not within our lifetimes.

All that in-house custom software

[iabervon]

I'd guess that the real reason isn't outsourcing or anything like that. It's that most software is developed in-house at non-software companies. A developer who actually uderstands the field in addition to knowing how to write code is going to do better in these jobs than a brilliant coder who lacks an intuition for what the software is supposed to do. Since someone with a biotech background can learn a little programming more easily than a programmer can learn a whole lot of biotech, new graduates have to have education in both skills to compete effectively.

B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis

[Saint Stephen]

I got a B.S. in mathematics with a speciality in Numerical Analysis. My first job was writing database applications. Learned C later.

I can't write device drivers, but it's not a bad career route.

I think more people should just take pure maths with an applied bent.

Re:B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I don't follow. Are you saying that writing database applications isn't bad? That's code monkey work. If you have a BS in mathematics, you have a mind that's capable of a lot more than that. I hope you're using it.

Re:B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis

[Saint Stephen]

First job.

I don't know about you, but most projects I work on involve a database. A bit more complicated than my first app, but that's why they call it "career path."

Re:B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd actually have to agree with grandparent post. Seems kinda sad that mathematicians are doing database and accounting work, when their potential is so much higher.

I guess that's just how it goes: business before science.

Re:B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

The stuff you have to do to get through a mathematics course can really stretch your mind in a way that many jobs don't. But I often see places where mathematicians could do well. I work in graphics. Look that the latest SIGGRAPH proceedings to be amazed at how mathematical the subject has become. Spherical harmonics, wavelets, Markov chain monte carlo, PDEs, hidden Markov models, Fourier synthesis. This stuff is commonplace nowadays and yet the industry is having a hard time recruiting talented people who understand this stuff fast enough. Even if you don't know these subjects, as a mathematician you'll blast through a basic course faster than people trained in computer science, or even graphics.

CS Programming w/ professions

[OSXCPA]

Question for you hardcore CS people (i.e., not 'programmers' but 'computer scientists') - would you consider it better that students take CS classes in order to better relate their 'real' profession to the benefits of CS theory (i.e., engineering, problem solving and reasoning skills) and possible application, or is this actually a problem - we are lacking Computer Scientists per se, who presumably (?) are more focused on engineering than application.

I am in an MS program now, but not to become an engineer, but to apply CS techniques and programming skill to my (current)professional domain. Do we need more 'pure' scientists? Is this 'diversity' an example of students not taking the 'science' end of CS seriously enough, IYO?

I am probably missing some of the finer points here about the nature of Comp. Scientists, since I am not one, so educate, don't assassinate...

Re:CS Programming w/ professions

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have the capacity to become anything more than a code monkey, you will benefit from every drop of CS & Math courses you take. They will enable you to write more robust, faster, scalable code. With a firm background in CS, you will be able to analyze new technologies objectively and develop immunity to hand-waving and buzzwords.

Re:CS Programming w/ professions

[Animats]

Computer science is really about the understanding and development of algorithms. And there really aren't that many people who do that any more.

I'm one of the few. I've done proof of correctness systems, image analysis algorithms, operating system design, game physics algorithms, robotic control algorithms, and network congestion algorithms. I've been lucky enough to be able to do this without having to work in academia. I do have an MSCS from Stanford, which is a great credential, although the education wasn't really that good.

But in most areas of computing, the basic algorithms already exist. (Some of them keep being reinvented; watching the XML fans reinvent LISP is amusing.) Not that many employers really need algorithm development people. I have no idea where you'd go as a computer scientist today. All the old labs (DEC, HP, IBM, PARC) are dead or shadows of their former selves. It's almost down to Microsoft, Google, or academia.

Actually, I'd recommend getting a strong background in numerical analysis and statistics. It's useful to know number-crunching cold. Engineering, financial, database, search, and game work all need number-crunching. It's more useful than, say, combinatorics.

If you're really into theory, you might want to take a new look at proof of correctness. I headed a team to build a proof of correctness system in 1980-82, and it worked, but it was just too slow on a 1 MIPS VAX. 45-minute proof runs for 500 lines of code. Today, that would take one second. It's time to work in that area again. There's some good proof of correctness work going on the hardware area, but not much for software.

(Incidentally, if you think proof of correctness is impossible for undecidability reasons, you're wrong.)

Re:CS Programming w/ professions

[sedyn]

Out of all the "Computer" this and "Technology" that educational programs available Computer Science is the only one I've heard of that treats computing as an end in itself, not just the means to one.

That being said, it is hard to state a specific example of your question. For every case that I have heard made a counter case does exist.

The best explaination I can give is as follows:
ANSI C only has about 30 keywords and just over 100 functions. If you learn how to use all of these it could be said that you know how to use C. That being said, if I gave you a Turkish-translation dictionary right now you would be fluent in the language under my specification.

The next step is to teach you how to express a logical thought using syntax. Which would be similar to learning real world languages.

The only catch is that just having a valid sentance does not make it the best choice. Remember that valid, yet bad grammer still exist (and yours truely suffers from this reality). And an English major should have a superior grasp of the language compared to a person that is merely fluent.

Which is comparible to Computer Science, except for one thing. If I were to extend my anology, I would say that CS does not merely force one to speak the language correctly, but also strives to be a conversationalist in general. Not only is one interested in what to say, but how to say it. Which gets back to my point about CS being an ends in itself.

I know I didn't really answer your question in anything more than an abstract way, but you have to remember that I am a Computer Scientist after all. I leave the actual explaination to Conversation Monkies, which should be a dime a dozen.

Re:CS Programming w/ professions

[ansible]

There's people working on that stuff now. Check out Coyotos for information on the BitC programming language.

Re:CS Programming w/ professions

[master_p]

Incidentally, if you think proof of correctness is impossible for undecidability reasons, you're wrong.

I think so too, but try tell it to these guys if you dare.

Mod parent up

[Jane_Dozey]

People seem to think that higher educations is just about a career. It's not, it's about doing something you really like. Career qualifications can be picked up later (even at a night class).

Re:Mod parent up

[Tablizer]

People seem to think that higher educations is just about a career. It's not, it's about doing something you really like.

Why spend big bucks then? Just read the books on your own. Some profs even let non-students sit in on lectures (if enough chairs) and some wouldn't even know the difference. Thus, why pay?

Re:Mod parent up

[xintegerx]

To practice the craft at Google, MSN, Yahoo!, you would need the degree.

To get any job period that you might, to be an officer in the military, to work for the government, you would need a degree.

Mediocrity knows no boundaries, but...

[betelgeuse68]

There are mediocre tech people on both sides of the ocean. I've worked with great home grown American IT folks and mediocre home grown American IT folks. The same can be said for various Indian IT people I have had occasion to work with.

However I think Nicholas Carr's "Why IT doesn't matter" is more relevant in why someone should not choose to pursue a CS degree.

In a nutshell, IT has become a commodity input, much like eletricity. Yes, it is more expensive... but not as expensive as it once was. CS degrees are largely about programning and let me tell you, most of the places that have interesting programming problems can only employ a fraction of the CS students that graduate.

Companies whose business doesn't fall within technology employ about 90% of the IT people in the US. Frankly, a CS degree is overkill. In some ways, this type of job is more akin to positions of "skilled craftsman" of yesteryear. Yeah, I can use a set of tools to build you a piece of furniture, but don't bother we with figuring out what metals/alloys will go into making the tools themselves, that make the furniture.

As is the constant history of mankind, we build off each other. Nothing is constant.

-M

PS:

"If I have been able to see further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."

-Sir Isacc Newton

Re:Mediocrity knows no boundaries, but...

[Billly Gates]

Things are improving for IT workers.

The market is just overeacting from the .com bubble when they had to lay off everyone in IT and save costs.

The pendelumn is now swaying back where businesses that do not have their IT aligned with their bussiness processes are not being competitve.

Many IT systems installed in 1999 for the year 2000 bug are aging and need some maintaince.

They are hiring again and what some guy's book that focuses on short term view of business where things happen in quarters is irrelevant.

More than likely sanity will be restored in another year or so and a ballance will be reached. Keep in mind IT is supposed to save a company money. Not cost it. Right?

Watch as the bean counters start seeing IT upgrades to business processes as a money saving proposition.

Re:Mediocrity knows no boundaries, but...

[Omega Blue]

Companies whose business doesn't fall within technology employ about 90% of the IT people in the US. Frankly, a CS degree is overkill. In some ways, this type of job is more akin to positions of "skilled craftsman" of yesteryear. Yeah, I can use a set of tools to build you a piece of furniture, but don't bother we with figuring out what metals/alloys will go into making the tools themselves, that make the furniture.

I am going to disagree with this. Software systems aren't furniture, they are more like complex mechanical systems. You can't get technicians to design cars. Designing a car requires much more than wielding some metal sheets together and slap an engine on top. By the same logic, you can't get "skilled craftsmen" to design software systems. Doing so requires a completely different set of skills and knowledge.

Re:Mediocrity knows no boundaries, but...

[Just Some Guy]

"If I have been able to see further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."

-Sir Isacc Newton

P.P.S. Sir Newton said that as a slam against Robert Hooke, who was apparently smallish and contorted. He neglected to finish the sentence with "...and not that runt that keeps disagreeing with me," but that was his intended meaning.

Well, Lawdy!

[overshoot]

They're finding this out? Now?

Sheesh. Here I am with a background in engineering physics, a degree in CS, and I'm having a blast designing you-don't-want-to-think-about-how-fast analog transistor circuits 35 years after high school.

Nice of them to notice.

Re:Well, Lawdy!

[dr_leviathan]

Physics is the best rounded technical discipline to study IMHO. Typically, it is not as difficult for a physicst to migrate into engineering (mechanical or electrical), or even computer science rather than the other way around.

I'm biased of course, being an experimental physicist by training, but I've also witnessed my physicist colleagues have no trouble shifting careers like I have.

What will happen if

[Travoltus]

China and India form a tech-industry alliance, as the Prime Minister of India once suggested?

http://www.forbes.com/home/newswire/2003/06/26/rtr 1011719.html

Will the US THEN finally wake up and realize that we have done far more damage to our economy and our standing as a superpower by "free trade" than by hitting offshoring with crippling fines and sinking that ship of death?

And yes, outlawing offshoring precipitously would force companies to hire and train domestically. It WOULD increase our base of educated Americans and it would lead to more jobs here. What are companies going to do, stop making software?! If people want the software it's going to be made, and if a company fears to take our jobs overseas to do it they'll suck it down and make it here. Or some other domestic company will take their place.

We can hit foreign competition with heavy tariffs so they can't lowball us. Which means sweatshops and prison labor camps overseas can't compete with (slightly more) ethical workplaces here. It would be the industry equivalent of banning steroid users from the NBA, and you don't see the NBA being beaten by cheap offshore baller associations, do ya?

The US needs to bite the bullet, lose the import dependency and start standing on our own two real (as opposed to "assets on paper") feet again. We will suffer now to strengthen our domestic base or we will suffer later when (not if, WHEN) foreign nations find a way to shut us out of the industrial loop.

Re:What will happen if

[kraut]

Maybe a basic course in economics should be mandatory for all CS degrees?

Re:What will happen if

[MoralHazard]

I second the sibling poster who wants you to take an Econ course or two before you start in on the subject. You sound marginally less informed than Rush Limbaugh.

What exactly is a "foreign" company? If Microsoft contracts with a Canadian developer to write a device driver, is MS now .001% "foreign"? How are you going to treat them? What if a UK firm, like Vogon, opens a lab in the US but takes all the profits and IP ownership home to England? Is that foreign software?

What about F/OSS projects that have foreign contributors? Obviously, this free work is competing with American business interests and is keeping American programmers out of work. We SHOULD ban all those foreign-polluted OSS programs from ever being used in the US.

If software is game, why not apply the exact same rules to hardware? Import a Penitum4 that Intel made in Indonesia, GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL.

And why stop at computers? Why not ban all those imports of other complex electronics, like VCRS, cameras, appliances, and even cars?

Think of how much better off our economy would be if we didn't trade with anybody else, ever, but made everything in the good ol' U.S. of A!

Re:What will happen if

[Travoltus]

While I'm taking that course in economics, why don't you take a starter course in history and also national security?

My beef is with free trade with China, not the UK, Canada, etc. Free trade with those westernized nations is cool by my book. Free trade with blatant human rights hating ubercheaters like China presents dangers and hypocrisies which astronomically negate any economic theories you can come up with.

China is the one passing weapons of mass destruction (nukes) to Pakistan, not the western nations. China is the one that may soon threaten Taiwan and drag the US (who has sworn to defend Taiwan) into a war, not Germany or Canada. China is everything Saddam's Iraq was, and far worse. We embargoed Iraq - why in the world are we then having total free trade with China?

As for Indonesia, they and China are both far more relevant as the equivalent of steroid users than Canada and Britain.

Now, about India, you won't agree with me about cutting free trade with them until your credit card information is actually stolen by some foreign call center worker and you find yourself facing 400 creditors while trying to track down an Al Qaeda operative running up debts in your name 8000 miles away before the FBI catches up to you and locks you away in Guantanamo for bomb purchases you never made. Once again, the dire threat this poses to Americans completely renders irrelevant your 288,000 PhD's in uber-economics and 48,000 Nobel Prizes you're going to wave at me in your response. And before you say domestic identity theft is a bigger problem, I'll add right now that a) it's only a bigger problem now before Al Qaeda figures out what a friggin gold mine these foreign call centers are; and b) the FBI cannot storm a house in Bangalore and arrest anyone for messing you over. You're at the mercy of the East Indian Government. Good luck with that.

Me, I'll never accept any "economics" class that says it is okay if some offshore punk jacks my identity and gets away with it because it's 99.999% good for some megacorporation's profits.

But I ain't done yet here. Now, about your Pentium 4's. You won't be praising the offshoring of this when Intel's intellectual property gets stolen over there and knockoffs flood the market from a country where it's impossible to prosecute the counterfeiters. (Like, say, CHINA or INDONESIA!) What does your almighty economics God say about low quality $2 Pentium 8's flooding the market and ruining Intel's reputation because people now think Intel is making crap (when in fact it is Chinese knockoff-makers who are making crap in Intel's name)?

Go look up "Cisco / Huawei" and "Chevy Spark / Cherry QQ" on Google if you doubt that this nightmare scenario can actually happen.

And yeah, IP theft happens in the US. But if some domestic dumb bunny lifts some IP in the States (or Britain or Canada, for that matter), and produces a knockoff, they're going down to Chinatown. Quick. On the other hand, ask Cisco how fast they got justice when their software was stolen in China.

As for F/OSS products, that is flat out apples and oranges. F/OSS can be scrutinized like crazy by anyone anywhere no matter what country it comes from. F/OSS renders the offshoring problem irrelevant. In the F/OSS world, skill beats cost of labor, as labor in that case is "free". As a matter of fact, if you had had that economics degree you're trying to wave at me, you'd fear F/OSS more than any evil Kommunist anti-free trade bogeyman, if Red Hat's CEO is right. What worse thing can happen to the Economics God than (in his words) reducing the software industry from a multitrillion dollar world to a multimillion dollar world? Heck, F/OSS has been called Kommunism by its detractors, lol!

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Locke2005]

Why not just do something you're passionate about? For most people, the thing they're most passionate about is... cash!

My personal suggested change for CS undergrad

[antifoidulus]

education fits in well with this. I think that the CS degree should be split into 2:

One degree would be theoretical with a lot of math, hardcore analysis of algorithms etc. as well as getting the student to choose a specialization: AI, algorithms, supercomputing etc. There would be a lot of "re-inventing the wheel" type assignments because it would help the student discover how a lot of the algorithms really work.

The other degree would be an applied degree, this would focus soley on applied CS. They still need to know a bit about algorithms, but don't have to prove anything. There should be a bit more devoted to current topics over theory. However, I think that this degree should ONLY be allowed if the student majors in something other than CS as well, ie business, chemistry, even a foriegn language. They could then take their CS knowledge and apply it in new and interesting ways in their chosen field.

