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US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Programmer Jobs Will Decline 8% (computerworld.com)

theodp writes: Two weeks ago, as the nation's schools 'taught kids to program' with an Hour of Code, Microsoft and others celebrated a 6-year lobbying effort that culminated in the passage of legislation that made Computer Science a core K-12 subject, which the software giant said "will advance some of the goals outlined in Microsoft's National Talent Strategy." But on Tuesday, Computerworld reported that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has put somewhat of a buzzkill on the learn-to-code party, saying IT jobs will grow 12% over the next decade, although computer programmers will see an 8% decline. "Computer programming can be done from anywhere in the world, so companies sometimes hire programmers in countries where wages are lower," explained the government. The silver lining is that software developers, the largest occupational group in IT, will increase by 17% or 186,600, over this period. The nomenclature here is a little muddy, since "programmers" and "software developers" are often used interchangeably. Here's how they're distinguished in this article: "Programmers are focused on coding and implementing requirements, and that’s why they may be more susceptible to offshoring, in contrast to software developers who may be more engaged with the business, analyzing needs and collaborating with multiple parties."

205 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Short term: change title from programmer to dev by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Short term, I guess its time for any remaining "programmers" to change their titles to "developers"...which is probably what's really driving the "growth."

    >> software developers who may be more engaged with the business, analyzing needs and collaborating with multiple parties

    In other words, don't ever let anyone figure out what exactly you do, and make sure you're attending more meetings than actually working. Mission accomplished!

    1. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Long term, get the hell out of tech, and stop giving your employers any loyalty ... because they'll drop you like a hot turd the moment they can.

      But, then, we've pretty much all known this teaching all kids to code was a self-serving thing to get them more cheap labor.

      Got kids you want to be gainfully employed? Get them into a trade like an electrician, welder, or plumber.

      Tech is being gutted to the lowest bidder. So all of these years of saying tech jobs were the way of the future ... well, so long, suckers.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Tech jobs were the way of the future until technology itself, created by those tech jobs, allowed companies to hire people overseas for those same jobs.

    3. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by beelsebob · · Score: 1

      No, software developers are people who are more than just code monkeys. They are people who can understand requirements, design things, and develop the entire architecture, rather than just bashing out a program.

    4. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I didn't go into the traders, but I get the hell out of tech. Worked for 11 years as a dev, saw the writing on the wall and left. Now I'm a PharmD, making the same money, never have to work overtime and can land a job anywhere in the country.

      Fuck the silicon valley rat race.

    5. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Tokolosh · · Score: 1

      I thought this was about "engineers". My bad.

      Oh, developers https://youtu.be/Vhh_GeBPOhs

      --
      Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    6. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by jonnyj · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Tech jobs are only one way of using programming skills.

      When kids learn to code, they learn to think algorithmically. They learn to break down problems into smaller, easier to define sub-problems. They learn to construct models. They learn to apply numerical methods to problem evaluation. They learn about the relationship between inputs and outputs, cause and effect. They get to explore feedback mechanisms, hysteresis, system complexity and instability.

      These are highly desirable workplace skills in a wide range of occupations. Physicists, bankers, data scientists, pricing specialists, marketing consultants, accountants (the list is endless) all benefit from the analytical mind of a someone who understands how to code.

    7. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Go where the money is. If management is what you want to pay me for, I'll be a manager. How hard can it be to pretend I know what I'm talking about despite not having any clue?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    8. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      An actual pharmacist still needs to sign on the bottom line as a professional for pill delivery.

      One could argue this is needless government-required cost (especially when it could be replaced by pre-filled bottles, cheaper) but it will be there for the forseeable future.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    9. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Go where the money is. If management is what you want to pay me for, I'll be a manager. How hard can it be to pretend I know what I'm talking about despite not having any clue?

      Actually its difficult for a lot of people. To say with complete confidence "we know that the future is sub-prime lending" or "stock markets will keep going up, we've seen the end of boom and bust" is very difficult for anyone who understands empirical methods, basic probability, and so on. It is also something that anyone with a conscience would feel bad doing (unless they really believe it).

    10. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      An actual pharmacist still needs to sign on the bottom line as a professional for pill delivery.

      One could argue this is needless government-required cost (especially when it could be replaced by pre-filled bottles, cheaper) but it will be there for the forseeable future.

      The real value in a pharmacist is recognizing drug interactions and unusual doses / prescriptions as a second check against the prescribing doctor; which is why it is important to get prescriptions filled at one place, which ensures the pharmacist has a complete list of your meds to evaluate. Yes, a computer could do the same checking and is a good tool for notifying the pharmacist who can then check with the doctor and patient to ensure the prescription is correct and safe. In addition, I think we will see pharmacists being able to prescribe certain drugs as part of their license or work with NP's to prescribe; reducing the cost of treatment by cutting out a doctor visit.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    11. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by ranton · · Score: 1

      I don't work at CVS, but they hire every pharmacy graduate they can get. I work as a clinical PharmD in a hospital.

      It doesn't really matter if you work for drug stores or not, your employment is still affected by the same market forces as the PharmDs who do work at CVS. This is because if their industry is disrupted, more of those workers will move to hospitals and drive down wages there.

      Government regulations are the only thing that can save pharmacist jobs over the next decade or two. Filling the correct pills into bottles and checking for drug interactions are two tasks modern AI systems already excel at, and continue to improve at. Government regulations will continue requiring pharmacists to work at pharmacies for a while, but as health care costs continue to spiral up costs will start to be cut. An $18 pharmacy tech can do almost everything a pharmacist can do with computer support. Give technology another 10 years and that will change to literally everything a pharmacist can do.

      After doing software development for a large pharmaceutical distributor and manufacturer of pill dispensing machinery, I came to realize pharmacists are the #1 job in health care that computer automation will get rid of. Software developers have an order of magnitude more secure job than a PharmD.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    12. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or just become useful. The problem is that so many programming jobs, in IT especially, are cookie-cutter. Anyone who can program can fill the role with minimal training. No degree or experience necessary, just present a certificate. But change it up a bit and it is very difficult to offshore the job. Know the math as well as programming, you'll be much more likely to keep your job even if your job is more difficult than moving around a box on a web page. Know the physics too, or the business, or the EE, or the economics, or whatever it is that the company actually *does*. In embedded systems learn how the system works, learn the hardware, learn the OS. Overall work together with the designers instead of sitting passively waiting for some bite sized pieces of programming assignments to filter down. Yes this is harder for junior level employees but that's also the best time to flex some mental muscles and learn new stuff, volunteer for projects, and make sure the boss thinks of you as more than adequate.

      And just by saying "tech" you dumb it down because tech is already dumbed down. Call it engineering or development or product creation, just call it anything other than something that can be done after a semester at a trade school.

    13. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I started as a software developer and because of this, knew that my role would be engaging more with the business, analyzing needs, and collaborating with multiple parties. Programmers just follow requirements. I do my own thing, especially when the requirements are stupid.

    14. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by umghhh · · Score: 1

      Most brogrammers I know have missed on most of the abilities you listed. This is true for the cheap ones and for the expensive ones too. There are some in both classes that do have them and can deploy them appropriately. This is the minority. Not sure whether there is any pattern to be had here other than most humans are unintelligent apes and some are intelligent but still apes.

    15. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Darinbob · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've been programming for 30 years, and only at the start was I in anything I call a "tech" job. Granted the term is flexible and vague but it mostly seems to imply working with technology without having to know how it actually works - pushing buttons on a black box, following the script from the certification course, thinking inside the box.

      There's been a disturbing trend recently about minimizing the amount of effort necessary to get a job. Taking the fewest classes, skipping the hard classes, skipping school altogether, etc. I think every single class I ever took in university has been useful in real life, even if in an abstract way (by learning how to think and exercise the brain), and for sure every single computer science class I ever took has been practical on the job including theory. Taking shortcuts does not help in the long run, so why settle for being no better than anyone in an low wage offshore firm?

      For the programming at younger ages, like high school, I get the impression that these are extremely dumbed down and are more oriented towards trade school type stuff. No theory, programming only in a popular language, the programming involves tying together existing components without knowing how those components work. I'd love it if they tought numerical methods, whether high school or college, because I see too many programmers who don't understand even the rudimentary parts of it. I'd be happy if they really taught algorithms and not how to make a web page.

    16. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Has anyone ever outsourced a major product that requires a fair amount of thinking and interaction with the home team to an offshore firm and gotten good results? Maybe it works for web pages, e-commerce, and IT, but not for building a real product. You wouldn't want a medical device surgically implanted in you if it was developed by the cheapest workers with minimal schooling using the lowest bidder for parts, so why trust a company's future to the same thing?

    17. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by scamper_22 · · Score: 1

      The only thing you can say with complete confidence is get a job with the government.

      If it ever goes down... well the whole society has collapsed anyways.

    18. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by ranton · · Score: 1

      Can the pharmacy tech talk to a worried mom about any one of an uncountable number of different medication or healthcare questions?

      Anything that can be done from behind a counter can be done from a computer terminal. Very little of a pharmacist's time is spend doing this, so I doubt it would even take 1 pharmacists per 10 pharmacies to cover this type of interaction. Asking pharmacy techs and self-serve QA portals can cover most questions. Almost all questions I hear from people while waiting in line are insurance related, not medication related.

      Sure you lose a bit of human touch this way, but what else is new? How easy is it to get human operators when calling customer service these days? If the technology is capable of handling 90% of interactions, companies won't care about human touch when they can cut out a majority of their payroll costs.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    19. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Short term, I guess its time for any remaining "programmers" to change their titles to "developers"

      My title is Software Engineer.......... not only should I get to avoid the 8% decline in programming... But the expected 0% growth in EE, as well, by having 'Software' in the name, instead of Electrical.

    20. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Tech jobs are only one way of using programming skills.

      Also, if you advance your computer science knowledge sufficiently enough, you are no longer "just a programmer"

      E.g. If you become an expert in machine learning and big data, and the huge body of knowledge in the AI field. Your expertise is not necessarily reproducible by some random guy overseas, even if they are more skilled at programming in general, there is still a problem domain in which they cannot compete against you.

    21. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Realize that all you really damage is a corporation, and that the people higher up in the chain do the same, just for more money and far more efficiently. Then that consciousness is no longer an issue.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    22. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Kids learning, http://www.vox.com/2015/12/15/..., seriously, there is a world of delusion going on out their and there is a whole US town, where children will be learning bugger all and become criminals through no fault of their own. The biggest hit will be the huge fall off of code, finalised programs being exported to other countries. Basically no country can trust any other countries code any more, so a lot more restructuring will be occurring as countries start pushing no importing of code. A lot more jobs will end up diminishing, as the forced upgrade era also starts to wind down. There are not that many new jobs and it is all just about squeezing down salaries at the bottom to raise them at the top and coders are at the bottom in the tech world. Likely the biggest employment area is security, with no one trusting no one, there is a huge amount of security work to be done in computer systems.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    23. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Back in the day, I thought of myself as a programmer, but my title was programmer/analyst, and towards the end I called myself a systems analyst, as that was common usage for what I did. But I still thought of myself as a programmer.

