College Students Are Rushing in Record Numbers To Study Computer Science (nytimes.com)

Lured by the prospect of high-salary, high-status jobs, college students are rushing in record numbers to study computer science. Now, if only they could get a seat in class. An anonymous reader shares a report: On campuses across the country, from major state universities to small private colleges, the surge in student demand for computer science courses is far outstripping the supply of professors, as the tech industry snaps up talent. At some schools, the shortage is creating an undergraduate divide of computing haves and have-nots -- potentially narrowing a path for some minority and female students to an industry that has struggled with diversity. The number of undergraduates majoring in the subject more than doubled from 2013 to 2017, to over 106,000, while tenure-track faculty ranks rose about 17 percent, according to the Computing Research Association, a nonprofit that gathers data from about 200 universities.

Economics and the promise of upward mobility are driving the student stampede. While previous generations of entrepreneurial undergraduates might have aspired to become lawyers or doctors, many students now are leery of investing the time, and incurring six-figure debts, to join those professions. By contrast, learning computing skills can be a fast path to employment, as fields as varied as agriculture, banking and genomics incorporate more sophisticated computing. While the quality of programs across the country varies widely, some computer science majors make six-figure salaries straight out of school. At the University of Texas at Austin, which has a top computer science program, more than 3,300 incoming first-year students last fall sought computer science as their first choice of major, more than double the number who did so in 2014.

Comments

Deja Vu

[Spy Handler]

I swear I saw this exact same thing happening in 1999.

And then a year later the bubble burst.

Re:Deja Vu

[Anon-Admin]

and people say Y2K was a myth and nothing crashed. lol

Re:Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

and people say Y2K was a myth and nothing crashed. lol

The market was doing pretty damn well in the first quarter of 2000 as a result of the Y2K "crash" that never really happened.

After that it all started going to shit (vaping was big back then too...liars were selling vaporware instead of e-cigs.)

In reality, the actual Y2K computing event didn't have much of an impact, and was pretty much forgotten about 72 hours after midnight.

Re:Deja Vu

[DickBreath]

> I swear I saw this exact same thing happening in 1999.

1980 by my recollection.

People rushing to learn about these new fangled computer thingies because you can get paid big money by pushing buttons on these things.

The problem in 1980, as in 1999, as now, is there are plenty of posers who can't program their way out of a paper bag. You could show someone a few statements of a simple programming language, and they could memorize them. But they couldn't put together the logic of a routine to calculate the sum of the numbers from 1 to 1000. Today the FizzBuzz test is a better example as the first-level sieve to weed out the incapable.

I seem to recall the 100 Best Jobs in America and Software Developer was number 1. No surprise unskilled talentless hacks are rushing to it.

Remember those books of the genre: "Learn ${LanguageX} in 24 hours!". How about changing that to Learn LanguageX in only Ten Years!

Re:Deja Vu

[jellomizer]

There was the popping of the Tech bubble, mostly because Y2k fixes have been applied, or most organizations have upgraded their systems to newer ones.
But what else was the Clinton Administration opening the H1B Visa which had begin to flood the market with Cheap IT workers too.
This created a double whammy. A lowering demand in IT goods and services with a rising supply of IT workers. This really caused the bubble to pop.

Back in the late 1990's Front Page "Web Developers" were being paid 70k a year, and real programmers were getting paid 6 digits out of college.
Tech workers were at the C table suite, with power and authority.... Then it kinda just popped, so as their pay lowered because there was so many more options and less demand, their power rolls have decreased too.

Tech jobs started to pick up around 2009 or so, while the economy is recovering, tech was needed to work smarter and with less resources. Which made tech workers one of the few Middle class jobs. No where near like it was in 1999 but a good solid career.

So now that the old guard boomer tech workers are retiring, we are seeing a new generation wanting a decent quality of life studying classes that will bring them there with rather clear job paths.

Re:Deja Vu

[DaMattster]

I swear I saw this exact same thing happening in 1999.

And then a year later the bubble burst.

The demand for big data is yet another bubble.

Re:Deja Vu

[WankerWeasel]

Happened to me. All the colleges were saying you'd make $60k minimum out of college with a degree in anything computer science, so everyone signed up. Then right before graduation the bubble burst and everyone was left taking anything they could find.

Re: Deja Vu

[reanjr]

If you have a decade of experience, it usually only takes about 24 hours to learn a new language well enough to get shit done in it.

Re:Deja Vu

[gmack]

Have you forgotten the mass of tech startups that went bankrupt at the time?

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Vaping was a big deal back then too. Difference being it was weed, and not small enough to be handheld.

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Those books weren't sold like that though. They were pushed on the masses regardless of experience as some kind of panacea for learning.

Re:Deja Vu

[ShanghaiBill]

The market was doing pretty damn well in the first quarter of 2000

Indeed. NASDAQ peaked on March 10th, 2000.

In reality, the actual Y2K computing event didn't have much of an impact, and was pretty much forgotten about 72 hours after midnight.

Y2K was mostly a non-problem. Some companies expended a lot of effort, and avoided problems. Other companies did absolutely nothing, and they didn't have any problems either.

The story was, that to save memory, programmers would store the year in two bytes instead of four. But this was mostly nonsense. In the olden days programmers would store the year in ONE binary byte, and add it to 1900. So the real crash will happen on January 1st, 2156.

Re: Deja Vu

[ShanghaiBill]

If you have a decade of experience, it usually only takes about 24 hours to learn a new language well enough to get shit done in it.

That is only if the new language is a "normal" computer language that consists of statements executed sequentially, with loops and branches, and the only new thing is a change in syntax.

If the new language, such as Prolog or Verilog, doesn't fit that paradigm, many programmers will struggle, and the "years of experience" can actually be a detriment. Some will never "get it".

Re: Deja Vu

[DickBreath]

These books were sold as a magical way to become a programmer in 24 hours.

If you have a decade or more of experience, as you say, then you've already got that ten years that I mentioned should be part of the title of the book.

Re:Deja Vu

[ShanghaiBill]

The demand for big data is yet another bubble.

In 1999, the demand for CS grads was from unprofitable VC funded startups. Most were bound to fail.

The current demand for data wranglers is mostly from big obscenely profitable multinational corporations. They aren't going away.

Re:Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to recall Intel coming by the University of Kansas back then and trying to talk the CS guys into bailing on school and moving to the valley ...

Re:Deja Vu

[HornWumpus]

Binary coded decimal. Two digits in a byte. How things were done, back in the stone age.

Re:Deja Vu

[tlhIngan]

Y2K was mostly a non-problem. Some companies expended a lot of effort, and avoided problems. Other companies did absolutely nothing, and they didn't have any problems either.

The story was, that to save memory, programmers would store the year in two bytes instead of four. But this was mostly nonsense. In the olden days programmers would store the year in ONE binary byte, and add it to 1900. So the real crash will happen on January 1st, 2156.

False. Lots of companies expended lots of money fixing the issue, making it a non-problem. People that didn't, often only seen minor issues (year 19100, computers that wouldn't boot because the BIOS wrapped, etc). There were plenty of real world non-computer Y2K issues as well, often with date fields that pre-populated "19" in the year.

And also false that one binary byte was used - dates are almost always stored in a form of BCD. This is exceptionally true if you had a mainframe computer because BCD was its primary mode of operation. In fact, Y2K issues cropped up in the 70s, because banks tried to issue 25 year mortgages and found out their computers gave errors trying to arrange the mortgages. So the financial industry was long aware of Y2K issues for decades before everyone else and they often had them fixed well before everyone else heard of them. Even industries like insurance would've ran into issues in the early 90s when term insurance started extending into the 2000s.

About the only issues were infrastructure and utilities who had little need for long term planning in their computer systems and thus would run into things only in real time. But they managed to survive, mostly because the issues lay within the billing and logging systems and not generally within control systems. This was also pre-smart meter era so even if the billing computer said you haven't paid in 100 years, they wouldn't cut your electricity off automatically.

Re: Deja Vu

[cyber-vandal]

Says someone who clearly wasn't involved

Re: Deja Vu

[AmiMoJo]

Right... but we are talking about college level learning, that costs a huge amount of money and takes years. These people are clearly serious and should grasp the basics after three years.

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

AC is right. Don't know why it was marked flame bait. Must have been by an idiot GenZ fag

Re:Deja Vu

[crgrace]

I did a bunch of Y2K work for a Fortune 500 food manufacturing company in 1998 as new college grad. Learned COBOL and everything. Most of their internal systems were running on MVS and I had to fix the date on several on them. So at least for this company the issue wasn't nonsense. The problem for me was verifying the fix though, as I spent 90% of my time building sandboxes for the program because I couldn't roll the time forward on production servers. I think in the six months I worked there (before going to graduate school where I hid during the dot-bomb) I only fixed three large systems (and this is working 40 hour weeks).

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a decade of experience, it usually only takes about 24 hours to learn a new language well enough to get shit done in it.

That is only if the new language is a "normal" computer language that consists of statements executed sequentially, with loops and branches, and the only new thing is a change in syntax.

If the new language, such as Prolog or Verilog, doesn't fit that paradigm, many programmers will struggle, and the "years of experience" can actually be a detriment. Some will never "get it".

As my EE professor loved to say, Verilog is not a programming language. It is a hardware description language. But that was before System Verilog.

Re: Deja Vu

[Aighearach]

Verilog isn't even a programming language though. That's the depth of your insight!

Also, 10 years of programming experience doesn't mean you can learn French well enough in 24 hours to get shit done.

That's about as applicable as Verilog.

It took me less than 24 hours to be able to get shit done in Haskell, and I'd always avoided functional languages by preference. It just isn't really that different if you understand how the computer works. It would take another 6 hours or something if I had to do it again, because I still don't have a lot of experience in it. But no problem.

Whereas Verilog is a hardware description language. It doesn't program anything. It describes a hardware logic circuit. That has as much similarity to writing software as a pile of wires and transistors.

Look, we get it; you know how to fix your own desktop. And that makes you a computer nerd. But stop trying to nerd-splain programming to programmers.

Re: Deja Vu

[Aighearach]

Experienced programmers don't use those books. It would probably take more than 24 hours that way. Those books are for beginners to get the basics.

The technique is to just read the documentation that comes with the language. It is already targeted at experienced people who can understand technical words. No purchase necessary.

Re: Deja Vu

[ShanghaiBill]

Verilog isn't even a programming language though.

Verilog is Turing-complete and can do anything any other programming language can do. The difference is that it doesn't do stuff in sequence. It all happens at the same time.

Whereas Verilog is a hardware description language.

Verilog can be run on a CPU just like any other language. That is usually how it is initially debugged and tested. Even when deployed, most Verilog programs run on FPGAs, not custom hardware.

The inherent parallelism requires a different mindset. Many programmers have a hard time with that, or even with GPGPU programming in C, or writing shader pipelines. Ascending the learning curve is going to take more than 24 hours. It is a lot more than new syntax.

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

It took me less than 24 hours to be able to get shit done in Haskell

I'm skeptical you got any more shit done in 24 hours of Haskell than putStrLn "Hello, world". No one gets shit done in Haskell without wading through a thousand pages of docs on monad transformers or manages to catch up with tagless final.

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm sure someone can write a "French Interpreter" that will generate "virtual wine" and run on a CPU. That doesn't make it a programming language.
 
You LOSE. Just tuck your tail in already instead of prancing around and proudly spewing misinformation. Got it?

Re: Deja Vu

[Ol Olsoc]

But stop trying to nerd-splain programming to programmers.

Never try to explain anything to Programmers.

Re:Deja Vu

[Opportunist]

That's pretty much the problem here. This isn't business administration. You don't get far by rote learning. Unfortunately, that's the most you can hope for if you just do it with your eyes on the money, not because it's really something you WANT to do.