Re:My personal suggested change for CS undergrad

[wuie]

However, I think that this degree should ONLY be allowed if the student majors in something other than CS as well, ie business, chemistry, even a foriegn language. They could then take their CS knowledge and apply it in new and interesting ways in their chosen field.

To an extent, they do this at the college that I graduated from. When I chose CS as a major, I was required to pick an area of special interest (ASI) that correlated to another department at the school. In this ASI, we're required to take at least 4 specific junior and senior-level classes (and their prerequisites) in order to discover and explore another discipline in which to use our expertise.

Re:My personal suggested change for CS undergrad

[Danga]

Northern Illinois University actually has 3 emphasis's for CS majors: General, Applied, and Theoretical. Follow the link to find out more:

http://www.cs.niu.edu/undergrad/chooseemphasis.htm l

Re:My personal suggested change for CS undergrad

[Anonymous Coward]

"Applied" programming isn't CS.

Its called software engineering, computer information systems, or something along those lines.

You can't call something a label that doesn't accurately describe it.

Re:My personal suggested change for CS undergrad

[wuie]

I forgot to mention that the school that does this is the Colorado School of Mines, and it's formally called a Technical Area of Special Interest.

Re:My personal suggested change for CS undergrad

[benjamindees]

One degree would be theoretical with a lot of math

Yeah well that's great and all, and I'm not saying it wouldn't help the industry. But until you can get companies to hire these sorts of people and get past the "ship it and forget it" and "first to market" bullshit that dominates, having this degree available is like pissing in the wind.

Nothing New

[Comatose51]

That's nothing new. It's been done for many years now at my Alma Mater, Yale. All our classes were divided into 4 groups. Group I was the most artsy/literature heavy, Group IV had the hard sciences, math, and engineering and the groups progressed in a scale. We were all required to take a certain number of classes from each group to graduate plus proficiency in one foreign language. Even though I was a CS major, only 1/3 of my classes were actual CS classes. I'm not the best programmer in the world but I graduated with a good background in literature, philosophy, and history. More importantly, I also took classes that were in more than one group so I can see how ideas in CS relate to ideas in neuroscience and game theory. Ultimately, my education gave me a lot of flexibility in my career choices and enhanced my life in general. There is a lot of interesting ideas and topics out there besides just computing and science.

I highly encourage anyone who have similar opportunities at their school to try out new and different classes even if they don't have to. There are geniuses in every field and it's worth observing what they thought and what drove them. Boundaries are places where interesting things occur.

Re:Nothing New

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I went to a public university in EE, but did the science option, and then an MSEE later. It was just spectacular, looking back on it and I have never met any student from any school who had a better curriculum: non-linear optics, information theory, genetics, ethology, and undergrad research in biological cybernetics. I have also worked in computational linguistics for the last decade, and have never been hurting for really interesting work. The interesting domains are where computation and intelligence are working together; computing in itself is not terribly hard or interesting.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[CoolMoDee]

Getting a degree in something you are not passionate about is about the stupidest thing one could do. I mean, this degree, in theory at least, is going to be what you do until you retire in one form or another. Do you really want to be doing something you aren't passionate about for the rest of your life?

Going to school to learn something about something that interests you makes all the difference in the world.

I'd encourage high school grads to go into a trade

[digidave]

Becoming a plumber or electrician has way more potential these days. Work for someone for a while, then go out on your own. You can easily make $60,000 and I know some electricians who pull in over $100,000.

Those jobs (especially an electrician) are great because they're interesting, challenging and offer lots of diversity. You are also free to go out on your own without nearly the risk a techy would take trying to establish a tech company (or any other company).

As a bonus, trades will never be outsourced because their location is of primary importance.

try Embedded Systems

[crimethinker]

How about when the software programmer works for a small company that makes embedded systems, and BOTH hardware engineers (yes, there were only two in the whole company) are busy with a high-profile customer issue? Ah, those were the days ... long days, the infrequent soldering iron burn, the frequent popping of capacitors on power supplies. Best job I ever had.

Besides, I find that if you know something about hardware, you're a little more sensitive to how you write your software. Things like power consumption because you're wasting the processor in a busy-wait loop instead of sleeping for the interrupt, or things like that.

My degree was "pure" CS. We had one class in EE, where the "big" project was to make a UART. I'm jealous of the people who double-majored in CS and EE, or went to a school that offered a hybrid curriculum.

I won't pooh-pooh CS - things like Rate Monotonic Analysis are extremely helpful in system design, and can for example lead you to choose the faster (and more power-hungry) processor since it can finish the task quicker and sleep longer before the next task comes up, thereby giving an overall lower battery drain. I won't say that building a UART out of a PLD and some shift registers while in school has made me a better programmer, but some extra background in hardware has certainly helped me understand software much better.

-paul

Well Duh ...

[Uosdwis]

Getting just a plain CS degree is like getting a degree in hammer. You have to know how to use that knowledge to create something people want to buy.
Hammers are used to build things, if you build a house people might want to buy it. Build a hunk of nails and wood, not too many are going to buy it. Unless you convince people it is an object d'art.
Knowing about loops and control structures is good, but if you can't create and upgradeable project, comment your code and work according to ICD and requirements what good are you?

Seconded: mod parent up

[overshoot]

Same advice I give to any kid willing to listen.

Fortunately, mine seem to have listened. Will wonders never cease?

K5 troll!

[mnemonic_]

A K5 article modded as a troll, on slashdot. That made my day. Well no, it didn't.

I'm one of these.

[failure-man]

I'm a mechanical engineering student by major, but have been in a special track set up by one of our professors. Basically we're focusing our studies on building software for mechanical engineering, making us a bit of a hybrid between a conventional mechanical engineers and (userspace) software engineers. This isn't a combination that's often found, and probably not one that can be replaced with cheaper labor.

Re:I'm one of these.

[j-pimp]

Basically we're focusing our studies on building software for mechanical engineering, making us a bit of a hybrid between a conventional mechanical engineers and (userspace) software engineers.


I've always noticed that mechanical engineers tend to make excellent programmers and sysadmins. I knew a meche in college that programmed his own IRC client in VB and a ray tracer using assembly DLLs for the ray tracing and visual basic for the UI code. He even compiled VB code to assembly to figure out how variants work. I've also heard of a few meches on slashdot that say they have jobs admining there companys cad/modeling workstations and server farms.
Good luck to you and your classmates. The world needs more of you folks.

Re:I'm one of these.

[mrchaotica]

Heh, so am I. I'm a civil engineering major, and just yesterday I was offered a job by one of my professors solely because I am also interested in CS. He said he hadn't found anyone like me in years, and that both regular civil engineering students and regular computer science students were useless for his work (which is this, by the way).

Majors Question here

[Deltaspectre]

I'm planning on going to a school and getting a 4 year degree in CST (computer systems technology), which seems like a general "admin" job with a focus on programming and hardware at the same time.

Any recommendations if I'm doing something stupid like pissing my life away?

Jack of All Trades...

[Anonymous Coward]

So we're going to have a group of Bio/Business/ME programmers who know a little Bio/Business/ME and a little programming writing programs that are neither good, nor good at what they do. Fantastic.

A biomechanical engineer, business person, or mechanical engineer should be trained in the art of Software Engineering if they are going to be SMEs for a software project, but Software Engineers are needed to get the project done on time and on budget with as little complication as necessary.

BMEs, MEs, et al shouldn't have to concern themselves with pointer arithmatic or design patterns, but they should have these resources at their disposal in the form of developers. In the same token, SEs shouldn't overly concern themselves with physics, business process, etc, that's what the SMEs are for.

Geoscience, eh?

[mnemonic_]

You know what they say: rocks for jocks.

Re:Geoscience, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just did a quick google on that, looks like geography/geology degrees are way easier in America than over here.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[grassy_knoll]

"Follow your heart and the money will follow." That was the most valuable piece of advice I got from my first CS professor at Berkeley more than 4 years ago.

I can't say that's true for my girlfriend[1]. Her masters is in Fine Arts ( poetry ).

For many people, college is an investment. Yes, it's good to do something you're passionate about, but it's also good to pay the bills.

[1] Insert joke about how no true /.er has a girlfriend here.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[prostoalex]

My friend couldn't find any job with CIS (Computer Information Systems) degree, so became a plumber. Pulls above $50,000. Gets splashed with shit and fecies every once in a while, but if you ever resurrected a broken database or went to a corporate strategy meeting, feels about the same.

Precisely

[David Horn]

I'm studying Computer Science and Physics at the University of Leeds, with the intention of gaining a place on a pilot training course after graduation.

Amazing!

[complexmath]

So the students who get fad degrees based on expected income are drifting away from programming towards more traditional business careers. The only difference between now and a few years ago is that the reason has changed. No longer the DotCom collapse, it's now offshoring that's driving the switch. How surprising.

Remember when everyone was a mechanic?

[WillAffleckUW]

And the ne plus ultra was to get an M.E. or P.E. from MIT?

Well, those days are back, in that most vehicles now have fairly complicated electronic computer systems, plus you make way more than someone with a tech CS degree and don't worry about being outsourced.

That plus the lack of investment in higher ed.

Heck, my son's taking Cisco Systems Router protocols in grade 9, so it's obviously not such a big deal, and he almost took Web Design this year but passed it up for Latin. And this is, should you wonder, just a public high school grade 9 class.

Interdisciplinary is probably more useful anyway, many people end up changing majors or doing a double or triple major/minor combo for a lot of degrees nowadays.

Covered over on CNET as well

[jtwJGuevara]

Read their commentary at http://news.com.com/Computer+science+majors--and+m ore/2100-1022_3-5841842.html?tag=cd.top

Basically, CNET's article boils down to CS majors wanting to branch out to other disciplines and also how CS research is no longer just about computing but about other problem domains.

Re:Covered over on CNET as well

[malkavian]

Most people who have done a true, old school CS degree (I did a real time systems BSc way back when) will tell you always do secondary subjects.
They may not be taught to you, but you need them to improve your take on your subject.
My speciality was Artificial Life. And as such, I took on Biology/Psychology as my secondaries, and frequently begged in on lectures from those courses, as it lead to me understanding the principles involved far more deeply.
Those principles I learned made me far better at being able to solve the problems I was dealing with.
However, knowing these other subjects never meant to me that I was taking a 'minor' or whatever in those subjects. I was simply learning what I needed from them to make my Computer Science more effective. I was always a CS person, pure and simple.

Job Security

[Anonymous Coward]

expanding their expertise beyond computer programming is crucial to future job security

I've read this a number of times and it's not true. You know what, pair programming with nanotechnology, genetic engineering, XYZ hot topic of the month. It won't do any good. Indians and Chinese are just as capable as learning new technology as Anglos. The only good way to figure out if a field you're going into can be outsourced is to ask yourself this question "Do I need to be close to the customers to perform this job?". If the answer to that is "no", that job can be outsourced, pick another field.

Re:Job Security

[Tablizer]

It won't do any good. Indians and Chinese are just as capable as learning new technology as Anglos.

Agreed. Education and re-education is not our comparative advantage. Asia has books and schools and the cost of an educated brain there is simply lower. Nor is there any evidence that Asians are less creative, at least not enough to justify the higher cost of Americans. Most bosses I know don't want to hear about new ideas anyhow. It changes stuff beyond their familiarity and comfort level.

Frankly, I don't know what US's comparative advantage is anymore. Maybe we don't have one and that is why our trade deficit is growing bigger than a Sunni riot. Or, the US is where all the wealthy foriegn CEO's retire. That is why jobs trimming poodles are growing and programming ain't.

I have a CS degree

[leather_helmet]

and while going to school, I worked for a software developer (PC/Console Videogames) What really really surprised me back then was how much I was NOT taught in college - The coursework was irrelevant in the context of real world work - several of the professors seemed to have bitter attitudes (considering it was during the dot-com boom era, they were bitter that they werent making millions like some of their colleagues) Anyhoo - my CS degree did me good in the sense that I have a degree that says I graduated - not in the sense that I got a practical degree which I can apply in the real world - I learned my tricks of the trade from coworkers who tutored/mentored me, and to them I owe my education, not the instituion which gobbled up a lot of mine and my families money...

Re:I have a CS degree

[Anonymous Coward]

Like what? Did they skip over graph theory or something? CS courses are not supposed to teach you the latest fads of technology. CS should be sufficent for the student as a basis to learn about any related technology on his or her own. If you don't like this picture, then you should have chosen a more applied non-theory degree like MIS, SE, or something equally as similar from a local vocational school.

If you wanted a real world degree, then you barked up the wrong tree. CS isn't about the real world, its about theory and science.

The sooner people understand this, the better off they will be when it comes to preparing themselves for a job.

(I imagine your professors didn't actually give a damn about making millions, they wouldn't be in their field if they didn't like what they were doing for the meager pay they got - they can easily step out of their ivory tower and find jobs easily with their credentials.)

Once again, US schools trail behind...

[benjamindees]

Try getting a CS degree combined with *anything* these days in a reputable engineering school. Without taking 20 hours a semester, or being in school for 6 years, it's impossible.

And as you're learning obscure 30 year old languages and optimized algorithms for problems nobody cares about, people in the real world are learning how businesses work. No wonder your $100,000 education won't be worth squat.

It's good that students have finally realized this. Good luck getting their professors to go along.

Re:Once again, US schools trail behind...

[Anonymous Coward]

CS isn't about teaching things people "care about". CS isn't a "Oracle DBA" degree, nor is it a "Linux Applications Technology" degree. Its a theory degree.

If you want to learn about Java, .NET, and other popular things, there are quite a few trade schools and cert prep classes that will do exactly that for you.

People who actually go into CS that are interested in the actual theory and have excellent grades have no problem landing themselves a job. Of course, these are the people who 1) studied, 2) retained knowledge, and 3) have the GPA to back it up. I go to a rather obscure state school in a dense metropolitan area. None of our CS grads have problems getting jobs. The job problem only seems to apply to people who have problems performing academically or whine about taking theory classes.

Re:Once again, US schools trail behind...

[Billly Gates]

HR wants someone with a CS degree who also knows business and coding.

They dont want a CS student from America. In India they are required to actually learn to program and are taught business skills. Something that the American universities lack because they want to teach *theory* instead.

Re:Once again, US schools trail behind...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, CS students here have NO problem getting jobs. Its probably becuase we're an academically rigorous school (despite not being well known). We still emphasize theory.

Being able to master lots of mathematical courses with lots of CS theory (plus here, we are required to take two semesters of Calculus based Physics plus one "science major" science elective (no "Fun With Physics" courses here)) shows that you have the capability to learn and handle technical concepts of some depth (I see a rather large number of people on Slashdot who whine and complain when they have to take a CS profiency exam during a job interview, which is indicitaive of the anti CS attitude here). CS majors who took their work seriously should have no problem applying their skills to learn any new programming langauge, software package, etc. on their own time very quickly.

The jobs that get outsourced are the crappy "code monkey" ones. These were the jobs that used to be populated by the "dot bombers" who went into CS with the idea of getting these overpaid jobs with little actual ability (and hence, when the economy tanked, they were the ones to go!).

There are benefits to different types of degrees. If you want to be an IT project manager, then a business oriented degree would be advantageous. If you wanted to go into Bio Tech, then there are probably several options you could take that would be more advantageous than just a CS degree itself.

At my school, the tech crunch is pretty much unheard of. We all work our asses off, we made a good name for ourselves, and the companies knock our doors down wanting to hire our CS grads.

There is no shortage of CS majors. There is a shortage of good CS majors. The jobs that are populated by the former are being shipped to India, while the latter stay in the US.

Re:Once again, US schools trail behind...

[guaigean]

Try getting a CS degree combined with *anything* these days in a reputable engineering school. Without taking 20 hours a semester, or being in school for 6 years, it's impossible.