      I don't think "software developer" is the right title for most people to chose. I think "software analyst/developer" would probably be better. But you need to check what term the place you're working for/applying at uses. And for best results be sure the title matches your skill set. (And it's ok to continue to think of yourself as a programmer.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    24. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by pepty · · Score: 1

      An actual pharmacist has to sign off on each bottle, but most of the rest of the job is increasingly going to be handed off to techs and automation. Meanwhile, the profitability of running a PharmD school was noted and the market responded by upping the number of schools faster than the need for pharmacists. When the number of accredited programs goes up by over 50% and the number of graduates doubles in less than 15 years (2000 to 2012) ... you may be looking at another rat race soon.

    25. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by Chalnoth · · Score: 1

      The BLS says the number of programmers will drop by 26,500 over the next ten years, while the number of software developers will increase by 186,600. I.e., this story is bullshit and the writer should have paid closer attention to the statistics. The number of people writing software as their job in the US is expected to increase pretty dramatically.

    26. Re:Short term: change title from programmer to dev by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      This. We are dealing with a company that makes a sensor with a CPU in it. It constantly consumes about 16mA, totally unacceptable for a battery powered product. Our data logging side averages around 1000x less. The guy they have is a generic programmer and we are having to teach him how to put the CPU to sleep when possible instead of busy looping.

      The guy doesn't even work for them. They wrote a spec and outsourced the work, and it sucks. Generic programmers are fine for stuff where performance doesn't matter, where low quality is good enough. I'm sure my job is safe because I know my stuff.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. It's the end, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The never-ending growth myth has to be put to rest now. We need a new social model that will for us, not just for the rentiers and 1%ers.

    We can't grow eternally. It's not physically possible or socially desirable.

    1. Re:It's the end, folks by blue9steel · · Score: 1

      We need a new social model that will for us, not just for the rentiers and 1%ers.

      Demonstrate one that doesn't rely on unicorns and universal goodwill and you'll be a hero to seven billion people. In the meantime we muddle along with the system we've got.

      We can't grow eternally. It's not physically possible or socially desirable.

      A falsehood and a subjective value judgement. Nothing to see here, move along.

    2. Re:It's the end, folks by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      No economist ever believed that never-ending growth is possible. I don't even know why you think that.

      As a more practical measure, as long as the population is growing, the economy can grow.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re: It's the end, folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Simply put, there's nowhere left to grow, nothing left to do

      If you walk 10 minutes through any city or town or even through the countryside and don't see anything that needs to be done but isn't, or could be improved but isn't, then you must be blind. The problem isn't that there is no potential for growth, it's that people are neither willing nor able to do the things that would have to be done for that growing to happen. People are content with subsistence. They lack motivation. That is first and foremost a social problem, not one of economics.

    4. Re: It's the end, folks by EdwardFurlong · · Score: 1

      You can't rely on having a "job" anymore. Our entire social model rests on growth, which can't exist eternally, and now we are starting to see, it doesn't exist anymore.

      Simply put, there's nowhere left to grow, nothing left to do, so what do people need to do to have a job anymore?

      We don't need millions of electrical engineers, or programmers, or whatevers. We need to wind down the 20th century model, and accept that we now have to redistribute the accumulated resources of the last hundred years.

      It should be no surprise that no single industry will always grow faster than others.What do you need to do? The same thing every other person is doing, there is not going to be one answer. Change careers, find a niche, start your own business, do your job really well, move to a higher demand area. I mean, there "is nothing left to do"? I would take a good look at the rest of the world, even many first would countries are facing much worse prospects than the U.S. It is probably just going to take more work than before, maybe you will have to keep educated and on top of your game.

    5. Re:It's the end, folks by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      So you contradict your own premise.

      No. It seems unreasonable that population growth will continue forever.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:It's the end, folks by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Productivity comes from paying less for the same amount of work, wage growth means paying more for the same amount of work

      I guess that would be true if there was never any progress, and some amount of "work" always required the same amount of effort. Most economists define productivity as producing more for less effort. Like if you invent a machine that makes doing your job easier, you can do twice as much work for the same effort.

    7. Re:It's the end, folks by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      http://freakonomics.com/2014/01/24/can-economic-growth-continue-forever-of-course/

      I stand corrected.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    8. Re:It's the end, folks by umghhh · · Score: 1

      whether economists believed in that or not is irrelevant as we cannot ever verify their beliefs. There were always hordes of them ready to tell us how the growth will go on forever, virtual economy has decoupled itself from real one and other such nonsense.
      Your second sentence may or not be true - most of places where population growth went over the available resources however had a slaughter that followed. We see if we can provide solution with technology and organisation. I myself doubt that we can but we have no choice as to see it anyway.

    9. Re:It's the end, folks by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Productivity comes from paying less for the same amount of work, wage growth means paying more for the same amount of work
      That is not a productivity gain but deflation.

      Productivity increase means, in the same time with the same resources the same workers: produce more!
      Hence you can lower the price on the product, still make more money, and even can pay more for/to the workers.

      Do you really believe I'm more productive if you pay me less??????

      Business people 'think' that the generate every great idea and that the rest of us are just commodities that can be traded out for the cheaper model
      Yes, some think that. But I guess they will learn ... on the other hand, the states seem to be a country where everyone tries to get rich on behalf of the rest of the "nation" ... this outsourcing crap we keep hearing here on /. is not really happening in Europe e.g.

      If you have tried it once, figure quickly, it either does not work at all, or you have to change everything. Not only "exchange" the developers/programmers.

      India is one of the countries with the most CMMI level 4 and even 5 certificated companies/development departments.

      If you want to outsource stuff to them, you have to "prepare" all work/contracts on CMMI 4/5 level to be even able to "work together" with them.

      Why does that work for them? Because the whole university education is aiming to make replaceable drones for such high level environments. It is not expected that a developer/programmer is "thinking" about mistakes etc. as the whole process is tailored for him that he only has to take care for his own stuff.

      Most european companies are not ready to fine grain requirements in a way suited for that, or have a trans global work pipeline suited for this. So we either invite small indian teams, or others, to Europe or more or less do our stuff alone.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    10. Re: It's the end, folks by yes-but-no · · Score: 1

      When a rocket can be launched and brought back and landed safely, it is sad to see a society where 99% or more worry about basic needs of food and shelter. No, just because you rent or pay a mortgage, you are not fine -- you live in that perennial fear of homeless. You lose a job and that's the end of world. What kind of society is this? when science and technology has offered so much, even a cave-man never worried for survival like the 99%. In fact a homeless person lives in more peace than the so called wage-slave. I guess it's all due to the polarization of wealth and system which uses laws to keep the 99% away from the resources [land, water, freedom to use the natural resources].

    11. Re:It's the end, folks by gweihir · · Score: 1

      What, have you not heard we are going to colonize Mars and then the rest of the Universe? Growth forever!

      </sarcasm>

      Seriously, I fully agree. I think the US has peaked some 10-15 years ago, with the EU 10 years behind. It is now either stability or decline. The US seems to have opted for decline and the EU seems to want to follow that model.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    12. Re: It's the end, folks by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, we can't "grow forever", but the universe is vast, we can grow for a long, long time -- a trillion years, at least, probably. So let's not worry about it quite yet.

    13. Re:It's the end, folks by euroq · · Score: 1

      Productivity comes from paying less for the same amount of work, wage growth means paying more for the same amount of work

      Productivity comes from more value from the same amount of pay. One way to achieve productivity is from paying less from the same amount of value, another way is to pay the same for more amount of value.

      --
      Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
    14. Re:It's the end, folks by euroq · · Score: 1

      No, productivity comes from more value, period. It has nothing to do with cost.

      According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... it's the ratio of input to output, so in this case cost is the input and value is the output. However, I'm no economist.

      --
      Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
  3. The same holds true for other jobs, too. by scunc · · Score: 5, Funny

    During that same time period, secretarial jobs will likely see an 8% drop in demand, but administrative assistants will see a 17% increase!

    1. Re:The same holds true for other jobs, too. by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      And I'm changing my title from "troll" to "agitation engineer".

    2. Re:The same holds true for other jobs, too. by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      Yes sir Mr. Johnson.

    3. Re:The same holds true for other jobs, too. by sinij · · Score: 2

      And I'm changing my title from "troll" to "agitation engineer".

      Please, you are nothing more but self-stimulation engineer.

    4. Re:The same holds true for other jobs, too. by q4Fry · · Score: 1

      And I'm changing my title from "troll" to "agitation engineer".

      New Moderation option coming soon.

    5. Re:The same holds true for other jobs, too. by umghhh · · Score: 1

      I do not know why they always miss blow jobs from labour statistics.

    6. Re:The same holds true for other jobs, too. by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Hahahahaha, FAIL!

      That is "agitation scientist"! Agitation engineers will soon face unemployment, as those jobs will go overseas. Indian tech support has been training for this new opportunity for years, as everybody that ever talked to them knows.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. Unions by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If there's going to be any hope for the American working class we're gonna need to get over our childish "I can make it on my own" attitudes and bring back organized labor and the power and protection it offers. It's ridiculous to think we as individuals can effectively bargain with mega corps. John Galt is a child's daydream...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Unions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > John Galt is a child's daydream...

      John Galt gave up on the system and ran off to be a farmer. What does that say about progress?

    2. Re:Unions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Answer: Unions need to go global as well.

    3. Re:Unions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is that we are told that corporations are people too, yet citizens are affected greatly by immigration laws. Corporations, seemingly not.

    4. Re:Unions by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      American working class we're gonna need to get over our childish "I can make it on my own" attitudes and bring back organized labor and the power and protection it offers

      That's indeed one of the most powerful propaganda gimmicks of the plutocrats: claiming unions are for unmanly wimps, and if you can't "cowboy" it out there on your own, you deserve to perish. They spend a lot of money to shove that message up the population.

      Of course, the rich have their crony "buddy system" that does pretty much what a union does. Bill Gates had access to a minicomputer as a kid because his parents had money and lived in the better school district. Mitt, Trump, and the Bush bro's had daddy's money and influence.

    5. Re:Unions by iamacat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We can bargain with megacorps quite effectively so long as supply and demand of labor is balanced. Compare your consumer experience when shopping for personal electronics (lots of competition, abundant supply) vs dealing with Comcast (monopoly). It's exactly the same with jobs - if you have a skill set which is in short supply, you will get great deals without any unions.

      So the best solution for oversupply of labor is for government to hire part of the workforce away from private market and put them on projects that reduce fixed costs of living for everyone else and increase disposable impact to purchase privately made goods. That's why New Deal worked well for recovery from Great Depression. If we build good roads, affordable housing, public transportation and affordable domestically produced energy, we provide lots of jobs while freeing up most of people's paycheck to go into private economy rather than mortgage and gas bill.