The big bucks, though, are only paid to those that actually are not only very interested in the matter but also have the mindset to get into it. It's the people that thrive on solving problems with computers and who don't consider it a chore but a leisure activity to dig into complex code structures, those that actually enjoy doing those things, who are doing it because they want to do it, not because money is even involved.

And yes, it is actually very possible to learn a language in a single day. If, and only if, it is a language from a paradigm that you fully understood and where you already know a few related languages (and with "know" I mean "be able to teach someone"). If you're proficient in C++ and Java, learning C# is doable in a day. You'll not have the same level of expertise and you'll probably spend a good amount of time with the MSDN open, something a seasoned C# programmer probably wouldn't need and could probably do much faster, but you will understand what's going on and apply what you know to the new language. I would not necessarily assume that it's going to be so easy with a fundamentally different language concept like, say, if the aforementioned C++/Java programmer was tasked with learning Prolog. Yes, he'll certainly pick it up faster than someone with zero programming background, but I highly doubt that a day will suffice.

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Lmao. Yup. The gold rush PHP developers are heading West again.

Re:Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL the business applications we used in a commercial bank (70's-80's) , both purchased and home-grown, stored dates in Julian format YYDDD, neatly fitting in 3 bytes. Date arithmetic was always fun until a general subroutine was created. I remember thinking that I did not want to be a programmer when Y2K was approaching. Fortunately that bank died from top management with delusions of grandeur and was liquidated and the accounts/assets turned over to a mega-bank.

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

I regularly interview folks for programming job and FizzBuzz is the warm up before the harder problems. If they can't do that it's game over.

Re:Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. All the Blockchain startups will go bankrupt at the same time in short order.

Re:Deja Vu

[AmiMoJo]

University is supposed to give you a solid foundation and the skills to learn more. Employers need to understand that graduates will need mentoring and training.

A lot of this complaining is really them saying that they wanted experienced employees for graduate wages.

Re: Deja Vu

[doom]

If you have a decade of experience, it usually only takes about 24 hours to learn a new language well enough to get shit done in it.

Yeah, that's what we tell people when we're trying to get hired, but it's a gross exaggeration. Every language is a little universe of it's own that takes time to understand-- in a well established language, just knowing what libraries exist already and how to use them can take years to begin to understand.

Re: Deja Vu

[Bengie]

I know a senior software engineer who can't figure out how to setup Outlook filter. He has to call IT every time. The filters he needs are of the "let me google that for you" difficulty.

Re: Deja Vu

[Bengie]

Around the age of 11, I learned about SMP. It seemed obvious to me at the time that there must be instructions to "synchronize" the CPUs data because it would be physically impossible for all CPUs to be perfectly in sync without a propagation delay that would affect core frequency. Since the CPUs ran at the same frequency, they obviously had some way of checking or marking that a location in memory was ready.

I spent a lot of time doing thought experiments along these lines. By the time I wrote my first program 10 years later, I decided it was a good fit for multithreading. Took me about 24 hours to google how to do those "synchronizations" that I thought about 10 years prior. Multithreading pretty much worked exactly how I concluded, plus a few nifty features like CAS that simplified things.

Nearly every programmer I've dealt with has issues with thought experiments. They can't get past something concrete that is currently happening and that they can step through a debugger or see a trace. I've never understood this. Code will work exactly as it is coded. Why does one need to see a trace to see how it "might" move through the code and how each line of code "might" change the data.

Re:Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Going away is one thing. Bubble burst is another. Bubble bursting doesn't mean it will go away but the value goes down to where it really is. Right now, it is a bubble meant it is over valued. Wait until the situation hits a point where it bursts, then the value of data will go much lower than it is now. That's what I interpret from the parent' post.

Re: Deja Vu

[Shaitan]

I guess that depends on how you learned to program. I didn't find Verilog to be all that difficult.

Re: Deja Vu

[Shaitan]

Even the 24hrs learning books being discussed weren't suppose to literally be 24hrs but rather 24 chapters.

They varied in quality but I worked through the C++ one some time ago and by the time I was done with it I'd combined it with online material and written a very simple little "game" with small pixel creatures that moved and ate in two dimensions. They had small neural nets controlling their behavior, a simple genetic code I devised, and an evolutionary algorithm. All written from scratch except for the graphics libraries. Of course, the book didn't prompt me to do that either I just needed ways to utilize and cement what I was learning that weren't contrived and were interesting to me.

Libraries and frameworks are what takes all the time. There are so many competing answers out there and so many outdated answers out there that it is tough to wade through them and now many of such large scope that you are basically programming in the framework and not the language.

Re: Deja Vu

[Shaitan]

"I've never understood this. Code will work exactly as it is coded. Why does one need to see a trace to see how it "might" move through the code and how each line of code "might" change the data."

That makes little sense to me as well but I do use those tools see how it actually did move through rather than how I intended for it to move.

"Nearly every programmer I've dealt with has issues with thought experiments."

Not just thought programmers I've seen the same with computing and networking problems as well. Some of the people I've worked with in different areas of computing basically seem to have a big memory bank of problems and solutions/questions and answers/rules/syntax etc. And hey, they work much more quickly than I do most of the time. In some cases they learn more quickly as well because they just take everything on faith whereas I have to test, explore, and actually understand it. The difference is that I'm building a model of how it works in my head, lots and lots of little models. I'm slower to answer because I'm running a little simulation in my brain when something goes wrong to determine where the problem might be and similarly plugging a potential solution into such a model. Where the information wasn't provided at some point the model is complete enough that I can fill in the holes on my own. The more models I learn the better many of the existing ones become because computing and digital logic problems are solved along patterns.

At the end of the day though the memory learners run into roadblocks and walls they can't get past because they don't have anything in their memory that solves it. My mental models don't depend on already knowing the answer, in fact, they lead to answers I never learned anywhere but can apply with a high degree of confidence. Thought experiments as you put it are ultimately why I'm a high school dropout with a few college courses earning a solid six figures.

Re: Deja Vu

[Aighearach]

I fucking write Verilog at work. When I said it wasn't a programming language, it was because I know what the fucking difference is between describing a circuit using hardware description language, and writing software (firmware) in a programming language.

It is absolute bullshit to claim that Verilog "can" do anything any other programming language can do. You're just standing next to a keyword waving your hands, claiming that some theory is involved. Doubtless. And yet.

Re: Deja Vu

[Aighearach]

OTOH, if you build a composite color TV hardware driver using 3 or 4 ATTINY microcontrollers, you have one providing the clock signal to the others and the propagation delays are small enough not to matter. And that is without even having a motherboard that exactly matches the wire lengths.

In an FPGA it is typical to create multiple clock signals to synchronize different parts. A lot of the time that's the whole reason for using an FPGA; to implement synchronous modules in an isolated environment that is more conducive to synchronization than a modern CISC CPU with all its non-deterministic emphasis on throughput.

I totally agree about debugging. The computer does what the code told it to do, consistently. Think you have a bug? Look at the code, asking, "what is this code actually telling the computer to do?" Understanding the code is usually the quickest way to understanding what the false assumption was. "What instructions other than the ones I think I gave would cause this output?" is another great step before resorting to the debugger.

That said, debuggers are very useful when the bug is in a library. Understanding all the libraries would be infinite yaks to shave. Luckily though, the bug is usually in the application, because unit tests.

Re:Deja Vu

[kbahey]

The discussion misses an important point.

Storage of the year internally (BCD or otherwise) is irrelevant when it comes to Y2K and its remediation.

Most business programs were written in COBOL. For older programs that were not written in the mid to late 1990s, the programmers declared the temporary buffers that are used to retrieve data from files or a database, and process them, like so for a date:

...
05 INVOICE-DATE PIC 9(6). ...

Or
...
05 BIRTH-DATE PIC(6). ...

In other words, it is YYMMDD, and that is two digits for the year. And all calculations were done assuming two digit dates. If the program calculated late invoices (or age, bank interest, payroll, ...etc.) and the dates all fall between, say 1950 to 1999, all is well. Dates can be checked to be before or after a certain date. Data entry can be validated that a date is not greater than today's date, and so forth.

If the programmers had the foresight to store the date in 8 digits, like so:

...
05 INVOICE-DATE PIC 9(8).

That is, CCYYMMDD, then all is good, and that was one of the main ways of how Y2K fixes were done.

However, if the clock rolled from 1999-12-31 to 2000-01-01, and you were storing only two digits for the year, then all hell breaks loose, and many of the calculations, range checks, validates would fail for the wrong comparisons.

Remediation involved doing an inventory of the code, and checking all dates (temporary memory usage, as well as file/database storage) to make sure they can deal with the millennium change. If not, then the programs have to be fixed, the data migrated to the new format and all that tested and put in production before any calculation in the future would fail.

So it does not matter how many bytes were used or if it was BCD or not. Even if it would, the programs would fail if using 6 digit dates, or 2 digit years, regardless.

Yes, I started my professional career writing COBOL programs.

Re: Deja Vu

[Bengie]

You just opened up m brain and looked in. Slow but steady. Not really an option for me. I'm pretty much useless until I've created a mental model, though the more I learn, the faster I can identify an existing model and make minor tweaks. It is very important to not shoehorn models just because of familiarity.

Re: Deja Vu

[djinn6]

Sometimes the bug is not in your code but in the execution environment. The disk is full. The remote machine is unresponsive. The thread pool is too small. Just reading code will not help you discover these problems, because you make all sorts of assumptions about the environment. A pool size of 1000 might seem reasonable, until you look at the network traffic and realize there's 20k requests per second.

Re: Deja Vu

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I was getting into the game without college and terrified I couldn't get my foot in the door. It turns out no matter how "smart" you are, or how good you are at tests and school, being good at tech takes something more. That's just to be in any way capable. Being good takes a passion. Next up, CS dropouts reach epic levels, the Earth spins, 10 years or so a new bubble, same story. - nu11

Re: Deja Vu

[reanjr]

When you are working with heavily dynamic and abstracted code, you will waste a LOT of time reading code that never runs. The code is not representative of what's going on if the previous coders did not know how to write good code.

Stuff like:

fn(str s) {`do${s}`(true)}

If you know what that function does or where you should be looking next in the code without a debugger, it's only because you wrote the crap code in the first place.

Re: Deja Vu

[Aighearach]

Right, right, I'm sure it is very insightful for people who don't know what code is even running.

And for people who do, not so much.

You seem to presume making changes while stumbling in the dark with other people's code that you don't understand, but it might not be the only state available.

But in my experience, people who instantly turn to debuggers and introspective tools when they hit a bug are not learning what the code does, so if somebody else wrote it, then they are eternally stuck in the state you describe. Whereas, people who turn to the code will possess a growing understanding of the code.

Echos old times

[SuperKendall]

Back when I went to college, there was a similar rush - to the extent that one college I applied to, said I couldn't get in because the CS major I had chosen was full! Lucky that wasn't my first choice, but it was a big state school so it was quite a surprise as that was one of the backup choices...

Hopefully this is a more sustained rise in CS interest, which does need good people that understand most CS principals.

Re:Echos old times

[Drethon]

Back when I went to college, there was a similar rush - to the extent that one college I applied to, said I couldn't get in because the CS major I had chosen was full! Lucky that wasn't my first choice, but it was a big state school so it was quite a surprise as that was one of the backup choices...

Hopefully this is a more sustained rise in CS interest, which does need good people that understand most CS principals.

And hopefully it is actually learning CS principals of logical math and algorithms, rather than just learning how to compile Java/C#/Python/whichever the most popular language is. Rushes like this concern me a little that the schools wont take the time to teach properly.

Re:Echos old times

[hierofalcon]

Learning principles would be even better.

Re:Echos old times

[DickBreath]

Echoes old times indeed!. I posted elsewhere here about how it was like this back in 1980. A rush of people who see dollar signs but don't have the skills or the ability to think logically enough to program their way out of a paper bag.

Re:Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed - even better than logical math.