Bullshit. It's all over the place. There are huge amounts of CS + Physics, CS + Bioinformatics, CS + (Place other science here). Disinformation helps no one.

Ahh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer Science degrees are not as attractive for college students anymore

And like here in Germany ~98% of them would end up with a job as consultant polishing doorknobs, competing with install-wizards and selling the software products of others.

Face it. Programming has become a great hobby. And OSD is the right thing for the passionate programmer.

Ahhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

For students like Ms. Burge, expanding their expertise beyond computer programming is crucial

One of those "Don't call me a chick, chicks".

I got step 2

[Psionicist]

Thanks alot for telling the whole world this...

1. Tell the world there will be no computer related jobs in the future.
2. Wait for the nobodys to choose other careers.
3. More jobs for real computer geeks.

Play along folks.

Re:I got step 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm. Don't reveal it! Dammit!

Re:I got step 2

[jabberwocky_rt]

I agree, thats been my thoughts for the past 5yrs

(Just now entering sophmore year of college)

Re:I got step 2

[Concerned Onlooker]

You forgot

4. Profit!

Dijkstra said it best...

[httpoet]

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

Re:Dijkstra said it best...

[Hal_Porter]

Dijstra was a quiche eater

Yes and No

[Nuttles1]

There are two ways to look at this. One is yes, interdisciplinary degrees can make you more marketable and attractive. It goes along the same lines of what the authors of the "pragmatic programmer" say, To diversify. Just like in investing. You are investing in what you are able to do and how much you will be able to make. That is the 'perfect world' thinking.

So, the other way to think about this is no, interdisciplinary degrees are not so much more attractive in that the students who choose this route may not be up to the challenge of a CS degree. Many of the students I went to college weren't hard core CS type people and hence, bitched a lot. Diversifying for them would be a good option in their eyes because they get recognition as a techy but don't have to put in quite so rigorous a schedule in demanding CS courses. It's like a cheap paint job for a car, it may look great from 50 feet away or with a person who knows nothing about car paint jobs, but for people who know or people that look closely, diversifying is a cheap substitute for the real thing.

Two commandments

[overshoot]

I currently have three kids at University. I told them from the beginning to concentrate on two things:

• Learn cool things, and
• Have fun doing it.

So far, seems to be working. It's great to have one of your children call up too excited to speak clearly about some utterly awesome thing s/he's just learned.

What ever happened to...

[rez_rat]

getting into a field of study because you "love it"??? What kind of SICK person am I?

As predicted in MegaTrends many years ago

[deanoaz]

Back in the 80's John Naisbitt predicted that pure computer jobs would begin to lose their luster as IT skills filtered out to more and more people and the real money and prestige would be found in jobs that combined computer skills with other specialized knowledge.

He also predicted, in the same book, the reunification of Germany.

"Every time I learn something new it pushes some old stuff out of my brain." - Homer Simpson

I just did this

[AutopsyReport]

This is very interesting because I just changed my major from Computer Science to Computer Science & Business. Heading into my fourth year of a pure-CS degree, I decided that it was in my best interest to use my fourth year to pursue some further business knowledge and experience. I don't need more programming or logic courses -- I've done my share and lost too much hair :)

I would recommend to any student to pursue a mixture of computer science and business, unless your aim is to simply be a programmer, or sticking to hardware and such. However, if you want to move out of the grunt work and into management, business experience will be very valuable.

Well of course.....

[imboboage0]

why would anyone like CS over that? CS is outdated. It uses a severely outdated engine, for starters. Not to mention the number of 1337 H@X0Rs...... The problem with this article is that it doesn't focus on how this 'Interdisciplinary' crap compares to CS:Source. We all know how much better source is than the original. I mean, look at those bumpmaps!

It's all about the options

[Hannah E. Davis]

I'm a computer science major at UBC, and I've been taking as many electives as possible in the hopes of rounding myself out and learning a lot of really interesting stuff. Just last term, I did a course on Medieval literature, and I was actually a biology major for a year and a half before I switched to computer science.

This will hopefully give me access to careers in more traditional computer sciency fields (eg. academic research, game development, etc.), and also give me an opportunity to use my programming skills to develop software to help biology researchers, for example. (Though admittedly, I do have a bit of an ulterior motive there... I want an excuse to play with octopuses and other neat animals without having to take them apart and look at all the squishy bits.)

Oh yeah, and I don't think I need to worry about jobs in any of the fields I've mentioned being moved overseas. I live in Canada... American jobs are being outsourced up here :D

Re:It's all about the options

[Anonymous Coward]

Mideval Lit was on the TOP of the list of skills our HR department is screening for.

HR doesn't care that you took some stupid lit course. All they care is a) you got your piece of paper and b) you got decent grades (depending on job - code monkey jobs they usually don't give a damn about GPA since your job isn't that important to begin with). The only time they would care about your bio classes is if they are looking for someone in bioinformatics or similar fields to hire for, otherwise the fact that you changed horses may be suggestive to them that CS isn't really your passion and possibly hurt you (which, of course, depends on your grades - if they're good, they'll likely not care, and if the job market is oriented towards hiring lots of people, it probably wont even be considered one way or another).

Re:It's all about the options

[Hannah E. Davis]

They obviously won't care about what courses I took specifically, but knowing how to write an essay and read critically (and having a transcript to prove it) is gonna be damn useful if I want to go into research and write papers for a living. The fact is that many computer science students lack those kinds of basic skills... and if I can give myself an edge by taking an English course that I'm already interested in, I'm definitely going to go for it.

Also, switching majors is normal and extremely common. Lots of people start off with something that seems cool at the time and then switch to something that they're more passionate about, so in the end, I'll just look more well-rounded and certainly be none the worse for it. I'm also considering doing more bio courses and getting a double major, in which case I'll have a much higher chance of getting into some of the industries that I'm interested in.

Re:It's all about the options

[Crapshoot]

I was not a CS major at Carnegie Mellon (I was a dreaded Finance major), but it was my impression that there was absolutely no shortfall of work available for CS majors there- hell, the big banks and financial institutions often prefer CS majors before they've learn an analytical approach to thinking, while half the business majors believe they are entitled to cushy (anything but in practice, but I digress) Wall St gigs. The "chicken little" attitude displayed here seems overdone - it seems to me that if you're good enough, the work will come to you - if you're mediocre, then there is trouble. On a secondary issue, all the CS majors there took a course or two where they had to write their own compilers (was mandatory), as well as course work in Assembly and ML (212). Again, they may have changed it, but who knows.

it's the world that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Starting bioinformatics at Helsinki University in about a week or so (supposed to be cutting edge in the field). Say what you say but mark my words. I will find a cure for aids and cancer and the other stuff. It's the world that matters, not the money :D

Re:it's the world that matters

[Master of Transhuman]

Switch to nanotech.

Nanotech will absorb the biosciences within twenty or thirty years. Nanotech will absorb everything (well, of course, there will still be disciplines, but ALL the research will use nano technigues.)

That or learn AI and how to do bioinformatics using AI, which will be enabled by nanotech, but will still need people able to come up with the concepts.

Programming is a dead end profession - has been for twenty years. You have the authority - and pay - of a hotel desk clerk and the responsibility of a surgeon as a programmer. And your manager is guaranteed to be a moron making more money than you and who then screws up your project, then blames you for the failure - and he used to have your job.

Re:it's the world that matters

[Mojojojo Monkey Inc.]

Nanotech will absorb everything

Just don't tell that to anyone who's recently read any Michael Crichton.

Re:it's the world that matters

[Master of Transhuman]

I've never liked Crichton. Barely adequate writer, but has a huge anti-tech bias that colors everything he writes. Every story is the same: some new or weird tech is discovered, some family guy gets involved with some other people, which always includes some rocket scientist with the attitude that all tech is bad (even though he's a rocket scientist!) who makes predictions that everything will go to hell, which of course it immediately does, then the family guy has to figure out how to stop it.

Formulaic as hell.

Jurassic Park was the worst. Very contrived situations where it was obvious you were going to have trouble with the animals since management were morons. I mean, electric fences to keep out Tyrannosaurus Rex - gimme a break.

If he'd specifically state that most tech problems come not from the tech, but from the morons using it, he might have a point. But I've seen book appendixes and comments from him which explicitly reveal his anti-tech bias.

His nanotech book was universally trashed by anybody and everybody in nanotech as being completely ridiculous.

CS + others

[Deviant Q]

See me, I'm planning on double-majoring in CS and math, or maybe math + physics and move CS down to a minor... CS is boring by itself, but it'd be fun to take in addition to something more... I don't know, mysterious, perhaps?

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[benjamindees]

Follow your heart and the money will follow.

These kids are following their hearts. They can look around and see the problems that face the world today.

Proving word processing programs isn't going to solve them. But having a basic understanding of the logic of computation can definitely help. You can't get that in a Arts college, where logic classes are taught by fuzzy-minded idiot philosophy professors.

Computation is a tool, like math or writing. And if you really want to tackle the big problems in science, and even some in business, it's the most important tool you should have. Basic computing should be a required course, for all university students.

Meanwhile, in other countries

[raider_red]

I spent two weeks in Russia last month, where I met a number of university students. The number one major seemed to be some combination of Computer Science and engineering with extra training in English and German. I also met one lady who is working with a software startup doing localizations for English speaking countries. (She probably speaks better English than I do.)

At least now I've seen where the programming jobs are going.

Nonsense

[Brown Eggs]

I think this mentality is very dangerous, as I have a coworker who thinks he is ENTITLED to a job in a particular area simply because he is passionate about it and works hard at it. He seems to think that the economy should provide space for him simply based on these 2 things. I think that passion and hard work need to be coupled with an equally vigorous assesment of your own strengths and weaknesses. I mean, just because I am passionate about basketball, and work hard at getting better, will money actually follow my pursuit of it? No - because I probably would still suck. Similarly, I think the sentiment echoed in the parent post needs to be tempered with the reality of one's abilities in a particular area.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[bleckywelcky]

I'm passionate about having a private island in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, or South Pacific, sitting behind my Villa in a shop, tinkering with electronics and mechanics, spending warm-breezy afternoons on the beach with a gorgeous woman and great locally brewed beer (ice cold), and using the private fiber line run to my island to have killer ping times in online games that I play on the big screen in my private theater at night.

Where do I sign up for that job?

Scientific?! Whaaaa?!??!

[Asprin]

Students prefer interdisciplinary majors, where the programming skills are combined with solid scientific backgrounds in biotech, chemistry or business.

Oh, yeah, I can understand that you can get **solid** **scientific** training in business. That's why businessmen are so rational and always rely on evidence and .... AWW, CRAP, I JUST CAN'T SAY IT, NOT EVEN WITH MY IRONYMETER TURNED UP TO ELEVEN!!!

P.S. Biotech and Chemistry aren't really bastians of science, either.

P.P.S. If you weren't trained as a physicist, you aren't going to get that joke.

Shameless plug for a good MIS

[Salamanders]

http://sims.berkeley.edu/

Great combination of CS, Law, Business...
Loving the program.

Software Slavery-Code Reuse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I read through some of the book, and others opinions and I think the crucial flaw is that we simply don't have code reuse to the degree required for it to work in general (Specific domains maybe. e.g. CASE 4GL). Maybe it's simply too far ahead of it's time. I still think we need to look at it and others in the context of what's happening in the IT industry with declining enrollment, and outsourcing, amoung other trends. e.g. pressure to do more with less.

Terrible!!

[EightBits]

This is absolutely terrible!! I am myself going through college at a Big Ten university working on a degree in Electrical Engineering Technology and I see this as a major problem. In my degree program, I was required to take a C programming course for use in a microcontrollers class. Nothing wrong with that, but due to the politics involved, the CS department (NOT in the School of Technology) would not teach the students. However, the Computer Technology department (IN the School of Technology) was obligated to handle it since they teach "programming" to their own students. However, the C programming course was far below par. I had taken a CS course in C programming at a different school before transferring (but the credit didn't transfer) so I compared the two. There simply is no comparison. How far into the semester should an introductory C course introduce the concept of functions and how to use them? A week? Maybe two at the most? It was less than two weeks in the CS course. In the CPT course, it was 9 weeks. Ridiculous.

But it gets worse. Because of even more politics and an attempt to streamline the program, the C programming was shifted into the first 5 weeks of the EET microcontrollers class. Now, instead of a semester of poor instruction by Computer Technology professors, we have EET professors teaching C programming in just 5 weeks. It's no wonder nobody in the EET micro courses is comfortable just sitting down and coding! To most of them, it's a struggle for dear life to write the simplest of functions. I have witnessed this first hand and helped many of these kids. I feel terrible for them because it really isn't their fault they aren't capable of the level of programming required of them. These kids need at LEAST a full semester of CS level introductory C programming. A second semester dealing with data structures wouldn't hurt either!

Unless we can get an accrediting organization like ABET http://www.abet.org/ to require these non-CS degree programs to provide CS level introductory programming classes, we will continue to see this type of change. I really think these students need to see that programming as taught in other programs is not necessarily programming, but just an introduction to the concepts of what can be done with programming skills.

Now, the examples above are indicative of a single program at a single university and not of all non-CS programs in all universities. But my intuition says this is probably not a lone case. I think it is imperative that we make sure these kids understand that they need to evaluate the differences between the programming taught in various programs before dumping CS. You can always double major or go for the BS in CS and an AS in another field. The BS degree in CS will go very far actually. Don't let the hype lead you astray. The AS degree will allow you to break out later or even get into other fields from the start. You can even get a BS in CS and a masters or doctorate in another field. Don't disregard any option!

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[sTalking_Goat]

Damn Straight.I remember all the kids who were packing CS classes becuase "That's where the Money is."

They lasted real long...

Yeah I'm planning my interdisciplinary CS degree

[dspisak]

I'm going to double major in CS and Plumbing.

Weird majors

[Descalzo]

From what I hear (I don't work in the field, but some of my family and friends do), it isn't really necessary that you have any kind of computer related degree to work in a computer-related feild. My brother works on a big linux cluster and says his office mate has a degree in like pastoral ministry or something. My cousin's degree is in Spanish. Now my 3 brothers who work in the field have Electrical Engineering or CIS degrees, but that's 2 out of 5.

Is my experience that uncommon?

What's the word? Is the computer world populated almost exclusively with related-degree-holders, or does it have a lot of people in it who have non-related degrees?

Re:Weird majors

[rizniz]

I've been working in and around Silicon Valley for the past 6 years. At least at the companies I've worked for/at/with, I'd say probably less than 10% of software developers have CS degrees. Maybe a lot less. And there is definitely a strong correlation between having a CS degree and having a clue how to write software. That being said, a couple of the best programmers I've ever met didn't have CS degrees. For most people, though, I think spending four years studying compilers, data structures, etc. is invaluable in their future careers as, gasp, programmers. Myself included.

Re:Weird majors

[CharlesEGrant]

From what I hear (I don't work in the field, but some of my family and friends do), it isn't really necessary that you have any kind of computer related degree to work in a computer-related feild. My brother works on a big linux cluster and says his office mate has a degree in like pastoral ministry or something. My cousin's degree is in Spanish. Now my 3 brothers who work in the field have Electrical Engineering or CIS degrees, but that's 2 out of 5.

Is my experience that uncommon?

No. I think it is very common.

I think what confuses people is that there are a huge range of computer related fields with wildly varying requirements, but everyone seems to want to lump them in a single category. The most numerous computer jobs involve system administration, the care and feeding of databases, and moving data back and forth from the databases to some sort of front end, usually for some sort of business. For these jobs a CS degree is usually overkill, and an experienced coder with no degree will often run rings around a freshly minted CS degree holder (though the CS major will usually be fine once they have some experience).

There are other computer jobs where the background in CS is more relevant. You'll still find a lot of non-CS folks working on packaged software, but a knowledge of CS fundamentals is more important. Then there are folks who are designing new languages, new operating systems, new encryption algorithms, etc. Folks without CS (or EE or Math) degrees in these jobs are rare and getting rarer. There aren't as many of these jobs, but they can be a lot of fun if you like that sort of thing.