      So politics is a better direction to put your time in money than unions, although I guess the later is a useful stopgap measure and can be an organizing force for politics.

    6. Re:Unions by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      See, you're doing it.

      Citizens accept a certain degree of inequality because we know it's necessary for capitalism to work properly. However, populations won't accept HUGE inequality very long. The claim that huge inequality is necessary for "motivation" is utterly ridiculous.

      It's not just about "fairness", but the very political system. The rich buy laws they want via campaign contributions and political ads, short-circuiting democracy.

      Look at their attack on climate change research and solutions. They don't want to pay for greener energy, and so spend boatloads of money to discredit the idea. And it works, roughly 40% of the population fell for it.

    7. Re:Unions by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      The problem is that nationalism is fine for everyone else except the United States. Germany has a national policy to protect manufacturing. If the president of the United States puts forth a policy to rebuild our manufacturing base, it would be regarded as an obstacle to free trade and undermining the world economy.

    8. Re:Unions by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

      So, you are saying to use that 8% to rebuild Healthcare.gov?

    9. Re:Unions by sinij · · Score: 1

      The key difference is that "I can go without one" can apply to a personal electronic device, but generally would not apply to feeding your own children.Consequently, labor supply side is largely inelastic, while demand is. You can see how, save substantial global population drop, megacorps would have upper hand.

    10. Re:Unions by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Answer: Unions need to go global as well.

      Many of them already have.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    11. Re:Unions by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Europe as a whole sucks, but the Germans have the strongest economy in the union. They protect their manufacturing base as national policy. They don't have to worry about the Chinese buying out their factories, have their workers train Chinese workers, have their manufacturing equipment shipped overseas, and have unemployed workers with outdated job skills. Talented people don't embrace rape and pillage in the name of free trade.

    12. Re:Unions by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Question: How is unionizing going to keep the jobs from going overseas?? I'll go further and state unionizing will just further accelerate the process of shoving more jobs away from the American working class.

      If I may borrow from the famous Starwars quote with modification: "The more you tighten your grip, rsilvergun, the more jobs will slip through your fingers."

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    13. Re:Unions by iamacat · · Score: 1

      Why would not feeding your children be a consideration in a balanced labor market? If I leave a job, I can find another job in reasonable time, so both me and my employer have choices and incentive to treat each other well. Just like most people consider having some kind of cell phone a necessity, but have a choice of Apple, Samsung, LG and many others, so prices and features stay great.

      It's said that most people never lived under such sane conditions, all while our public infrastructure is crumbling from disrepair.

    14. Re:Unions by vel-ex-tech · · Score: 1

      More often than not, it follows brains.

      Hahahaha! Hahahahahaha!

      Well, I guess gaslighting, bullshitting, fast talking, Gish galloping, lying, manipulation, psychological abuse, backstabbing, brown nosing, and knowing which palms to grease are all skills, too.

    15. Re:Unions by guruevi · · Score: 1

      They haven't brought power or protection for a long time. They do so for line workers and people that are easily replaced and have a fixed cost (manual labor etc). People that aren't easily replaced (eg. programmers/developers) with fluctuating incomes (based on capability rather than seniority) don't benefit from a labor union. Unless you want all of us to work for 35k/year and 40h/week regardless of what you do and pay dues on top of that, you don't know what you're asking for.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    16. Re:Unions by iamacat · · Score: 1

      Why give basic income away for free when you can spend the same money and get recipients to do some useful work, especially work of a kind that improves private sector employee purchasing power and reduces need for government assistance in future? If you are saying that some people are not willing or able to do any useful work whatsoever and still should not starve, or that students who are making good progress should get a stipend, I agree. But addressing these corner cases is a lot easier and more affordable once everyone else is at work, making productive contributions to society in either private or public sector.

    17. Re:Unions by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      John Galt gave up on the system and ran off to be a farmer. What does that say about progress?

      Nothing.

      But it says a lot about Ayn Rand's juvenile self-centered world-view.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    18. Re:Unions by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      I really don't see any good labor unions have done recently. They were vital for securing safe work conditions and capping the number of hours in the work week. Now a days it just seems like all they do is prevent incompetent people from being fired. I'm not saying unions can't have a positive role. It just seems like they don't. If I were a teacher I'd rather be making 80K (rather than 40K) and not be protected from being fired. If there was ever a race to the bottom, it seems like unions are partly to blame.

    19. Re:Unions by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Problem is we need to learn to either make corporations loyal to their country, or to stop treating them as citizens and legal residents. If the corporations screw with this country then we should be allowed to screw them right back, if you harm us we harm you back. Kick their headquarters off shore to a third world country where their workers live and send the executives there too. If workers and production are moved overseas then why keep the executives here? But some free market true believer will say "but what about trickle down, and all the new domestic service jobs created by all the rich American fat cats, what are you some sort of commie?"

      The problem is that while we are competing globally for products and services, we should not necessarily be competing globally for employees, and definitely there should be no free trade with regards to employees. This is a part of the economic model that often overlooked.

    20. Re:Unions by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      To the free market believer, civil liberties are unimportant compared to economic liberties and a 2% growth in in their stock portfolios.

    21. Re:Unions by scamper_22 · · Score: 1

      Similarly, the whole... we can turn societies into unions and think equality will come about is equally ridiculous.

      I'm in Canada. If you manage to get into a well connected union, your life might be good. Maybe teachers, police officers, public sector workers...

      But other unions get trampled.

      If you want some grand irony.
      I'm in big union Ontario. Guess what job is actually prohibited by law from forming a union?

      Perhaps the most vulnerable of all workers.. farm workers.

      There are many child dreams. I have no idea what the answer is.
      You might say individual bargaining is a pipe dream. From where I sit in Canada, unions present the same problem as some workers will belong to unions that are exposed to the free market, areas where people want cheap goods (farm)... and they will lack protections. Meanwhile those that belong to powerful unions get to rip off society at the tax payer's dime.

    22. Re:Unions by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      The United States has not remained strong economically. That is, the economics of all its citizens not just the economics of companies that are based here. Wages stay the same even though it's claimed that the economy is improving, which is an absurdity.

      The talent pool is global but no one is looking for talent anymore, they just want warm bodies at the lowest rate possible. The economic models don't even take this into account. The models assume we ship product A overseas and then they ship back product B to us. What really is going to happen is that we build product A overseas and hire workers overseas so that there's no one local who can afford to buy product B. We essentially swap our good economy for their poor economy rather than equalizing the economies and helping both out. A robust trade in goods is something we want but a trade in workers is bad.

      Protectionism for goods is one thing and it may be bad in some cases (not all) but there should be protectionism for the workers since the purpose of a government is to protect its citizens. If the government won't protect its workers then the workers should replace it with a different government.

    23. Re:Unions by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      A class envy exploited by both parties. The extreme Republicn position is about getting the poor people to vote for politicians that will hurt them in the long run with policies that only help rich people (unless you believe in trickle down voodoo economics).

    24. Re:Unions by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Money may follow brains but the brains don't get that money. The brains get hired as workers and the guys at the top keep the money. Or were you one of those who thought Steve Jobs invented the smart phone single handledly through the sheer might of his engineering prowess?

      But we have many cases of money not following brains. Offshoring of jobs for instance, it is not going to the brighest and best workers, very often it's about hiring 2 workers instead of 1 for the same price and if the workers aren't trained well enough then they'll buy 3 workers for 1. This is not even good for the business except in the short term (boss saves costs and gets a raise today but though the product is now substandard and late and gets the boss fired next year). If you want to hire the best brains from third world emerging countries then those brains are already in the US and Europe because they left those countries and got educated elsewhere. What's left are workers trained in basic tech services (help desk support, computer management) where low cost is more important than high quality.

    25. Re:Unions by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      But addressing these corner cases is a lot easier and more affordable once everyone else is at work, making productive contributions to society in either private or public sector.
      No, it is not.
      Addressing those corner cases is a big bureaucratic endeavour. The social agency in Germany responsible for unemployment aid and social well fare has 108.536 employees. As comparison, the strength of the German armed forces is: 178.000. The biggest employer in Germany is: Bosch 283.507 (likely half of it outside of Germany, don't have a good source at hand, hm, my source here claims Bosch has no out of country employes, as I know that there is "Bosch Japan", I doubt it is correct.) Siemens, 128.000 (in Germany, 450000 world wide), Edeka, a chain of small shopping malls 302.000.

      Anyway: if we had "basic income" from the 108.536 working for the "Bundesargentur für Arbeit", 90% would be obsolet.

      The main reason why no European country managed to introduce "basic income" is the attempt by the bureaucrats themselves to prevent it. It is not even the "lost job" they have, it is the loss of power they will suffer that motivates them.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    26. Re:Unions by vel-ex-tech · · Score: 1

      Ok, this time you get a virtual +1 sad but true from me.

      I'll probably end up being a welder or machinist or join a commercial fishing crew. So many other, more rewarding, ways to make money in this world.

      Plus, when the asshole managers who don't value skill and experience run this world into the second dark age or if the revolution comes, I'll also end up with a practical skill.

    27. Re:Unions by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      Actually Germany sold lots of its steel factories to India and China. They got dismantled here, the parts got numbered, and they where build up there 1:1 again.

      Germany, and most of Europe, simply learned it does not pay to outsource high skilled work. After all, our skills are still higher than the foreign ones.

      The sold steel plants, e.g. produce "generic steel" while Germany (and Italy for that matter) focus on special steels or recycling steels for e.g. cars.

      The problem in an economy is: you have housing, clothing, energy, food, retirees, pupils, health care etc. on one big basket. If you outsource the work, you outsource the income and the taxes to support said economy. Actually a no brainer.

      In comparison what I hear here on /. Germany has a relatively low fluctuation in workers. A bit higher in employees, but bottom line it is very low. Ofc that is not true for unskilled labour like an over the counter seller in a bakery.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    28. Re:Unions by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      So politics is a better direction to put your time in money than unions, although I guess the later is a useful stopgap measure and can be an organizing force for politics.

      Your post was a terrificly concise summary of the first half of Mein Kampf. Seriously, go read it.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    29. Re:Unions by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Actually, a certain degree of inequality is necessary for *society* to work. But the difference between between the wealthiest and the poorest shouldn't be much more than a factor of 50, or things start getting unpleasant. Perhaps in as large as a population as we currently have a factor of 100 could be justifiable. This would argue in favor of a combination of a guaranteed annual income (for everyone) and an exponentially based income tax. (It should be so designed that every increase in tax is matched by a proportionate increase in income...but not, as I usually argue, linear.)

      P.S.: Democracy isn't the only system that suffers instability when there is extreme centralization of wealth or power. They all do. Some hide the instability more than others do, but it surfaces in coup d'etates, palace revolutions, etc. Note that these chaotic turmoils of instability rarely even touch the underlying cause. Democracy tries to moderate this, but when there is "regulatory capture" then the moderation loses it's power, and instability increases. I judge that in the US today there has been "regulatory capture" of the electoral process. It would be nice to be proven wrong, but that's not the way I'd bet.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    30. Re:Unions by jmcvetta · · Score: 1

      Are you suggesting we give up civil liberties for totalitarianism and falsely inflated economics?