Re:Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

rather than just learning how to compile Java/C#/Python/whichever the most popular language is

Buddy if you think slow and steady is the reason for the push from the schools, then do I have a bridge to sell you. I once heard one of my own CS teachers say the only reason they agreed to teach Java, besides the mandate from higher ups, was because it didn't require teaching the students about memory management. I.e. RAM usage and and making sure you have enough allocated memory to flush working data to disk safely if the system craps itself.

This is all about money as far as the schools in general are concerned. So long as Tech pushes government loan tuition payments into record setting profits they'll keep doing it as cheaply as they possibly can. Despite any and all needs of the students trying to better themselves, or the society that will have to deal with a bunch of indebted and substandard programmers and their security vulnerability laden and bug ridden creations they also have to clean up after. After all society decreed "Companies need not concern themselves with the well-being of society, only ever increasing profits." Well, guess what society? The schools heard your decree, and considering you just keep handing out free money with no strings attached, they're more than happy to oblige.

Re:Echos old times

[lgw]

I once heard one of my own CS teachers say the only reason they agreed to teach Java, besides the mandate from higher ups, was because it didn't require teaching the students about memory management. I.e. RAM usage and and making sure you have enough allocated memory to flush working data to disk safely if the system craps itself.

Java is a quite reasonable langues to start teaching in. My school started with Scheme, for mostly the same reasons (pre-Java), though the department did have a hard-on for functional programming.

I don't have any problem with students learning to program in Java. What causes problems is students only learning to program in Java.

Re:Echos old times

[epine]

And hopefully it is actually learning CS principals of logical math and algorithms, rather than just learning how to compile Java/C#/Python/whichever the most popular language is.

Woe to the CS program that forgets that CS is also a craft.

Enlightened code monkeys also bring a lot to the table.

Commanding officer: Build this!

Sargeant: How to not get yourself killed when the giant edifice collapses around you in smoke and ruin.

I find that a little bit of theory goes a long way. There's an awful lot of keyboarding practiced in the trenches where command of deep theory is not your primary calling card.

Re:Echos old times

[AmiMoJo]

I'd avoid object oriented languages to start with. OO is something you want to learn later, after you learn how computers and software actually work.

Otherwise they really seem to struggle with things like pointers. Going from non-OO to OO is much easier, no effort at all really.

Re:Echos old times

[thegreatbob]

Reminds me of the spoof O'reilly book covers "How to Copy-paste from StackOverflow" and "Googling the Error Message"

Re:Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC because I already modded.

I can see this both ways. I was taught structured programming in mid 80's. By the time OOP was a thing, I was like "why"? If you are used to writing everything as a function, hopefully reusable in other projects, then you don't need OOP. OTOH, if you were taught OOP and someone tried to teach you a structured language, you'd ask "why"? Because you can do everything you need in OOP.

Don't get me wrong. Obviously programmers should know both, and moving from one to the other is an equal effort in my opinion. But there are some instances where if you were taught OOP first, you wouldn't make a good structured programming programmer. The cases that come to mind are writing device drivers, embedded software, and all the stuff that is required to be fast and have a small footprint. Coming from OOP, not only are you going to have to learn structured programming, but how memory allocation, variable storage, stacks, and so on work.

Re:Echos old times

[Drethon]

And hopefully it is actually learning CS principals of logical math and algorithms, rather than just learning how to compile Java/C#/Python/whichever the most popular language is.

Woe to the CS program that forgets that CS is also a craft.

Enlightened code monkeys also bring a lot to the table.

Commanding officer: Build this!

Sargeant: How to not get yourself killed when the giant edifice collapses around you in smoke and ruin.

I find that a little bit of theory goes a long way. There's an awful lot of keyboarding practiced in the trenches where command of deep theory is not your primary calling card.

And the theory doesn't need to be deep. Just teaching a student enough theory that they understand the structure of how to develop a program, irrespective of language. As opposed to the simplified here is problem, solution is these lines of code method of teaching, that leaves developers confused later in life when they have to create something different from what they've done before.

Re:Echos old times

[Aighearach]

It is only the people who were indoctrinated in functional programming ideology who feel this way, and they're the least productive faction in a non-academic setting.

The computer itself is procedural, and the use cases for computing are entirely about side effects. (eg, output)

If you learn things from a procedural perspective you can be productive using anything, from ASM to C to Scheme or whatever.

The point is about learning the basics without ending up inside a faction; then you can do anything, including using the same tools that members of factions use. But you won't end up with weird perversions like being against side effects or thinking of software objects as actual things instead of thinking of them as merely a way of organizing data.

By the way, the term "structured programming" became deprecated around the time you first learned it. The factions your whole career have been: procedural, object-oriented, and functional. These are all structured programming paradigms. The only thing that structured programming stands separately from is the older practice of unstructured programming, where you just jump or "goto" other places in the code on an ad-hoc basis without any clear rules or structure.

Re:Echos old times

[Drethon]

Learning principles would be even better.

I think it becomes confusing because the logical math, or mathematics logic or something course in my college was not like Boolean logic math but more of the logical thinking math. You have a problem, don't give the answer, write down the process that would be used to find he answer. The sort of thing that programming is really based around, not writing code, but coming up with the optimal process to solve a problem. I'm also not talking about algorithms where you find the fastest solution to a problem, this is kind of the first level before that.

Re:Echos old times

[saccade.com]

I also recall a similar stampede to enroll in CS when I was an undergrad decades ago. I also remember an attrition rate of around 80% by the time I was a senior.

Re:Echos old times

[Aighearach]

And yet, I can web search the error message and figure out what the problem is most of the time, and very quickly, but idiots whose noses are held too high for that would spend an hour chasing things around in a debugger to figure out they had a typo or an incorrect dependency version.

There is no just cause to get snobby about that stuff, I get called in to clean up messes at both ends of that spectrum. And idiots who didn't know what they were doing and tried to paste their way out of a hole waste time and money and produce disgusting results, but that asshole who refuses to ask for directions can easily have wasted an order of magnitude more money while failing.

That's because, that fucker has 30 years of experience and that's why he refuses to look it up. I can fix it easy, because I don't presume to have memorized all the manuals, and I keep looking up the same shit every time. I'm not ashamed of running "man sprintf" almost every day of my life, or reviewing the strncpy manual for the correct way to test the results; I'm simply not at all concerned by the fact that it is simple and I already understand it. Who cares? People still screw it up all the time, but not people who paste it from the manual and then change the names. Those people get it right unless they make a typing error when changing the variable names.

The hard parts of programming are architectural and can't be pasted.

Re:Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

If you view OO vs. functional programming as a dichotomy you have already failed.

Re:Echos old times

[Opportunist]

Don't get your hopes up. What you'll get today is the same kind of people you got at the turn of the millennium: People who don't care whether they study CS, BA or law, what they care about is money and where they go to is whatever promises the most of that.

And they'll be facing the same problem as those back at the turn of the millennium: That CS is fundamentally different from BA and law in that simply hoovering up the book's content and barfing it onto the test isn't enough to pass.

Re:Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha Ha He Ho Ha Ho Hum.

Google results when googling error messages typically returns pages and pages and pages of idiots blowing smoke out their asses tying to pretend they know of what they spout when it is obvious they have zero clue whatsoever.

This is especially true for "Microsoft" error messages which return a raft of results from Microsoftians who have no fucking clue how anything works at all. They just love to hear themselves type.

Google needs a way to turn idiots off

Re: Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

You are obviously not a (competent) programmer. Why don't you run along back to the marketing department and spend a few months discussing what color the logo should be.

Re:Echos old times

[wertigon]

The computer itself is procedural

This stopped being true with the advent of Multi-Core and FPGAs. If the world is still clinging to this belief, then no wonder most programmers cannot code multi-threaded programs.

Re:Echos old times

[doom]

And yet, I can web search the error message and figure out what the problem is most of the time, and very quickly,

Seriously? When I search on an error message I tend to find half of the hits are other people asking the same question I am, and the other half are out-dated answers to a similar question that I'm not actually trying to ask.

But then, this could be because I'm one of those idiots who tries to figure out things for myself first before I do web searches.

Re:Echos old times

[wisnoskij]

I have programmed in quite a few languages over the years, and Java is fantastic for teaching mostly because it is very generic. Pretty much every other language out their has some major weird quirk that is completely unlike all other languages. Sure, learning Scheme will teach you many basic programming skills, but will not teach you how to actually code in any other language at all. You will hardly be in a better position than a Math student to program in Java or C after being taught in Scheme.

Re:Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

I think logical math and algorithm are related but not exactly the same as algorithm. Logical math is to find/analyze a solution to the problem regardless how to implement the solution. Algorithm doesn't focus on correctness of the solution but rather to come up with the processes/steps to solve the problem, and then analyze the performance of those processes/steps. So you can't simply ignore one or the other. Often times, you would be doing both together at the same time without knowing.

If there are many of those who are not properly trained in CS in the real world, these people may perform the algorithm part well but would lack the logical part. If they perform the logical part well but not the algorithm part, then it is acceptable but not exceptional...

Re:Echos old times

[Anonymous Coward]

I have programmed in quite a few languages over the years, and Java is fantastic for teaching mostly because it is very generic. Pretty much every other language out their has some major weird quirk that is completely unlike all other languages. Sure, learning Scheme will teach you many basic programming skills, but will not teach you how to actually code in any other language at all. You will hardly be in a better position than a Math student to program in Java or C after being taught in Scheme.

Hmm... I learned Scheme in class before I learned LISP (used in AI/robotic classes). The language actually helps me learn LISP much quicker. Scheme and/or LISP also help you be more familiar with recursive which seems to be troublesome to some people. That's the advantage of these languages.

Re:Echos old times

[lgw]

I disagree, strongly. College is not there to make the learning curve steeper; rather, the opposite. The easiest way to start programming is to use simple tools to solve simple problems, then progressively harder problems. There's no need to understand pointers or recursion before you understand the basics. Once students have a firm understanding of functions, variables, references, and basic problem solving, then you can move to how it all works.

There's no point trying to explain a call stack to someone who doesn't understand a function. Heck, that's the essence of bad teaching IMO: trying to explain something before you explain the problem that it solves. Humans are good at learning tools, but bad at learning arbitrary abstractions.

Once nested function calls are well understood, then peek under the covers, ideally in an exercise where students themselves have to implement a toy language. The the call stack is a tool that solves the problem in front of them, and will be very easy to understand. Heck, they may even get some exposure to other calling conventions (the architecture I used for the first 5 years of my career had no call stack, but a different approach entirely).

Re:Echos old times

[lgw]

Coming from OOP, not only are you going to have to learn structured programming, but how memory allocation, variable storage, stacks, and so on work.

It's not call "OOP" any more. It's just called "programming". That ship sailed 20 years ago. Programming without objects to naturally encapsulate data is a skill higher up the skill tree. Also, you seem to be conflating "OOP" with "managed code". Learning how things work under the covers is naturally going to follow after learning how things work at all.

Re:Echos old times

[Drethon]

I think logical math and algorithm are related but not exactly the same as algorithm. Logical math is to find/analyze a solution to the problem regardless how to implement the solution. Algorithm doesn't focus on correctness of the solution but rather to come up with the processes/steps to solve the problem, and then analyze the performance of those processes/steps. So you can't simply ignore one or the other. Often times, you would be doing both together at the same time without knowing.

If there are many of those who are not properly trained in CS in the real world, these people may perform the algorithm part well but would lack the logical part. If they perform the logical part well but not the algorithm part, then it is acceptable but not exceptional...

Yeah, this describes what I was thinking pretty well.

Re:Echos old times

[djinn6]

When I studied CS, there were maybe a tenth the number of CS students compared to now, but the attrition rate was around the same.

I think people are just bad judges of whether they have the logical thinking skills required for CS.

Re:Echos old times

[Bengie]

but idiots whose noses are held too high for that would spend an hour chasing things around in a debugger to figure out they had a typo or an incorrect dependency version.