Re:Weird majors

[jayloden]

Dunno about the rest of the world, but I have a Corporate Communications degree and I work for a software company. Previous co-workers of mine varied pretty widely. A couple had no degree at all, one had a degree in Art, and so on. I think that (depending on where you work) technology can still be a meritocracy in some ways.

People who can code well and have good experience doing the right projects and working with the right tools seem to find decent jobs. If you're a wizard at Linux kernel programming in C or embedded development, for example, and you can prove it, there are plenty of places out there offering jobs at 75-100k and more.

Re:Interdis is better == HorseShit!

[Anonymous Coward]

And CS isn't domain-specific knowledge?

This is an opportunity instead of a crisis. Once all these "interdisciplinary" freaks have FUBAR'ed systems, there will be a decade of retrenchment as people like me (who understand the domain of CS) clean up the messes.

... you can always learn technical skills. Pick up a book and read. Anyone who is any good should be able to pick up a new language in a few weeks.

I had a boss who said that he could teach anyone to program in Visual Basic in 3 weeks. He was full of crap, of course, and is now dead from the failures of his job.

Reality is that you can't learn any programming language of significance in weeks unless you're a genius, and less than 2% of the population fall into that category. Of those, very few of those wish to write software. Today they're too smart to limit themselves to being developers.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[A Numinous Cohort]

logic classes are taught by fuzzy-minded idiot philosophy professors.

Not all of them--for instance, Manfred von Thun, professor of Philosophy at La Trobe University created the programming language Joy

WORK, LITTLE NEOSLAVES, WORK!

[Cryofan]

don't worry, if you work hard enough, and get enough degrees, the corporations will take care of you. they promise.

they promise not to outsource your job. for real.

and if your job goes overseas, it is all for the greater good of the investors and the free market.

work, little neoslaves, work!

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[guaigean]

But there's really a lot of $50,000+ jobs for programmers and/or CS majors. It amazes me when people can't find a job when there are so many available. There are hundreds, thousands in some states, that go unfilled for extended time periods. I've yet to see this shortage of jobs, maybe I got lucky, but there are plenty out there, as even at current jobs I scan the market regularly for opportunities.

Can anyone say "duh"?

[Analog Squirrel]

The way I see it, there are two types of people who get into software development/engineering/programming/whatever: the ones who want to work on computers for the sake of working on computers, and the ones who see computation as a tool for something else. I'd tinkered around with the family Commodore 64 for a while, but it wasn't until I reached high school that I discovered what a joy programming was. The problem was: I could see going to school, getting an appropriate degree(back then, an associate's would probably have been enough), then burning out, because I would have turned something fun into an 8-5 job. So, I went with physics, instead. There I learned of this thing called computational physics... and then I was hooked. You see, you can spend all day working on computers for the sake of working on computers(no offense to the guys who do this and like it - we need what you do - it jut isn't for me), and burning out, but if the computer simply becomes a tool for other tasks... that's different! I have a hard time believing my experiences are all that unique, so it isn't really any surprise that other people have discovered the same thing.

Geek Envy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"and if your job goes overseas, it is all for the greater good of the investors and the free market."

For a roomful of smart guys? You all are pretty dumb. At least those investors you all get envious over have the sense to put their money were it will work for them. You all just blow your paychecks on the latest geek toys, that lose their value the minute they leave the store. If you all were smart? You'd be an investor too, instead of bitching about them.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[Anonymous Coward]

shit and feces? What a crappy job...

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[mikael]

If you specialize only on bathroom installation/shower repairs, you can avoid the smelly work altogether, and only do the high profit work. But you must be familiar with all the different shower systems.

Had to call a plumber to fix my broken hot water boiler. He had the same air of authority as a senior hardware architect from the Bay Area, and charge the same rate: 20 pounds call out charge, 40 pounds time plus 40 pounds parts.
Not bad for 30 minutes work.

Coincidentally...

[fdiaz5583]

All through high school, and during my freshman year I thought I was going to major in CompSci. Well, incidentally enough I'm bad at math, and found programming to be boring. I had always enjoyed computers, and was interested in starting a business at some point, preferably in computers. So eventually I realized why not combined the two: computer + business oriented degree, voila I discovered Management Information Systems. So now two years later I'm an Information Systems major (with all the programming classes and 1/3 of the math) and a business minor. The best of both worlds! Now hopefully I'll be able to get a job in a year or two.

Re:Coincidentally...

[Qui-Gon]

IMHO you're skipping out on one the most important skills... understanding Math... err better yet- How to solve not so obvious problems. Math is ubiquitous. Its used in Business, Chemistry, Biology, Computer Science,etc...

I, like you as a college freshmen, at one time thought Math was totally useless to what I wanted to do after college - build large scale software systems. Then I took classes like Discrete Math, Numerical Methods and Calculus III. I was blown away by problem solving skills I gained by taking those classes on top of the software engineering and programming classes I took.

Wow! That's amazing!

[OmgTEHMATRICKS]

They prefer it to Counter-Strike?! Damn, this game sounds great! Where can I get it?

oh, i got a fat portfolio

[Cryofan]

and i gave up geekdom and consumerism some time ago.

law is where it is at....

Exactly

[RhettLivingston]

Programming has become nothing more than a basic skill like reading, writing, and arithmetic that almost everyone needs to have. Its expertise in a domain that turns programming into something really useful. By itself, its worth very little.

Multi-disciplinary

[blueforce]

I'm in the "MIS/IT is not CS" camp. I don't think IS/IT or even CE grads are as prepared to enter into a career as a developer as CS grads. Having said that, I also don't believe that all CS degrees are created equal either.

One of the most frustrating things I see are 2 year schools churning out "programmers" with Associate's degrees with impressive-sounding names like "Computer Science and Engineering Technology" that turns out to be 4 or 5 semesters of vocational PHP and Java programming. If you ask any of those grads to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on their programming expertise, nearly all of them will rate themselves at or above a 6. Usually it's a case of they don't know what they don't know and, in reality, they're more like a 2 or 3. Ask them to explain MVC or the difference between composition and aggregation and they're lost. I think there's a place for these 2 year colleges but I think they are doing these students a disservice by cranking them out with some vo-tech skills and leading them to believe that they're prepared to be software developers. I would be remiss to lump all of those grads together - I've met some that are highly dedicated and passionate about compy sci and just throw themselves at learning it and bettering themselves, so don't get me wrong it depends on the individual as well.

Another problem I see frequently are programmers with a lot of knowledge about encumbrance and descent database design skills but no knowledge of their business domain. I always explain to prospective candidates that I'm interviewing that it's great that they know how to multiply a number by 4 by with a bit-shift but that's only half of what they need to know. It's not enough to be a good programmer, they have to be, or become, knowledgeable about the business too. We write accounting and human resources software. It's difficult, nay impossible, to write that kind of software without the requisite knowledge of accounting procedures and processes and learning the rules. (Believe me, there are a lot of freakin' accounting rules. Sheesh.) One has to learn how accountants work and process journal entries and how the payroll taxes are paid and filed and what the SUI and OASDI caps and rules are and a mountain of other non-CS things before writing payroll software. Knowing how to code and knowing how to design are absolutely essential. Knowing how to *learn* and knowing your business domain is just as essential too. I don't consider that a problem with computer science - it's a fact that's inherent to a lot of disciplines such as law - but it is something that seems, for whatever reason, to be minimized or overlooked frequently.

It seems that CS programs are becoming more standardized, boiler-plate curriculums that are as expected at most schools as much as accounting and business management majors. One thing that may help - it would be a step in the right direction - would be to make the CS curriculum a 5 year program and mandate, at minimum, a minor in another non-cs-related discipline. CS is a difficult major and it can be a hard life if one isn't prepared to invest in it. It takes a lot of passion and a lot of ambition to excel and it's imperative to continue learning long after college is over. Once the degree is conferred the learning just begins. I'm a believer in new cs grads are now ready to learn how to be programmers. One other thing I always ask new grads that I interview is "How does it make you feel that every language and technology you're going to learn in the next 6 months or year might be obsolete and worthless very soon?" I'm looking to assess their dedication to learning and their passion for their chosen field. If they don't have it then they won't last very long.

Outsourcing = Comparitive Advantage

[alexhmit01]

Outsourcing is applying economic theory to comparative advantage.

If I can produce 5 Apples OR 4 Oranges, and you can produce 2 Apples or 3 Oranges, then I have an absolute advantage in both.

On my own I can produce MORE apples or MORE oranges than you.

However, if I produce Apples, and you produce oranges, we can trade.

Assuming that I give you 1:1 Apple for oranges...

I produce 5 Apples, and trade you 3 for 3 oranges. I end up with 2 Apples and 3 Oranges, which is more that I could produce splitting my time (75% of Orange Production PLUS 40% of Apple production, 115% of my previous max).

You now have 3 Apples. On your own you could generate 2 Apples, so it is 50% more efficient for you to produce oranges and trade me for apples.

Both of us won in the trade, and are now wealthier, even though at first glance, trade seems silly because I'm more efficient.

Taken from Economics to the business world, I concentrate on my core competency, Apples, and you concentrate on yours, Oranges, and we trade in the marketplace.

Outsourcing (which has somehow become synonymous with offshoring) is simply doing that in services. If you are better at IT, and I am better at banking, I should focus on banking and outsource IT to you.

Further, a company is a virtual entity, not a real one. The question becomes, is it more efficient for me to hire IT people or outsource to an IT service shop?

All things being equal, hiring SHOULD be cheaper, but there are advantages to both. Perhaps I need 16 IT skillsets, but 4 at one time. I could hire an IT shop, and even if I pay 4:1 for consulting rates, I can get all 16 skills when I need them.

Outsourcing is not inherently different from GM buying parts from a supplier instead of creating them in their factory. They conclude that their management time is best applied to making cars, so they should only have employees that do that and buy the parts in the marketplace.

Outsourcing will remain, because sometimes it makes sense to focus on what you do well, instead of trying to do everything, which is a headache, and requires more managers that your senior managers need to keep an eye on.

It is also a lot of accounting nonsense. Depending on your cost allocation model, your overhead, which may be 80% of the costs (i.e. for a software company, R&D is "overhead" and the direct costs of "manufacturing" CDs is trivial)... so it is possible to misconstrue what your costs are and decide to outsource....

Alex

Re:Outsourcing = Comparitive Advantage

[antifoidulus]

Interesting, but the problem is "trade" in this case isn't really trade at all, it's taking stuff in exchange for paper with perceived value. Therefore, the trade itself might be quite innefficient. It may look "cheaper" in terms of dollars, but it actually may take more resources to make the same product, introducing lots of innefficiencies.

To take your example, apples and oranges. Apples grow really well in Washington State, and oranges grow well in Florida. If you made a very concerted effort, you could grow oranges in Washington or apples in Florida. But you don't see that, why? Because it would take a lot more resources to grow oranges in Washington and apples in Florida, and since they both use the same currency and can trade freely, it becomes more expensive in dollar terms to do so.

Asume for mathematical simplicity that an apple costs $1 and an orange $2 in Washington and vice versa for Florida. Also assume that it takes 1 pound of fertilizer to grow the easy fruit, and 2 pounds to grow the harder one(yeah, I know, 'Thats a lot of shit!'). Now, lets suppose that Washington and Florida decide to secede and form their own countries with their own currency(called WD for Washington dollar and FD for Florida dollar) etc. Initially they set an exchange rate that says one WD or FD is worth 1 USD. Well, since people love Mickey Mouse and old people, the value of the Florida dollar doubles and the value of the Washington dollar halves. Now it costs $2 usd to produce an orange in Florida, with 1 pound of fertilizer. However, it only costs $1 to produce it in Washington, but it takes 2 pounds of fertilizer.
So what we have is the same amount of goods being produced but we used up more resources to do so. The economy was skewed because of fluctuations in exchange rates. One could argue that eventually the exchange rates would even out, but remember, Washington likes those fruit growing jobs, and does everything in it's power to keep them there, including artificially manipulating the currency until it gets to the point that Washington is utterly dependent on selling Florida oranges, but Florida can no longer afford to buy them. The result: a very painful re-alignment.
It took a lot of time and money to transfer those orange growing capabilities to Washington, and it takes a lot of time and money to transfer them back to Florida, thus decreasing efficiency and lowering the overall GDP of the 2 countries(they use the same amount of resources to produce less).

That is my opinion on the current situation anyway. There are a lot of so called "export oriented" economies that have to find people to buy their products because the export sector is all that country has. It produces items that are not demanded by it's populace(in fact, a lot of the "Asian Miracles" encouraged their citizens to save as much as possible). The currency game skews the entire economy, and they quickly run into trouble if they can't sell anything abroad.
I think that unless the rest of the world starts buying more American products or unless America starts importing less, the world economy is headed for a major, and potentially very painful, reallignment in the next 10-15 years.

from the MIS-people-piss-me-off desk

[mikes.song]

I may believe that computer science degrees are not found to be as attractive to Freshmen entering college anymore, but I do not believe the premise. That is, the reason for the decline of interest is not because of outsourcing or simplification.

My computer science degree gave me a wide range of potential. No classes in how to fix a computer when your hard drive crashes, but after finishing my computer architecture class, I believe I can build a computer out of spare parts from a junk yard. I know the ins and outs of how to build a very complex machine of a very basic principals. My AI class thought how to sort large amounts of information in an efficient manor. The class tough how to solve very complex puzzles in an efficient manner. MIS students at my school didn't take ether of those, and their heads would spin at the problems. Notice that MIS is thought out of the business school, when computer science is thought out of the engineering school.

Yeah, if you only want to know how to write PHP so you can keep a web site going, then a CS degree isn't for you. If your a business person who wants to write a sexy excel spread sheet, then maybe MIS is a good choice. If you want to become an engineer who will not shy away from any problem, then you might be a good candidate for a computer science program.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[shaneh0]

These are vital trades and on balance, this is good advice.

But I doubt the students considering Comp Sci. would be satisfied with a career snaking pipes or wiring new residential developments.

Your post reads like your a union rep. (No offence meant by that, BTW, I'm a union supporter)

Most techies desire a mental workout.

Re:Scientific?! Whaaaa?!??!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least we can spell "bastions".......

Depends on the country I guess

[melted]

I've worked with quite a few of H1-Bs. As a rule, Russians kick ass when you need to come up with a solution or solve a design problem but execution needs supervision sometimes, because once the problem is solved they tend to quickly lose interest. Russians rarely get very far beyond technical "individual contributor" positions, because they're clueless at politics and despise brown-nosing.

Indians suck at design real bad (their philosophy seems to be to do just enough to get by) but can be pretty good at execution and truly shine at brown-nosing, especially if their boss is also Indian. However, I know a couple of Indian developers who rock so hard, it's not funny (and coincidentally don't give a shit about what their boss thinks about them). But they're exceptions that only reinforce the rule.

The Chinese are a mixed bag. I only know one Chinese guy who I would say is good (and I have a very high bar for "good"), the others I've met over the course of my career had great difficulties picking up the language and thinking independently. It looks as though they need to be told what to do, down to the smallest details.

Americans are a mixed bag also, there are quite a few folks who are good, but if an American sucks, he/she sucks real hard, because Americans are ridiculously difficult to fire for non-performance.

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

I was half expecting you to continue on with how the Mexican programmers don't put in a full day's work, and your black programmers keep stealing the computers.

Nice with the stereotypes.

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[Thomas Miconi]

I also find that as a rule, Americans tend to build extravagant stereotypes and generalise individual behaviours to entire nations - in other words, attempt to extract general information from statistically insignificant samples.

Of course there are exceptions, and I have met a few Americans who understand that if your sample is large enough you'll find pretty much the same kind of people all over the world, but they're more like "exceptions that only reinforce the rule".