      No no, I think you misunderstood: He was advocating leaving the US, not coming here.

    31. Re:Unions by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure that you have to live in a very specific spot in the US to have those kinds of offers available.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    32. Re:Unions by iamacat · · Score: 1

      Again, it depends on supply and demand of labor. As long as there is healthy market for my skills, I get a nice paid vacation thanks to unemployment insurance and then another job which quite likely suits my needs better. In the meantime, if the employer is substandard compared to the market, everyone good will quit, taking their knowledge to competitors. And later, nobody with a talent will want to join and pull the weight for remaining underperformers.

      And all that is needed to shift the balance is increased competition for labor from public sector (or new private sector players).

    33. Re:Unions by iamacat · · Score: 1

      What kind of skill set is needed for toxic waste cleanup? Building and maintaining roads/affordable housing/solar farms/wind farms/bullet trains/spaceports? Growing healthy food with minimum pollution? Keeping every neighborhood in America safe?

      All off those things are badly needed and have some jobs accessible to someone who would otherwise flip burgers. They also quickly benefit private sector far in excess of any taxes collected to pay salaries. If a neighborhood is safe, you can open a Safeway there because everybody eats. If people are not saddled with mortgage, they can buy your gadgets.

    34. Re:Unions by tsotha · · Score: 1

      Citizens accept a certain degree of inequality because we know it's necessary for capitalism to work properly. However, populations won't accept HUGE inequality very long.

      I don't see any evidence this is true. In the US we have enough of a safety net that people don't go hungry, and they get medical care. Between that and television I doubt there will ever be a political consensus to give unions more statutory leverage.

    35. Re:Unions by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. The US may cover-up the steady decline and cling to a fantasy of superiority for a while longer by extending the police-state and then going into full fascism. But eventually, it is doomed. Going to a country that is still in ascent is starting lower, but seeing things get better over time. Much more desirable.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    36. Re:Unions by gweihir · · Score: 1

      In comparison what I hear here on /. Germany has a relatively low fluctuation in workers. A bit higher in employees, but bottom line it is very low. Ofc that is not true for unskilled labour like an over the counter seller in a bakery.

      In addition, that German "over the counter seller in a bakery" will have three years of job-specific education ("Baeckereifachverkaeufer") and will not be easily replaceable either. Sure, there will be some unskilled labor there, but only under supervision or while being qualified.

      The only resource that has long-term durability is a well educated and qualified population. Of course, that makes conning people (the core skill of politicians) much harder, so there always is a desire to make the population dumber by those in power. That kills a country long-term, but those in power usually are in it only for themselves, so they do not care.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    37. Re:Unions by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      A big recession or mass automation-related job loss could trigger it. More:

      http://www.politico.com/magazi...

    38. Re:Unions by iamacat · · Score: 1

      Do recipients of basic income spontaneously go to fix roads and build affordable housing? If not, you are fixing only a symptom of unbalanced labor market and not the problem itself. By putting people to work in public sector, you remove them from competition for private jobs and make it easier for remaining competitors to get good employment terms. Plus, fixing public infrastructure makes private sector stronger, able to support more jobs and offer goods for a smaller portion of average salary.

    39. Re:Unions by sinij · · Score: 1

      Just like Lenin and his following learned that you couldn't build Communism, you too one day will learn that you can't build unregulated supply and demand market for labor.

      While your theory sounds nice on paper, practicalities of outsourcing, HB-1 visas, illegal non-poaching agreements, punitive non-compete contract clauses and so on get in the way.

    40. Re:Unions by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Funny that you don't mention the wealthy left

      The wealthy right is larger, especially if you include corporate lobbying and influence peddling, not just individuals. Corporations lobby for things that benefit themselves rather than things that benefit (most) individuals or consumers.

      you go off on this tangent about AGW.

      It's not a tangent; it's an example of the impact of large amounts of money spent on lobbying and "convincing" the public.

      And, I don't see what point your "puppy" statement is trying to make. It appears to be an extreme exaggeration either way. I invite a clarification or re-statement.

  5. Systems Analyst by Nutria · · Score: 2

    The BLS is confusing Software Developer with Systems Analyst.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:Systems Analyst by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I suspect that also.

      But one problem is that one should get several years of hands-on experience in programming before becoming an analyst. But if more of it is offshored, then there are fewer chances to get such experience.

      You can't just major in "systems analyst" and be good at it out of school. A lot of it is about working with people and business to learn how people communicate ideas, often indirectly, and how they interact with technology and UI's.

      Office politics is often a big part of it, and if you don't navigate it well, you are toast. They usually don't teach that in school because it would be admitting humans are ego-driven Dilbertian idiots, and schools feel presenting that reality is beneath them.

  6. 'Programming' should decline... by Junta · · Score: 2

    Given the distinction described, programmers being just implementation and 'developers' actually understanding the needs and wider context, programmers really should be on the decline, and there shouldn't be room for a 'software developer' to need 'programmers' as time goes on.

    Already the divide has been largely responsible for some of the most infuriating software I've had to use. The people actually creating it have no clue about the wider context. Meanwhile you have 'architects' that don't know the first thing about how the code works or can work or most critically how it wouldn't work. Somehow enterprise industry has latched onto the model of 'architect' versus 'implementer' and never shall the two cross and it makes for some terrible software.

    Sometimes it makes a mountain out of a molehill (don't need a massive team to maintain what amounts to be a simple script, and often giving it a massive team makes it senselessly more complex) and sometimes it does address some issues of tedium associated with a genuinely complex project. For the first part, people should not confuse 'importance' with 'complexity'. People presume that something very important warrants a large team, which is often wrong. For the latter, the large team may be warranted, but no coders should be exempt from understanding the context for their work. I've seen that last bit happen all the time, to the point of bad coding decisions resulting in the programmer resenting the paying customer for what ultimately is the programmer's lack of understanding the use case rather than the customer 'not being smart enough to deal'.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    1. Re:'Programming' should decline... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Given the distinction described, programmers being just implementation and 'developers' actually understanding the needs and wider context, programmers really should be on the decline, and there shouldn't be room for a 'software developer' to need 'programmers' as time goes on.

      I have never seen anybody who is this mythical 'programmer' who is some flunky who people hand complete specs to.

      Well, that's not true ... at one point my company had outsourced some coding to India. They got shit code, delivered late, badly written, and not conforming with any of the specs. Someone spent so much time micromanaging them and getting them to fix defects it was a full time job.

      Pretty much everyone I've ever met, regardless of title, was involved in the full complexity of designing and building solutions based on vague and over broad things which were more like "works kind like this but we're not sure".

      Do people really have positions who are the bottom of the rung people who do little more than type it in and compile it? Because I've never met any.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:'Programming' should decline... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I have not met one, but I have worked at a company that employed some. The company had an offshore team that would be given various task near the end of the US workday and have them finished and returned by the start of the next workday.

      Well, that was the idea. Every task that was handed over came back worse than if no one had put any effort into it, so the local developers had to parse, undo, and then correct the overnight code every time.

      And for some reason management saw no problem with this approach.

    3. Re:'Programming' should decline... by pscottdv · · Score: 1

      Somehow enterprise industry has latched onto the model of 'architect' versus 'implementer' and never shall the two cross and it makes for some terrible software.

      I'm a software architect and I have to fight against this model almost every sprint.

      --

      this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice

    4. Re:'Programming' should decline... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      My business card says "Software Generalist" ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:'Programming' should decline... by Kellamity · · Score: 1

      My official title at work, according to my SAP record is 'Developer Programmer'...

  7. Re:H1B by arth1 · · Score: 1

    What percentage of jobs out there are being done by H1Bs? I would assume they would feel the 8% hit first.

    As long as they are cheaper, you can safely assume that they will feel the 8% hit last.

  8. Not bloody likely by iamacat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Everybody tried outsourcing and realized that it doesn't work. Creating a great product requires creativity and each contributor capable of saying no to superiors and standing up for their improvements to the solution. This mind set does not yet exist much outside Silicon Valley, let alone USA and huge lifestyle disparity between american bosses and outsourced coders would not allow it to flourish.

    By the time developing countries have the kind of talent in greater quality/quantity than US, labor will not be that cheap anymore because employees will know their worth. At that point, I will just move there.

    1. Re:Not bloody likely by sinij · · Score: 1

      Outsourcing does work, for some definitions of work.

      In my mind there is no question that outsourcing results in inferior work that translates in less secure, less robust product. None of this matters, as long as it is still possible/acceptable to blanket-absolve any corporate responsibility for software product flaws. In software quality doesn't seem to matter, as a consequence outsourcing will continue prospering. Change that, and the jobs might come home.

    2. Re:Not bloody likely by ADRA · · Score: 2, Informative

      Outsourcing can and does produce as good if not better software. The problem is that unless you're very familiar with said outsourcing organization, you're essentially rolling the dice between horrible results and amazing results per dollar spent. If this sounds exactly like hiring an any regular employee, then you're exactly right. All HR related work needs to be adjudicated properly or you're risking your business viability. Given that giant American mega-corps haven't fallen into ruin, it seems like they're doing an ok job ramping up outsourcing work without significantly damaging their profitability -yet-.

      1. Most developers work at companies that don't give a fuck about computers, developers, releases, etc.. They just want to make money, and IT is a cost.
      2. A large number of developers feel that their work is important and that they're unique butterflies (and when you leave your company everything's just going to fall off the wheels and go to hell). Most of them are wrong.
      3. We've had a great run for the last several decades, but we aren't guaranteed to be high-tier job prospects forever. I'd be miserable being a hardware engineer these days, since so much of it has been fleeing to China for the last 10 years or so (at least the low ended work) .. Software from what I've seen has mostly weathered the storm, but it certainly isn't immune to becoming *shock* commoditized like so many industries before it. That doesn't see the end of the industry, but certainly an adjustment.

      --
      Bye!
    3. Re:Not bloody likely by sinij · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Outsourcing can and does produce as good if not better software.

      People can and do win lottery. In my experience, outsourcing to China and India results in a quality drop. Indian teams tend to practice cowboy coding and are more comfortable releasing without robust testing. Chinese teams tend to value seniority and rigid hierarchy, as such problems that are discovered are not communicated and as a result go unaddressed. Sure, all of this can happen without outsourcing, but outsourcing makes it a lot more likely.

    4. Re:Not bloody likely by goruka · · Score: 1

      It's not likely, it's a fact. I work in South America (Buenos Aires) and there are dozens of thousand software developers and companies that work for companies in the US. As with everything, some are attractive because they have excellent track records and some are attractive because they are cheap (they are bidding on their first projects so they can work for lower wages).
      I myself ran companies that outsourced jobs from over there successfuly. Large companies like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, etc. even hire people from here to manage teams from India. If there is such a huge outsourcing industry here, the same in the rest of the world must be huge.