An action in and of itself is neither right or wrong, it's the reasoning. The more I "waste time debugging", the better I get at correctly identifying when I should skip debugging and quickly search. Personally, I like the challenge. This does make me slower, but the more I learn from my mistakes, the less often I make mistake and the faster I realize what my mistake was.

This has an unforeseen side effect that the bulk of production issues are because many programmers use error messages as a crutch, and quickly finding the answer reduces the amount of mental effort, aka exercise, in order to reason about the issue. I am in no way saying what you're doing is wrong. I am just saying is that anyone who does an action because the action is the correct way to do something is just doing a rain dance. Each person is different and need to find out what works best for themselves, but there are some good rules of thumb that should be learned and practiced before making personal alterations to processes that tend to work well.

Re:Echos old times

[Aighearach]

The bulk of production issues are because the programmers didn't understand the code that they wrote.

There is no solution for that, because "hire better programmers" isn't actionable.

I'm not convinced it makes any difference at all which system of debugging is used other than in the time that is spent on the specific bugs; the best programmers will look directly at the code to find the problem. If they can't find the problem quickly, whatever gets them to understand their false assumptions has the same value. I'm highly skeptical of the claim that wandering around in a debugger, while not understanding the code, causes you to understand the code more. For a beginner taking their first steps, sure.

I don't play golf, but they have a saying: "Don't practice your bad put." If you're having an off day, don't practice doing it wrong. Find and correct the physical mistakes you're making, then practice your good put. The same is true in programming; extra time spent looking around while not understanding isn't good practice; it seems dubious to presume it has long-term instructive value.

Been there, done that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw this in the run up to the dot com bust. Everyone and their grandmother wanted to be in computer science because it was the money major of the day. After the market crashed, everyone and their grandmother switched over to healthcare as that became the new money major of the day. Here we are again. When the market crashes in the next few years, everyone and their grandmother will get out of computer science and go to whatever money major that is popular.

Many rushing in but...

[steveb3210]

How many are dropping out when they find out whats involved with the major or don't make it through the weeder classes? I got my degree in 2002, at the time UMass had about 300-400 incoming CS majors and graduated 50 students a year.

Many many people who come in without pre-existing self interest and self exploration find the subject too dull or too hard to make it.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess teachers need to step up. And with all the great teachers in the other areas of study, comp sci profs are probably feeling the pressure. I suppose humanities or obscure literature teachers might think themselves above the fray but I am a frayed knot.

Re:Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all Java and interpreted languages now. No pointer arithmetic, no hard algorithms. Everything's On^2 because we have 5000+ cuda cores, so why not?

Re: Many rushing in but...

[TimMD909]

People who are good at computers will be good at it even without schooling. The degree is just putting a bow on a person dedicated to learning. You can't buy dedication.

Re:Many rushing in but...

[HornWumpus]

That basically never changes.

But when it's a goldrush (85, 99, now) , there are even more unqualified/unprepared freshman.

Re:Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Colleges are addressing that problem by dumbing-down the criteria.

I have interviewed candidates for programming positions, who have college degrees, and who cannot solve basic problems. All they can do is write scripts, provided they don't have to think anything through.

I talked to some of them about what their courses covered. One person had passed an "algorithms" course in which the only code they wrote was code that ran an algorithm and tracked its performance. They didn't code a single algorithm themselves! There was some justification about how nobody codes algorithms anymore because modern programming environments already have all the important ones built in. Unfortunately, the result is a so-called "computer scientist" that can't solve novel problems.

It's pretty ridiculous.

Re:Many rushing in but...

[HornWumpus]

There have always been many _terrible_ CS programs.

CS is a mixed bag, it's generally taught out of one of three schools/departments. In descending order of desirability: Engineering, Math, Business.

Often CS is it's own 'department' but it can always be traced back.

Once you've identified local schools where CS is in the business school. You can just stop interviewing those graduates, they suck.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not so sure about that. I was "good with computers" and math as a kid. I'm not sure I would understand a lot of things without a CS degree, like algorithmic complexity.

Now granted, I grew up and went to school when YouTube didn't exist and wasn't saturated with world class lectures in theory and application to near bleeding edge for every CS sub domain you can imagine, for free.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[lgw]

True, but a little bit of structured education goes a long way. These days there are lots of good online classes, of course, but almost no one figures out both pointers and recursion from hobby coding.

Re:Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

That has been been there for a long time.

The conversation I had with someone in a early 90s graphics class (think phong shading, z-buffers, ray tracing, linear alg, etc). "which languages do you know" "Just the intro pascal one I do not need them". They failed the class but were sitting 4 seats away from me in graduation.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[ZenShadow]

*almost no one waves back at you*

Re:Many rushing in but...

[steveb3210]

UMass has in the past 20 years made the program a little easier. You only need through calc II now. You don't need to take physics 1 and 2, you can take your choice from several electives. The grumpy old emeritus that used to fail everyone out of the first 200 level class has long since retired..

Re:Many rushing in but...

[HornWumpus]

When I did EE, calc and physics 1 did most of the heavy lifting with regard to getting students to 'rethink their major'. It didn't take long at all.

We were down 20% in less than a week. 50% by the end of the first semester. A few of those might have dropped the class and kept the major, but that was just their ego holding them back. Most of the 'fails' switched down to CS, then failed there as well. (CS lacked rigor, they could get away with taking 'baby calculus'/'calc for business majors', which of course was _not_ the prerequisite for diffEq.)

The really bad ones start by taking remedials for a year or more, but they weren't allowed to declare as engineering students until they got the remedials done.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

dude I figured out both of these on my own and my school friends don't have a clue. strongly disagree.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine has CS as part of science. It's even worse.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

And just what is so hard about pointers and recursion, both are dead simple basic concepts?

Waving back as well.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[lgw]

Yes, but do you think you're the normal case?

Re: Many rushing in but...

[lgw]

dude I figured out both of these on my own and my school friends don't have a clue. strongly disagree.

So most people around you didn't, then? You realize you're agreeing with me?

Re: Many rushing in but...

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but a little bit of structured education goes a long way. These days there are lots of good online classes, of course, but almost no one figures out both pointers and recursion from hobby coding.

Yep, I've dealt with too many self-taught people who had some surprising gaps in certain basics that any sophomore student would know.

hmmmm

[Shaitan]

"At some schools, the shortage is creating an undergraduate divide of computing haves and have-nots -- potentially narrowing a path for some minority and female students to an industry that has struggled with diversity."

Given that white males are the only ones who face institutional discrimination on college admission and women and minorities are given explicit advantage and automatically beat out equally qualified white males how is this an issue?

Re: hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not about winning. It is about destroying.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

White males get plenty there fucko

Re:hmmmm

[Shaitan]

Such as? By all means tell me just one concrete thing a poor white kid from a broken home gets when he tries to climb out of his government assisted housing and go to college? I mean other than discriminated against for grants, funding, and admissions?

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

White males get plenty there fucko

Women and minorities get plenty more, dumbass.

Re:hmmmm

[goose-incarnated]

"At some schools, the shortage is creating an undergraduate divide of computing haves and have-nots -- potentially narrowing a path for some minority and female students to an industry that has struggled with diversity."

Given that white males are the only ones who face institutional discrimination on college admission and women and minorities are given explicit advantage and automatically beat out equally qualified white males how is this an issue?

Breaking News! Extinction-Event Meteor Approaching Earth! Women and Minorities at risk!

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Not being shot by the police.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Pell grants. Same as any other poor person trying to find a better life.

Re:hmmmm

[uncqual]

I didn't get that either so I did the unthinkable - I skimmed the article and found this (before I gave up)...

Some university leaders said they were concerned that certain measures taken to address surging student demand may disadvantage people who are already unrepresented in computer science — including women, African-Americans, Latinos and low-income, first-generation college students.

Some universities now require incoming students to get accepted into computer science majors before they arrive on campus — and make it nearly impossible for other undergraduates to transfer into the major. That approach can favor incoming students from schools with resources like advanced programming courses. It can also favor male students — because women on average are less likely to have taken a computer science course in high school.

“When you put any kind of barrier in place in terms of access to computer science majors, it tends to reduce the number of women and students of color in the program,” said Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, a private college in Claremont, Calif., that has become a national model for diversity in computer science.

Although, it seems any decision on the part of female students to eschew available computer science courses in high school isn't a "problem". Surely very few, and no public, high schools let boys take such classes while preventing girls from taking them. Perhaps girls and boys tend to choose different courses in high school, but that's a free will choice of each student.

Similarly, I don't see it as a "problem" that women are under represented in commercial fishing and logging (two of the most dangerous professions in the country) or in plumbing and construction laborer (dirty and hard jobs respectively) -- I don't see a lot of women clamoring to get into these fields and finding that they are excluded based on gender (vs. strength or willingness to take physical risks or willingness to get dirty and work in unpleasant weather conditions -- all of which would be their choices).

Re: hmmmm

[triffid_98]

I for one welcome our Amazonian mud wrestling over lor...ladies.

Re:hmmmm

[Aighearach]

In the US, no qualified applicant is unable to get accepted to a CS degree program. None.

There are good reasons for giving disadvantaged groups a higher percent of the seats at "prestigious" institutions, but everybody still has access to higher education.

Even people who are not very good students and have too low a GPA for admission to their local State University can get a 2 year degree at a local Community College and have a 100% chance of then being accepted to that same State University.

It is bad enough to be a racist asshole, but why would a stupid racist asshole bother commenting on a story about CS?!

Re:hmmmm

[Aighearach]

Stop making excuses and get your fucking ass to the Community College and talk to a guidance counselor, fuck-an-A this is just too stupid to read, it hurts my eyes.

Re:hmmmm

[Aighearach]

The problem might not be with the schools stopping girls from taking the classes, but rather, the school fails to prevent the boys in those classes from being so toxic that the girls don't want to take classes with them, and they certainly don't want to spend their whole lives in the same room on the same team!

Basically every country has the same issues with a lack of interest by women in commercial fishing and logging. And yet, some countries have equal interest in things like computer science. So it clearly isn't comparable unless you're going to directly compare working outdoors in rough weather to having to work with toxic assholes; and then it might start to make sense.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

False. White men are more likely to be shot during police interactions than any other demographic according to the FBI, who does actually track this stuff.

Re: hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

"boys in those classes from being so toxic"

Go home, nazi asshole. The only thing toxic around here is your body odor.

Re:hmmmm

[Shaitan]

In other words, Pell grants are a wash and not an advantage.

Re:hmmmm

[Shaitan]

"Perhaps girls and boys tend to choose different courses in high school, but that's a free will choice of each student."

Agreed.

"schools with resources like advanced programming courses"

Which again is actually an advantage for minorities because tech companies have been spending billions on pumping these courses out to minorities and women.

Re:hmmmm

[Shaitan]

"from being so toxic that the girls don't want to take classes with them"

It's high school. The boys are far more toxic to other boys to the point of literally beating them. It doesn't stop the boys taking the course.

Has it occurred to anyone that girls just aren't particularly interested in CS? Billions of dollars have been spent by tech companies providing these courses to women and minorities, much on efforts that don't merely target them but explicitly exclude white males.

Re:hmmmm

[Shaitan]

"commenting on a story about CS?!" "In the US, no qualified applicant is unable to get accepted to a CS degree program. None."

A story about how everybody is not getting access.

"There are good reasons for giving disadvantaged groups a higher percent of the seats at "prestigious" institutions"

An accident of birth is not a good reason to give anyone anything.

"Even people who are not very good students and have too low a GPA for admission to their local State University can get a 2 year degree at a local Community College and have a 100% chance of then being accepted to that same State University."

Of course they'll be at a disadvantage to get grants and pay for it. They'll also be at a disadvantage to get hired afterward and to retain their employment when layoff time comes around. All because of an accident of birth.

