I know it is not easy saying no. I've left 2 workplaces due to this. Unfortunately, it is pervasive in the industry. I spent the first 2 years of my working life working what I would think now are insane conditions.
As in industry we either grow a pair and be professionals... or we grow a pair collectively as a union.
Whether valid or not, the fact that businesses see most IT people as replaceable cogs... then maybe those areas should be aiming for unionization instead of acting like professionals.
But I'll still put the vast majority of the blame on us in industry. The number of us who go well above and beyond what we are paid is extraordinary. The number of us who take pride in being smarter and working harder than the rest is astonishing. I've seen people proud of the fact they stayed at work until 1 am finishing up some code. The number of us (me included... I still can't get rid of this habit... I don't have the heart for it) who let 'lesser engineers and IT staff' get by via giving away our knowledge and expertise for free is astounding. This only enforces the idea that we are replaceable cogs.
Until we change our attitudes, I'm a little hesitant to simply blame management. Management also has their own stresses. If you're lucky, you will end up in a nicely managed company with good management from top to bottom. But if you're like most companies, your manager is stressing from the demands of his manager. He'll pass that onto the workers, unless they're willing to stand up for themselves.
Pardon me if I sounded a bit off in the other post. I know how hard dealing with management is.
IT workers, and I'll throw in software developers as well, abuse THEMSELVES. In my years, I've met only 3 engineers with backbone. They're all still gainfully employed. Ever heard of saying 'No'... give it a try. I know I have. It's not just about working more. It is about stupid policies. Just say no. Yet, I'm still here working away.
You have to realize one simple thing. Everyone wants to get the most. Your manager, and his manager, and his director... all want to get the most while paying the least. That's it. The fact that most IT people and engineers are sadists is to their benefit. We take some perverse pleasure in working hard for someone else. We take our pleasure in being 'smarter' than someone else.
Wake up. Grow a pair. Treat yourself like a professional and maybe you'll get treated like one in return. Keep being a technology loving nerd sadist... and be treated like one.
Don't get me wrong, I fall into the technology loving trap as well. When work interests me, I'll put in the extra hours. Yet, 9-5 is my domain.
ummm, where to you get the idea that government is not for profit?
The only difference between government and a corporation is who gets the profit.
Corporation - profits go to investors, private sector workers. Government - profits go to public sector workers, bureaucrats
The rest is all the same. Driving business to their industry...
Take a look at the drug war. It's a business for police officers, prison guards, lawyers... Or take a look at public education. it's a business for teachers and teacher unions.
All great questions. Similar questions can be raised for things like software as well.
I always say... we do not live in a free market libertarian society. We just don't. Period. So why do we expect certain classes of our society to operate under such rules (artists, film makers, software, writers...). They deserve no protection!
Here we are in a world where 1/3 of the economy is funded by taxation. Teachers, bureaucrats, civil servants... don't get paid per use. They negotiate their labor with some abstract entity (government) and then just pay themselves. No money to pay them? Who cares... drive the country into debt.
Here we are in a world where doctors, lawyers, accountants protect their trade through legal enforcement. Only doctors can prescribe pills...
Here we are in a world where you simply have to have constant cash flow. The government demands property taxes from you or it kicks you out of your home. This prevents you from living a low cost of living.
And in this kind of world... such 'open source culture' finds it fit to drop the menial protections (patents, copyrights, vendor lockin...) given to artists and software programmers to maintain a decent living?
Now you can argue such open source culture means some people still pay for stuff. That is fine. But that should be up to the writers, film makers... to make that choice. They can avail themselves of the protections or not.
The Japanese are a few years behind... but they are suffering the same fate as the Americans. Young Japanese (on mass) do not find science and engineering all that interesting anymore and they aren't willing to sacrifice to just do it as a job.
There's also the salary curve. As your society gets more services and regulations, there are 'easier' ways to make money, you can be a financial person, a doctor, lawyer, public sector worker, transit worker... Your best and brightest go into those areas.
Contrast this with say H1Bs. Now you get the best of the best from other countries where the pay/work vastly exceeds anything they could earn in other industries.
That said, the need for H1Bs is simply not that useful these days. If a company wants to make use of foreign labor, they could just setup a foreign branch:P
But at this point, I'm giving up. I don't see people turning towards freedom. So I have to allow for a left-wing approach that solves our structural problems as well. If I had the choice between a left-wing candidate that promised to make journalism/engineering true professions with such job protections and another regular republican... I'd vote for the left-wing candidate. But I don't see that happening:P They enjoy the fruits of our indentured servitude far too much.