      I think most Americans believe only a small amount of work is outsourced to foreign countries, but I'm pretty sure most US investment in software projects is not even done in US ground.

    5. Re:Not bloody likely by Art3x · · Score: 1

      Indian teams tend to practice cowboy coding

      With our westward expansion we eradicated the unique culture of --- wait, what?

  9. The decline of the american dev by bazmail · · Score: 2

    Why are you guys trying to create more coders with your new K-12 core subject? All that shit is being off-shored now. And thats before you look at the H1-B situation. You'd be better off flipping burgers. lol

  10. What am I? by freak0fnature · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I a programmer? Am I a Software Developer? Maybe I'm a Software Engineer! Maybe a software architect... honestly I can't tell anymore

    1. Re:What am I? by sinij · · Score: 1

      Am I a programmer? Am I a Software Developer? Maybe I'm a Software Engineer! Maybe a software architect... honestly I can't tell anymore

      Thus went Bob's from accounting existential crisis.

    2. Re:What am I? by Drethon · · Score: 1

      Code Monkey

    3. Re:What am I? by halivar · · Score: 1

      Post execution plans with wait stats somewhere the devs can see. Call it the "Wall of Shame".

    4. Re:What am I? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Am I a programmer? Am I a Software Developer? Maybe I'm a Software Engineer! Maybe a software architect... honestly I can't tell anymore

      If you can no longer tell: You're a software developer.

    5. Re:What am I? by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      Meat popsicle...

    6. Re:What am I? by JustNiz · · Score: 1

      I dont mind being called any of those things, just please dont call me a coder.

    7. Re:What am I? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Do you even MBA bro?!

      HR: So, what do you do?
      Job Seeker: I MBA

      HR: How long have you been doing it?
      Job Seeker: I've been MBA-ing for several years now.

      HR: Are you certified to code and develop?
      Job Seeker: My MBA-ing allows me to certify an anything you need me too. So if I don't got it, I can get it!

      HR: YOUR PERFECT!!! Can you start...yesterday?!!!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    8. Re:What am I? by Duhavid · · Score: 1

      "Do you even MBA bro?!

      HR: So, what do you do?
      Job Seeker: I MBA

      HR: How long have you been doing it?
      Job Seeker: I've been MBA-ing for several years now.

      HR: Are you certified to code and develop?
      Job Seeker: My MBA-ing allows me to certify an anything you need me too. So if I don't got it, I can get it!

      HR: YOUR PERFECT!!! Can you start...yesterday?!!!"

      Job Seeker: I started last month, where is my check?

      --
      emt 377 emt 4
  11. Translation: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Jobs for Programmers and Software Developers who are U.S. Citizens will decline by 8%, while lower-paying jobs for H1-B Programmers and Software Developers will increase by 8%

    Go ahead, foreign nationals, mod me down, I DARE YOU, you're just proving my point for me.

    MEMO TO ASSHOLE CORPORATIONS: Stop screwing over U.S. Citizens!

    1. Re:Translation: by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Huh? Why should they stop screwing over U.S. Citizens? What's special about that type of consumer?

      What makes you think any corporation gives half a shit about any country? Or the people living there?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Translation: by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Cute. He thinks that his gun will allow him to fight the country with the largest standing army and the biggest arsenal on the planet.

      It's kinda adorable.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Translation: by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Cute. He thinks that his gun will allow him to fight the country with the largest standing army and the biggest arsenal on the planet.

      It's kinda adorable.

      Kinda like the middle-east conflicts, which have all been resolved since the introduction of the largest standing army and the biggest arsenal on the planet into poverty-stricken areas which had only guns and improvised weapons....

      (I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning)

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
  12. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    No, Sexconker, it's the H1-B workers who are cash cows for asshole U.S. corporations who keep firing U.S. workers and hiring them, so they can make more money off of destroying the middle class in this country.

    You are all foreign cows. Mooo, MOOO go the H1-B cows!

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  13. Double Plus Good by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

    Great to see the 5 year plan to increase the number of programmers is already paying off. Time to push for more STEM.

  14. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by RenderSeven · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Forgetting 'programmers'/'developers' for a minute - contractors and consultants are leading market indicators since their demand peaks during market instability (both growth and contraction). And, IMHO deep embedded work is a leading indicator for the manufacturing sector since they produce hard goods such as appliances and infrastructure. That said, hourly rates are off FY2000 highs by 40% and are flat since the mid 90's, and there are almost no positions open. The only exception is medical devices where there seems to be a bit of a bubble happening, but the financing for the companies hiring is all highly speculative VC and hedge funds, which is a red flag if you expect a gig to run more than a few months. The contract agencies that place workers are compensating for the fewer positions by increasing markup, from as low as 20% on corp-to-corp basis to upwards of 40%, which they can only get away with by submitting cheap inexperienced workers and marking them way up, which seems to work since hiring managers are more likely than not to be clueless to what the job actually requires, which is in part due to hedge fund weenies placing line managers with inexperienced cronies or cheap imported labor.

    The view from down here is there was no recovery from 2000 or 2008, there is no recovery on the horizon, R&D infrastructure is being dismantled, manufacturing is gone, and the engineering job market is in a luge-ride race to the bottom. There's a little money to be made picking the bones or sucking up health care dollars or green energy dollars or whatever is fashionable enough to attract foolish greedy investors, but long term it looks bad to me. I'm getting out... buy into a wood pellet fab or something else that will do well when everyone becomes poor.

  15. Re:H1B by arth1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, legally speaking, that should not be the case. There will be 8% less jobs that are currently going unfilled because of lack of domestic workers.

    I'm sure that you know well that there are ways to prevent domestic workers from being able to get the job so they can use cheaper H1B resources.
    It's not uncommon to tailor-make the job description and application requirements to fit the candidates from a foreign staffing company supplying H1B applicants.
    But something as simple as "must be proficient in [insert language] for efficient coordination with outsourced development" will also do.

  16. Re:Programming is for Cows by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, Sexconker, it's the H1-B workers who are cash cows for asshole U.S. corporations who keep firing U.S. workers and hiring them, so they can make more money off of destroying the middle class in this country.

    This is why you must vote for Bernie (if you're a liberal) or Trump (if you're a conservative). Clinton, Bush and Rubio want exactly the same thing which is to make their corporate masters richer while gutting the middle class. When Disney was laying off their entire IT department and forcing them to train their H1B replacement workers, whose campaign do you think Disney was funding? Hillary and Jeb's. Not Bernie or Trump: Disney hates these guys.

  17. Re:Programming is for Cows by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    That's blatantly untrue. He's funny. And has a great hairpiece.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  18. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    At the rate things are going, I won't even bother to register to vote, let alone vote for any of them, because I don't think any of them are either qualified, or represent my interests.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  19. That can only mean by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    that the US is going to kick out 8% of the people working in programming jobs in the US who are only there on H1B visa, right?

    Right?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  20. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

    For many nations, their GDP is based primarily on the service sector of the economy; jobs that primarily local based. With globalism, the following axiom holds true "What can be in-sourced or out-sourced will be!" As Americans for most of us, we're too expensive in the global market! That, combined with our national debt, stagflation will remain until we focus on services and skills that can only benefit a local economy. Learning a craft or skilled trade in grey collar work is your best bet to maintaining a middle class job. You know, work that requires tangible results by human hands. If it's producing a product behind a keyboard, that jobs is in direct competition with the global market, and you can't live off an Indian or Chinese low wage. Not going to happen !!

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  21. Re:Open Source to blame, sort of by Chrisq · · Score: 1

    I've been telling you guys that's what's happening. Companies these days make products or for internal use by throwing together a bunch of open source software, rarely making a contributions in either case. It used to be just system integrators but now it's everybody.

    That's the new model.

    What's exacerbating things now is that so few people give a shit about the GPL these days, preferring other licenses that are easier to work with, as the goal of Open Source has transited from sharing to cost cutting.

    What you say is true, but I think less than half of the problem - in fact the fact that they don't contribute the solutions back leaves more tech work to do. The main issue is that the "cobbling together" is often outsourced to an overseas company that pays way under a Western country's minimum wage.

  22. Re:Programming is for Cows by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

    For that matter, there's nothing Conservative about the GOP. Fuck that K-Street boy Paul Ryan!

    Trump is many things, but he's NOT establishment.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  23. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

    When you remove the signals, the end result becomes much, MUCH worse.

    Does it become... noise?

    --
    Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
  24. get income based student loan repayment by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    income based student loan repayment plans are good even if you get a job for a few years then you are replied by an H1B then they can't touch your mc job min wage pay.

  25. Good News by byteherder · · Score: 1

    Good news everyone.

    Though the number programming job is in the U.S. will fall 8% in the next decade, the number of programming jobs in New Delhi will rise 120%

    1. Re:Good News by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Very unlikely, New Delhi is a smog infested industrial city and the "silicon valley" of India is Bangalore ;D
      And: the numbers make no sense. India likely has already more developers than the USA ... even if you total up the 8% drop of a whole country on a single city, it is not likely that you reach 120% increase in that city.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  26. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    24 year old, 1 year of experience, bachelors degree in computer science, in a small city in NYS north of NYC. I applied to 10 software dev jobs 4 months ago. I received 8 offers. I am absolutely no one special. My skill set isn't better than anyone else, my degree isn't from an overly prestigious university, etc.

    I understand my experience is anecdotal. But, your analogy doesn't hold up either. If anything a recruiter wants to make you think you have no options, and that you aren't special, so they can negotiate your wage down and make you take their crappy 6 month contract position in Looky Lew, west virginia,

  27. Great Time to Be a Programmer by Kagato · · Score: 2

    The BLS stats miss the point.

    1) The ability to off-shore programming jobs has been a reality for 20 years. It's done nothing but increase my bill rate. Here's the deal. Accenture, IBM, Wipro, etc come in to take care of all the IT needs. On paper the costs are cheaper. Five years later the companies that did off-shore development are typically very unhappy with their work product. Too much re-work, not enough velocity of code getting into prod. Once a offshore company has your entire IT process they can turn the screws and increase bill rates.

    I come in with teams that kick out the off-shore units, clean house and usually within a year the problem we have is our backlog doesn't have enough work. We're just too efficient. The reason it's increased my bill rate is companies pulled back from college hire programs. It really creates a problem keeping experience developers in the pipeline. I don't have much competition domestically because the ivy league MBAs that decided to offshore decided not to invest in the next generation workforce. I laugh all the way to the bank.

    2) Start Up Factor. You don't need to get hired to make money programing. There are hundreds of thousands of developers making money by releasing their own apps.

    1. Re:Great Time to Be a Programmer by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I come in with teams that kick out the off-shore units, clean house and usually within a year the problem we have is our backlog doesn't have enough work. We're just too efficient.