"It is bad enough to be a racist asshole"

Yes but you seem to be good with it.

Re:hmmmm

[Shaitan]

So many sheep who don't realize the entire point of this giant diversity push is just to flood the hiring pool and dilute down wages. These companies pushing diversity and this agenda don't actually care about women and minorities they care about making more profit by cutting or at least slowing the growth of wages.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Containing an inconvenient and correct argument which runs counter to a political agenda does not make this a troll.

One word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbasses

eh

[buddyglass]

Lured by the prospect of high-salary, high-status jobs...

For someone with those two motivations (pay and status), seems like law or medical school would be a better option. Particularly the latter.

Re:eh

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be surprised. I know a lot of people who don't think much of doctors. But I can't recall the last time a car salesman complained about an engineer. (Yes, the last time I bought a car we spent a LOT of time talking about the back injury the salesman had, and why doctors are idiots.)

Re:eh

[HornWumpus]

The have any hope of getting into med school they have to have a 4.0 in premed (on a 4 point scale). If they didn't have a 4.0 in HS and their counselor lets them major in pre-med, they have been ill served.

Re:eh

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors are operational people, like a bus driver or a cashier. Its just that they are more intimate with their customers (pieces of meat). By the time a doctor needs to do anything remotely intelligent or creative, it's called a scientists and those typically get paid shit. It should be the other way around such that the very best become scientists. That's very much not the case today.

The scientists of today in Western countries are essentially imported slaves from second world countries. They get to claim that they are a "scientist" and occasionally some idiot finds something and can publish something.

Re:eh

[Anonymous Coward]

lol. such stupid requirements. acedemic focused rather than skill focused. sure being a doctor requires depth but i bet some of the 3.5 people have better people skills and better sewing skills (something thats actually badly needed as new sugeons are book heavy and weak at actual hand articulation) . This bs is what propping up colleges the need for these shitty perfect numbers rather than looking at the person hollistically.

Re:eh

[HornWumpus]

MD = Memorized Degree.

Med school has been like that forever in the USA.

Dad taught med students chemistry. When he gets a few drinks into him, he will often brag about the number of 'memorizing morons' who he stopped from becoming physicians by giving them a B (mostly general chem, before they got to the memorize fest that is organic.) His claim is that it was _common_ for pre meds to not be able to balance a RedOx equation, a subject they all got As in during HS.

Re: eh

[Anonymous Coward]

I know several doctors who basically graduated, got licensed, and told the specialty boards to go fuck themselves. So they arenâ(TM)t âoeboard certifiedâ in {internal medicine, family practice, ER, pediatrics}. They all work in hospitals going around the country filling in scheduling needs. Most of their job is fixing the fuckups of the board-certified dipshits and the noctors (NP and PA) that wind up causing people to get admitted in the first place. Like taking asthmatics off their preventative meds because they havenâ(TM)t had problems in a while (I.e. the treatment was working). I see the same thing for blood pressure all the time.

Re:eh

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you actually have to do something useful when you are a medical doctor. Slimeball lawyerin is just the ticket however, no ethics or morals required, and nothing useful to anyone at all needs to be done.

I smell bullshit

[rsilvergun]

kids aren't that dumb. Those jobs have been outsourced and "insourced" (e.g. replaced by H1-Bs) non stop for 20 years. Go into medicine kids, Folks want to see their doctor in person.
br. Then again maybe this is folks gunning for jobs that didn't used to need a college degree because companies use degrees as leverage to get H1-Bs and skip training costs.

Re:I smell bullshit

[DaMattster]

I worked in IT and I am glad I am out of it. It's a rat race to the bottom.

Re:I smell bullshit

[Seven Spirals]

Totally true. So, hey kids, how does this sound? You work 4x as hard as the asshole frat-boy taking a PolySci major who, if you are really lucky, will be your boss if you manage to pry a job away he hasn't in/outsourced. Your friends will all be out drinking and getting laid while you do mountains of 400-level math problems taking half your fucking night. You'll be VERY lucky to not come out chronically sleep deprived and sick as CS major. Cool? I often wonder who the fuck would go into "STEM" despite the MSM constantly claiming the only big problem is the rampant sexism keeping out the hordes of women trying to get into IT (not). They completely ignore the fact that some greasy Indian is going to take your job (probably before you even get one) and that the world population of suit-weasels is very focused on how to drive down your wages so they can run off with the savings. The also tend to ignore the fact that most science R&D jobs pay absolute shit. I should have got a business lobotomy uhh, I mean, "degree" and skipped CS altogether. I'd be fucking retired by now.

Re:I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Because old losers on slashdot have good opinions on economics and labor.

Re:I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the opportunity cost of becoming a doctor / lawyer is much higher. You're spending more money and taking more time for a similar pay off

Re:I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Your friends will all be out drinking and getting laid while you do mountains of 400-level math problems taking half your fucking night.

Most people who care about math and science do exactly this purely for the love of the subject. Why the fuck are you on Slashdot?
Hand in your nerd card, if you even HAVE one - you sound like a jackass frat boy.

I often wonder who the fuck would go into "STEM" despite the MSM constantly claiming the only big problem is the rampant sexism keeping out the hordes of women trying to get into IT (not).

You claim there's no sexism in the IT field? Well, let's examine the rest of your statement for further context...

They completely ignore the fact that some greasy Indian

HEYOOOO didn't have to look far before, after complaining that sexism is bullshit, you almost immediately whip out some casual racism.
I'll go out on a limb here and suggest you're probably also a sexist asshole.

You sound like a jaded dick who went into the field purely for money, not for love of the subject matter, and upon discovering that the pay wasn't as high as it is for the overpaid morons in suits, wish that you had become one of those instead. Meanwhile, the people smart enough to actually hack it in the field knew going IN that they weren't going to get rich, but did it because they love it. You can thank them for your microwave, computer, and pretty much every other modern convenience you enjoy.

Re:I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

kids aren't that dumb. Those jobs have been outsourced and "insourced" (e.g. replaced by H1-Bs) non stop for 20 years.

And yet it seems that after 20 years, demand still can't keep up with supply. Your point?

Go into medicine kids, Folks want to see their doctor in person.

Great advice. Glad you assume these young ignorant ones will be able to handle a medical degree, as if CompSci is some kind of mental cakewalk that everyone automatically succeeds in. You're right. Kids aren't dumb. But a lot of them assume they're smarter than they are.

Re:I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Because shit-for-brains faggots like to shout down other people without offering a counterpoint.

Re:I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, in the US, anyone can be a doctor. And that, is a problem.
I say anyone, because, you can try and pass medical school, and your medical boards, as many times as possible. Not necessarily at the same location mind you, but period.

That is in contrast to say, the UK, where, either you make the grade on the 1st attempt, or our done for good at being a doctor.

I see parallels here with possible Comp. Sci. grads, programmers, soon to be entering the market making pennies. For all the amount of coders that come out of this, how many can actually produce quality code? I say that now, considering the quality of paid for vendor code, or lack of quality more important, I deal with on a daily basis in the medical industry.

Majority of applications I deal with can just get by. They don't crash, just enough to be stable, but still riddled with bugs. And this is 6 and 7 figure software. If this is what passes for the quality of commercial software, I just can't see a benefit from a vast influx of fresh grads adding to the barrel of code monkeys typing against one another for the 'next big' project with V.C. funding that will go to market.

That does become a race to the bottom, because the movement within the software industry, will shift like it does every 5-10 years. This structure, template landscape is the new thing. just like it was 10-12 years ago... What's old is new, and will be rehashed, re-branded, with a different coat of paint. New grads won't know it, but everyone who has seen it before will. And that doesn't improve code quality one bit. And neither will an even more saturated developer market.

Re:I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer, of course, is a physics or engineering degree, with as much business classes as you can shoehorn in. Then off to law school for IP law.

Re: I smell bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Get back to me when doctors in the UK require an actual doctorate, instead of âoeBachelors plusâ.

High status?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, I'm supposed to be high status? As in people are supposed to look up to me, or listen to what I have to say?

The reality seems more like I'm just an "IT Guy", which apparently some kind of code monkey or help desk guy. Either that, or I'm just born with all the knowledge of the whole IT world in my brain, and if I don't know something, I'm somehow an idiot.

But this status thing sounds nice. Like I'm a doctor or lawyer, and have reached some kind of god-like level. When does that come into play?

Re:High status?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual +5 million insightful.

There may be a few thousand "computer science" jobs world-wide that are high-salary, high-status jobs, but the rest of us are just IT guys/code monkeys.

Re:High status?

[Anonymous Coward]

  but the rest of us are just IT guys/code monkeys.

Actually I meant that as a joke. I _don't_ think we're all "IT Guys" or Code Monkeys. Sure, there's some real idiots out there that can't program their way out of a paper bag, but there's quite a lot of talent too that aren't just a high-tech Jiffy-Lube employee. People just think we're all low-status morons.

Re:High status?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does status come into this? People want to make money selling smartphone apps and to do that they need to understand how to code, right? They all dream of building the next Instagram or Snapchat and they think the only important thing is their skill set. Ideas matter way more than big O notation or neural nets. Most doctors and lawyers make six figure salaries and no one really cares about what they have to say unless it's about something in their field. They're not podcasting superstars who get mocked regularly by their own fans; they're just people making good money which is where the status thing comes from and where this "comp sci" gold rush comes from. The Winkelvoss twins made nine figures just from an idea and people should pay attention to that. Then again maybe the mathletes don't want to work on Wall Street where they can really make money.

Re: High status?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bahhahahahhaha!

You try to make a large app without understanding big-O.

Your brilliant ideas will fail miserably as the world teaches you that real life is more difficult than your grandoise ideas.

Re:High status?

[Archimonde]

It is just a matter of having a guild/association. Those organizations raise the perceived value of their members. That's the reason doctors and lawyers are praised to high heaven (even though they can be complete and utter trash), while us "IT guys" are looked down at like nothing more that glorified plumbers. Everyone deserves same kind of respect, but that is another story.

Save $$

[al0ha]

Fools - chasing jobs that will be replaced by AI before their work careers are probably 1/2 over. Go back to Blue Collar young bloods; paid apprenticeships and a virtually unlimited future in plumbing and electrical contracting; these industries can't find enough qualified people.

Re:Save $$

[fluffernutter]

these industries can't find enough qualified people because they realize their bodies are worn out half way though their working years. I know many tradesmen with bad knees and backs especially.

Re:Save $$

[Anonymous Coward]

so you goitta play it smart and get pro early and get out early like a sports pro. Its not bad just you cant expect to do it forever.

Re:Save $$

[fluffernutter]

Sure that's no problem, because every plumber gets paid like a sports pro early in their career.

Re:Save $$

[DigiShaman]

If I went back to school, I'd get an MBA. I know it's a cliché, but an MBA is the most versatile at landing a high paying job in any industry. If not as a primary, as a secondary, but definitely worth getting!

Re:Save $$

[Anonymous Coward]

so you goitta play it smart and get pro early and get out early like a sports pro. Its not bad just you cant expect to do it forever.

I guess I was unaware of that mystical event when a blue-collar high-school educated tradesman enters a cocoon halfway through their career and magically emerges as a manager/owner of multi-million dollar operation, happy and content that they never have to worry about physical labor anymore.

A sports pro is not a fucking tradesman in ANY way, so try and avoid spewing bullshit like this next time.

Re:Save $$

[avandesande]

Never going to happen. Remember in the 90s when drag and drop programming was going to take over? I will posit this- sufficiently defined requirements are indistinguishable from computer code.

Re:Save $$

[wisnoskij]

I know 5 times as many housewives and office workers with bad knees and bad backs than Trades people, and most of the people I know are in Trades.

Re:Save $$

[fluffernutter]

Define trades... granted, there are easier trades than a drywaller but not everyone can do them.

Re:Save $$

[fluffernutter]

Let's just say, the people I knew who were drywallers really should not be electricians.

