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No More Suits; IT Worker Shortage Will End Soon
I was up at Andover Corporate HQ Tuesday. It's 400 miles from my home office, so I don't get there often. This time, for no particular reason, I happened to notice that while Andover has plenty of administrative and marketing and other suit-type people floating around the office doing whatever those people do, none of them wear suits to work any more!
But there was still a clothing division between the execs and the workers: ironing. The programmers, artists, writers, and hardware wranglers wore basic, simple, unpressed t-shirts and jeans or other working-type pants, while the biggies over in admin-land all looked like they spent significant time and energy getting their casual outfits to look "just right" before they came to work.
After I realized what was happening at Andover, fashion-wise, I called some friends who work in other new media and tech companies and asked them if the same thing was going on in their offices. To a man and women, they said it was. Nowadays, there are no suits in tech companies unless network TV cameras are there and rolling, and often not even then.
From now on, in the interests of journalistic accuracy and linguistic precision, I am going to refer to the executives formerly known as suits as "Its," an acronym for "Ironed T-Shirts."
"Yeah, I had a great idea but the Its were too clueless to figure it out!" is an example of how you might use Its in a normal workday sentence. Feel free to do so. I have not copyrighted the word. It's now yours as much as mine to mess up, mispell, or whatever else you like to do to words in your spare time.
The IT Worker "Shortage" Will End. Soon.
Once upon a time, back when the world was young and "engineer" was a word used to describe hairy-eared men who designed real, physical things and programmers were looked down upon as glorified typists, the U.S. had an "engineering shortage." All through the late 60s and early 70s publications like the Wall Street Journal ran article after article about how America's potential economic growth was being stifled by a shortage of engineers and technicians. Business-owned politicians loosened visa restrictions for engineers and technicians from other countries because of this supposed shortage, engineering salaries shot up, and suits (which is what Its were called back then) constantly whined about the impossibility of managing their arrogant techies, all of whom knew they could find other jobs in seconds and, therefore, demanded all kinds of perqs, up to and including free coffee and sodas, in-house gyms, flextime hours, and so on.
You could take any of those 60s or 70s WSJ stories about the "engineering shortage," change a few words in them, and run them today as panic pieces about how it's impossible to find competent programmers and sysadmins at reasonable salaries, and how when you do scare up a few of these rare beasts, they won't hew to the corporate line and respect corporate authority and salute their MBA bosses like good little workers. Indeed, the WSJ may actually be changing words in those old stories and rerunning them. Who would know?
But those of you beyond a certain age will recall that, one day, all those formerly high-rolling engineers were suddenly seeking exciting new careers in convenience stores, service stations, and fast food outlets that didn't pay enough to cover the mortgages on their nice suburban houses, which suddenly became hard to sell because there weren't enough other engineers with good jobs available to buy them. The economies in places like the Boston suburbs and Silicon Valley and other "high-tech capitals" tanked. Life was rough, and a lot of people (including me) got burned hard and ended up with scars that they/we carry to this day.
All good things come to an end. Right now, yes, it's good to be the king (or at least the Network Administrator). But remember what happened to Louis XVI when the rabble got fed up with paying for his high living and decided to take him down a peg.
And does anyone here remember the oil crisis of 1973? I sure do. The U.S. seemed to be spending all of its money importing Arab oil, which climbed to nearly $50 per barrel at one point when OPEC [the Organization of Petrolem-Exporting Countries] got especially feisty. If this trend went on, economic pundits said, the Arabs would own America (and most of Europe) outright within a decade or two. By extrapolating then-current trends and drawing them as lines on colorful charts, this thesis was easy to display on TV shows, on newspaper front pages and in slideshows at business conferences so that everyone could get nice and worried about it.
But last I looked, OPEC was just about dead and oil was selling in the $10 - $20 per barrel range. The danger of predictions made through extrapolations is that something always seems to come along that messes them up. In the case of oil, it was a major change in consumption patterns. Oil got too expensive, so we (the oil-importing countries) simply stopped using so much of it. The most visible example of this change: what we call a "full-sized American car" today wouldn't be a pimple on the bumper of, say, a 1970 Buick Electra.
Believe me, somewhere in a secret cavern beneath the Wharton School of Business (which is to finance as Stanford is to Computer Science) or someplace similar, teams of fiery-eyed MBA candidates are plotting to take down today's computer professionals as hard as OPEC, engineers, and Louis XVI all got slammed in their respective days.
So enjoy the ride while it lasts. It's great fun. But don't take out a 30-year mortgage based on it. Something - it could be genetic algorithms or some other new, less labor-intensive programming methodology or it could be an overall economic downturn that ripples through the high-tech industries and brings Internet growth to halt the same way the construction-driven economic boom in Austin, TX in the early 80s collapsed in on itself when a comparatively small number of construction workers lost their jobs and couldn't afford to buy houses, which led to even less housing demand, and so on all the way down - will throw a lot of high-tech workers out in the street. I have no more idea than anyone else of what the proximate cause of the next tech-industry recession will be, but I guarantee that it will come. One always does.
Indeed, if this thoughtful article from Linux Journal has any truth to it, today's shortage of computer professionals may be as false as many people thought the 70s oil shortage was, so it may already be time for IT workers to start doing a little financial hunkering-down, especially if they're over 30 and unwilling to work slave-length workweeks.
Is Slashdot a Magazine?
I have always considered Slashdot an online magazine. And I have always respected the American Society of Magazine Editors [ASME] and believe their stringent code of ethics should apply as much to online publications as to those printed on paper. So I decided to join. $225 a year, and Andover'll pay for it anyway, so why not?
But guess what? This august body still only accepts members from print magazines. As a purely online editor, I'm apparently not worthy. Which means, by extension, that you, as an online reader, are not as worthy as a print magazine reader. No big deal. I find it more amusing than alarming - for you and me, at least. But this is sad for the ASME; it is freezing out the most vital, highest-growth part of the periodical news business when, instead, traditional publishers' and editors' organizations should be courting us online people in order to assure their own future survival.