</sarcasm>

Thomas-

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[Rogerborg]

The grandparent post seems pretty accurate to me. I doubt that you've got the actual experience to question it, but go ahead, surprise me.

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[gowen]

Further more : blacks are more athletic, but aren't smart enough to play quarterback. Carribeans are natural hitters but have no plate discipline.

The English have bad teeth and in rains all the time. Red Indians are drunkards, the French are cowards, Germans are fascists...

And Americans have ridiculously stereotyped views of everyone else...

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[The Philosophers Cat]

Indians suck at design real bad (their philosophy seems to be to do just enough to get by)

. . .maybe they code for Linux

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[BVis]

Americans are a mixed bag also, there are quite a few folks who are good, but if an American sucks, he/she sucks real hard, because Americans are ridiculously difficult to fire for non-performance.

Why do people have this impression? It's just as easy to say "You're fired, get out" to a US citizen as it is to anyone else, as employment law (such as it is) is biased in favor of the employer in nearly every state. In some states, when an employer is asked for the reason for the termination, the ex-employee is told "We don't have to give a reason", a statement which is true and accurate, since the employee is considered to be an employee "at will", and employment contracts are unenforceable.

Why do people think it's harder to fire Americans?

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[computational super]

Damned racist. Next he'll be generalizing that Russians speak accented English, Indians know how to cook Indian food, Chinese people almost always have black hair...

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[cabazorro]

My own experience working as a foreign /w foreign:
Russians: Extreme technical proficiency. Lack of interest to lead or help others. Individualist. ( I can do it, stop bothering me)
Indians: Extreme technical proficiency. They welcome lead positions but can't give up control. What's make them superior as programmers is the their natural incline to help others while they excel in their own arena (I can do it..I can teach you!..We can finish it sooner.)
Chinese. Mixed technical proficiency. What hinder their quest to excel is the fear of being the weak link. They don't percieve ignorance kindly.(I can do it..tense silence..anything else?)
U.S(Americans). Superior technical proficiency. Natural leaders(gift/curse). Not unheard of being the first ones leaving in search for greener pastures(lead?).(I can do it...but I think there's a better way...I got someone on the line..can you hold?)

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[CrazyTalk]

I'm very surprised this post was modded as "insightful" when all it seems to do is perpetuate stereotypes. I've worked with many programmers and engineers of various nationalities and races, and some were good and some were not so good - period.

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you'll be shouted down for using stereotypes, but my experiences do match yours (exactly) wrt. Indian and Chinese developers.

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[gnum]

I'm Russian and I totally agree about what's said about us in this post :) There are exceptions though, but in general Russians (exUSSR folks) don't get beyond high level tech positions for the reasons .

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

True -- then there are all the sneaky ways managers can technically not fire a non-union hourly wage employee, but make his/her life so miserable that he/she is forced to leave the company. Cutting his/her hours drastically, cutting hours enough for the employee to no longer qualify as full time and therefore lose benefits, scheduling meetings at times that conflict with other the employees' other meetings or projects, scheduling shifts so that he/she constantly has to work back-to-back shifts, assigning the most menial and worthless tasks to the hated wage slave while giving interns meaningful projects. Etc.

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people think it's harder to fire Americans?

It's not harder to fire Americans; but it hurts Americans less to be fired. An US citizen can go on unemployment insurance while patiently and diligently conducting a careful job over the course of a few months, and land a better job.

The foreigner doesn't have that option. He doesn't collect UI. Instead, he gets kicked out of the country if he can't find a new job within ten days. He risks no longer being allowed to stay in his new home with his new friends, and being forced to pay for a ticket back to the country he tried to leave behind.

It's just not the same.
--
AC

Re:Depends on the country I guess

[beddess]

Yes, but if you lose your job for "no reason" you should be able to go on the dole.

I don't think it works that way for the H1-B

Some of Us Can't Stay Focused in One Area

[pyite]

During high school I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. By the time I applied, I knew I at least wanted to Electrical Engineering and applied and subsequently enrolled in Rutgers' School of Engineering. I then toyed with the idea of double majoring in Computer Science. Things became even more confusing once I started taking classes and had to formally declare a major. Even though I convinced myself I was doing Electrical Engineering, I ended up declaring as Mechanical Engineering. Why? Who knows? (Well, I do, as I'll explain.) I've even entertained the thought of doubling in Math or Physics. In the end it comes down to trying to satisfy a number of interests. I've always liked things mechanical, so the mechanical aspect is great. Uses tons of math, also great. The most subtle quality of MechE is the large large provision for using programming in your studies. In other words, I can have my cake and eat it too. I can learn about fun things and also do research in modeling and computational analysis. All the while, I don't disconnect myself from the computer world which I'll probably be working in. And if that changes, it also provides me the math background for my next interest, quantitative finance. After all, the partial differential equation for heat transfer looks an awful lot like the PDE for Black-Scholes.

What do you want to do?

[putaro]

If you want to spend your life maintaining dusty deck code on some mainframe, learn to be a coder. If you want to build products and make things, get an engineering degree.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[zippthorne]

Ironically perhaps, Ph.D means, Doctor of Philsosphy. I assumed that the reason is that they discover new ways to think about the world around us. So technically, a CS professor is very likely to be a philosopher.

De-outsourcing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like insourcing?

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Gandalf04]

"Follow your heart and the money will follow." That was the most valuable piece of advice I got from my first CS professor at Berkeley more than 4 years ago.

Ok, so how do I pay my bills now that I'm a fresh graduate?? All the entry level jobs require buzzwords X,Y,Z. I can't count the number of openings I've gotten rejected to because I lack X or Y. They don't care that I know what a recursive function is unless I know how to do it in Y.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[aquatone282]

"Gets splashed with shit and fecies [sic]. . ."

<deadpan>

Shit AND feces?

You mean there's a difference?

</deadpan>

I've never worked with black or hispanic

[melted]

I've never worked with black or hispanic folks, so I don't know what they're up to. :0)

And it's not stereotypes, it's careful observation.

The Failure Of Universities in CS

[Kope]

When I took my CS degree, it was a scientific approach to problem solving, there was rigor and a solid basis for always being able to understand digital systems. We learned everything from the circuitry up to assembly language. We got a survey of higher level languages, from scheme and lisp to C and Fortran, but the focus was on COMPUTER SCIENCE.

The Universities found that such a program was difficult for many students, so instead of maintaining a culture of excellence, they started offering "industry requested" courses. Pretty soon all the rigor was gone and it was 4 years of learning visual basic and java from within Windows based IDE's without gaining any real insight into how computers work or the nature of algorithmic design, data structure or any other consideration.

We aren't outsourcing to India because it's cheaper. We're outsourcing to India because by and large they're better at it than we are. You can find entry level programmers in India who KNOW HOW A COMPUTER WORKS. That's not something you can find coming out of US schools.

These students may well be trying to leave their options open for other careers, but at least some of them are probably just trying to keep some science in their BS program.

Re:The Failure Of Universities in CS

[CharlesEGrant]

The Universities found that such a program was difficult for many students, so instead of maintaining a culture of excellence, they started offering "industry requested" courses. Pretty soon all the rigor was gone and it was 4 years of learning visual basic and java from within Windows based IDE's without gaining any real insight into how computers work or the nature of algorithmic design, data structure or any other consideration.

Do you have some specific schools in mind? I'm familiar with several large state universities (UWash, UO, PDX for example) and none of them are as weak as you describe. What you describe sounds more like a trade school or a community college, and that sort of vocational training seems appropriate in those settings.

Re:The Failure Of Universities in CS

[Kope]

The school I'm specifically describing is a small private school that used to have a very credible CS department and continues to try and make points on that past performance.

I have seen the same thing in a number of other schools. It's been very common and oft repeated mistake in smaller schools who think they can attract more students by pleasing local industry's percieved "needs" rather than maintaining standards. It's also happened in community colleges as well, but it's the small, formerly rigorous schools that bother me.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Money for Nothin']

So what do you say to the History major, whose only job prospects, for the most part, are as either a museum guide or a History teacher?

Or the Art History student, whose job prospects... are near zero?

Same goes for the English major, the Music major, and so forth. All the "bullshit" majors us applied math/science/engineering majors made fun of in college because, quite frankly, they aren't worth much in the job market. And they still aren't.

"But they're passionate about those degrees!" you might exclaim. Yeah, so what? Where's the money to follow those passions?

The truth is the cold, hard economic reality that only a few small percentage of the population will make fat cash off of their passions; the rest do not produce goods/services which are deemed by society ("the market") to be worth enough to make those producers rich. That, and the market is flooded with the produce of people filled with such passion. How many unemployed music or art majors are there again?

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what exactly is the market share of this so-called programming language?

The utility of all human thought will be evaluated by the Free Market, and no products of such enterprise shall be appreciated if not deemed worthwhile by Business. Stylistic but commercially unviable endeavours such as this "joy" are relics of a dead era.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[bigbigbison]

Hot water boiler? You boil your hot water? That's your problem right there!

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[bigbigbison]

Have you ever done plumbing or electrical? If you do it well it can be quite a mental workout trying to get all the wires and pipes in their ideal locations.

Career training vs. hobbies

[Anonymous Coward]

At $30k per year, it becomes about a career.

Something I really like can be done cheaper. They are called hobbies

Re:Career training vs. hobbies

[EEBaum]

Yeah, if you're shelling out 30 grand a year, you're likely to be career-focused. A good state university, though, will cost you perhaps $2000 to $8000.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not there are some of us out here who can't find work. Even with loads of experience.

This'll Get Modded Badly For Sure

[the0ther]

The reason why CS majors are less attractive is because the students themselves are becoming more (physically) attractive and they're spending all their free time knockin' boots. While this is a good development it has led to a decline in scholarship. Basically they're stupid and don't know how superior a CS degree really is.

The "XML is..." meme.

[Anonymous Coward]

"(Some of them keep being reinvented; watching the XML fans reinvent LISP is amusing.)"

Not as amusing as you (educated as you claim) repeating this fallacy.

http://www.prescod.net/xml/sexprs.html

Re:The "XML is..." meme.

[Anonymous Coward]

that article points out practical differences, but in the abstract sense they are the same, and this is all that matters when you are talking about the algorithms.

Confusing Computer Science With Programming

[netrangerrr]

IMHO: Real CS should treat programming as a tool. CS is about understanding computers, how they work, and how to solve real-world problems apply the strengths of computers (speed searching, fast repetive comparisons/calculations, massive storage) to solve problems and present the answers. Programming in-depth in a particular language and specific vocational skills like GUI design should be taught through project work and independent study projects. All of the CS students I know who did a decent thesis research project are making 6 figure salaries while those who slinked by on the minimum coursework and became programmers are not doing nearly as well.

Side-sourcing

[Tablizer]

If companies want to take advantage of offshore IT labor, I think they should try "side-sourcing" (for lack of a better term). Often there are easy-to-describe tasks such as creating test data or debugging a specific section of code for a tough bug. It is domain knowledge that is toughest to transfer offshore because it takes so long to describe and they are out of the "loop" of company going-ons.

In other words, the fewer words it takes to describe what clearly needs to be done, the easier it is to offshore. Fuzzy business requirements are not this. The hard part is convincing IT workers to share some of their tasks with overseas labor; they my fear total replacement.

CS BS == BFD

[supabeast!]

In the time I worked in tech I never met a techie with a CS degree. I've done sysadmin/network-engineering work at financial institutions, webhosting firms, and government agencies, where my co-workers were programmers, sysadmins, network engineers, and just about any other job description in the IT world. Their degrees came from all sorts of fields - political science, mathematics, electrical engineering, and anything else thats out there. The majority of them were intelligent, competent, and did their jobs just fine.

Before I worked in tech, I knew many people with CS degrees - and they were all retail managers.

The important thing to remember about college is that many people going after a four-year degree haven't got much of a clue what they're doing, and by the time they've spent four years growing up away from Mom and Dad, they want to do something totally unrelated to what they learned at school, and good employers know that.

To be a good BOFH...

[Spit]

...you need to do your apprenticeship as a PFY.

BOFHs, take a PFY under your wing, pound all that CS and certification bullshit out of it and teach it how to run computer systems.

Teach it humility; it will make mistakes and must learn to mitigate them when they happen, like using dev, test and BRP. Make it do nothing but change tapes for a year.

Teach it voodoo; software has bugs and is not to be trusted to work correctly. Workarounds and duct-tape are not to be derided. Security is a process.

Teach it to be self-sufficient; don't rely on the moron at the other end of the phone, learn to think laterally and brainstorm.

Teach it how to drink.

If you do this, then it is more likely your and my future team will consist of Real Men, not knowitall poindexters and tie wearers.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[A Numinous Cohort]

Perhaps mind-share rather than market share should be the consideration here. Joy is a research language, exploring new ways (paradigms?) of programming, in the same space as languages such as Haskell (functional) or Factor (concatenative).

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE is for the privileged few

[tepples]

(neither of these guys had ever used a LEFT JOIN, much less a temporary table!)

Criticizing SQL developers for not knowing JOIN is one thing. But expecting them to know CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE is not as polite, especially given that a lot of people learn SQL on accounts without sufficient privileges to CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE.

Comment thy code.

[tepples]

Ahh, so you're the smart-a$$ know-it-all that keeps deleting the fix I put in 5 years ago to solve problem X with client Y that only occurs in situation Z

So why didn't you document that fix in comments? The // symbol was put into C++, Java, PHP, and JavaScript for a reason.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.... these days, everyone still abides by the Cash Rules Everything Around Me principle. Why not just do something you're passionate about?

Because my trolling around slashdot aint pay the bills

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Yhippa]

I kind of agree with this and the other posters who share this view. If it was as easy as "follow your passion, your dreams will come true" we all would do it, woudln't we? Who really wants to be stuck in a job they don't really like?

The reality is that in our society not everybody can have the most desirable jobs. There are plenty of us who will end up working at McDonalds or Wal-Mart for minimum wage for a portion of our lives.

I read this article a while back, about this same subject: Do What You Love and You'll Probably Starve.

Devaluation of the Dollar

[HermanAB]

is one of the biggest reasons why jobs are coming back. The outsourcing numbers are not so compelling anymore, so sanity is beginning to win over beancounting again.

It is all Algol to me

[HermanAB]

but C is still my favourite, most hated language and the first one of many, that I did NOT study at university...

Interdisciplinary?

[Southpaw018]

Feh! I'm an example of the extreme: my degree is History (focus on American wartimes, esp. the Civil War) with a minor in French. My profession? Webmaster and IT consultant.

Re:Interdisciplinary?

[cnerd2025]

Exactly. College Major really has nothing to do with what you are going to become. Why not major in computer science? What is the harm? I'm will be going to grad school, and I still will major in CS. College Major really doesn't matter. If you can prove you have the capability, you will find a good job.

It depends where you go

[Krakhan]

At my university, there is a 'baby compilers' second year course that all CS majors have to take.

The essential stuff on data structures is covered in a first year CS course, while the automata and formal language theory is taught with the compiler material. Assembly (we used a subset of MIPS) and machine code is also covered as well. Good course overall, but the assignments for making the compiler for a simple language take quite a bit of time. However, it gives you a great feeling of satisfaction once you finish it. :)

There's also a more advanced compilers course in 4th year where other issues are dealth with as well (Heap management and such).

So, it's not surprising that in a any other lower-calibre school where more technical aspects are taught, getting to compilers might not even happen. However, I don't see why it's not possible to teach even an introductory course on compilers during second year. It seems to work pretty well up here.

Re:It depends where you go

[KingEomer]

Waterloo?

Re:It depends where you go

[Krakhan]

*Ding Ding* You are correct. :)

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[HermanAB]

Yes, there are zillions of listed jobs. However, The vast majority of those listed jobs do not really exist, since they are either stale and already filled, or prelistings for projects that will never happen. Either that, or HR has such a bad filtering system that they reject all the good candidates. I have worked on military systems for >10 years. Northrop Grumman alone has >2500 jobs open. You would think that ONE of those would fit my resume like a glove right?