Re:Save $$

[wisnoskij]

Boiler Installers, Framers, Concrete formers.

Re:Save $$

[Micah NC]

The vast majority of sports pros become financially insolvent within a year of retiring.

Re:Save $$

[Anonymous Coward]

nahhh dude. this isn't 10 years ago, why are people still posting this? i have a comp sci degree and an MBA. companies don't care about the MBA. i don't even think my past 2 employers know i have it. comp sci though? that's a different matter. can get a job anywhere. getting paid more than most middle managers/directors. get an MBA ONLY if it is from a top 5-10 program. then the alumni, brand, and feeder networks make it worth it. an MBA from another school? fun and interesting but not worth it...

Re:You just told us it does not matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on what you respect more: an overpriced piece of sheepskin or the CEO of a have been corporation.

It never stopped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Over the years I've been to a few graduation ceremonies and every time when graduates of the school of computer science and math (or engineering in some cases) is asked to stand up, half the class does. And about four kids stand up for the school of liberal arts and humanities. There was a lull in the early thousands because of the dot.bomb crash but it picked right up again.

For the last 20 years, the only companies that think there's a "shortage" of Comp Sci grads are the ones who insist on only recruiting from top schools. Here in metro Atlanta, there a few companies who only recruit from Georgia Tech and bitch because they can't get enough CS grads. They are under this impression that grads from state are stupid or something.

Re: It never stopped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they've worked with Georgia Tech to integrate some of their business practices and software stack into applocation specific curriculum so they get free trained employees which is why there's a preference. I know this isn't uncommon.

Re: It never stopped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe so, but you can't then go bitching that there is a shortage.

Re: It never stopped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ding ding! Can confirm, as a soon to be KSU grad, our CS department is garbage. I'll bet GSU is worse.

Great more LISP weenies and ML professors.

[Seven Spirals]

I did CS. It sucked. I regret it. Ended in 1995. Big waste of valuable 20's time. They couldn't decide WTF to teach us, then 2 out of 3 professors couldn't teach it (Pascal one day, Oberon the next, Smalltalk the day after that, and one flavor of that fucking horrible parenthesis-hell LISP dialect after another). Hell one out of three profs can't even fucking speak clear English (and no that's not racism it's wanting to *understand* what they say in lectures for *my* GPA sake). Then there is the HUGE bias toward categorically experimental or worthless languages that are some pet of the professor of the moment. There is a huge emphasis on math, too, which is fine, but of the 30-40 math profs and TAs I had, perhaps maybe 1-2 can teach or can even be understood. Plus, I have to admit, I have never used Calculus in any IT job (though I know some do, but c'mon that's pretty rare), yet I needed 400-level math (that was hard/sucked)? That seems like someone got a little too excited about the math side and forgot WTF we came for. I remember interviewing about 10 grads from the local state university and none could remember much ASM on any ISA even though they put it on their CV / resume (this was in 2014). Same with C. Most couldn't get past hello world. I thought what they taught us in the 1990's was lame, but from interviewing recent grads, they appear to know nearly nothing useful and FUCK that bullshit about "college teaches you how to think." If it did the grads might be able to solve the logic problems we ask, but they rarely do. The ones that do well, just seem to have talent, not some super-education they got at the University. College teaches you how to jump through hoops for an unaccountable asshole who thinks you are an idiot with nothing but time for their whims and no other classes (sooo, if you want a job like that, go for it). No, the students from India and China are NOT better. In their interviews, they mostly just simply give you the wrong answer with a strong accent and show little social or cultural awareness so you can see they'd likely be a trainwreck if you hired them. American kids are starting to wise up about the College scam, though. Young people are starting to realize they'd be better off training up in a program without far-left indoctrination elective requirements or just doing OJT to get somewhere. For example, you can get your CCIE in about 3-4 months of study. Most of those jobs start around 140k even in Podunkville. A degree in CS does very little for you (coming from someone who's screened hundreds of resumes at Oracle, IBM, and other big companies). It only impresses the bitches in HR. When it gets to me, I'll still throw the fucking thing in the trash when you misspell Linux LUNIX and other college foibles. Some jackass with no degree is probably still much better at the job versus your average CS grad applies for for because they have more experience && talent, degree or not. It's going to come out in the technical interview and the only ones who will give 4/5ths of 5/8ths of fuck-all about your degree is some other lucky fuckwit with a degree who managed to get in. Basically, only people above 50 really give a fuck because they don't know what college has become and are too emotionally invested in their own college degree to see the truth staring back at them.

Re:Great more LISP weenies and ML professors.

[twebb72]

That's a bummer. Just curious, what school did you attend?

I went to University of Connecticut, and I can tell you I had a mastery of C++ and Java before leaving school as those were the focus (1999-2004). My job has *not* been outsourced, went from Junior to Senior, to Manager now Director of my software division. Learning how to learn is probably the most important things you can comprehend in school. I started contracting in web development while I was in school. Even though my school days were post 1999 bubble, people at the time could still make money programming, especially discount rate college students.

Do you have to be driven? Yes. Do you have to work hard? Absolutely. Is CS an awesome career? Yes! If a piece of paper is needed as the entry fee, then I would insist that its totally worth it. Total cost for me was $70k (tuition and housing), 100% financed as I had no financial support -- and I would do it all over again.

Disclaimer: CS is only a good choice if you have a genuine interest and love for electronics and/or software. If you're came here just for the promise of money, you will suck at it.

Re:Great more LISP weenies and ML professors.

[Seven Spirals]

The school was A&M. I love computer science in general and I've done pretty well for myself in the field, but I would not credit my education one shred for it. I also had no financial support. So, I was working till 9PM then coming home and doing diffeq homework for 4-6 hours at times. My total tuition was around $65k. I agree that you need to be driven, I agree that it *can* even be cool/fun at times if you get the right gig. I haven't personally been hit with offshoring but that's mainly because my skills are in high demand most of the time and I just leave the minute I hear "H1B" before anyone can even react. I have bailed on three shops that offshored and then cut all my old friends and co-workers. Saw a lot of pain and heard a lot of firsthand painful stories. I've also been in management at two places that forced people to train their H1B replacements. That's one of the reasons I got out of management and back on the metal. I would definitely echo your "don't do it for the money" imperative, but I can't say I have anything but vitriol and remorse for my college days and I can't say I *ever* hired someone because of their degree or lack thereof (and I've hired/fired @ 170 people in my 20 year career so far). Technical interview is literally *everything*. Pass that, and you're golden. Fail it and you have zero chance. So, you'd better love this stuff more than the H1Bs or there will be no discernible difference in quality and they will pick the cheaper option. Also, if you are a super-genius but your personality is shit, you are going to have a problem getting work despite your brilliance. Few people will tell you that, but I *know* it to be true from my own hiring decisions. I've passed over many a smart jerk for a less talented person I could work with smoothly.

Re: Great more LISP weenies and ML professors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuurent student at Kennesaw State here. It's even worse now. I had an AI class that was 100% marketspeak. A graphics class where the professor couldn't get his code working. (and it was WebGL too)

College is garbage, we should shut them down.

Re:Great more LISP weenies and ML professors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bit of a brain dump post there, Seven Spirals! However I do agree on several points, about University CS curricula:

1). There's a excessive emphasis on boutique languages, especially anything interesting and unique but way, way past it's Best Before date;
2). Similarly, there's an excessive emphasis on any new and interesting programming languages. 99% of this stuff is going to whiff in terms of adoption, but the profs lap it up as an exercise in mental masturbation;
3). Math. WTF the obsession with advanced math?? "Oh, math teaches you to be logical." Um, OK, the Debate Club teaches you to be logical too. Typical of University education to find the most difficult way possible to indirectly teach a subject!
4). The bizarre insistence upon forcing first year students to take an inappropriately diverse course load, "because so many students wind up transferring Majors." Do you know why students transfer? They transfer because they didn't like the course material, which didn't actually reflect the Major they signed up for very effectively. Therefore this results in at least some students transferring Majors for the wrong reason.

True story, I enrolled in a University level CS Major. I was forced to take:

1). Introductory Physics;
2). Literary Criticism;
3). Matrix Algebra;
4). Calculus;
5). Some other shit I can't even remember.

I had one IT course. One! And in that course, all the assigned programming problems were invariably completely unrealistic and non-applicable to any conceivable career. More mental masturbation by the profs.

JD at McD counter

[Anonymous Coward]

When you see commercials with "you will talk to a real lawyer" with people manning phone lines, be afraid of becoming a lawyer.
When you see liberals pushing for "Single Payer" system, making doctors government employees, be afraid of becoming a doctor.
We do need more plumbers and mechanics and electricians too.

I don't think so

[SuperKendall]

Fools - chasing jobs that will be replaced by AI before their work careers are probably 1/2 over.

A lot of jobs will be replaced by AI, but frankly AI cannot handle how illogically real computers behave well enough to take over programming.

The day you'll know we are near to AI being able to handle programming well is the day the search for "Robot arm to slam keyboard" does not come up empty handed with real keyboard-slamming action.

Re:I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero jobs will be replaced by AI. Only parts of jobs will be replaced by AI.

Re:I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Real computers only act illogically because they were programmed by incompetent morons who are unable to think logically (if the computer had been programmed logically it would behave logically since its behaviour is entirely determined by its programming).

Furthermore, statistical analysis of uncorrelated (ie, illogical) behavior cannot be used to generate a statistical model (AI) of the behaviour.

If you think otherwise it is YOU who is the moron.

Sort by merit

[AHuxley]

Who could pass their exams.
Who wants to study and can show they could study in the past.

Good thing I think - like the new kids

[MarkH]

Programming ( as I like to call it ) is a great career. Afraid I came of generation of hackers at early days of mid 90's on the web front.

Dodgy CGI Perl scripts , SVN as version control - if any. Proud to see it mature over almost 25 years.

Re:Good thing I think - like the new kids

[avandesande]

Yeah I remember a time when if you could write a Perl script that displayed a database table on a web page you were some kind of god....

Glad to see I'm in the thundering horde..

[bobbied]

After being out of school for 25+ years I just started my masters in CS. Should be done in about 28 months.

This explains why the classes are ALL 100% full with students sitting on the floor.

Re:Glad to see I'm in the thundering horde..

[Anonymous Coward]

Its about passion. I've been an AC on this site for over two decades now, and have worked for the industry off and on during that time (now, in automotive). I've seen fresh CS grads that couldn't solve a simple equation out of a paper bag, let alone code their way out of one. If you love what you do, you're going to succeed. NO four-year program will make you an expert in anything. Best case is that it will give you the ability to learn to fill a role in the future.

When I started my engineering degree, I was given the following 'advice': When you graduate, an Engineering degree doesn't make you an Engineer; rather, it makes you able to be trained to BE an Engineer.

CS, on the other hand, is an interesting beast. If you have passion, you can absolutely learn how to be successful on your own (this could be true for engineering as well). However, by studying algorithms and efficiency, a formal education can make you better. There is one gigantic BUT in this assertion though; CS will teach you the logic, but it will not teach you to write code (well). Code, in my opinion, is a combination of science and art. It needs to both work, and be able to be appreciated by those who will ultimately maintain it in the future.

Re:Glad to see I'm in the thundering horde..

[supercell]

How many females? Curious

Re:Glad to see I'm in the thundering horde..

[bobbied]

How many females? Curious

Well, being an over 50 white male, I'm not going to count, but it sure looks like about 50/50 to me, but it's mostly foreign students.

Is it me or are they minting Graduate students that look like high school students these days? And to hear them talk, oh my word, if these kids are the best and brightest, I'm not holding out much hope for the future of CS. Some of them are down right nuts, all sorts of knowledge but no skills. You'd think a CS student would at least know what recursion is and what calling a subroutine logically does and how stuff gets returned... I get they don't understand pointers and linked lists yet, but shouldn't they at least understand what the code they are writing really does?