      I've done that for I.T. support work. The previous help desk company got caught generating unnecessary tickets to increase billing. The Fortune 500 company kicked them out and brought in the company I worked for. We were given 90 days to clean up a 900+ ticket queue, and got it done in 30 days. A year later the Great Recession kicked in. We were told to do the same level of work for half the cost. I got laid off because I was too efficient. Given the choice of firing three people or firing me, I got the boot because it was easier to lay off one person. Wasn't long before the company got replaced with another company that could do the work for half the cost with fewer people, which would later get replaced for generating unnecessary tickets to increase billing.

    2. Re:Great Time to Be a Programmer by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

      That's why I only do an hour or 2 of real work a week.

    3. Re:Great Time to Be a Programmer by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Most of my jobs are like that. Only Google kept me busy for 8+ hours a day.

  28. We could learn a lot from PharmD's by ErichTheRed · · Score: 1

    I'm not discounting what pharmacists do -- they know more about drugs than most doctors. I am saying that they have a very nice, protected work life, the entry into the field and licensure is limited to keep supply low, and demand is high; you can go anywhere you want and get a pharmacy job. If I could tell "19-year-old Me" anything, it would be to study hard and get a job in s profession, rather than fight tooth and nail for the last remaining IT or developer jobs.

    The reason CVS and the like haven't removed pharmacists from the stores, beyond liability reasons, is the fact that pharmacy is a licensed profession. It's a profession with a strong political lobby, just like doctors have and lawyers had. (The ABA sold out the legal profession by flooding the job market and allowing offshoring.) This serves as a very important lesson to techies everywhere -- even if you don't form a "union", which I think wouldn't work, we need to work together to stop things like H-1B abuses, offshoring of critical work, and rampant incompetency in the software and systems "profession." I've said it before, IT people and developers need to pool their resources, set up an engineering-style profession, and buy a few favorable laws. I don't know whypeople are so opposed to this - every large company pays for legislation, including laws that reduce employment and salaries for IT/dev.

    I think it would be a huge step forward:
    - No more idiot snake oil consultants selling magic tools -- I do systems management and can't even count the number of dashboards, data aggregators, etc. that are super-simple tools, get bought for 6-figures, and end up shelfware.
    - Salary progression over a whole career, not just the under-40 part.
    - Real training (not vendor propaganda)
    - While there will always be different levels of talent, the idea of not working with complete morons fresh out of coder bootcamp or vendor certification academies is very appealing.

    1. Re:We could learn a lot from PharmD's by mrchaotica · · Score: 2

      I'm not discounting what pharmacists do -- they know more about drugs than most doctors. I am saying that they have a very nice, protected work life, the entry into the field and licensure is limited to keep supply low, and demand is high; you can go anywhere you want and get a pharmacy job. If I could tell "19-year-old Me" anything, it would be to study hard and get a job in s profession, rather than fight tooth and nail for the last remaining IT or developer jobs.

      ...

      I've said it before, IT people and developers need to pool their resources, set up an engineering-style profession, and buy a few favorable laws.

      That's not always true. For example, I was on track to become a licensed professional civil engineer, but bailed to become a software "engineer" because the pay is much better. (Hopefully I might still be able to get my PE license since I work on CAD/BIM/structural analysis software and my supervisor is a PE, but I'm not sure.)

      IMO, the real strategy is to take advantage of the high earnings while they last, live frugally, and retire at 40 or so.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    2. Re:We could learn a lot from PharmD's by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      What about designing and writing software? Isn't that supposed to be what software developers do? If you are not doing that are instead doing all that other stuff you mentioned, then I would argue that you weren't really doing software development. No wonder it sucked.

    3. Re:We could learn a lot from PharmD's by fisf · · Score: 1

      This serves as a very important lesson to techies everywhere -- even if you don't form a "union", which I think wouldn't work, we need to work together to stop things like H-1B abuses, offshoring of critical work, and rampant incompetency in the software and systems "profession." I've said it before, IT people and developers need to pool their resources, set up an engineering-style profession, and buy a few favorable laws.

      This of course implies that you can effectively control offshoring for an activitiy that does not require physical presence in your country ("coding") to a pharmacy. Around here selling of most drugs is actually only permitted in person. Most unions specifically concern professions that operate in a physically restricted market. If your job can just plainly leave your country or continent, what you are describing is basically counterproductive. The kind of laws that you want to lobby for are benefits for IT people and companies (free and better education of talent, tax exempts. research grants, start-up funding, etc.)

    4. Re:We could learn a lot from PharmD's by pepty · · Score: 1

      the entry into the field and licensure is limited to keep supply low, and demand is high;

      The entry into the field (PharmD graduates) has almost doubled this century, so it's not very limited anymore.

  29. Tarrifs by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    the end of work visas. Public Education to train local talent. Requirements to hire local talent. You use Unions to lobby gov't and organize voting blocks that can stand up to the corps dollars. You also use Unions to get information out there to voting blocks so people know how to vote. Look at the AARP for a good example of a political organization that protects it's members interests. Their the reason the Right Wing hasn't been able to defund Medicare.

    It's a "you can go home, but you can't take the ball" approach to politics. If the corps want to leave they can. The fact is they _don't_ want to leave. The want the best of everything. Hell, they just plain want _everything_ for themselves. That's why it's called Winner Take All. America has more than enough wealth. We've been giving it away to the 1% out of some misplaced notion that if e don't give it up the other guy will take it. Stop that.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Tarrifs by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Well don't get your hopes up. Sanders is a feckless rug to be walked over by congress, and Trump is the worm that turns. Sorry to be a downer, but I'm holding out for much change from the bought-and-paid-for "Democracy".

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Tarrifs by vel-ex-tech · · Score: 1

      Well don't get your hopes up. Sanders is a feckless rug to be walked over by congress

      That may be true. It would still be a powerful message to the political establishment.

      Sure, Congress can override vetos and fail to propose bills in line with Sanders' goals. SCOTUS can rule things unconstitutional. However, I would hope that would mean that certain incumbents would find themselves out of a job and that the several states might move forward will calling for a constitutional convention.

      Then again, I've been saying for a while that the ballot box, jury box, and soap box may very well all be broken at this point. Things will get interesting in a bad way, since that leaves only one box left.

  30. Re:dishawashers of the future by guruevi · · Score: 1

    People have been saying that since Fortran on punch cards and the 90's brought plenty of languages that allow any simpleton to 'program'. Between Logo, BASIC, HyperCard, JavaScript, Python etc I don't know how much simpler you can make it.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  31. Skip the plumber by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    they'll train up for that too if the prices get too high. There are already laws in place to bring cheap blue collar labor in from overseas; mostly in corrupt right wing states in the South but their spread.

    Go into medicine. It's the last field that still has a Union (the AMA, who's smart enough to not call themselves a Union).

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re: Skip the plumber by msoftsucks · · Score: 1

      The AMA is no friend of the doctor. It has consistently sold out the doctor and hasn't reflected their interests for many years. They have rolled over time and time again, and the individual physician has been consistently hurt. They have supported and allowed laws to pass that pretty much makes it illegal for the doctor to have any say in what happens to them. The recent push to automate and force doctors to use EMRs is nothing but an attempt to help insurance carriers. EMRs do nothing to improve patient care or help doctors improve their business. Insurance carriers can and do perform audits at ONE TENTH the costs before the use of EMRs. Because of the AMA, there has been a wholesale transfer of wealth from the doctors to the insurance carriers. It is fair to say that the AMA has been bought lock, stock and barrel by the insurance carriers.

      --
      Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
      Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
  32. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by clodney · · Score: 1

    I can confirm that hiring talented C++ or Java developers in the Twin Cities area is very difficult. It takes us a long time to fill open positions, and headhunters are calling people everyday. And we are losing people to other firms that routinely offer someone a big bump to switch.

  33. You're completely missing the point by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    You need 1 software developer to manage a team of programmers and feed them requirements. This is a genuine drop in middle class American jobs due to outsourcing. There will be a small increase in the folks who manage the Indians and give them their marching orders...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  34. It works peachy by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    when you do what the summary suggests: Hire some local folks to feed the requirements to the offshore guys. The rank and file coder that used to make a decent wage is what's going to drop 8%. Those are a lot of middle class jobs going *poof*...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  35. Re:Programming is for Cows by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

    This is why you must vote for Bernie (if you're a liberal) or Trump (if you are scared of mexicans and muslims).

    Trump doesn't give a shit about anything but his own ego. All he cares about is that the spotlight is on him. He'll do anything and say anything to keep that going. If I was going to compare Trump to anyone on the democrat side it would be Hillary. He's just a weather vane. Granted he's a better weather vane than Hillary, but that's all he is.

  36. Re:Programming is for Cows by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

    For that matter, there's nothing Conservative about the GOP.

    Sure there is. They are pro-life and anti-gay. Those are pretty conservative positions.

  37. Re:H1B by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

    So we should expect all the executives to be fired first since they have the highest salaries.

  38. Re:Programming is for Cows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What a load of rubbish. People will pay fair local prices if they can afford to, and/or if they have no choice - but of course they want cheaper foreign stuff because they can.

    Also, American corporations are not suffering from high labor costs. They are squeezing the middle class because they want more profit. Wages have been stagnant (adjusted for inflation) for 40 years. Benefits and perks are practically nonexistent. Meanwhile profits and productivity are higher than ever, but the gains all went to the top 20%. So please spare us the "we can't afford American labor" whining.

    (captcha: diarrhea)

  39. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by vbraga · · Score: 2

    I don't want to be rude, but there's always plenty of junior positions everywhere. You can't really measure the job market by the average number of offers a newly minted graduate has. Even in a somewhat stagnant market, the companies will hire junior people and fire them after a few years to keep the average wage down, so new positions are always available.

    --
    English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
  40. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    And why couldn't a robot vending machine do your job? It would be a lot cheaper

  41. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I can find an Indian willing to do your job for 60k. 220k is too much money for a non executive position and a welder who is skilled can work in the oil fields for 100k

  42. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Very difficult. For the 1st embarrassing time of my career I got demoted back. I kept pointing to problems and solutions which is what us non professional managerial types do. I made very powerful enemy's who wanted to be told what to hear and stressed myself crazy. It's not for everyone

  43. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Dude I was told on Slashdot to change my major from computer information systems to business as by 2015 no one would program anymore. WORST mistake EVER! If grads with 0 years experience can pull 70k while managers with 10 years pull 55k I think that advise is full of it if you don't mind me saying so

  44. Re:H1B by arth1 · · Score: 1

    So we should expect all the executives to be fired first since they have the highest salaries.

    Except that it's the executives that decide who is to be fired...

  45. Re:dishawashers of the future by NormalVisual · · Score: 1

    This. The problem isn't that languages aren't expressive, intuitive, or simple enough, it's that the overall problem of distilling a general and sometimes nebulous set of requirements into a fundamental specific sequence of actions for a computer isn't something that can be defined as a general algorithm. The human brain can't even get it right much of the time, and its processing ability far exceeds that of any computer.