Programming doesn't pay enough

[heroine]

Pure computer science doesn't pay enough to justify a college education in it. People are getting out of it as fast as possible because they flat out, won't accept the standard of living it provides.

When you enter the industry you'll find all your managers are in their 20's and all the programmers are in their 50's. Recent graduates either get into management as fast as possible or quit.

Programmers in the business for 30 years still live in dumpy apartments and have virtually no goals in life because they're so damn poor. No government program is going to change the situation. People can't be made to work 30 years to live in a dumpy apartment when other jobs provide so much more.

The culture in US is based on selling. People in the front office, interacting with the customers, making the deals are always going to be valued more than the people in the back room.

You can elect as many democrats as you want and tax yourself as much as you want. Your country will still value front office workers more than programmers.

Ah, you're one of those guys.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good programmers rewrite bad code because they know they can write it better...great programmer realise that the person that originally wrote it was probably just as smart as they were and the reason for all those "ugly" pieces are the real world saying hello.

Ah... so you're one of those dumbasses who fails to put comments warning about the tricky bits of the code. Or, in other words:

// XXX: unless we do the following crap, client Y gets problem X in situation Z.

Re:Ah, you're one of those guys.

[the-build-chicken]

comments erode your bargaining position at the next pay review :)

it's a joke..laugh :)

S majors have no reason to use computers!

[vortex2.71]

I'm a computational physicist and I have always marveled at the fact that computer scientists are incredibly useful, but don't have an implicit reason to use computers. They just use computers when they are told to use them for a specific reason! Its the scientists, business people, and educators, etc that have a need to solve a specific problem for which computers can aid. I just don't get the allure of training oneself to be a tool for someone else. Again, I find CS people extremely usefull and value them greatly, but just couldn't imagine having no greater goal than to solve a problem for which someone else is the expert/specialist.

Um, no.

[cfury]

"I consider programming of any nontrivial program a job for professionals with a solid and broad education, rather than for people with a hurried and narrow training."

- Bjarne Stroustrup, Creator of the C++ programming language.

I firmly believe that it is very important that students understand the fundamental concerns behind computer science. It's been very helpful to me in my career. Even more so, understanding the core concepts of SCIENCE (the careful analysis and measurments of facts to form theories instead of relying on hyperbole and politics) has been very helpful in my career.

Far too many people know how to write code, but have no respect or understanding for what is really happening behind the scenes. This was true even during my college career -- too many people didn't have a passion for the art, and therefore lacked the knowledge to set them apart from the others.

Having a technology skill is one thing. Being able to understand HOW and WHY a technology works and WHEN to apply it is a completely different beast all together.

I do agree that computer scientists and programmers alike should be well versed in the problem areas that they work in... but this is simply a matter of being able to learn new problem concepts as they come along.

Chris

Well, Well, This Is Timely

[Master of Transhuman]

One of my teachers at City College, who runs a consulting firm, told us Monday night he is moving his development side to India. He's keeping the support operation here, but the programming jobs are going to India.

He says his building landlord wants another rent increase, and his programmers want more money or they'll go work for Google.

Fine - he can get a building in India for 30% of what he's paying here - a bigger building - and he can get equally qualified programmers for $1200-1500/month there vrs $4k, $5K, $6K, $7K per month here. It's a no-brainer for him.

Meanwhile, a number of the more advanced IT classes at City College have been cancelled this semester - not enough students showed up to fill the minimum fifteen seats to justify the class. Even tonight's class, on Active Directory, barely got enough seats to meet the minimum.

Meanwhile, as I pass Hastings College of the Law on my way to City College, they seem to be full of students.

Face it, technology leadership will pass to Asia and Europe over the next decade or more, if it hasn't already. Like the US in "Snow Crash", we're only good at movies, music and delivering pizza in thirty minutes or less.

And music-wise, we're not that good either, since the Corrs new album won't be released in the US until at least next spring. Atlantic Records has gone into the toilet, apparently, with Jason Flom ushered out, who discovered the Corrs among many others.

If the Corrs can't be hits in the US with three hot babes and five hot guys because they're Irish and occasionally play an Irish trad instrumental between the pop rock (which they play on their own instruments and write the songs themselves) (especially given the number of Irish in this country), somebody explain this bimbo Shakira to me. She's from God knows where in South America, shakes a mean ass, and otherwise is indistinguishable from every other rock bimbo out there.

Meanwhile, as far as I can tell from the daily press, there are only three "musicians" in the entire United States: Britney, Christina, and Jessica. Maybe Mariah, makes it four. And I use the term "musician" or "singer" loosely.

Oh, and the octagenarian Stones - whose leader, Mick Jagger, once said the Corrs blew them off their own stage when they opened for the Stones.

Meanwhile, the only jobs left for techies is cleaning spyware off fucked up PCs for clueless Windows users.

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my teachers at City College, who runs a consulting firm, told us Monday night he is moving his development side to India.
[snip]
Meanwhile, a number of the more advanced IT classes at City College have been cancelled this semester - not enough students showed up to fill the minimum fifteen seats to justify the class.

Gee, I wonder if there is cause and effect here. Why would anyone be dumb enough to go into IT when American employers like your teacher will dump them in a second if they get too expensive?

Face it, technology leadership will pass to Asia and Europe over the next decade or more, if it hasn't already. Like the US in "Snow Crash", we're only good at movies, music and delivering pizza in thirty minutes or less.

Actually, there were 4 things in Snow Crash that we were good at: movies, music, microcode (software), and high-speed pizza delivery.

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fine - he can get a building in India for 30% of what he's paying here - a
bigger building - and he can get equally qualified programmers for
$1200-1500/month there vrs $4k, $5K, $6K, $7K per month here. It's a
no-brainer for him."

That's probably a big mistake for him, IMO. I probably compete against him
if he's in Silicon Valley. There is absolutely no replacement for being
on-site, close (if not with) the customer. You just can't do that in India.

And "customer support" just doesn't cut it.

It's funny. I'm currently working at a big company that has gone all out
on off-shoring and H1-B's. Consulting too, getting top dollar in Silicon
Valley.

The place, and project are absolutely filled with Indians and Chinese.
With H1 and L1 visa folks. You know that they are looking at this white
guy and wondering "why the heck are we paying him so much"?

The funny part is that I am the ONLY person who is getting results. All of
the rest of the guys STILL haven't produced anything. Absolutely nothing.
They have sort of figured out what to do. But that's only after coming to
me for direction.

There's also a good probability that I'll be doing their work for them,
after I've finished my stuff. Or should I say, redoing their work.

The product needs to be out in 6 months. If this had gone over to India,
it would never make it. 24 hour communication delays via email absolutely
nickel-and-dimes a project to death. This project would be dead by the
time the India people could deliver on it. I've seen something simple that
should've taken 5 minutes here take 8 days over there. That's unbelieveable,
and I'm not joking.

Nor is this the first time I've competed against the offshore incompetents.

I suppose your instructor knows his business. I also know mine extremely well.
Personally, I wouldn't want to reinvent Wipro; every two-bit con artist is trying
to do that these days, let alone more honest folks.

If time is a factor (and when isn't it, in high-tech?) there's
just absolutely no replacement for being on-site, close to the customer.

There's a reason why people here can get the top rates.

As a probable competitor to your instructor, I'm delighted with less competition.
I'm seriously looking at increasing my rates in the near future.

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[jjr1]

If the Corrs can't be hits in the US with three hot babes and five hot guys...

I thought they were selling music. It shouldn't have anything to do with what the members of the band look like. Clapton had it right 15 years ago. Music on television will be the death of creative and different music because all that will ever be cultivated is image.

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[Master of Transhuman]

The Corrs are all about music. What the public wants is hot babes. Explain Britney, Christina, Jessica and Mariah, otherwise. Looks have always played a part in rock music from Elvis on. The Corrs aren't dumb enough to ignore looks, but they prefer to be judged on the music.

The Corrs have done minimal promotion based on their looks and always in a high-class way. You NEVER see them in bikinis like Holly Vallance or Kylie. They even did a spoof of their looks in their music video for the song "Would You Be Happier" by dressing up as a heavy metal band and a punk band.

They write their own music and have been playing instruments since they were childen. They were discovered during auditions for the movie "The Commitments" when Andrea was only 15 or 16 years old (she had a small part in the film), and subsequently by Jason Flom of Atlantic Records who put them in touch with David Foster, the top producer in the business at the time; they got a record deal by gate-crashing a Foster recording session with Michael Jackson. They've sold some 37-45 million albums worldwide and gone platinum in twenty countries and gold in most of the rest. They've played for the Pope twice, the Queen of England, Prince Charles, Clinton and Bush, and Nelson Mandela is a fan (they played for his 85th birthday and his 46664 AIDS Capetown concert, and Sharon played for the 46664 Arctic concert a couple months ago.) They were on Live 8 last month with Bono from U2, with whom they're close - Andrea and Bono just did a duet for a movie soundtrack and Sharon played on the soundtrack for "Gangs of New York" with Bono. Bono says Andrea has the best voice in the business (he's biased because they're both Irish and I think he has the hots for her). They opened for the Stones (arguably the ugliest bunch of guys in rock) some years ago, and have played with Ronnie Wood of the Stones several times since. They've sung with Pavarotti at his "Pavarotti and Friends" concert, and Andrea has duetted with Josh Groban, the classical/pop singer and one of the top ten album artists of the last couple years. They've been nominated for Grammies twice.

Only the US has apparently resisted them, apparently due to the fact that the radio industry here is so shuttered and payola'd that only certain classes of artists can get airtime or promotion. Even so, one or two of their albums have gone platinum here, and a couple others gold.

Also I think Atlantic Records hasn't given them the promotion they need to make it here, although they do have a ton of fanatical fans here. The other problem is they need to spend more time here since just touring every couple of years is not adequate to make it in a country this size.

I saw them live for the first time in person at the Warfield here in San Francisco last August. They put on a great live show. Fans throw teddy bears on the stage for Andrea at every show. She's also developing a rep as an actress by starring in "The Boys and Girl From County Clare" movie with Colm Meany and Bernard Hill, for which she got Best Actress in a Comedy at the HBO Comedy Film Awards and a new short movie called "The Bridge".

They're a class act (also considered the hardest working band on the Atlantic label next to Phil Collins and unfailingly professional), and treat their fans well. When the Corrboard Web site fans sent birthday greetings to Caroline and Sharon back in March, both girls posted thanks on the board, as did Jim last week after his birthday. Only Andrea didn't post except on the official Web site. Andrea makes up for that by giving away her tin whistle at the end of every concert to a fan in the front rows.

I gotta admit, their looks are important to me, but I originally discovered them by hearing their songs "Runaway" and "The Right Time" on the radio. My policy is, if I hear at least two songs that I like from an artist, I'll look into them. If most of the rest of their stuff sounds good, I'll stick with them. The Corrs music is lush romantic pop vocals, with foot-tapping Irish instru

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[jjr1]

I wasn't attacking the band, but I was posing an indictment of the state of music in the media today. There's something to be said for the music itself. Canned and treated as a product is why the vast majority of the stuff you find out there today is crap. On another note, it takes tons of money to market in the US if you didn't start off with a presence here so that may be part of the lack of attention. After all, there was a time when some people thought the Beatles would never catch on in the US.

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[Master of Transhuman]

I figured you weren't attacking the band. My point in citing the stats was that the band is more than capable of being considered strictly on musical and entertainment quality grounds. A lot of people don't like their stuff because it's "pop", not "serious" rock (although some of their stuff is very serious, based as it is on the death of their mother five years ago.) They're always accused of not having enough "attitude."

It's interesting you mention the Beatles. The "British Invasion" was sort of considered exactly that. It was more of "prison break-out", I think, in that it allowed foreign bands to finally penetrate the insular US market and stop being confined to their own countries.

U2 did the same for Ireland, although their Irish nature has never been an issue since their music was entirely serious rock.

The same with Oasis - a couple of Irish lads, who are known for being British more than Irish, so much so that their official Web site doesn't seem to even mention their background. They also got their rep for being hardcore rockers by doing various stupid shit that got them arrested. (However, Andrea and Sharon Corr reckon the Corrs could easily drink them under the table!) That's how bands get known and the Corrs are NOT known for doing anything stupid.

It's interesting that right now, a group of female singers called "Celtic Women" is getting a lot of attention in the US, and Irish bands are doing very well in a lot of different places in the world. The Corrs did their current album of traditional Irish music specifically because Caroline brought up the fact that everywhere they went, people asked them to do more Irish tunes. It's also based on the song book kept by their mother, so there's a sentimental element as well.

You're right about presence. The US is very provincial. Actually, I am, too, I rarely listen to "foreign" music unless I hear something by accident that sounds good. If a group doesn't start in the US and get known here first, they tend not to do well here.

Also, as I mentioned before, if a group doesn't spend enough time here (which is partly a financial issue having to do with the label's willingness to promote), it's hard to get top billing. I've long thought the Corrs should come to the states for two or three weeks out of every month for a year and just "work" the country. Hit all the major metro areas, get on the morning TV and radio shows in each city, do a concert, move on to the next one. Their tour last year was supposed to hit 24 cities, but eight of them got cancelled - and they hadn't been to the US in four years at that point.

But at this point, they're probably too big elsewhere and too settled with financial success to want to take on that kind of promotion. Some of the fans even prefer it that way, saying that too much success would make the venues larger and more impersonal and limit access to the band, which is very good at existing concerts right now.

You're right about the state of music in the US in general. I listened to music all my life, but today I've almost no music from "outside" - all the stuff on my hard drive is stuff from ten years or more ago, and the Corrs and Tori Amos. Outside of the usual bimbo suspects, I don't even know who is big these days as bands. I do occasionally listen to Shoutcast radio on Winamp, but even then I concentrate on 80's bands I liked back then. The only new act I'm tracking today is Tara Blaise, another Irish protege of Corrs manager John Hughes.

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[dmh20002]

if they are teaching Active Directory as a class, then its not computer science, its IT

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[Master of Transhuman]

You missed the point.

He IS close to his customers. His DEVELOPERS will not be close. He's keeping his support organization here.

Oh, I don't doubt he's going to run into problems running an offshore operation from here. If he's smart, he won't rely on email for communication - he'll spend the money for some sort of direct IRC/whatever connection so he can micro-manage the guys over there. And have some sort of alter-ego guy he can work with over there that he can trust to see things his way and take action when he can't. That's the only way something like that can work.

This teacher is a smart guy. He's worked for all the major outfits here in the US (he's Iranian born himself), like Oracle, Wells Fargo, etc., and he's taught at City College for the last sixteen years at the same time, staying up until the wee hours of the morning to grade papers while still running his company. He once joked that the college doesn't pay him enough for one semester to pay for the jacket he was wearing that night.

He's the contract UNIX guru here at City College and he knows his stuff about just about everything - UNIX, networking, security, programming in a dozen languages, Oracle database administration, the lot.

Plus, he's not running that big an operation (although his company doesn't take on contracts less than $500k or so), so his problems will be smaller than, say, outsourcing a 100-person call center.

He might pull it off.

Others probably won't, but that won't stop them from trying.

Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely

[Master of Transhuman]

Correct, but nobody said we weren't "good" at it - it's just that we cost more doing it than other people.

And for most idiots, cheap is better than good. Especially if you can't afford good.

As a poor guy myself, I pay more in the long run so I can pay less in the short run - not by choice, but because I can't afford to do otherwise right now.

Of course, that doesn't apply to the US corporations who are outsourcing - it only applies to the other countries supplying the talent.

But as I said, that WILL level off eventually as the offshore people realize they can hold up the US corporations for even more money.

Greed is universal. The free market depends on competition to set prices, not edicts.

In the meantime, I see an opportunity to do development and support work here in the US using open source for less money than others here are doing it, but more than I can make doing anything else. The only problem I have is coming up with enough marketing smarts and energy to get the initial clients.