Here is the last paragraph of my e-mail response to the turndown I sent to arhodes@MAGAZINE.ORG:
Depending on your reckoning, the 21st century starts in either ~3 or ~15 months. If ASME decides to enter it at some point, please let me know. I'll be there, waiting for you to catch up. ;)- Robin "roblimo" Miller
Elkridge, Maryland, USA
10 October 1999, noon EDT
Someday somebody's gonna invent a router or wide area switch that all you have to do is plug your little desktop appliance into and it configures itself instantly with no intervention on the part of anybody. Whether it's FR, ATM, ethernet or anything else, it will just sense it and configure itself accordingly. All the technology is built in at the factory. No need for hordes of wireheads and CCIE's to maintain the technology in the field. Appliances, just appliances.
The information carried on these mediums like television and radio is still important, but the underlying technology is trivial to most of us.
Engineers at TV and radio stations don't make a hell of a lot of money and I bet their numbers decrease every year due to further advances in automation technology.
Computer and network geeks are headed down the same path eventually, it's inevitable.
Bret Aguilar baa@relaypoint.net
I think you're right on the money.
There are _way_ too many inexperienced & incapable developers in this industry, often pulled in due to the incredible demand for _any_ developers. There is also a lack of experienced engineering management, w/ marketing or product management people taking their place. Too many of us have to fight to get responsible engineering practices put into play in our workplaces. How many times have you had to explain to engineering management the need for version control systems (ie CVS), bug tracking systems, source code commenting, and proper requirements specifications?
The funny part here is that Java, which has been an enabling force for software development (especially OOD), has also made it easier for those w/o any software engineering background to get jobs as developers. Too many of the above-mentioned battles take place because of Java-only, non-engineering types who don't know about their shortcomings.
Working in the ecommerce industry, focused on Java/Corba/Unix, I can say competent developers are indeed hard to find. You can't hire them, you can't find them and they do charge a high hourly rate.
I charge a high hourly rate and I still get 3 contacts a week wanting me to fly to Kansas City, Seatle or Montreal to do Java/Corba development.
The problem I find is that most of us high paid consultants is that we stir up some sort of jealousy in the corporate converted crew. These converts are COBOL/Mainframe or VB/VC++ guys 'retrained' in the ways of distributed computing. They still think procedurally and structure their OO applications as such. They have a hard time understanding multi-threaded issues and are still scared to move forward into new technologies (such as XML or using COS service like Naming, Trading or Properties).
Or there is the young crowd with no direct experience developing large scale systems that make snap judgements and write a new service to handle some new fucntionality. Forget logical partitioning of the application or requirements. Forget real knowledege even, they can talk the talk so they must be bright and know what they are talking about. Bullshit! They are inexperienced, so get their noses out of your asses management!
This coupled with incompetent recruiters makes things even more complicated for us competent consultants. I get a call, 'Hey, you know Java right?' me: yes I do. recruiter: Well, I have this great JavaScript position me: click.
It is generally thought that Indians, or other foreigners are generally brigther than their american conterparts. Obvisouly this is flawed. Just because one is an Indian doesn't mean they can walk the walk. They are like the rest of us. Some idiots, some extremely competent. The real difference is that I'll charge you for overtime, because it is the law that I get paid for what I work, while they don't, in general. (I'm not singling out Indians in this case, and, yes, I have Indian friends - I also know a couple of idiot Indians).
Another point is is that management inforces incompetence. The Its allow for underperformers to continue under performing. 'Hell, we are a big corporation, he/she is a nice person, let them ride the system' Forget they can't tell you what requirements are met by their code, they can't tell you a damn thing about their code except that it works (sometimes) and they sit on their ass soaking up the $.
Once the corporation (pick one) gets a hold of me, I tend to work my ass off (60 hour weeks) and get more and more responsibilities because I'm the only one in the whole freaking group that can do it. Finally I get burnt out (generally 6 months) and terminate my contract.
You better pay me for what I'm worth or I just won't work for you. I don't give a damn if I make more that your CEO, I'm making you money, giving you what you want, not sitting on my ass surfing the net every 30 seconds, or talkin in the hall, or in the cube next door. I'm producing, I am the critical path for all of your assignments because your people can't do the work. Your success depends on me. Pay me what I'm worth or I'll go to your competition.
2. The "no current shortage of tech workers" thought was in the Linux Journal article. Hit the link. My personal feeling is that the tech industries are in the midst of a boom similar to one driven by construction, and those always end hard! "Those who don't study history are dommed to repeat it" & all that. But I'm no smarter than any other so-called pundit and I do not claim inspiration from [your favorite deity here]. I just toss out debating points, and try not to take myself too seriously.
3. I don't care much whether or not the ASME decides online editors should be allowed to join. It doesn't affect me (or you) one way or the other. I just feel a little sad for *them* is all. There are plenty of fine associations for online journalists and editors where I'd be more at home anyway.
As far as feeling ornery today, you're not alone. So am I - as you probably noticed. ;)
- Robin "roblimo" Miller
What ends "consruction booms" isn't usually a stop to the economic activity that created them, but rather a flattening of the growth curve that turns previous extrapolations sour.
Note that I do not claim to know *what* phenomenon, either economic, social or technological, will end the current computer & Internet boom, just that something or other will.
All booms end. And shortly before they do, all the people doing well during them come up with many reasons why this boom is different from all previous ones, and will continue on, unlike any that have gone before. And the people who make the "this will go on forever" predictions are always wrong. Every time.
Any number of unpredictable changes, from the sudden emergence of a new religion or attractive but dangerous social philosophy to a climatic disaster, could cause the computer and Internet industries to stop growing or even to contract.
By definition, "unpredictible" events can't be predicted. The only prognostication you can sanely make about them is that there will always be one sooner or later.
Or, don't get complacent. This universe is not a kind and gentle place. It has a strong tendency to deliver major upside-the-head smacks to anyone in it who displays too much hubris.