    --
    Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
  46. Re:dishawashers of the future by guruevi · · Score: 1

    The other problem is that most people couldn't logic their way out of a square box if their life depended on it. Most people don't know the difference between shall/none/and/or/whenever/if/else in even plain human language and can't think about the repercussions of actions two or three steps down the line. All that is necessary to be a programmer regardless of language, you have to be able to visualize or reason through several steps and ever widening branches of dependent logic.

    I am part of a club with about 100+ people that elect their leadership. Most people didn't understand these simple steps:
    "7 people are required to be in the leadership"; "If less people are running for leadership than required, the elections will continue as normal"; "If less than the required number of people are elected, then the next leadership will decide how to fill the empty seats". During the elections, some people dropped out and the number of elected officials would've been less than 7. People panicked and deducted that situation somehow wasn't covered by these rules and called for a special vote to replace the dropouts.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  47. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    Hey my family is from Looky Lew WV ! It's a great place for a dead end career.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  48. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Get off your lazy ass and vote.

    Listen, asshole: If you don't get a statement meant to convey APATHY when you see it, then you're probably not very clever, so STFU.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  49. Re:Programming is for Cows by mysidia · · Score: 1

    This is why you must vote for Bernie (if you're a liberal) or Trump (if you're a conservative).

    I want to vote for the guy that supports doing away with the two party system, reduces all terms for elected officials by 50%, creates an Instant voter recall process for all offices, Changes the law so that An independent commission has to approve all salary increases for members of congress/senate based on reviews of individual performance, sets a 12 year career limit for politicians (Cumulative number of years in House/Senate), mandates that all elections be proportional representation based on popular vote Instant Runoff Voting, AND Restricts public access to congressional votes as necessary, in order to conceal from/prevent special interest groups from discovering whether or not specific members of congress voted for or against their special interest.

    (In other words, do away with the excessive bit of transparecy that enables this pathological situation of representatives cowtowing....)

    I am torn between Bernie/Trump, because no candidate really serves us. I am Pro Economic Liberty, I am against Institutionalized Theft or Tyranny of the majority, AND Pro-Personal-Freedom.

    The Democrat party claims to support personal liberty, but then members go off and favor bullshit like "Gun Control.", And Health Care "Reform" that renders more people UNinsured than before; their members don't do a thing to counter privacy violations by the feds, they do nothing to reign in abuses by the TSA and the IRS "investigating" groups because if their political ideas... The Republican party claims to support economic liberty, but then they allow injustices like Absurd government spending, their party members in Congress lack the fortitude to actually act on their convictions and do what's necessary, they let Perpetual Copyright Extension slide, they do nil about Civil Forfeiture abuses, Patent System Abuses, and more, to go on and on, without lifting a finger.

    Also, I feel both parties are highly hypocritical, and lately, all the representatives of both major parties seem to be cowards.

    Otherwise... Please explain why Obama is so impotent and incompetent when dealing with important issues, and yet, nobody will stand up to him, not even members of the opposing party?

  50. Re:Programming is for Cows by mysidia · · Score: 1

    He represents the dysfunction present in the most bigoted of the Conservatives

    I think the "conservatives" in government may be closet liberals. The congress do not even attempt major strides when they have a majority. They support the other party by yielding to them.

  51. Re:Programming is for Cows by jareth-0205 · · Score: 1

    At the rate things are going, I won't even bother to register to vote, let alone vote for any of them, because I don't think any of them are either qualified, or represent my interests.

    I think you'll find that is actually interpreted as "I'm happy for any of them to represent me".

  52. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's a beginner's mistake. We all did that. It's a learning process.

    What you have to learn is who is the biggest fish in the pond and then simply latch on to him, nod when he nods and you're set. For about a month you have a hard time shaving without cutting your throat because you can't stand that asshole looking back at you from the mirror, but it gets better at the end of the month when the paycheck arrives.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  53. Re:dishawashers of the future by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Because, it is not simple?

    * software is running in a cloud
    * in that cloud I have a few XXX* MySQL databases
    * in that cloud I have WWW* web servers
    * in that cloud I have NNN* nodes of business logic
    * in that cloud I have CCC* big data NoSQL data stores

    (*)Insert your numbers for XXX, WWW, NNN, CCC

    The web servers are either Java/JSP/JSF or the .Net equivalent, they either run Linux or Windows, or are in fact VMs on an IBM Mainframe. The business logic nodes are JBosses, or Weblogic or SAP WebSphere containers, below that you might have either MySQL Databases or Oracle or something with stored procedures in PSQL. Besides that you have NoSQL data storage/processing like Hadoop, Spark, Cassandra programmed and queried in JavaScript.

    HyperCard would be cool in our days if it had a decent programming language, like NovoCard for iPads (which uses JavaScript)

    JavaScript actually is a more complex language than Java/C# ... no idea why you throw it into the mix of: simple!

    For all that above you need build and test environments ... developers that "speak" minimum 2 if not 3 and if you include shell scripting 4 languages.

    The technology stack I usually work with has two dozens of stuff that you would call "buzz words", however, we work with that stuff, like Docker, vmware, Linux, JBoss, Java/JavaScript/Groovy/Scala, Tomcat, Apache, Spark/Hadoop, Cassandra, MySQL, Bash/ksh, Jenkins (CI/CD), maven/ant/ivy etc.

    Modern day software development is not "simple" ... the amount of annotations for Java alone is mind boggeling, try to teach that to a student simply trying to learn a programming language.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  54. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by ranton · · Score: 1

    My wife is a pharmacist. I think you underestimate what a pharmacist contributes to the equation. A pharmacy tach does not usually have the same problem solving ability as a tech. The education requirement for a PharmD vs a tech isn't remotely comparable.

    I've worked with a lot of pharmacy techs and pharmacists, and agree completely that their level of education and problem solving capabilities are not remotely comparable. That is absolutely not in question here. The question is merely are pharmacy technicians good enough?

    Walgreens for instance started a push back in 2013 to elevate the responsibilities of pharmacy technicians. This has given their pharmacists more face to face time with their patients, but it has also pushed the limits of what pharmacy technicians can be expected to do. For the time being their focus is on improving customer service, but they are also positioning themselves for a time where health care costs are dramatically cut. If pharmacists are mostly just providing better customer service instead of performing more necessary tasks, they can be more easily displaced. Those new Walgreens desks where the pharmacists talk with patients could soon become kiosks where you talk to pharmacists in a calling center.

    When I went to pharmacy technology seminars and trade shows, the primary selling point of the software and hardware was reduced payroll costs. Reduced drug waste was minor because hospitals generally already do a good job with that by employing more pharmacists and pharmacy techs. And the vast majority of those payroll cuts went towards pharmacists, not pharmacy technicians. Usually the staff reduction was done through attrition instead of job cuts so there is less resistance from existing pharmacists on staff.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  55. Too many H1B visas by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    Not to mention, code can be programmed pretty much anywhere, up/downloaded. Too many cheap labor imports taking jobs.

  56. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    I find it surprising that some of you don't recognize apathy and hyperbole when you see it. Will I vote for someone? Yes. Will I like it? Highly unlikely, I think every single last one of them is a jackass in one way or another. Also, I reject your entire premise, I don't want ANY of them 'representing' me. I'd just as soon that they all were on the same plane at the same time, and the plane crashes and kills them all; the country would probably be better off in the long run. That being said where is my 'none of the above/no confidence' check-box on the ballot? I think we desperately need one, so we can toss the lot of them out, and repeat the whole process until we get down to someone who may not be able to run fast enough to escape being elected, but that won't be a total jackass. If such a person exists. While I'm at it I'll close my eyes and wish real, real hard that Santa Claus actually does exist, and that magic is real, because that's about as likely to happen too.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  57. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    ..oh, and one more thing, before you even say it: yes, I'm angry, and if you're not angry at the political mess in this country right now? Then I have to wonder why.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  58. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by Duhavid · · Score: 1

    We are too expensive.....

    No. We are more expensive, sure, but not too expensive.

    It is really stupid to allow ( and I'm not talking govt intervention ) all these jobs to flow out and be replaced by "grey market, low wage" jobs.
    Who will be the buyers when all these jobs and the wages thereto have been shipped elsewhere?

    American Corporations, you are selling your future. You, personally, wont be welcome in the countries you are sending the jobs to, and they will eventually exclude you ( as corporations and people ) from participating, once things hit a certain point.

    In the long run, wages will equalize. The countries we are sending the jobs to will gain economic power, political power, and will bring back more authoritarian dealings with people, there will be less personal liberty, less freedom, less happiness.

    Sad.

    --
    emt 377 emt 4
  59. Re:dishawashers of the future by guruevi · · Score: 1

    But in the end it's just a computer running a combination of relatively simple software. Putting it in the cloud sure adds complexity but it's just Linux machines running Java/C/Python programs which you could also run 'at home' or you could switch to a different stack that does the same thing.

    I haven't worked with Docker much but it's similar to Chroot/Jails/Containers and I know how to work with those and working with Docker is thus not all that complex (or necessary IMHO but buzz words seem to drive the industry). Any developer that has difficulties switching stacks is quite honestly not good at their job, that's what makes a developer a good developer is the ability to adapt and think about their programs in such terms that it doesn't matter what you write in it. Sure each language has it's oddities but if it's documented (unlike .NET), it's something you look up and manage.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  60. Re:Programming is for Cows by jareth-0205 · · Score: 1

    Well, I don't live in your country, so probably better that I don't express my opinion.

  61. Re:Programming is for Cows by jareth-0205 · · Score: 1

    Problem with having "None the above" is it doesn't actually lead to any sort of clear action. Like, what are you actually going to do with that figure... say 30% vote "None" and gets more votes than any other candidate. What then? You keep the old guy? You have nothing at all and plead for someone else to stand? What happens in the meantime?

    I see alot of (justified) anger or apathy, but never any clear (realistic) suggestion of what to do about it. The suggestions range from "shoot them all" to "we should re-think democracy and wouldn't it be, mm, nicer if we all just, mm, got along and came to agreement", but none actually get down to the issue of how do you command a leadership of millions of people.

  62. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    It seems to me if they were truly desperate, they would be looking all over the US, and to import people from Canada. Looking in the next state is hardly trying.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  63. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    Bullshit.

  64. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by KGIII · · Score: 1

    You missed out. The timing was fortunate and I was able to buy a bunch of hard assets in 2007-2009. You're not the only one who's thinking along the lines of what you're thinking (a few friends are actually getting *more* into franchise ownerships, for example) so if you're serious about it then you might want to get in on it soon. Or take a giant leap and play in the market...

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  65. Re:Programming is for Cows by KGIII · · Score: 1

    I vote. I have for 40 years. I vote third party - even if I don't want 'em to win. Why? I know that they're not going to win. However, if I do it long enough and enough people do it with me then the number crunchers are eventually going to notice. Then, and only then, will we have a chance at a third party candidate and *maybe* break this two-party system a little bit.