Do me a favor, take the CEO of walmarts salary... and now divide it by the number of walmart workers... and see how much it works out when distributed... hint... it's a few dollars per employee per year.
Taxing the rich at the top of this scheme does not solve the problem.
As to teachers. Most are overqualified with unnecessary schooling, especially in the nigh pay states (typically by government decrees as a form of job protectionism and justification for their pay). The same goes for doctors and other professionals. As a quick example, you typically need a bachelors degree and then a few years of med school in the US. In many countries (even western countries like the UK), you go straight from high school into medical school. I think we could get just as good doctors under such a system.
You might also want to look at the reality that we had schools and teachers long before they were highly paid union members.
And no, there is no need for the government to decree things. There is no need for the government to set prices. Under option 2, people would pay what they could afford. Prices would adjust naturally. If we simply mandated government balanced budgets, this would handle their end as well.
But this is option 2.
I'm fine with granting protectionism to fields as well (as in option 1).
1. To place artificial barriers to entry. For example, you could say that any piece of 'news' must be presented by a certified journalist. Just like any prescription must be done by a doctor. Or lawyers have their own provisions. For programmers you could have certain requirements like any piece of software in use must have a certain number of maintainers... Basically turning such jobs into professions with the same level of protection as doctors, lawyers... Oh I'm sure we can come up with some excuse like 'quality' to enforce this:)
2. We embrace the lowering of costs and focus on reducing our cost of living. As good private sector jobs (auto-workers, engineers...) go away, that high-end tax base drops as well. So the payment to the public sector should drop as well. There is no intrinsic reason a teacher should earn more than a waitress. I know I'd rather be a teacher than a fast food server. I've been both:) We can then focus on low property taxes... having a lost cost of living. And we would all be able to have more 'stuff' as things would cost very little. We could simplify the legal and tax system as well as remove the medical monopoly from doctors...
The alternative is the current unstable system. Whereby those in the private unregulated sector keep pushing themselves to efficiency and 0 cost. While those in regulated professions and the public sector keep pushing for more. Basically a form on indentured servitude by those in the public sector and regulated profession upon those in the private sector.
ummm, I've known many engineers who left the field to be teachers.
Teaching is not a poor profession. In places like New York you can reach 6 figures with a pension and job security.
If anything, this kind of article misses the point entirely. You do not need to make science *cool* or hire *cool* teachers or make science *fun*.
I've seen colleagues leave the field. They love the cool part of their job. They just hate their actual job. They feel underpaid, overworked, no job security... You know the things you eventually find important after you get out of the naive student stage. So if these people who *love* science would probably choose a different career path if they could redo everything... is the problem really about making science *cool*?
Indeed, I would say there are more than enough people interested in science. The difference is in terms of actual working conditions. In India/China... getting into tech is a world full of riches and opportunity. Hence, their best and brightest go into it. In today's America/Western World, getting into tech is a middle class job with no job security. Hence a *perceived* shortage of talent. It is not a real shortage, as their are plenty of capable people. They are just choosing other fields.
If you are talented enough to be a good scientist/engineer... you're smart enough to be a doctor, lawyers, teacher, nurse, banker... and that is where the talent goes. As a matter of fact, paying teachers more will only make this problem worse. As it makes another profession even more appealing than engineering. Case in point... me... I got my B of Education, but unfortunately, where I live (Ontario, Canada), teaching pays very well and such the jobs are hard to come by. If I could get into the school system, I'd leave my engineering career in a split second. Pay, pension, lifestyle, vacation... oh hell ya. And yes, I taught and I've done supply teaching. It's a great job to be a teacher.
Your beliefs were right, they just don't exist in reality.
I still hold forth that a free (libertarian) society provides the best opportunity for all people. Every other system has some ruling class that gets to sit on its laurels.
That said, we do not live in a free society. Wall-street is not the free market. The healthcare system is not free market. Transit is not the free market. Government is not the free market.......
So yeah, if you want a job, you either have to go into a free market part of the economy (high tech, engineering, home contracting...). An increasingly rare part of the economy.
Or, play the game that gets you into a non-productive protected job in one of the non-free market fields.