- Robin
I live in Buffalo, NY and I am a freshman at SUNY Buffalo majoring in Computer Engineering. Last year I was horrified when I visited what is supposed to be one of the best technology schools in the region, RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), teaching a corse in IT. They were just teaching them Oracle and NT. 5 years at a top notch college to be an NT drone. I see people with less knowledge than I, who have such degrees, making top notch salaries as system administrators. I think that you are correct, a shortage will come to an end, and it will be the shortage in such people. Those that will survive the shortage will be those who have unix and linux expertiece and will be able make the transition from NT to Unix when Windows 2000 isn't what everybody thinks that it will be. I think that Unix people, that real programmers who know their stuff, Web designers, and engineers taking computers and finding new and provocative ways of using them to make the work of industry and commerce easier will still be in short suppy as long as colleges keep churning out glorified MSCEs. Then again that is just my opinion and I could be wrong.
Great first feature. It's exactly the kind of thinking that you point out that gets people in trouble and exactly why I never listened to the guidance councellors in school.
"Get thee into computers! Programming! We nEeD you there!" they practically screamed at me.
I headed into electronics instead. Not just digital electroncis which is what they are screaming everyone wants, but rather the hard stuff. Analog. RF. Magnetics. I still program, but it's certainly not applications programming. A little web stuff here and there to make things available but that's it. Embedded systems design is quite different than app design. Bugs (hardware especially) are a lot costlier and as such people aren't as ready to jump into the field unless they really know what they're doing. Why worry about doing as perfect a job as you can in the time alloted when you can do as good as necessary and release a patch later on?
Actually I take that back... it's not becuase they could do a better job, but rather because they probably can't. You need to have a knack, a passion, for programming rather than just be trained in it to do a good job and most programmers, IT professionals, web designers, etc. just don't have that 'edge'.
So back to what causes this. What happens when there's a shortage of position 'x'? All the sheep run for it and then by the time they've got their training there's a surplus and all those skills they spent years in school for (and for most, gathering tidy loans for) are now not so much in demand as they once were. The bills are coming in and the high-paying job isn't there so what do the sheep do? Listen to the guidance councellors again and when they say there's a shortage of position 'y', blindly repeat the cycle.
Education isn't bad. I'm not saying that. But most kids these days are taking the words of a fortune teller and basing their future on it instead of finding out for themselves and/or persuing what would be right for them. Worse than that, the fortune teller has a perogative to get as many students into university as possible to make the school stats look better. Who cares if they don't need to go. College is thought of as "for people too dumb to get into univeristy" in Canada, which is sad. Get in, get skilled, get out. Get a job and make some money so that if you want to really get into the field, now go to university and learn all you possibly can, if you have to go to university at all.
Sorry about that, but whenever I think of school that's all that comes to mind. People going into computers and IT and web design because everyone is telling them to. They aren't particularly skilled or have a knack for it, but by God they're gonna make some serious cake doing it. Until they find out everyone was thinking the same thing and they've surplussed themselves and the fancy cars and big houses don't have anything supporting them anymore.
But that was Louis XVI.
:)
Louis XIV was the Sun King. He was an absolute monarch who finally managed to get the nobles under control (which Louis XIII, of Muketeer and Cardinal Richelieu fame, had never managed to do).
Louis XV was an even more extreme successor. His famous quote was, "After me, the deluge", and he lived like he believed it.
Louis XVI was a genuinely nice guy who was not totally unamenable to reforms towards a more constitutional monarchy. But the rabble cut his head off anyway. Honestly, I'm a fluent French speaker, and I don't understand the French either
But last I looked, OPEC was just about dead and oil was selling in the $10 - $20 per
barrel range. (...) Oil got too expensive, so we (the oil-importing countries) simply stopped using so much of it.
The end of the oil crisis had nothing to do with us using less oil. Oil/energy consumption continues to grow. High oil prices made it worthwhile for oil importing countries to start off shore oil production, and buy oil from more diverse (i.e. not all middle eastern) sources, which reduced the control OPEC countries had on oil price, and caused the prices to drop.
Although I dont have any evidence for this, I am convinced that the death (or hybernation?) of OPEC is Saudi-Arabia's secret payment to the US for fixing the Saddam Hussayn problem.
If every group of humanoids with a nickname for another group of humanoids were infantile, we would need alot more diapers and bottles.
Who are you, Anonymous Coward, that had not realized they were being called suits for quite some time. Why would you be so hypocritical as to play the name-game on those who you say play the name-game.
Strange world, Stranger people.
--
Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com
Marques Johansson
You did a fine job on your feature, Roblimo.
I thought your piece was very though provoking and "to the point", which is difficult to find in today's modern media. While I don't necessarily agree with you in the fact that the current tech shortage is a falacy, I do agree with you on some of the other points you make.
I also found your discussion of a number of topics particularly interesting. I am all about getting to the meat of the matter and cutting out as much verbiage as possible. It was refreshing to see so much content is so little space.
For what it's worth, I think Slashdot (and many other fine online publications out there (although Wired is certainly questionable these days)) has every right to be called a magazine. Good luck on your attempts to gain the respect and peer acceptance Slashdot rightfully deserves.
Please grace us with another feature soon!
- Froggy
First of all, there is nothing any less "precise" in the term "suits" than in the word "tawdry". Not too many people buy their baubles at fetes of St. Audrey any more, bu the word remains, partly because it is aberrations like this that give human language its vibrancy. In several contexts "suits" has ceased to have any relevance to the dress of the referent. This is a good thing, even if you're not an etymologist. The phenomonon goes by several names, but in honor of the educational board of Kansas, let's call it "evolved terminology". When we try to stop the natural flow of language, we come up with abominations such as Roblimo's "its". I wonder whether Roblimo would junk the term "its" if the referents stopped wearing T-shirts.
On to more serious matters: it is pretty odd to paint engineers as a bunch of whimpering, over-privileged prima donnas (look another evolved term!), especially when you're putting MBAs on the other side of the fence. The immense bonuses and stock-options that are thrust at even mediocre businessmen in this economy is far more of a distortion than the perks of engineers. But, at least if you take the viewpoint of that august journal _The Economist_, both trends will continue as long as America continues along its asset-price inflation. When this bubble bursts, it will affect everyone: some over-privileged engineers and managers alike will find themselves pumping gas, and many unfortunale members of society will find themselves yanked under the poverty line.
This is pretty basic stuff, and it has nothing to do with the real or supposed shortage of engineers as much as it does with the distortions of the present economy: a lens that affects workers at all levels.