Sorry, rant over.. I have to keep telling myself they have all sorts of facts banging around and no experience to help them organize all the stuff they know.

Re:Glad to see I'm in the thundering horde..

[bobbied]

Two of the best programmers I ever knew, never went to college. Another two had high level degrees (one was an MSCC the other had his PHD).

You are correct, no amount of education will help if you don't have talent and if you have talent and drive you can do well as a programmer. However, I will point out that not having a STEM degree will lock you out of a lot of programming jobs. Many places won't even look at you w/o the degree. So the degree may not make you a better programmer, but it does open doors.

Make sure you have the dedication for CS

[foxalopex]

While it's great that there are lots of people considering learning the CS major, it worries me a little that there's a vast majority of people that do not realize that it is a type of job that never stops changing. If being a carpenter was like this it would be like needing to use a vastly new hammer that wouldn't even work the same way every couple of years. Some of the best CS folks are people who play / fiddle / learn the new technologies in their own spare time ontop of what they're taught. And don't think competent employers can't tell the difference, they can.

Re: Make sure you have the dedication for CS

[Anonymous Coward]

The concepts donâ(TM)t change though. The best way to be future proof is to understand the theory. After that itâ(TM)s easy to pickup what ever the technology of the day is.

Re:Make sure you have the dedication for CS

[Anonymous Coward]

>would be like needing to use a vastly new hammer that wouldn't even work the same way every couple of years.

I wish CS was like that. It moves at a glacial pace - and the new tools usually are worse than the tools that came before. It's like in the beginning they had hammers and one day they deprecate hammers and give you a screwdriver instead in order to hammer nails in (just hold it sideways and smack the nail with the handle).

> Some of the best CS folks are people who play / fiddle / learn the new technologies in their own spare time ontop of what they're taught.

I hope you mean while in university. My company pays me to play/fiddle/learn the new technologies, go to conferences etc. Otherwise I'd be gone. My free time is for me and not for computers.

Re:Make sure you have the dedication for CS

[Aighearach]

Being a carpenter before the invention of "stick-built" houses was exactly the same; every building was different!

With a traditional "frame-built" structure, you might indeed need a custom tool to finish the job; you might even need to design a custom tool so that you can! Even just getting the materials into position required custom levers and weird pulley contraptions. Can you imagine a modern carpenter without power lifts and winches?!

And it isn't like they had been trained as engineers; they had to learn to do all that stuff on the job, as an apprentice!

Software is moving in that direction, too. It used to be done by math and physics people with no special training. Then it was formalized. By now lots of layers of tools exist and most of the workers barely need to understand it. Eventually it will just be, "measure the interface twice, cut once."

Re:Make sure you have the dedication for CS

[Anonymous Coward]

That's total bullshit. We've had "easy mode" tools for a long time. You can build a website with no skill using wordpress, or make some crappy CRUD interfaces with Access. Any "software developers" doing jobs that could easily be replicated with these tools will find themselves in a bind when other people realize how worthless their work is.
Software developers who take their craft seriously are always walking forward into the unknown. We're solving problems that nobody ever has, or at least nobody has solved adequately enough and published their work (otherwise we'd just import their library!). We're not building houses, we're building tools for people to build houses with. We're building assembly lines, and frameworks. We're building expert systems by becoming experts on a subject, then writing down the best ways to solve each problem within that subject. Our documentation is code, and a machine reads it instead of a human. The only replacement for this is to either: A. solve all problems (good luck), or B. create true general AI (good luck).

Random reference point

[Anonymous Coward]

"The number of undergraduates majoring in the subject more than doubled from 2013 to 2017, to over 106,000,..." The American Physical Society has about 50,000 members

Re:Random reference point

[Anonymous Coward]

"The number of undergraduates majoring in the subject more than doubled from 2013 to 2017, to over 106,000,..." The American Physical Society has about 50,000 members

There is a significant difference between "majoring" and "graduating". Just because efforts have been doubled doesn't mean results have, particularly within the younger generation of trophy addicts who have been told all their lives that their shit doesn't smell, and they feel they can do anything.

Reality often delivers a bitch slap to the face, so let's see if the number of graduates doubles.

computer science

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was entering college in 2002, people said it was a poor choice of major because all the jobs were being outsourced. It's amazing how times change.

the sad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

the sad thing is if you've actually got the actual aptitude for development, then taking a few python, django and assorted web tech courses on Udemy would actually better prepare you for working as a "typical developer" (i.e., where most of the jobs are) than an actual Computer Science degree

and if you don't have that aptitude, then no matter how much education you get, you're probably going to hate programming and be terrible at it

Re: the sad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

If youâ(TM)re doing real programming, ie firmware, safety critical, simulation etc, you need a real degree. Those are the high paying low turnover jobs. Boot camp grads work in shitty startups make no money are are the bane of the real engineers that have to fix their mistakes and teach them the most elementary CS concepts

Re:the sad thing...

[Micah NC]

HR will swat you away like a fly (or an applicant over 40)

I did smell this coming ...

[Qbertino]

... didn't you? The hype will be over in two years once agian and the market will be cleaned once again.

I however, will continue to program, CS degree or not, Job-Hype or not.

Young Fools.

[Zorro]

If you REALLY want to be rich become a Car Mechanic or a Plumber.

Re:Young Fools.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to rob your customers blind become car mechanic or plumber....if you want them robbing you, go to IT.

Re:Young Fools.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the car mechanics I know that are in their 70s are living off SS in an efficiency apartment.

Re:Young Fools.

[Necron69]

Bah. My son was a car mechanic for seven years. Each new job paid less than the last one. If you work for a dealership, you get paid shit for mechanics work.

- Necron69

Re:Young Fools.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aye, just stick with plumber, those jobs aren't going anywhere.

Roofing sucks but you can't outsource that either and $600 to adjust some screws and spray a couple bottles of Flex-seal :(

Re:Young Fools.

[Aighearach]

I assume you're joking, but at the one end of the spectrum, the owner of the most successful auto shop in town makes less money than a successful independent plumber, and the owner of a successful plumbing business might be making seven figures.

The average owner of an auto shop makes similar money to a journeyman plumber, but has to invest a huge amount of money into tools and equipment.

The only reasons anybody works as a mechanic is because they
A) really enjoy working on cars or
B) hate having to do what a supervisor says in a factory type of environment or
C) they couldn't even get a job in the factory, but already learned how to fix cars

If you're an auto mechanic and decide you want a career that pays better, don't stop pestering mills and factories to hire you as an apprentice maintenance technician. You'll be working on larger machines, but they pay in real money, and if you're good the promotions actually come with raises!

Comp Sci, eh?

[King_TJ]

It seems to me there really is a strong demand for certain computer-related fields, but "Computer Science" gets thrown out there as a college major far more often, as kind of a "catch all".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but back when I was in college in the early 1990's, Computer Science was essentially a math degree, where you learned a lot of theory of how computer CPU's work along with the other circuit level internals that make up a computer. As soon as I told my guidance counselor that I had an interest in computers, she immediately tried to steer me that direction. That's when I pushed back, because I'm not even very good at math and that's not at all what interests me about them. I was more fascinated by the growing ability to network computers together and use them as a next generation communications tool. (Once I said THAT, they put me in some telecom courses that were really about nothing more than analog telephony over copper wires. So that was a waste too.)

In hindsight, I think I was really searching for a good MIS career path, but it barely existed back then. I wound up focusing on creative writing instead, and learned the computer ins and outs on my own.

I see data analytics as "the next big thing" right now, if you're math inclined. There's BIG money in finding experts who can crunch big data collections and interpret their meaning for everything from politics to marketing. It's also a pretty good bet to get specialized in distributed, cloud-hosted databases, if that piques your interest. I suppose there's some demand for a computer scientist who can grok the upcoming quantum computing revolution too. But all in all? I can't see it being that worthwhile to invest in a Comp Sci degree right now, vs. some other options?

Re:Comp Sci, eh?

[Aighearach]

There is very little math involved; especially compared to something like accounting.

There are also very few circuits.

It is mostly just writing high-level code in an IDE.

The reason there are math requirements is because it is a BS degree; almost all the non-programming requirements are the same as for all BS degrees.

Of course, actual programming, including data analytics involves almost no math skills; the computer does the math for you! Very few people will ever be writing a compiler or something where they have to implement a mathematical algorithm. Doing big-data work requires mostly understanding what the math is used for; which algorithms match up with which use cases. And you're not supposed to guess or anything, you're supposed to measure the results using different algorithms. So you don't need to be any good at it.

You do have to be able to follow a long series of steps without getting distracted, intimidated, or over-confident though.

As a programmer you will never be asked to "do" any calculus. But you will be asked to pass data into and out of functions that do calculus. Basically, imagine any math class; instead of having to learn what it taught in the class, you only have to learn how to explain why it exists, and how to punch the numbers into a calculator. That is what is actually needed for programmers.

Programmers learning math is part of what makes modern universities "Liberal Arts Universities;" they make you learn a bunch of stuff not strictly needed for your trade, that will presumably enrich you. For BS majors, that includes a bunch of random science-y stuff like math and chemistry.

Re:Comp Sci, eh?

[King_TJ]

Thanks... That makes sense, but also sounds like some of it has changed since way back when I was in college. (I knew Comp Sci majors were doing coding, but there was kind of a separate track if you wanted to become a programmer. I remember more of them explaining it to me as learning the math and theory that you'd need if you were, say, to get hired by AMD or Intel to help design the next new GPU or CPU?) Of course, our programming classes used to involve signing in to green screen dumb terminals connected to shell sessions on a minicomputer so you could code in C or what-not. :)

Re:Comp Sci, eh?

[blindseer]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but back when I was in college in the early 1990's, Computer Science was essentially a math degree, where you learned a lot of theory of how computer CPU's work along with the other circuit level internals that make up a computer.

It was true then and still is true now.

People that write good code understand the process of good design. Rarely does a computer science department even offer such courses, at least at the undergraduate level. What they do even less often is require students take any of these courses to graduate. The process of good design is, however, required of all engineering students. Back then, in the 1990s, the words "software" and "engineering" rarely appeared together. It was certainly possible to graduate in computer science and understand good design but this was never required in any curriculum I saw.

Employers know that a computer science degree does not always equate to knowing how to write good code. At least the smart ones do. I found this out in searching for a job. I got hired because I knew engineering and how to code. The computer science majors ended up babysitting the servers and running the help desk, not writing code.

Oh, and another thing the smart employers are figuring out is that a college degree is becoming worthless in determining the quality of applicants. Colleges are working hard to get students and keep them around long enough to graduate. They did this by watering down the standards, both to get in and to get out. If you are the kind that likes to babysit servers and fix other people's computer issues then get yourself some certifications and skip college. A certification from Cisco, Microsoft, VMWare, CompTIA, or whatever, are likely more valuable than a college degree. But there's still a lot of employers that require people to graduate college to get hired so it might be a good idea to get a degree but a degree in computer science is certainly not required for the job you want.

Go look at the requirements for many jobs in the computer field. What you will find is something like "must have BS in computer science or related field" in the description. Software engineering is certainly a related field, and would be far more valuable than computer science for a company looking for someone to manage a software project. Also certainly related is computer engineering. So is statistics, any engineering major, mathematics, physics, business analytics, aerospace studies, chemistry, economics, geology, data science, finance, informatics, nursing, biology, management, sociology, urban/regional planning, and architecture.

If you get a degree in music education, and you have certificates from Microsoft and/or CompTIA, then you can walk into a job teaching math and computer science at most any high school or community college. This is because they will know you learned how to teach, just generally, and that they can have you also teach some music classes too. In my high school the computer skills classes were taught by two teachers, one also taught chemistry and the other was a PE instructor and wrestling coach. Specializing too much can leave you nearly unemployable. I worked at a software company for a while and most of the programmers had degrees in accounting, business, finance, and such because the software they published were for filing taxes. There were computer science majors as well but they kept the servers running more than they wrote any code.