Computer science has nothing to do with calculus.

[elucido]

Too much emphasis is on math. If we actually targeted language majors, artists and writers you'd most likely get people who learn the language quicker because learning and using language has nothing to do with calculus.

The problem with computer science is the requirements for a computer science degree is based on how well you can solve math problems. Most problems in programming arent math problems, they are just bugs. If we want code with less bugs, and we want high quality code, chances are you wont find it from a math major simply because math and writing are polar opposites, so unless we plan to only recruit from MIT and Caltech where students can do both, we need to have programming in the writing department of school, and have the hardware and engineering in the math department.

This would allow you to educate the writers to code and the mathematicians to handle the problem solving aspect. If you try to train people to do both, you end up with someone mediocre at both.

Java, C, C++, part of writing complex code is learning to think in code, and this may require a basic level of math and logic, but definately not to the level of calculus. How many of you have actually used calculus in your programming?

MINORS

[EEBaum]

Isn't this what college minors are for? If computer science majors would go out on a limb a bit more with their minors, into something relevant yet divergent, and actually put a good deal of effort into it, they'd be partway here already.

In my program, minors are optional, and most that do take one will take it in math, because it's only an extra course or two (and, in my opinion, pretty useless compared to ANY OTHER MINOR YOU CAN GET)

/Former music minor, now finishing my last year as a double-major in computer science and music composition.

Fantastic!

[vandalman]

This makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I rarely meet a fellow student majoring in CS who actually understand and enjoys CS. More often then not I talk to undergrads who don't like CS and are just in it because of some dot-com fantasy.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[dr.badass]

"But they're passionate about those degrees!" you might exclaim. Yeah, so what? Where's the money to follow those passions?

I'm sure you've been told this before, but: you're completely missing the point.

Real Actual Scientific Studies(TM) have shown that greater income does not mean greater happiness. Basically, once you get above the poverty line, how you spend your time plays a much greater role in your happiness than how you spend your money. i.e. You really can't buy happiness.

"Following your passion" is a way of acknowledging this ahead of time, and saying "fuck being rich", I'm going to do what I want regardless. The point is that you stop caring how much money you'll make, and start doing the thing that makes you happy now.

Strangely enough, some people have become incredibly wealthy doing this. A lot more have become ecstatically happy.

Of course, most kids coming into out of public high schools don't even know what a "passion" is -- they mistake idealism for passion, and end up doing something they don't love, but sounds cool, for no money, and secretly hope to get rich. These are fools as much as those who only chase after "job prospects".

But what do I know, I didn't go to college, and I only make twice as much as my friends that did.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Concerned Onlooker]

You can't get that in a Arts college, where logic classes are taught by fuzzy-minded idiot philosophy professors.

Wow, what a bigoted statement. I'm guessing you never took a class from one of those "fuzzy-minded" idiots and I'm guessing that you think the world revolves around--and can't do without--the thing you're interested in.

Computation is a tool, like math or writing. And if you really want to tackle the big problems in science, and even some in business, it's the most important tool you should have.

Ah, yes, looks like I was right. As the phrase goes, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[csrster]

Totally off-topic but - I recently got talking to a philosophy graduate who actually walked into the local unemployment office one day and saw a sign reading "philospher wanted". It was a short-term translation job on a "Sophie's Choice" game - which in his case turned into a career.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

What, "interesting"?? WTF? Way to go, baseless generalizing about India's education system, spelling "Hyperbad" and then the Microsoft FUD? Please show me proof that the Indian education system sucks (haha, toggle switches, that's funny). Please show us when was the last time Microsoft laid off 10 people, let alone 10,000 like HP, Sun, IBM and everyone else. I don't like them anymore than the next guy around here, but you sure as hell can't acuse them of the same crap everyone else pulls.

You seem very angry. I'm guessing you got outsourced, right? Well tough. But you can't blame it on India. That's called ignorace my friend, and you seem to have a lot of it to go araound.

I call bullshit on this post.

Re:Computer science has nothing to do with calculu

[Scarblac]

It's computer science, not a programming course. Software engineering is but a tiny part of computer science, so it's no surprise that the coverage is limited.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[Anonymous Coward]

Not where I am. I have a B.Sc. in CS. Also two tech diplomas. I have a lot of experience too, but there is no work where I am, hasn't been any for about 5 years, and now I'm becoming a machinist. I really like writing software, and yesterday compiled the linux kernel I'm running right now. I modified my first kernel and compiled it more than 10 years ago. I also put the computer together I am typing to you on. Bought the motherboard at one place, the ram and video card at another. I really like'd CS and learned a lot in university, combinatorics and graph theory were hard, but I did ok, as was artificial intelligence, and compiler design (mostly LL1 grammars/recursive decent compilers with command parser/lexical analyser and heavy use of the stack)... but with no work, it doesn't pay as well as a trade. Sorry, I don't know what world you are in, but mine shows no jobs available, and none in the future either.

Matches my UKian experience

[Rogerborg]

However, after 3 years, our foreign workers get permanent work permits, and many of them pick up sticks and leave at that point, or in the case of some of the Russians, just put their feet up and coast until they're sacked. It's almost Dilbertesque how we claim that we've got the best employees, but seem to think that they're dumb enough not to jump to a higher class of sinking ship at the first opportunity.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[namtog]

Greetings,

Trades. Tell me about them. So here I begin my old man of the trades antilogy. I will not pretend to be reasonable. After all this is about my life. Bias is not a question.I need someplace to start and since I have little imagination I will use a classic.

It was a dark and rainy night. Err, scratch that one.

I was born to a family of Eurocentric imports to the Americas. Mostly peasant stock. A 150 years ago only a few of us could read and write above the functional illiterate level. After wading through this opuscule you may, quite wisely assume, that is still true today. We were not then, nor are we today, viewed as being anything to take note of.

A few settled in this or that odd country in the Caribbean but most went either to North or South America. Particularly to Brazil and the U.S. We are identified with the Christian faith. We actually have a few "true believers". But to be truth full most either needed the charity of the churches or hoped to exploit the business opportunities this group format provided. This is back in the day when a $100 loan was very difficult to get with out the letter of reference from clergy, employer, neighbors etc. People complain about the lack of privacy now. I for one would much rather have cameras in public places than a minister or priest in my home. The children are far safer this way. As you may have deduced I am a Secular man.

In other words we are quite the ordinary lot.

Started right out of High School. In the good 'ole USA that is when one is in the late teens for most. Had a in. My dad, with a partner, was a electrical contractor. Union shop. Small shop. Made a nice living shop. Homes with swimming pools, big expensive cars, (American made to be sure) private schools. The men got away with far more drunkenness then their poorer neighbors, after all they were such good providers. Much like today if you substitute other drugs for alcohol. Not wild people but after knowing bad times for so long a little indulgence was tolerated.

Don't get the impression that we were wealthy. As my family goes we were somewhere in the middle of the scale. The wealthy never experienced the bad or poor times like most. They are smart enough not to flaunt their financial wealth when things are tough.

The trades. They have traditions like any other profession. Piping trades (electrical, plumbing, pipe fitter, etc.) tend to feel they have the upper hand in most situations. Jingoism is alive and well. I personally support all trades men with the exception of bricoleurs. Fuck'em, you can't care about everything.

Here is the meat of my experience. As I noted earlier I live a secular life. Most of the time on the job this never comes up. As the old saying goes you can't tell by looking at them. One of the few times it is noticed is when holidays come along. In the beginning I would wish them happy christmas and a merry thanksgiving and leave it at that. Of course the guys looking for trouble would want to issue a loyalties test and ask "How was your holiday". Not that they cared, this was only to make sure that you are one of the faithful. That you observed the official/nonofficial holidays. Today people who have a different way of living are often grouped together as terrorists. Back then, during the Cold War, they were simply godless. You wouldn't want those other people around here, would you?

Once it was discovered that I lived a Secular life things began to change. What one would expect, cold shoulder, off color remark. Being a teenager this was not too different then high school, cliques and all. Sad thing is most of the people into cliques are still that way to this very day. I tend to view this as a wasted life. Who am I to say.

Then it became violent.

End of the day. Strange, seems eerily silent. It looks like everyone else has already left. Packed up my tools and made my way to the parking lot. Three men wearing construction clothes who I have never seen before move towards me. "We d

You're welcome

[tiggles]

I'd just like to take a little credit for all the work I and other English Teachers over here (in China) did in making sure that nobody here learns anything (at least in the fields that we controlled).

I seriously just graduated a class of 200 students, 150 of show would lose at Jeaopardy to pond mold :)

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Ex-MislTech]

Declare and an uninhabited island a sovreign nation like Sealand .

Host questionable digital inforamtion that is still somewhat
palatible to you and the world .

Make and offshore bank system like the Caymens .

Your good to go ...LOL

http://www.sealandgov.com/

Peace !
Ex-MislTech

Never Stop

[thesoap]

Don't waste your time in college on learning languages.

Absolutely. When I studied CS in the 70's we did programming assignments in Assembler (IBM 360), Fortran, COBOL, BASIC and Algol (? or some algol like language). We had occasional access to Unix where I learned C.

The world has changed a lot since then. I have not used any of those languages for many years now. How much do you think the world will change in the next 30 year?

Instead, learn how to learn new languages and new things. Yes, and never stop learning.

A self-fulfilling prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Globalists say that offshoring is caused by an inadequate supply of skilled Americans. Realize that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The initial reason for offshoring is to decrease costs. In order to decrease costs jobs must be offshored. In order for jobs to be offshored Americans must be laid off. When Americans are laid off the supply of American labor increases. When the supply of American labor increases salaries fall and employers have more leverage to mistreat employees - work more hours, work weekends, forget vacation ... lest you be part of the next layoff. Those attending college see this and choose not to go into such a risky profession. Those laid off begin to lose their skills and must find less skilled work to make ends meet. The supply of skilled Americans begins to decrease. Prophecy fulfilled.

CS != IT ?

[WilyCoder]

Whats with the comparisons of IT to CS? I've always made this distinction in my mind:

CS people study the creation process, and how to theorize/cook up new technology.

IT people study what has already been theorized. They fix what is broken.

CS people make it, users break it, IT people fix it.

Re:CS != IT ?

[Bohemoth2]

You are correct sir. I think someone must have forgot to tell me thaqt i needed a CS degreee when i was coding assembly on my C64.

Computer Science is not about programming

[kidlinux]

If all you want to do is write code, go to college.

Anyone who gets a Computer Science degree and ends up programming for the rest of their life has wasted their time and money going to university.

1 limited observation makes makes it a fact-right?

[Anonymous Coward]

uh-huh.

The USA has what should be referred to as a DYNASTY of technological reform and inventiveness. From the turn of the century when Edison and Tesla worked here fast forward to the explosion of consumer goodies, tv, vcr, the a-bomb, modern cars, the x86. If it wasn't invented here it was probably perfected in the USA. (Disclaimer i'm not an american citizen).

Dispite outsourcing of basic coding functions, the usa is still the #1 producer of software in the world (IICRC something like 80% of the worlds software?). Your assertion that some consulting software company run by a community collage teacher moves to india - therefore we must 'face it!' that europe (Europe? that place? -you sure?? Have you seen what comes out of there? or Asia (we're talking about CREATING software and not just pirating it right?).

Who do you think tells them what to code?

And you totally lost me with the pop music seen.
I think there is some sembelance of musicianship in north america. Again this is the birthplace of how many music styles? While I'm not sure who's on the cover of 'rolling stone' magazine (or care) - what you're talking about makes no sense, none, none at all. Put your helmet back on and go back to your special ed. class.

Software devel doesn't need deep HW knowledge

[FatSean]

Sure, things like the cache size and technique, bus capacitites and behaviours, type kind of disks and their controlers are usefull to know. They can make for more efficient code on a specific system.

A requirement? I dunno...I think this knowledge is what makes a good programmer great...gives him more ideas as to why something might be behaviing in a particular way. But where I work, we have great specialization and it's really nice sometimes to call in the Database gurus to check out our schema and access patterns...or the OS guys to see if the code is causing too many context shifts.

If I couldn't have these guys backing me up, I don't know if I could cram my head with enough of that info to do any good.

So, a programmer should know enough about these things to ask intelligent questions /reasearch of those who know alot of these things.

Oh and if your little company produces electronic devices...yeah..maybe you need to know more about the guts than the majority of programmers.

Social discrimination is not inherently bad

[typical]

I agree that he's extrapolating excessively.

On the other hand, I'd say that given many common social/economic/technological factors, that there probably *are* a number of general statements that can be made that apply to a majority of each population.

For example, I, as probably most other folk, doubt that there is anything inherently genetically flawed in black people. I don't think that a black guy can't become a really good engineer, nor do I think that there's anything in the genes that's going to really stand in the way.

Yet if you sit down and read through your US census, you'll discover that, sure enough, blacks are well behind whites and Asians in getting advanced technical jobs.

So why is this? We assume, for the sake of discussion, that it's not genes. So it must be something from society. Perhaps the generally lower economic status of blacks stemming from their commonly slave status in the US a hundred and fifty years ago has something to do with it. Perhaps it's simply social phenomena that affect people along racial lines (I can identify with character X in the mass media because he appears like me.) Who knows? All I can say is that there certainly is a difference.

There is a *far* larger difference in the society that a Chinese student will grow up in versus an American student than there is between a black American student and a white American student. In addition, an H1B or immigration status itself acts as a filter. If you view working in America (or learning English and doing business with people overseas) as being an arduous but career-building step, there is a natural filter to bring in people with drive and ambition -- maybe that means more brown-nosers, maybe that means more enthusiastic people. It's certainly not unreasonable to do breakdowns based on country of origin (and hence society). It may not be feasible to do it based on such a small population size, but I don't think that the very practice can be condemned. In addition, most people on here seem to have had similar observations.

I haven't worked with Chinese H1B folks, but I have with H1B and outsourced Indians, and I agree that my general perception has been similar to what the other posters have said -- exceptional drive and a lack of complaining, but often sub-par technical ability, and a willingness to misrepresent facts. Doesn't mean that this is true of all Indians, but may well be true of a very ambitious group that rapidly started conducting business in a new country to build careers. [shrug] I've found the same snappiness mentioned by others here in the Russian immigrants that I've worked with, but also the same strong technical ability. The Indians tend to work closely in teams, the Russians lone wolf (as in, they are on a team, but they rarely seek advice or ask questions of others). Could be coincidence, I don't know. But it does line up with the other things said here.

As for the comment about Indians interacting differently among each other, I hardly think that this is a stretch. If you know your native tongue better than a foreign one, you may well interact more and act differently when talking with people with whom you can converse in the same tongue.

tech background disrespected in USA

[peter303]

Except for a few brief periods when techies were respected as way of getting fabolously rich (dot-com etc) technology and science havent been widely respected in the USA. In contrast, techies are highly respected in Asia. The current and previous Chinese leaders have been engineers. Only one of ten US presidents- Hoover and Carter- since 1900 have had technical backgrounds.

i know i am

[cyberbob2010]

OSU just built a new nanotechnology lab. it has always been my dream to get into the field and im gonna be moving to columbus next month. When one looks over most Electrical Engineering reqs they see that its pretty much 45% comp sci 25% general engineering and 30% electrical engineering specifics. I don't know...just seems like comp sci is for the football players who heard that computers are where the future lies to they decided to be comp sci majors. The geek majors are in biotech and electrical eng.

Re:Bravado admired, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Hats off to your bravado, but there is a principle in evolutionary biology that is in play here that makes your tomb a little like whistling past the graveyard. WalMart is an excellent example of why this is true. Last week the only supermarket in my town closed because it couldn't compete with WalMart a few miles down the road. It was a nice market and the people were very friendly, the service they provided far more helpful than one recieves at Walmart, and their products were in general of much better quality on average than one finds in WalMart.