Of course, The Economist might be wrong and there might be a true miracle in productivity afoot. But in this case, Roblimo would _still_ be wrong (and more so because of his comparison to the mid-century recessions).
And as for the very idea of genetic algorithms replacing programmers. Please park this futuristic nonsense. GAs are a very deterministic way of harnessing implicit paralellism inheret in certain problem-spaces. They are not some form of dark voodoo. There is nothing in them that will make them sudden arbitrary problem-solvers.
I really don't like being so harsh, but it's the same issue that came up when Jon Katz started writing features. On a forum such as /., with so many picky specialists, it's probably better to be encouraging features from specialists rather than journalists. I don't consider /. to be a main-stream medium. Yes, I know it might be a bit hypocritical of me to say so when I haven't submitted a feature myself. I might just find the time to correct this.
--
Uche
"What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross" -- E.P.
Anyway, back to the issue of IT shortage - yeah.. right. I don't know about you, but I spent alot (and I mean *alot*) of time doing tech support. The vast majority of people may eventually become computer literate enough to send e-mail and browse the internet without having to call us someday.. but I can guarantee you there will always be the same percentage of people who actually enjoy testing the limits of computers. And 'geek posers' are very easy to see through.. just ask them what BIOS, EIDE, or PLL means. If you really want to be mean, go into 'raw Data mode' and start throwing out random tech terms like so:
Well, after I reconfigure SMB on a VAX to use my 8.4 Gb HDD instead of my old SCSI, I'm going to restart all the daemons, and then check for network connectivity using vi and a toothpick. :) If networkweek was still running bofh weekly's, I'd suggest the excuse-of-the-day as well.
Anyway, my point is that while lots of people will flock to the money to get into computers, it really won't affect those of us who *really know the technology, and enjoy working with it*. The wannabes will compete with themselves...
--
Take the 'Power-Nap' craze. Employers are actually setting up rooms for their employees to take 10, 15, 20 minute "power" naps. It refreshes them, and boosts their energy and productivity. Likewise, a lot of employers have figured out that techies, and programmers, and others are just NOT comfortable wearing suits to work. So? So that means they're busy concentrating on their discomfort, therefore they're not as productive. Ties feel restrictive, and suits are heavy and bulky. Get rid of that crap, and employees are happy.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Yes, you always hear the argument about throwing a bigger processor (or more hardware) at something in lieu of efficient programming. That kind of thinking can work if the character of the job stays the same, but it doesn't. The complexity of the jobs are changing and getting more complex, particularly with broadband and real time media delivery.
Just look at our desktop systems now. Applied to the kind of work being done five years ago they'd burn through the floor. So why does a 450 MHz machine still feel slow sometimes? (I must be getting old, becuase I still can't believe a machine rated in 100s of MHz could ever be slow). We aren't doing the same things we were five years ago.
Straight line approximations using boosted processor speeds will only go so far, but as the job gets more complex, the need for efficient programming can only increase.
I do not believe that the shortage of highly-qualified, high-skilled, programmers will end anytime soon.
Sure, there'll be plenty of people whose eyes glaze over while reading the classifieds and seeing the salaries and rates of computer programmers. They'll turn around, and say to their drinking buddy: "Hey, Zeke! Look how much computer programmers are being paid these days (burp)! I think I'm going to go and become a computer programmer!!! (hic)".
So, they'll go to some diploma mill, go through the motions, and, presto! New! From Spishak! It's "The Programmer In A Box!!!!!!" Instant ASP! Instant Perl! Instant C++!!
So, the great unwashed will be hired en masse by clueless companies who will think that they'll save a bundle by hiring these new programmers at entry-level salaries or rates. They'll tinker around, for a little while, and things will seem to be fine for some time. Then, everything starts to crash and burn, the environment at work starts to get a bit tense because all the problems, so the new programmers will split, and the companies will be left holding the bag.
Who do you think the companies will turn to, now?
Yup, meanwhile, the Programmer In A Box[tm] is busy running the scam at another clueless company.
I did not go to college and sign up for the comp-sci major because I wanted to make big bucks. In fact, when I was in school, programmers didn't really make that much money. They made a good buck, or two, but not that much. I became a programmer because that's what I really wanted to do.
Predictions that IT worker shortage will end soon are generally based upon the alleged scores of students signing up for computer science majors or computer schools, nationwide. My opinion is that the main attraction for most of these people is only the high salaries and rates that are being paid to highly qualified and skilled programmers.
Except that just the desire to earn big bucks will not make you a good programmer. There's a very good reason why good programmers make good money. Computer programming is a very mentally intensive job. To be a good computer programmer you not only have to know the computer language of choice. It also requires a certain mental discipline, I'd even say that it requires a certain way of thinking. Just knowing how to write printf("Hello world.\n"); is not going to help you much when you've been given a core dump, the source code, no way to reproduce the problem, and were told to figure out what happened, and to fix it.
I believe that very few of these people, who are looking in to cash in on the supposed IT worker shortage, are really prepared for the job. And I wish them luck. I really do. The more they screw up, the more money the rest of us will make, cleaning up their mess.
And even if I'm completely wrong, the bottom line is that we'll always have 10, 15, or more years of experience more than they will do. That cannot possibly ever change, so no matter how many bodies you'll throw into a computer science major, the number of people who already have decades of experience will never change.
... Man... /. needs a good spell checker and grammar checker.
--
Ok, I agree with a lot of the posts I've read so far on the "shortage" of IT professionals. What is the term money people use with regards to a market... artificially inflated?
That's how I view the high-tech job market right now. Last semester I was browsing through the CS/IS books at UVSC, where I go to school. What was the text being used for CS 425? Sam's Club "Teach yourself C++ in 21 Days." At UVSC, Discrete Mathematics is covered in 1 semester. And we only looked at about 5% of the textbook, which I paid a hefty $50 for.
I'm an IT manager for my company, and I've interviewed a lot of kids with 2 year associates degrees from various colleges. What do they learn? Crash course in Microsoft VB, ASP, Office, etc.
It seems that even our scholastic training (from many institutions) is superficial in this area, designed only to "artificially inflate" a job market.