If you want to get into programming then think of a field where they need programmers then major in that. While in college take some programming classes and get some certifications. There are classes in writing good code outside of computer science. Engineering departments teach a lot of people how to write code, as do the departments for mathematics, business, statistics, and physics.

Code is only valuable if what it does is valuable. If you don't understand the goal then you can't write good code to reach

Bots will take their jobs before they are finished

[Qbertino]

I'm a seasoned senior dev and even I am just doing maintenance 95% of the time.
And most of that I can do because I got mad *nix and CLI skills.

HAHAHAHAHAAHHA

[Anonymous Coward]

"learning computing skills can be a fast path to employment, as fields as varied as agriculture, banking and genomics incorporate more sophisticated computing [...] some computer science majors make six-figure salaries straight out of school."

What an empty statement. Some cans, some somes, and fool young people in becoming cheap fodder.
They have no shame.

You know those jobs top out around $18/hr right?

[rsilvergun]

I worked as an electrician. There were a few building inspectors making 6 figures and the company owner. Everybody else made $13-$18/hr (that's a Journeyman). This was in early 2000s, but wages haven't gone up, I assure you. We're not building much of anything and, well, it's not nice to say this but outside of commercial you're competing with illegals. It's a big part of why Trump won.

As for plumbers, well, again unless you're running your own company it doesn't pay well. It's less skilled than electric (as the joke goes: "Paychecks on Friday, Shit runs down hill, don't bite your nails") so it pays less. The reason your plumber charges so much when you need him is you _need_ him, and he needs the money to stay afloat during the months when you don't.

For the record, I don't know what to tell the kids to do. There's not enough decent paying work out there since the Unions got killed. My kid's gonna be a nurse, which still pays well, but it's killing me to pay for her college.

Fake STEM shortage paying off handsomely

[GameboyRMH]

Remember this?

https://slashdot.org/story/191...

These people will only be soldiers in the reserve army of the unemployed. I had it bad enough going into the workforce between the dot-com bust and the great recession, and I went into IT/compsci because it was something I liked and was good at, not just as a get-rich-quick scheme like many of these suckers likely did.

That's Only A Paper (Super Blood Wolf) Moon

[kackle]

I know I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag. How does one even do such a thing?

Re:That's Only A Paper (Super Blood Wolf) Moon

[Tulsa_Time]

if in_bag == true Return(success);

Re:That's Only A Paper (Super Blood Wolf) Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of shit-language syntax is that?

You felt the need to write redundant "== true" statement but there are no parenthesis for expression, "Return" keyword is uppercase and return code absolutely has to be in parenthesis... smh

Re:That's Only A Paper (Super Blood Wolf) Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

if in_bag == true Return(success);

You're still in the bag, Einstein.

Re:That's Only A Paper (Super Blood Wolf) Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

which proves the point. this code says that you've succeeded by being in the paper bag, but it does not get you out.

Not really CS

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowadays most CS programs have been gutted of all math and are glorified coding boot camps. They have lowered the bar so far as to be nearly worthless.

Not worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been in the IT field for 40 years. All I can say is that I am MAJORLY burnt out and wish I had gone into a trade such as electrician, framer, plumber, auto mechanic, etc. There is little to nothing worth the amount of stress this field has turned in to over the last 30 years. I'm too old to apprentice for 5 years to become a journeyman and work for 10 more years, then retire.

Take it from this old IT guy: There's always going to be a need for carpenters, sys admins get replaced by scripts. Forget the "CS" degree.

Did my shift of entry level cs course teaching

[Anonymous Coward]

Taught 2 years of the entry level CS course in the mid 90s. I started the first day of class with:

"Hi, I'm _______, I'll be teaching the Intro to Computer Science class. You should know that 1/4th of the students Fail or drop the course. Expect to put in 20 or more hours outside of class doing the programming assignments to pass the course. If you are a senior taking this for your science credit, consider this course will take more time than your senior level Chemistry, Biology, Math or other courses."

About 10% failed and 15% dropped. Mostly, it was the first semester at college freshman that failed or dropped (bad study habits, bad organization skills, skipped class, waited until the last day to start the programming assignments or studied at the frat party the night before) .

The programming assignments were difficult but not overly so. Sort a list of numbers using method 1 and method 2. Read in a file character by character and count the number of times 'A' happens in the file. Write a simple game which plays guess my number between 1 and 10. And then the final programming project, read in a text file word by word and justify it to fit within a Z character line length leaving blank lines as blank lines where Z is a command line parameter.

realizing a job needs to pay also

[Anonymous Coward]

parents said "make sure your college degree gets you a paying job" several million times

we kids looked at the starting and long term pay rates for each major we were considering for just the undergraduate degree. Banking on getting the big job but having to spend an extra 3 - 5 years for a PhD was out of the question.

Tuition mid-90s was $1750 for a 15 hour semester plus whatever it cost for books at a major public university. It's $3000.00 in 2018 money.

Should student loans be made akin to a bank for home purchase? The amount you can borrow is based on your ability to pay back once you get a job.

Re:realizing a job needs to pay also

[Anonymous Coward]

Tuition mid-90s was $1750 for a 15 hour semester plus whatever it cost for books at a major public university. It's $3000.00 in 2018 money.

Only $3k? I think you are forgetting that colleges nowadays charge students with different fees on top of the tuition. Different school charges different amount. So you could be paying over $5k easily for tuition + fees. That doesn't include text books yet.

I wonder how long they will last..

[Anonymous Coward]

Once they start cleaning up other peoples code and working on systems that are using development tools 3-5 versions behind current? Or even more so... what if they run in to.... *SCARY MUSIC* COBOL *SCARY MUSIC*?

Where is the software engineering degree?

[BlueCoder]

Computer science as a bachelors needs to be dropped like the dead subject that it is. Keep the master and PHD programs though for those pursuing academic careers. How about computer systems engineering? Data analytics? At least systems administration is still relevant but hardware design should probably be spun off though I suppose that's covered by systems analyst. Generally the names of all the computer degrees need to change to make them relevant to careers.

Re:You know those jobs top out around $18/hr right

[Anonymous Coward]

There's not enough decent paying work out there since the Unions got killed.
 
I dare you to own up to this shit with a detailed explanation. Union jobs got jacked by your neighbors buying imports. Every time you step into a Walmart or order from Amazon just remember your so-called union brothers. Every time you hire an illegal or support a business that hires and illegal you're fucking your union neighbors. Stop selling your neighbors down river by accepting imports and illegal immigration or accept that some people are simply going to get the short end of the stick.

Union jobs got "jacked" by automation

[rsilvergun]

see here. We're still losing jobs to cheap Mexican labor (and Canadian, since companies go there so they don't have to pay for healthcare) but not at the levels of the 1980s. Germany seems to be doing just fine in the manufacturing sector and they're fully unionized.

I know you're just trolling, but my point stands. We're running out of work most folks can do. Want to see what happens to people that nobody needs and nobody wants? Go look at an Indian reservation before the Casinos. Or Africa. It's a whole new level of poverty.

Re:I agree!

[ShanghaiBiII]

If you have a decade of experience, it usually only takes about 24 hours to learn a new language well enough to get shit done in it.

That is only if the new language is a "normal" computer language that consists of statements executed sequentially, with loops and branches, and the only new thing is a change in syntax.

If the new language, such as Prolog or Verilog, doesn't fit that paradigm, many programmers will struggle, and the "years of experience" can actually be a detriment. Some will never "get it".

Re:You know those jobs top out around $18/hr right

[Aighearach]

Internet says average pay for journeyman electrician with 5-10 years experience is $25/hr.

Here in Oregon wages generally, and cost of living, are low, and yet looking at listing right now today, there are listings $35-50/hr.

Even a lighting technician starts at $17. You probably just assumed that nothing changed, maybe you were watching fox news for 10 years or whatever and didn't know?

A journeyman electrician is qualified to do HVAC work, if they're not too snobby for it that pays $20-30/hr.

You show me an electrician making $13/hr, I'll show you a guy with a fraudulent license!

20 years Rince and Repeat ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I last saw this happen in 1997-98 in the last tech bubble. Uni CS people being cranked out, and then the technical colleges creating coders as fast as possible. You too can make 60 K a year. When the bubble burst hard times were had by all.

Re:You know those jobs top out around $18/hr right

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet says average pay for journeyman electrician with 5-10 years experience is $25/hr.

Gosh, isn't that wonderful! A bit more than that and he'd make a third of what I do as a software engineer with the same amount of experience, working in a comfortable air-conditioned office with an excellent espresso machine. I'm ever so jealous.

Re:You know those jobs top out around $18/hr right

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing with HVAC. I did it for 3 years. The owners are multimillionaires but act like they're so poor that they have to pay me early 1990's wages or they'll go broke. I got the fuck out of that shit show trade.

That trade is in deep shit. New blood is like hen's teeth, owners are cheap as fuck, and most of the old timers are pricks who refuse to share learning and experience.

I just watched the new iphone commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

And I guess thats where they were all going.

Re: I agree!

[Anonymous Coward]

Rust, Haskell, OCaml, BrainFuck... languages to keep the gold-digger jobbers at bay. More obsfucation and less commented code, documentation and tutorials, please.

it was $18 when I was in the biz

[rsilvergun]

I'm willing to grant $25 now as the top end, which is right around the $18/hr adjusted for inflation. Also you're not accounting for layoffs, which are frequent and lengthy.

Moreover to put all that into perspective when my kid graduates from college she's start at around $30-$40/hr (depending on what she wants to do as a RN) and it'll go up from there, eventually topping out around 60/hr.

If I may digress a bit: Electricians without certs, experience and extra training make $13/hr. I know several. Again, why do you think Trump got elected? He promised those guys better jobs and pay. They're hurting. All the blue collar guys are. The factories are gone, the mines are closing and the government is so starved for revenue we're not building anything except the occasional third or fourth mansion for some rich prick. Those things were the blue collar guy's bread and butter.

It's actually causing a big problem socially. Women are earning way more than men because their traditional work hasn't been hit the same way. They also do better in academics because they calm down sooner as kids and sit quietly and learn, where as boys are rambunctious for a longer time in their child hood. Ironically the pay game folks have been banging on about is going to get taken care of by that, but the problem is women aren't interested in men who can't support a family, and we're gonna have a ton of single, angry men with no real jobs and no prospects for women. Traditionally when that happens you get wars.

Mandarin

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they rushing to learn Mandarin Chinese too, by any chance? The smart ones are. (That is, the ones who do not ALREADY know it, of course.)

Re: I agree!

[backslashdot]

LOL seriously? Out of those only Brainfuck is difficult. And I have never seen anyone use it for anything serious.

Re:good

[unixisc]

They should introduce online courses that people can take, so that admissions or a lack of seats is not an issue. In fact, education should be the next thing completely automated, so that there are no good or bad school districts, no shortage of learning material, and teaching can be done by videos. That way, there will be genuine competition among a few teachers who are great at explaining concepts, that everyone will have access to.

That said, I agree w/ you - going for such courses is certainly preferable to taking a degree in, say, journalism

The difference in 1999....

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference in 1999 is that level 1 and level 2 jobs were not outsource or insourced and you could gain experience When I starred IT outsource was just for phone support or creating tickets. Today, with insourcing contractors are side by side in the cubicle with full time employees doing level 1,2 and three support. The cloud has also remove a lot of the entry level jobs. The issue with academics is that it's been behind, I learned C++ when the market was using Java. Employers want cheap resources that can hit the ground running. It will be interesting on how this works out.

homework

[Farton]

I'm in College at the moment, but I'm not always good at doing my homework. So I go to cool platform to hire an expert for homework problems - HelpHomework.net. I think this is a progressive decision for all students. Because online you can do your homework with a specialist and fully control the process.