    I might be a Libertarian but my party hasn't fielded an electable presidential candidate, well, ever... I'll vote Green/Independent, Socialist, Communist, Satanist, or even for a friggen dog. I'm not scared. It's not like they're going to win. But, eventually, there will be enough of us who are sick of the shit and stop voting for the two major parties and we can actually consider getting some true representative democracy going.

    But no... Nobody listens to a David. I don't have pithy sayings suited best for bumper stickers. I'll probably be dead before this happens but I'm patient.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  66. Re:Programming is for Cows by KGIII · · Score: 1

    I'm clearly not a Republican or a Democrat and I'm not white. Sadly, I had to add that. Why? To answer your question in your last sentence. This is just an observation, but...

    They tried. They got called racists.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  67. Color me unsurprised by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Kids: Go into coding only if you enjoy it _and_ are good at it. Put CS studies on top. In that case you will have decent opportunities and decent pay. All the mediocre and bad coders (and there are a lot out there, as they are the vast majority) will become working poor in the near future.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  68. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by mlts · · Score: 1

    Don't forget transportation costs. Oil is cheap right now, but that can change. Some mines in the strait of Hormuz, for example. It might be that gas might spike like 2008, and if a 2-3 times jump in price was bad, how about a 10-20x spike, which could happen pretty quickly.

    Having the ability to make something or have a trade is good. Yes, the job at punching a button and having Ansible go and do the work is a nice thing... but if the economy tanks to 1929 levels, having a farm and producing or fixing things that people need will be important as well. It might be that one might have to start making 1920s-1960s style tractors and automobiles because access to the latest and greatest chips for ECMs may not be allowed (a China-led trade embargo on the US, perhaps.) In any case, metal shop skills, plumbing, electrician, HVAC, and other items are always needed. You can't offshore the guy who wires up the 120 circuits, nor can you outsource the lawyer who is in the courtroom.

    It is wise to have a good "on grid" set of skills, and a good "off-grid" set. Even if one's "off-grid" set of skills is something one wouldn't think about, such as a good musician, entertainer, or teacher. Having the ability to fall back on a community is important, and community, as a whole, is something lacking here in the US (especially with the political races trying their best to wedge and divide everyone.)

  69. Re:H1B by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

    The owners (shareholders) can decide to maximize their profits by hiring all H1B executives on the cheap.

  70. Re:END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    The weather here has a bad reputation. Aside from that, it's a very good place to live.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  71. Re:Programming is for Cows by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    I had to look up you comment history.

    Too bad you aren't consistent.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  72. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    I'm not Libertarian, even if I've been told I have leanings in that direction.. but I also have some leanings in all directions; I'm registered as Independent (and sometimes as 'None of the above', and then I leave the line blank, just to thumb my nose at the whole thing and make someone wonder about it). More than once I've considered voting for some third-party candidate, but there's a problem with that: I know damned well that someone, somewhere, is keeping track of who is voting for whom, and if I vote for someone who is running as, say, Libertarian, then my vote is saying "I agree with everything this candidate stands for", which may or may not be true -- and you have to admit, some of the third-party candidates, very often, are bigger whack-jobs than Republican or Democrat candidates. I'd have to do tons of background research on any of them just to make sure that there isn't some gigantic red flag on them, like they believe in pederasty, or plural marriage, or has been associated with some seditionist militia, or whatever, that would end up with me on some FBI watchlist.

    On the off-chance this guy is reading this: Having a 'None of the Above' choice on a ballot, would serve as a vote of 'No Confidence' in any of the candidates on the ballot, and if the majority votes 'None of the Above', then all the candidates would be disqualified, and the campaign process starts all over again, with and entirely different set of candidates; the person currently occupying the office being elected for would continue on an interim basis, until someone the majority can agree on actually gets elected. It would reduce the 'lesser of many evils' problem of elections.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  73. Re:Programming is for Cows by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Your vote should not be associated, in any way, with your name. It should be truly anonymous. If it isn't then you have bigger problems. Where I vote, it's not an issue. It's paper ballots still. ;-) Complete with a big, locked, wooden box that was probably built back in the 1940s or something.

    Anyhow, you probably fit one of the many schools of Libertarianism. I believe we've interacted enough to know that I'm actually (mostly) sane and I'm a Libertarian. There are *many* different schools within the Party. I am kind of surprised but the Wikipedia article is not bad. It's worth a look, if you're interested.

    I'm a Classic Libertarian (self-titled, I can do that) as I find it simpler to say than to express my displeasure at Randians and Republicans. I'm fairly close to what is known as a Socialist Libertarian. In fact, much of my ideals would indicate that I'm a socialist except I'm not. Unlike Socialists, I used reason and logic to reach my conclusions - as opposed to emoting my way to a decision.

    I've got a minute, I'll give you an example or two...

    I have my key hanging outside my house door, if you know where to look for it. I'm many miles away but, strangely enough, no one has stolen anything though I often have friends who make use of my game room while I am not home. Some even make use of my garage to work on their own vehicles. Why? Well, I have insurance. I'd rather you use a key than break the door down and steal my stuff.

    I support single-payer health care. Why? It's cheaper to prevent than it is to cure. It's cheaper to buy in bulk. Healthy people can, now that I mostly just invest, make me more money than sick people can. Healthy people can pay more in taxes and keep the government going along at a better pace than normal.

    I support inexpensive, perhaps State funded (in certain areas and with caveats) higher learning. Why? An educated populous is a more innovative populous and staying ahead of the game is essential if we wish to improve or maintain our station in life.

    See, I don't think people "deserve" those things. In fact, just the opposite. I think they don't deserve them but they should have access to them simply because it makes us more likely to succeed, acquire wealth, acquire power, and to be able to act on our liberties more easily. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to be free. The more assets you have, the more likely you can enjoy the liberties you have. ;-) You'd probably fit, fairly well, under the Libertarian tent for it is broad and welcoming. Me? I'm usually trying to be logical (which also includes emoting) and try to base my beliefs on logic and reason. I am a Libertarian because that's who I am. I am not a Libertarian because that's what the party is. I am, for the most part, really an Independent as I'm not one to strictly insist on a party line - I am not a zealot. However, it's "close enough" but has the varied caveats.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  74. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Your vote should not be associated, in any way, with your name.

    In a perfect world, yes, however..

    It should be truly anonymous. If it isn't then you have bigger problems.

    That's the thing: I trust the federal U.S. government (or to be fair, various parts of it; otherwise it's like saying 'all Chinese are bad' or 'all Muslims are bad' when what you mean to say is 'the Chinese government is mostly bad' and 'some so-called Muslims are bad, but they're only Muslims in name, not in actions') about as far as I can throw it. Various three-letter agencies are up to their elbows in data collected on natural-born U.S. citizens, demonstrably so, so I assume that they're getting into who is voting for who and what, as data to add to their 'profiling' capabilities.

    I'll have to read your comment more carefully later on and do some research.. but I'll be honest with you, I hate being 'categorized' and pigeon-holed, which is the smaller part I don't usually mention about why I don't consort with any political party. Eventually they all do something that rubs me the wrong way.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  75. Re:Programming is for Cows by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Then, by all means, remain Independent. That doesn't mean you wouldn't be welcomed under the Libertarian tent. Hell, we've got a bunch of Republicans under the tent already (they're not really welcome but we can't just kick 'em out). So, it's not like the label really matters.

    I'd like to convince them to leave but I'd never kick them out. Once upon a time we were recognized as being the crazy leftist party. Somehow, we've become the crazy rightist party - at least in perception. I suspect it's that we've let anyone with a voice and a microphone speak for us and it'd be a bit awkward if we didn't. I do wish they'd form parties with more accurate names as many of them aren't the least bit concerned with liberty and seem inclined to put business interests in front of the individual or commons.

    It's things like that which make me remember that Serenity Prayer thing that the drunks say. I just strip out the word God and I'm good to go.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  76. Re:Programming is for Cows by kheldan · · Score: 1

    we've got a bunch of Republicans under the tent already

    You know, if that means they're not backing Trump, then it's worth whatever you might have to bear, in my opinion. Trump is an extinction-level event for humanity just waiting to happen. The only good thing he's made happen is he's brought the real hardcore racists, bigots, and wingnuts come out of the shadows, so we know who all of them are now.

    I'll still go re-read some text on libertarianism in it's various flavors, and (attempt to) vet the candidates under that flag. I think it's time for me to get off the fence, anyway. What I always say is, "If what you're doing doesn't work, try something else, repeat until success". There will be some facets of my personality that will still cluck their tongue at me for 'wasting' a perfectly good vote, but on the other hand, I'll at least feel like my hands are clean; when whoever it is in the White House does something monumentally stupid, I'll be able to put up my hands and say "Hey, I didn't vote for so-and-so, don't blame me!".

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  77. Re:Programming is for Cows by jareth-0205 · · Score: 1

    Heh, that is true.

  78. Re:Programming is for Cows by euroq · · Score: 1

    For that matter, there's nothing Conservative about the GOP.

    This is a perfect instance of changing the facts to fit your views. Nobody likes inconvenient truths; that's not a right- or left-wing thing. The facts and evidence say that the GOP is Conservative.

    --
    Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
  79. Re:Programming is for Cows by euroq · · Score: 1

    We're stuck in a two-party system. I don't believe we'll ever get out of it in our lifetime, unless something catastrophic happens.

    --
    Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
  80. Re:Programming is for Cows by euroq · · Score: 1

    YOU ARE PRO BOLD.

    --
    Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
  81. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by euroq · · Score: 1

    A robot can't answer questions about the drug, evaluate whether or not it's right do the patient beyond what the MD knows

    Soon it will...

    --
    Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
  82. Re: Short term: change title from programmer to de by euroq · · Score: 1

    Yet we have a job that pays 220k.

    --
    Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
  83. Re:dishawashers of the future by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Docker is more than a chroot as each container can have its own IP addresses etc. so you can make a mini network of a few Docker containers. I guess other light weight containers can do the same.

    Regarding simple: you find all this simple because you work with it since years or decades. For a newbie from the university that is not simple.

    Everything is simple when you have enough experience ... especially if you learn to approach "complicated" stuff in a simple way (instead as in a complex way).

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  84. Re: END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by JosephWilliamCarson · · Score: 1

    Which just verifies what the last AC said.

  85. Re: END THE FED! I saw this coming 30 years ago. by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

    $200,000 a year and you can get anybody you need. If you cannot pay that, you have want, not need.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  86. Outsourcing... by LinuxLuver · · Score: 1

    The software company I worked for uses the existing developers to maintain and enhance the core of the main product. Anything new is developed in cheap, eastern European countries like Ukraine or Slovenia. They fly analysts out to do the talk to customers part as well as develop the specs and work with the programmers. So it's a case of the entire function is outsourced, not just the programming. This is mainly so the analysts are linguistically compatible.

    --
    Only boring people are ever bored.