Although there may be plenty of people out there pretending to be programmers and administrators, when was the last time you ran across a real programmer -- someone with real experience who actually understands the "whys" of programming?
True programmers transcend any specific language or platform. They don't break down in tears when they are asked to write something outside of their native Visual Basic.
Simple: One of the biggest problems with our country at large is the fact that we are simply not teaching what needs to be taught. I'm not a Linux guru by far (I can get a box up and running, stock install, in 5 minutes...including finding the CD and coercing a recalcitrant eth0 system into working, but that's another topic), but I firmly believe the computer educations we are providing to students is a joke. We teach them how to use PowerPoint, MS Windows, and nothing about how the PC actually works. My Comp. Lit. class in 8th grade (long time ago) focused on using IBM's Linkway to make cheesy presentations! Oh, how I'd hoped we'd be past this now, but we've since evolved into using the Office suite for everything.
This is great for breeding kids who like a point and click OS (don't get me wrong, I like it as well, and have to use Windows for work, but I still piddle with Linux daily) and who don't want to think about what the computer can actually do, but where's the challenge? Why not teach them about how the innards work with each other, how the hardware interacts with the software, even if its only on a rudimentary basis. A little knowledge is better than no knowledge at all.
The problem with technology is that it comes in waves and therefore everybody starts paddling furiously at the same time. Naturally this leads to a severe shortage of the fad-to-be, whether programming language, app or digital-whatsits. The only real shortage is that of management talent as companies without a clue are losing people left, right and centre to those firms which do appreciate and treat their people well instead of trying to hire the lowest cost fresh-out-of-college app-builder. Given a choice between 120 hour weeks paying $250K or 60 hours paying $100K what would people choose? Burning out your engineers through stock option pyramid scams in order to cash out on an IPO is not a sustainable practice. Like in any industry boom/busts occur but IT is a portable skillset and if you're willing to travel, there will always be more relaxed opportunities elsewhere.
:-). I recall this SF story (name escapes me at the moment) which invented a device that could immortalise a worker's assembly skills but once they've captured the performance of their best worker, they fired him. With increasing IP going into software, I wonder who else will be next on the firing block.
Part of the problem IMHO is the relentless hyping of certain technologies. Sure the internet will change things but it will still be around (and cheaper) 5, 10 years later. It's absurb to think new businesses won't still be created n years in the future. From what I understand, part of this is market priming in order to adopt the most expensive components now (and thus preserve fat profit margins) before it becomes a commodity.
Let's look carefully, people are paid (roughly) according to the value the market places on their labor, skills and talent. Society has deemed that a surgeon with megayears of specialist training is worth more than a janitor. Thus skills which are not easily acquired or substituted (e.g. high manual dexterity, intensive knowledge, or natural leadership) tend to be more highly rewarded. Oh and pick a field which is likely to be in long-term demand, pricing inelasticities and has natural barriers to entry. Plastic surgery sounds like a nice area
LL
Code first, optimize later. Time = money. Big O notation doesn't matter for a huge number of problems. Optimization is an art, but knowing when to optimize is also just as important. A good consultant will save you money by *not* optimizing things that don't matter. It's the ones that have to get everything perfect you need to watch out for.
-- Virtual Windows Project
So can we keep getting smarter forever without a paradigm shift? We have been through the industrial revolution and now we're in the information revolution. What's next? Or more fundementally, what is intelligence?
I think what people call intelligence has a lot to do with the ability to concentrate. Are chronically distracted people intelligent? I've spoken to people who can't hold a conversation for 10 seconds! In other words, I don't think it's really important what you choose concentrate on, but if you can concentrate you'll probably be considered intelligent. After all, I think that people who concentrate a lot literally perceive more clearly.
Hypothetically, let's say you are a superstar programmer but then you see that the competition is getting too strong. You're no longer going to be able to bring in the big bucks. Let's say that another field opens up. If you can apply your skill in concentration to the new field then you'll be able to pick it up faster than anyone else. So, I don't think fundementally smart people need to worry about making money. They'll always be on top because they can perceive quicker and more clearly where the top is. However, let's imagine life speeds up a lot more and that paradigm shifts that used to take a generation now happen more often; Internet time reduced by another order of magnitude.
Might competition itself be made an object of concentration? Can the behavior of an ultimate competitor be boiled down into a simple description or diagram? If so, what would that mean?
Maybe I'm an idealist, but I think that everyone could have more wealth (be more satisfied) if folks were meticulous about avoiding the destruction of wealth. What really bugs me is when I'm having a good time and someone else barges in and does something stupid. "Gee, you've written such a nice piece of software. How about if I sell it and give you .05%? I want to build a new castle so I'll need my fair share (50%)." What's Gates going to do with all his money?
To sum it up:
In January of 1996, I was programming at an aerospace firm, using C, Oracle, and Pro*C. Two months later, I was working at a credit bureau, for a significantly higher salary -- using C, Oracle, and Pro*C.
If aerospace goes downhill, we can pack our bags and switch over the finance. If finance takes a downturn, it's off to the energy sector. (At least here in Houston it is.)
Of all the professions I can think of, only programming and accounting have such portable skill sets; and when a company goes out of business, the accountants are the last ones to be let go.
We have reason to worry about a general economic downturn, but no moreso than anyone else. Petroleum engineers, aerospace engineers, medical technicians, and others have to worry about downturns in specific sectors; but programmers abide, because Windows and Unix are everywhere.
Just keep your tools sharp and your resume up-to-date.
On the whole "Its" thing, it's not going to work because the meanings for its letter triple, i-t-s, are way too confusing already. (Take the previous sentence, for example.) If choosing between its and it's is a brain-numbing challenge for most of us today, why make the problem worse by throwing another meaning into the mix?
May I suggest an another option:
Some notes:
So please consider DAW and DOW.
Cheers,
Tom
Easy, automatic testing for Perl.
I hear they're teaching kids how to use watercolors and colored pencils in kindegarten and gradeschool. Suppose all those Graphic Artists know about this? Bet they're counting THEIR days...
Honestly, this spawn reads like flamebait. The thread didn't say "foreigners work harder than Americans." If anything, people pointed out that Americans weren't the only IT workers to be had on the globe. To stear this converstation into a "who works harder" direction is just asking for nationalism and bigotry. There's enough of that noise to be had elsewhere. I don't see it contributing to anything here.