The principle is that for one to gain advantage, one need not necessarily producing a "better" product, only rather one needs to produce a "sufficient" product at a lower cost (more efficiently). Like all other human endeavor, to at least some degree software and software engineering is a commodity that requires energy to grow, to sell, and to consume. As long as a product is just marginally sufficient, it can outcompete the competition if its "production", is only marginally more efficient. If its more than marginally cheaper (more efficient), the time it takes will only be a little shorter. Wishing it weren't so, as I do, doesn't help me much as I can't repeal the law of natural selection.

Besides, resorting to insults only reveals the anxiety you feel at the truth of this proposition.

Downward Wage Pressure

[quarkscat]

The entire issue about American "competitiveness" in the new global economy is not about high technology or IP transfers or balance of trade. It is all about forcing American wages down to that "greatest common denominator" that is the third world economy.

The steel industry, textile industry, the shoe industry, the auto industry, the consumer goods industry, and now the "white collar" industry (architects, doctors, engineers, IT workers, etcetera) have all been forced offshore to avoid (1) USA trade unions, (2) USA business regulations, and (3) USA envirnmental laws. But some jobs are hard to shift offshore, which is why there has been a huge upsurge in L1-A and H1-B visas, as well as an invasion of illegal aliens into this country.

Several cases in point:

(A) In 2003 the IT sector in Connecticut saw the layoffs of 78,000 IT workers. That same year the state of Connecticut, acting on behalf of the IT employers in that state, requested and got 68,000 more H1-B visa slots for IT workers in Connecticut. The result is more unemployment but rising corporate profits from employers in Connecticut.

(B) More than half (32 states so far) of the states have switched to offshore outsourcing their
welfare benefits and unemployment compensation management as of 2004. Only one state, New Jersey, has worked on legislation to roll back that outsourcing after considerable public pressure.

(C) President George W. Bush's amnesty program for illegal aliens still has not found enabling legislation, but failure to secure national borders has dovetailed neatly with failure to enforce criminal laws against employers knowingly hiring illegal aliens. In 2000, the Clinton DoJ prosecuted 334 employers for hiring illegal aliens, while the GW Bush DoJ had only prosecuted 13 employers for this in 2003. "Undocumented workers" have been found in virtually every service industry in the USA, including contractor work at US military bases and nuclear facilities, so the old saw about illegal aliens only working in "migrant worker (farming/ranching) jobs" is patently false.

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[bluGill]

It is hard to boil cold water. Even in a total vacuum (or as close as we can get in the lab) water doesn't boil until you get it hot.

Re:Bravado admired, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I don't feel any anxiety; I suspect that you are projecting. I do what
I love, and love what I do. Always have, and always will. The money is an
extra bonus.

You forget a very key component for high-tech. Time-to-market is extremely
critical in this business. The first market mover has a significant advantage.
New companies live and die from this. In big companies, careers can be ruined
if someone else does things better; let alone if you fail.

The Wallmart scenario completely ignores the first mover advantage.

There's an old saying in Engineering: "You can build it quickly, or well, or cheap.
Choose any two". I have never seen any evidence to the contrary to dispute this.
And some projects never hit any of these. Walmart is all about cheapness.
So is offshoreing. And, as the original link in the article points out, the
average cost savings is only about 10%, not the 30-40% that people were
expecting.

That's a lot to give up in order to jeopardize the time-to-market.

The other thing I've seen are the maintenance costs. This has ALWAYS been
the greatest cost in Software. The solutions I've seen which focus on quick
and cheap are always a pain to maintain. And are usually unusable as a starting
point for the next generation of products. This adds to your cost for the future,
and puts you at a competitive disadvantage. And competition is intense here.

As I said, I know my business extremely well. If I thought there was a chance
of a decline in the long term, I'd think about moving to somewhere else.
Instead, I expect my rates to go up significantly in the next few years,
due to a dearth of qualified people here in the States (from the dot-com bust,
and who are scared by offshoring). This summer, I've already seen a significant
increase in opportunities; more than I've seen in a while. If I didn't want
a superlative reference, I'd be taking them on.

AFAIK

[melted]

AFAIK, when you kick out an H1-B he/she has to leave the country in 10 days. It's a bit hard to sue the company within just 10 days. Americans have lots of time on their hands, and they can bring all sorts of trouble. So big companies usually choose to carefully document poor performance of US employees for a couple of years before firing them.

Except I'm not American

[melted]

Except I'm not American, so your sarcasm is misplaced.

So?

[LPetrazickis]

So, between CS and MIS, there is no path to adequately prepare IT workers for the real world in current University curriculum.

Uh, in your opinion, which University discipline prepares people for the Real World^TM? Physics? English? Anthropology? Linguistics? Mathematics? Philosophy? Sociology?

Best for whom?

[LPetrazickis]

The whole reason we created economies is so that they would benefit individual humans, not that they would approximate some arbitrary principle derived from observing the damn things. Is this phenomenon of net benefit to humanity? How so?

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[stressmagnetchick]

But your girlfriend will be able to find a job when she graduates -- probably not related to her major, admittedly, but some companies will just be happy that she has a degree at all. I had a boss who had a M.A. in Classical Studies (Greek and Latin), which she never used.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Money for Nothin']

Real Actual Scientific Studies(TM) have shown that greater income does not mean greater happiness.

And where, exactly, *did* I say that? My post's singular point was that people who chase their passions, more often than not, will wind up starving. There are always exceptions to any rule, but for this particular question -- that of wondering if "passion = money" -- that is the rule. And I can speak as witness to some anecdotal examples of this rule...

Nevertheless, one of those "Real Actual Scientific Studies" suggests that you're wrong, at least to a certain degree. Arguably not totally wrong, but somewhat off.

Basically, once you get above the poverty line, how you spend your time plays a much greater role in your happiness than how you spend your money. i.e. You really can't buy happiness.

Perhaps not (though if I thought it were worthwhile, I'd argue this point too), but in Nevada and Amsterdam, you can certainly rent it for a few hours! :P

Strangely enough, some people have become incredibly wealthy doing this. A lot more have become ecstatically happy.

And a lot more go broke, trying to get that music gig off the ground they never had the talent, connections, or money for to begin with. Or trying to get a job with their favorite ideological think-tank or magazine. Or trying to write open-source software and profit from it. And so on.

Many of them have great passion, but few have the passion + intelligence + hard work + time + startup funding (and by that, I mean the ability to pay for oneself while working towards that goal) to make it.

And it's awfully hard to be happy when you can't afford healthcare, a relatively-recent car, or even decent food (in the worse cases)... I don't think I've ever met a happy homeless man in Chicago.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[CoolMoDee]

wow that is crazy. I never thought there were jobs for philosophy majors outside of teaching...not that it really matters anways. My job prospects probably won't be that great, but I don't care because I love what I am studying (International Studies - Asian Studies).

job satisfaction

[falconwolf]

What we do because we "enjoy it" can be done at home, after hours.

An unsatisfactory job may be fine for you but I want to work at what I love. I'd rather work at a deadend doing what I enjoy than make a lot of money do a job I hated. Of course this is only theoretical right now as I've been on disability and haven't worked for almost ten years, but at least I started taking classes again and am working on a multidisiplenary degree so when I start working again I can do something that will give me satisfaction.

Falcon

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[grassy_knoll]

She graduated last year.

She has found a job... market research. One step up from telemarketing. Six years of college, tens of thousands in debt, now making just over minimum wage with no benefits.

I agree that money isn't everything, but if we weren't living together I doubt she could make the rent.

ABET schools

[ezweave]

I agree with the reply: I am sure that is true at some schools, but all of the people I have worked with who earned a degree from an ABET accredited CS program seem to get the more hardcore education. This includes a large variety of schools (University of Colorado at CS, Bucknell, MIT, etc).

On the other hand, alot of non-ABET CS programs are rubbish. I have worked with those people in the real world and they are utterly clueless.

As to the point of this article/discussion? Silly and misguided. CS is just as all of my peers seem to point out: science or more to the point mathematics. Maybe not the exact same kind of science as physics (minor #2), but close.

What is odd is the attitude of people to the hardcore CS cirriculum. As a grad student and a full time software engineer I see both sides of the fence. I work with the "Give me practical or give me death people" and hardcore CS people. In what I have seen (in 2 years of J2EE work and 2 years of C++, etc work) the practical people are not very clever.

After finishing a small project that used a clever bit of recursive parsing (like building a lexical analyzer), one of these people asked me if I took a class on "Java" and learned that. A few months later he lamented that he wanted a several semester class on J2EE. This guy is senior level and gets paid way more than I do, yet he is such a dolt that I wouldn't let him touch any of my code with a stick.

As everyone has already said (insert dead equine and pummel), CS is about theory and pushing the boundries of your mind. You can learn a language from a book... that is just a matter of translating ideas. But learning compiler design, architecture, algorithms, calculus, EM, neural nets, etc... even if you don't learn it, it trains you think non-linearly. At my Uni, people dropped CS left and right for IS degrees after a couple of semesters because they "just wanted to program".

Now I am not claiming that ABET accredidation means anything. I am just saying that those that I have worked with who were clever went to those kinds of schools. I have also worked with people who went to my school (I think they have the same degree, but it is a decent sized school, so I didn't run into them) who I can hardly believe graduated.

All I was trying to say:

• Don't base everything on your experience alone.
• Good Computer Scientists may in fact, be born and not made.
• CS != programming (repeat until you get it)

Re:Computer science has nothing to do with calculu

[arkanes]

Thats one of the problems with CS education - the problem of terminology.

Computer Science, the real thing, is very much based on math, but it's a *theoretical*, academic discipline, with little practical value (which is not to say that the results of CompSci R&D don't benefit practical software development). A real computer scientist isn't a good software developer any more than a physicist is a good EE.

However, lack of precise naming (not suprising, really, considerin the youth of the discipline) means that there's a vast variation in whats considered computer science. In many places it's essentially an algorithms class. In some it's essentially a tech course in Java. More commonly, it's a fairly technical but very practically oriented programming class. Thats why you get people who want to be software developers taking compsci but complaining about the math in one school, and compsci graduates from another who can't do anything except code bubble sort in a Java applet.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Anonymous Coward]

If your argument is that people can be happy without money, fine, make that case. But the thread you're responding to is claiming "and the money will follow", which simply isn't (often) true. Even staying out of poverty isn't certain if you don't spend a lot of time developing a marketable (if not passion-inspiring) skill, in college or out.

Yeah my community college degree had that too.

[FatSean]

We did OS, we studied the fundamentals of networking, all the way down to the hardware layer. We had KNOWLEDGE OF HOW THE HARDWARE WORKED. The poster I replied to seemed to think the CS degree should also include instructions on how to assemble a PC or replace circuit board components.

Coming from a different angle

[BlightThePower]

what do college students know about anything? In all seriousness, its virtually meaningless to take this as an indicator of the underlying state of affairs in the industry, when you are 17 or 18 years old you go with the prevailing opinion. I sort of wonder if these discussions on Slashdot lead to a sort of echo chamber effect.

that's because...

[Anonymous Coward]

at lots of places the cs departments suck. yes, there are places where the cs department is spectacular (and I would kill to go there), but there are so many not-brilliant, not-good-teacher cs professors that many times the students know more than the teachers... but since you have to take the classes to major in it... you say screw it.

it's a fact.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[OSXCPA]

Mod parent and grandparent up.

I know. I did it. It was stupid.

It made undergrad a miserable slog - and how stupid do you (or me, in this case) have to be to make your undergrad years suck, just so you can work at a job you hate?

Man, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't even try to talk some sense into myself - I'd just bring a baseball bat...

On the bright side, it gave just the right air of desperate enthusiasm to my quest for Grad School admission to make me a compelling candidate, despite the fact that I was coming from a totally unrelated field.

Of course, I'm focused on Mac development now, so I may still need that bat...

The money doesn't always follow...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Follow your heart and the money will follow." That was the most valuable piece of advice I got from my first CS professor at Berkeley more than 4 years ago.

It's a nice saying. It's also patently false. Universities profit when students take more courses than they need to: so be cautious when professors suggest that more courses are better. Shelling to learn a lot of really cool, but very expensive triva can be a tragic mistake.

My brother is took almost ten years to pay off his linguistics degree. How did he manage to find a job as a linguist? He didn't. He took a one year course in computer networking, got lots of on-the-job training, and now he and his wife just bought a new job; no thanks to his expensive university degree.

My cousin followed her heart for her acting career. She tried time and again to break into acting; she took classes, she appeared in commericals, she networked ruthelessly. She's 35 now: she's never acted outside of a few commericals and model shoots (she competes as a fitness model), and she still works as a bartender to pay the bills. She keeps re-inventing herself; she's tried doing stunt work to break in, she's tried modelling, she's tried fitness modeling, but even though she's followed her heart, the money hasn't followed.

I know another man; the coolest boss I ever had. He worked a day job he really hated for a long time (legacy programming in Cobol during the Y2K frenzy), but he made great money . He funneled all that money into . He had a loving wife, good friends, and a strong sense of community. He used the money he made wisely, and now he's retired and living in California, studying the things he likes to study. In some sense, perhaps he sold out, but he sold out on his own terms.

It's a huge mistake to let profit overwhelm your ethics. But it's even more of a mistake to assume that you won't be miserable if you're broke. It really, really, really sucks when you run out of food: I've done it, and I never want to do it again.

So, by all means, follow your heart. But be willing to pay the price if you have to: and decide up front if that price is going to be worth it.
--
AC

Re:1 limited observation makes makes it a fact-rig

[Master of Transhuman]

Where did I say one observation points establishes the fact?

I used my account as an explanation of WHY it's happening. THAT it's happening is a known fact. Read the trade press.

I also said nothing about the US not still producing more code (and in fact, most technology) than anywhere else.

Today is not tommorrow.

I said the FUTURE is not the US's, if present trends continue - and there is no evidence I see that it won't.

As for Europe, I have read that more scientific literature is now produced there than in the US. This indicates that more scientific research is being done there than in the US. That is a fundamental shift which is likely to have consequences.

You, on the other hand, are assuming that what was true a hundred years ago for the US will remain true forever.

A true provincial.

As for music, my point was that the US was supposed to be a hotbed of music - yet, as Norman Spinrad once observed in one of his stories, if the British and psychedelics hadn't come in back in the Sixties, rock would still be just "ass-kicking music for greasers."

Today, many of the influences of pop rock are coming from abroad. Yet the insular US music business and tight control of the radio market limit the success of groups such as the Corrs who are megastars everywhere else. The Internet will eventually sort this out, as people find music via the Net and acts start cutting out the label middleman and directly marketing live broadcasts and cheap downloads over the Net, but for now the music industry as an industry appears to be moribund. The recent payola issue rearing its head again makes that clear - they have to bribe the radio people to play anything that wasn't released ten years ago.

If you can't market three hot babes and five hot guys, all of whom are excellent musicians playing lush pop rock and toe-tapping instrumentals as well, to the US market, get the fuck out of the business.

Re:C.R.E.A.M.

[Reziac]

Maybe there's no job genre called "Asian Expert", but there *are* related positions within international business, which needs people who understand the culture they're dealing with on the other side of the ocean. Perhaps a minor in Business or the like is in order?? Indeed, majoring in your passion, and minoring in something related but more marketable, is probably a good strategy for most folks.

One problem is that at the age most kids go to college, they usually don't yet KNOW what their life's passion is (they may think they do at the time, but at that age most kids don't have enough life experience to really KNOW), and may not find out until years later, after burning out on their primary job and turning to "something else entirely".

I'm not sure it matters that much what you study, so long as you use college to generally enhance your knowledge base, so that when you do discover your passion, you'll be able to apply yourself to it intelligently -- whether it's your job, your hobby, or whatever.

(I had a chem/microbiology double major; I'm now a professional dog trainer and computer fixer/consultant/webdude. Makes you wonder. :)

Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's feces?" "Baby mice!" "Aww..." - Donnie Darko