As a side note, the BBC article you mentioned states:
According to the article, US workers in fact lead in productivity. However, they also work longer hours and Europeans are discovering that longer hours does not mean more production. It's an old lesson. Heck - even the US miltiary knows it. I'm sure American industry would do well to learn it too (as well as a few readers here).If its intent is pure information - minimal graphics are required. For example, I find a Open Source progect I'm curious about. I hit their progect's site. Many of these sites are very bare and offer more information than splash (to include an optional link to screenshots). Perfect. I'm there to find out about the progect, not see how many outputs of Photoshop plugins and script-fu can be strung togeather.
However, some site's entire purpose is graphics. When I head over to themes.org, I expect some snazz. And I get it. Its heavy on the graphics and layout. But, IMHO, its clean and slick. I'll take the performance hit for the flash. I'm there for eye candy to begin with.
Having said that, "art" has its limits. A bad layout destroys any reason to hit a site. This is only compounded if the images are huge and unweildy. This is where we get into the "100 font document" syndrome experienced in desktop publishing (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread).
The real "art" to web page design is the combination of technology and graphics to make a pleasant, easy to use interface to whatever information is being offered. The designer has to consider bandwidth restrictions, target audience's computer resource limitations, differences in browsers, etc, etc.
Almost anyone can slap something on a server that'll produce output. Not everyone can do it well.
Would I trust the US IT industry dominated readership of /. to objectively comment on that piece? Sure. The arguments are valid. Non-US readers are more than welcome to poke holes in them. A peer discussion allows this. As an added bonus, there are some individuals who have no problem taking hits when critism is warrented. Granted, not all do. Thankfully, posts that read "Americans Work Harder" seems to be a minority.
Yes, I think you're right there. I was completely wrong in that statement. European government seems to be a lot more concerned with worker's quality of life issues. Good for them. I'm reminded of the old saying "work smarter, not harder." With statments like "Americans work harder" coupled with stories of "no personal life" lifestyles demanded by some IT shops... I wonder who really is working smarter these days.India was a British colony for many years. Most Indians who come to the U.S. speak excellent English, in addition to an Indian language.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
..it is actually over. Some people live there entire lives based on a fear of the future. After the great depression, many people took all their money and hid it around their houses. These people sometimes got ripped off by people who were robbing their houses, and their money would probably have been safer in the banks. I'm not going to drop out of USFs outdated, horribly taught computer science program because of this article. (Despite the fact that I have grown to truly hate the program, even though I'm getting average-to-good grades.) I think this is similar to people who figured Moore's law would eventually level out. Well, as far as I know it's still holding true. (Even if it isn't, it was still a truth for a lot longer than some people expected it to be.)
Of course, anyone who is really scared about this (and currently working in the industry) there is a solution, unionize. Do it now while there is a shortage, and management can't crush the new unions.
As to me, I'll wait and see. I already know enough to build connections and save money. (I'd be doing that no matter where I was working or what I was doing.) No one is safe, you know, no matter what industry they are in. If you work with computers, you should be doing it because you love it, or at least like it. I believe this about any career, money should be secondary (as long as you can make a living at it.) And don't spend your life living in fear, it isn't worth it.
Doomsday predictions should only be uttered along with solutions. Hey, if I ever think that the world is going to come to an end in a few years, I will at least write letters to all my congressmen suggesting we build colonies on Mars.
Hey, I went through college once, got my BA in English (at Rutgers) and ended up working in K-mart-type jobs for a long time before I decided to return to school. I'm doing better now than I was then (I still need my degree, unfortunately, so I can't say I'm doing great.) The reason why I didn't take computer science then was because it terrified me, I was used to being an A student (without no real effort) in High School, not struggling with the course material. So I took the "easy A" (for me) major, English, not because I liked Literature any better than computers but because I knew I would get great grades and keep my scholarship. (Incidentally, I think a lot of computer science professors at USF think that intimidating their students is the best way to make sure that only the best students actually stick with the program. They probably "break" a lot of good, enthusiastic kids who just can't take these professor's open hostility. I truly hate people with this philosophy of life, but it obviously drives a lot of people in positions of power.)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Many of the comments I've read seem to be taking away the wrong point. *Of course* programming is difficult. *Of course* you can weed out the good programmers from the bad. But guess what? Engineering is difficult too! And some people are good at it while others aren't, just as with programming.
And that could be precisely the engine behind what Rob describes. Did the engineering profession disappear recently? Of course not. And programming won't go anywhere either. But there are probably fewer engineers out there today than there were then, and the ones that remain are probably the more skilled among them. (I have no numbers to support this, only anecdotes). There isn't as much money sloshing around for the reamaining engineers to grab either. What's to say that the bulk of today's coders won't be driven out as well, with only the very best remaining -- if even them?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that IT will go down the same way. Consider that much of the growth behind IT is the move to get businesses onto the internet, and to build the infrastructure to get people on at home at better speeds. In other words, we're in a building phase, much like countries went through when they joined the industrial revolution. But just as with that period, it will end. Eventually, there weren't as many new factories to build, the telegraph lines had been laid, the rivers all had steamboats, and while these things persisted, they slacked off. So it may be here. Eventually, the fiber optic lines and satellites will all be in place; the companies will have their E-Commerce(tm) departments up and running; and the opportunities for new entry will, not disappear, but diminish.
If you think this can't happen, you're delusional. Nothing lasts forever. We've got it good now, but something -- who knows what, who knows when or how soon -- will bring it all to an end. Plan for it. If you are not absolutely top notch, plan on a second career.
One of my professors got his undergrad degree in aerospace engineering -- he worked on the Apollo program and helped send people to the moon. In his domain, he was great -- but one day we stopped sending people to the moon, and he had to find a new job. For a while, he bought a bar & lived as a bartender. Now he's a professor. But he'll probably never send people to the moon again.
It's not pessimism guys, it's reality. Plan for it or get burned. Consider yourselves warned.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Headhunters harvest names and phone numbers the way spammers collect e-mail addresses. Everyone ends up on their list sooner or later, and it's no great honor. Do you really think sending or not sending resumes makes any difference? They have their methods...
And headhunters don't even care if you're suited to the job, and they're far too clueless to know one way or the other. A year after I left the profession, a headhunter tracked me down and wanted to set up an interview with a hotshot animation company just because I had a few animated GIFs on my webpage...
Taking pride in having your voice mail filled up by headhunters is like taking pride in having your e-mailbox filled up with "make money fast" offers.
Getting a call from a headhunter means nothing, and interviews are a dime a dozen. Getting a job offer to do exactly the same thing you're paid to do now is nice, but not exactly difficult in today's market.
Branching out into something new, cutting-edge, with the opportunity to learn and grow your skills... that's where it's at, that's the reason most of us became programmers in the first place. But that's where the doors start closing when you get older. Of course you keep up with new developments on your own time and initiative, but that's considered "hobby" experience... all dressed up and nowhere to go, stuck in your day job.
Why fight it? Stick a fork in yourself, you're done. Develop some business or entrepreneurial skills and get on with the rest of your life.
I code in C++ every day. I thought for about a second what makes my job hard. It certainly isn't anything that you can memorize (Design Patterns anyone?). I memorized the syntax long ago, but it's the logical flow that makes programming hard. On the simplest level the question is "Should I use a for or a while?". More complex things like "Where does this go in my class hierarchy?" cannot be answered my someone without experience, good training, and most importantly, a logical mind. Complex applications involve a lot of problems, and they have to be broken down accordingly.
I've wrestled with the question of whether just anyone can be a programmer for a long time. And I think that anyone can. But it takes a certain set of skills that you start developing at a very young age. You cannot deciede to be a Comp Sci major in college if you didn't deciede to do "something technical" in grade school. And you won't have done that unless it really interests you.
So anyone can write a 100 line perl script that does something useful. But you can't throw anyone at a large project (my project has about 800k lines, and I don't pretend to understand it all) and expect them to be productive, or even useful.
It's not rocket science, and it would go a long way to helping foster acceptance of OSS by people who were previously clueless. Not to mention the fact that communicating effectively with management makes you that much more valuable to those you work for.
While I'm all in favor of everybody learning to communicate better, I think you have to recognize what it means to be a geek. A geek is typically a specialist in some technological field. Communication may not be their strong suit.
A manager, particularly one who is described as a "Master of Business Administration", should have significant skills in the area of communication. If a manager's primary job is not to communicate with employees, both expectations and to learn about the business from them, then what is it?
That being said, I think that the typical geek is far more able to communicate with the typical MBA than the typical MBA is to perform the geek's job.
It's frustrating to me when managers claim that they can't communicate with their people. That's like geeks saying that they don't understand the technology their using. It's an admission of incompetence.
Look, I recognize that some geeks are EXTREMELY difficult to communicate with. In these cases, management needs to select or develop some geek interpreters among the technical staff. It's not acceptable to just give up and say that there are some geeks with whom you cannot communicated. If this were the case, how do you expect to set your expectations to these geeks?
Sorry for the rant, but I too am tired of seeing superior solutions passed over because those in the know could not or would not make a proper business case to management.
And I'm tired of management who expect me to do their job and "fire up excel" to prove to them that what I'm saying is correct. When technical people are excited about a given technology, it's management's job to get down with the techies and pull out the business case from the technical detail for utilizing this technology. Developing business cases is one of those communication skills that MBAs have gone to school for, after all.
One thing that I can't agree with at all is:
Believe me, somewhere in a secret cavern beneath the Wharton School of Business (which is to finance as Stanford is to Computer Science) or someplace similar, teams of fiery-eyed MBA candidates are plotting to take down today's computer professionals as hard as OPEC, engineers, and Louis XVI all got slammed in their respective days.
This is just paranoia. Maybe it's just meant to be funny, after all there's not really a secret cavern beneath the Wharton School. I don't believe that anybody "took down" OPEC and engineers in the '70s. I especially bristle at the comparison of MBA candidates to the downtrodden French peasants.
It's popular to believe that cabals worked behind the scenes to destory OPEC, but really, they did it to themselves. The poor countries in OPEC have never been able to resist the desire to profit at the expense of the rich. In addition, there have been important holdouts (like the North Sea) that has made the OPEC cartel less than dominant.
Engineers in the 70's were brought down by a bad economy and a marked decrease in defense/aerospace spending. They were not targetted by a cabal of management types who were jealous of their market successes. Heck, these same forces cost a lot of middle management their jobs in the 70's and 80's.
You can bet that the first to get hit by a downturn in the IT economy today would be the MBA type middle-management. Upper management would first get rid of as much management as possible before cutting into the "productive" IT workforce.
Having said all that, I do agree that any number of things can happen to cause IT workers to suffer similar fates to the Engineer's of the '70s. People shouldn't be smug and should be prepared. It may not be a conspiracy to "bring you down", but it feels the same when there's no work.
Being prepared for a downturn is not showing your loyalty and commitment by working 80 hour weeks. Quite the opposite. Don't believe that management will appreciate it when you end up burned out and overly specialized. The real things you can do to improve your marketability are to sharpen your skills in a wide array of technologies and learn to communicate better. Although I've not tried it, it might be that participating in Open Source projects in your "spare time" might be a good way to sharpen your skills and practice written communication. (Note to those who want to improve their Karma, always work in positive comments about Open Source and Linux is a good way, no matter how far afield from the subject at hand.)
I can not predict the future and I can't speak for entry level admins, but I doubt there will be an end to a shortage of senior computer techies.
Computer are becoming an integral part of every day life. Soon walking down the road you will be able to read email, browse the web and run apps from your personal computer over some sort of remote display X term or network app. How soon? Less than 5 years. The world needs programmers and geeky admins to make sure all these services are running and bug free.
Its highly unlikely that someone is going to write smart software to replace the average programmer, and even if they do, we'll always need someone to optimize and debug that "smart" software.
We can not dispute on average people are lazy and ignorant. Most people, 51%+, don't know anything, relatively speaking, about computers. Afterall, they are the reason AOL is doing so well. They couldn't possibly learn what it takes to take my job away. And the other half of the world, the professional, are trying to find a place that suits them, not all of them are going to become programmers or network admins.
There's even a huge difference between a sys admin and a network admin. Network professionals don't need to know the equipment that runs on their network, but they do need to know the various routing protocols, topology of their network and security issues. Sys admins need to know the hardware and software every peon in the company uses as well as what servers need to be in place. And there are faded lines between these positions and even really senior people who can fill both, but those are extremely rare, even in the silicon valley.
I bet it will be more competitive in the future, I will be forces to learn faster and work smarter. But without a major geological catastrophy, computers are not going to disappear off the face of the planet. Even a stock market crash couldn't put an end to computers. Look at the Y2k problems. If we didn't need them we would simply turn them off.
This is slightly off-topic, so moderate down as appropriate.
I am a self-described geek, have an advanced degree, and am finishing up an MBA at one of the aforementioned satanic institutions, so take this FWIW.
The hostility that i'm seeing by techies to their PHB's really is (IMHO) about a communication gulf.
Many of my peers in business school are getting involved in high-tech, obviously because that's where the money is.
The more self-aware ones realize that they haven't got a clue about the underlying technologies, but they are making an attempt to learn. The M$ mentality still prevails, but the volume of people asking me about my linux boxen increases daily.
I think that many business-types would appreciate the techies in their companies giving them the scoop on the latest technologies. These people are not idiots, but you need to do it in a language that they understand. Money.
Want to use linux as a print server? Don't just tell your manager that Linux rules and NT is a bloated hog.
Intuitively, we believe that Linux is a superior solution. So prove it: fire up excel and do a little NPV analysis. Show them with numbers that your alternative is viable and fits with the goals of the business. In your model's assumptions, explain the merits of the technology as best you can.
It's not rocket science, and it would go a long way to helping foster acceptance of OSS by people who were previously clueless. Not to mention the fact that communicating effectively with management makes you that much more valuable to those you work for. [An important skill, if Roblimo's hypothesis is correct.]
Sorry for the rant, but I too am tired of seeing superior solutions passed over because those in the know could not or would not make a proper business case to management. To me, this is just as egregious as managemnent forcing IT guys to wear ties :)
docwolf
[tieless, wearing a mumu like homer.]
I've put a lot of thought to these topics lately, so here are a couple of thoughts...
/dev/null
Suits:
Well, on the West Coast that is most definitely true. Almost every kind of office has transitioned to "business casual," even the German-owned insurance company my father is a director at, which previously required ties of even the technical people. However, many of my friends have noted that on the East coast, the traditional dress has for the most part remained, and in fact that they have to dress up more when visiting East Coast offices. It's a culture difference for the most part. On the East Coast you have many companies which are older than every Slashdot reader - on the West Coast, there's been a boom, and culture changes with a boom like that. When was the last time you went into a tech company and they didn't have free sodas? Were you surprised?
IT shortage:
Here's what it boils down to. As a network engineer I can only speak as to the network portion, but examine the field. It's only been around for 30 years. Before 30 years ago, *there were no network engineers* (not counting telco engineers, who have laregly stayed with their telecom networks, and not transitioned to IP, though I have no doubt that will change...). We are second generation at best. We are one of the youngest industries around. So it only makes sense that there is a lack of trained professionals, or even of mechanisms for generating trained professionals. Secondly, examine the fact that there has been a higher growth rate for networks and the internet than probably almost any industry to date (perhaps excluding broadcast media such as TV, which grew almost as fast, I think... I don't have the facts to back this up, but it's not really important). Again, this means you have far too few people to run far too many networks.
Will this be true in 40 years? No, it will be a fully formed industry, with channels for training, set career paths, and A lot of very senior people. That's part of the key - in 20 years, I'm going to be damn senior as network people go. That's because I choose to learn constantly and develop. I'm not concerned.
Also, the fact that networks are for the most part a closed kind of community means there won't be a massive influx of people until schools start teaching it, and even then, we all know that schools often produce people with no practical technical knowledge at all. Most kids can't reasonably set up a routed network in their apartment or dorm. This makes the learning curve a bit more difficult to mount, as compared to system administration.
I think the sysadmin world is a little bit different. The main issue being that anyone can boot up a free UNIX on their home computer, or NT for that matter, and administrate it. They can learn enough from that to admin a small company's boxes, and maybe a large company's. There *will* be a glut in the market for sysadmins, because it's so easy to learn. However, as with everything, specialization is the key to preserving prosperity. Sendmail gods will still be sendmail gods. Security wizards will still be security wizards. But if you bill yourself as a UNIX system administrator, you might want to consider adding a specific specialization to your resume - you're a dime a dozen, from my observation.
flames to
email to grey@enigma.mips4.com
Well, here's the thing: There's no way that many of these kiddies are going to make it through our CIS program. Why? A number of factors: 1) Universities are raising GPA requirements for potential CIS majors because CIS departments cannot accomodate the demand. 2) Many of these "potentials" think that they want to be programmers because they like Star Trek and they enjoy a good game of Quake. When they actually sit down to write a lab and it takes them 8 hours to finish it, they'll think twice. When they have to sit through a whole lecture on binary, or B-Trees, or regular expressions and finite automata, they'll think about it again. And some of them will drop.
I graded for the department for 4 quarters, and I watched a lot of kids walk away. So, there _will_ be a significant increase in CIS graduates, but it will not be to the degree we've been hearing. The colleges can't graduate that many, because the infrastructure isn't there in the depts., nor will that many potential students be able to cope with the very mathematical, very dry nature of the course work.
While I agree that there is not a lack of IT workers out there, I would have to say that the percentage of *skilled* IT workers is very small. I can't tell you how many times that I've talked to a highly-paid consultant about how I made some algorithm faster, get into big-O notation, and see his/her eyes start to glaze over. Unfortunately for someone like myself, who cares about the efficiency of their algorithms, the huge advances in processor speed have rendered such details unnecessary in most business applications. 90% of the code I review nowadays is just total cr*p, and it's due to the attitude that everything can be fixed by throwing more hardware at the problem. I'm beginning to feel like an old man (remember the old days...) and I'm only 29...