If you want a good life, my suggestion is to give up your ideals, and join the maifa (government public sector, health care, wall street... ).
"Scientists are indifferent to the details, but want only to see this threat addressed."
You really think scientists are some holy group of people who only see the objective nature of the global warming problem? How do you even make a general statement like that? I don't know.
In case you missed the point...
Police officers are indifferent to the details, but only want a safe neighborhood. Lawyers are indifferent to details, but only want to see justice served. Teachers are indifferent to details, but only want to see kids learn. Priests are indifferent to details, but only want to see us live a moral life.
If you actually have the audacity to agree with the above statements, you must need some growing up to do.
Scientists are not some scared group of people who only seek to serve humanity and not abuse their position and power; who are not corruptible by money and game. That's the same thinking that gets people into thinking a theocracy is a good idea.
With all these things, you have to separate the people from the equation.
Is science pure? Absolutely. I trust the scientific method more than anything else as far as reaching conclusions and figuring things out.
Yet, does that mean I would want a society run by scientists? Hell no. Scientists are just people. They *try* and hold up a certain code of ethnic. But you know police officers also have a code of ethics. So do lawyers. So do doctors. And how often does their code of ethnics interfere with protecting their job, their ideals... The answer... all the time. We basically keep the drug war going because it employs police officers, lawyers, prison guards... Some of them speak out, but in general, they enjoy the fruits of their labor even to the detriment of society.
I would even suggest, the only reason science has such credibility is that science has traditionally had no power. No one has a reason to lie about the theory of gravity. It has no political and social consequences. Yet, start talking child care, education, climate change... now there's huge political, social, and monetary consequences.
Which is why I fear the ever increasing power given to science. Now you have money and politics in science. Suddenly the grant a scientist is applying for depends on the appropriate results from a study... Suddenly, the hype a scientist can generate about 'their' issue means they get more fame and more money. Suddenly, the power entrusted in the form of laws is enticing to scientist who wishes to mold society....
So what is so special about a scientist? Nothing. They will hold their ideals as much as police officers, catholic priests, lawyers, doctors... yeah... those same priestly ideals that condemned premarital sex, while they molested children.
In short. give scientists power and they will abuse it. Period. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. it doesn't just apply to kings and priests. It applies equally teachers, nurses, scientists...
Science is not the antidote to money and power. Money and power will corrupt science.
People in society have an absolute right and duty to question every word that supposedly comes from scientists.
Yeah. Metering just causes too many social problems. Many people just write off entire services if they have to keep track of how much they use.
I've always been in favor of you get X MB uncapped per month. Once you cross X MB, then you get throttled (yes... evil throttling...) . I think lets the user get away without worrying about anything. It also allows ISPs to target that 3% of users who are streaming videos all the time.
Linux is not for mainstream users because people want it to be free.
You will always find programmers and people willing to write open source code out of sheer interest or as part of a company for a technical aspect.
However, who gets to pay for the grunt work that is of little interest to anyone and of no use to corporations who just want to use the linux ecosystem? The answer... no one.
Such in the case with documentation. No body has a passion to document all the little details of a system. Corporations that might sponsor certain projects, don't really have an interest in that either as they just tend to use the components and are likely staffed by technical people. As a matter of fact, it might (only in certain cases) be in their interest not to make the components too user friendly, so they can sell support.
Until people get used to the idea of selling a linux distribution to the end user, these problems will not be fixed. This is not a case where you can expect a huge party to make a one time payment to fix all these issues. Perhaps netbooks or the like will start this process.
One the items often missed here is the exempt employees are supposed to be able to exercise judgment. It's a vague concept in many circumstances. However, if you are able to exercise judgment, you MUST be able to use the following word:
NO.
Do some companies make it hard to say no? Absolutely. Been there done that. But that is what you must do. If you are a worker bee that just takes instructions from management... you are not a professional and you should be paid overtimes.
It's amazing to me the number of people who never even TRY to say no. I don't know how I'd act if my manager actually threatened to fire me for saying no. It's never happened. Granted, I am sure it has cost me in terms of promotions, bonuses... Perfectly fair if you ask me. Someone else is willing to work harder than me... they deserve it.
I'm a pretty reasonable person. I'll put in some extra hours if a deadline is coming up. I'll do a late night call once in a while if there's an emergency. If I start to see a pattern... emergencies happening weekly... then it ain't an emergency and management had better start budgeting for that.
And yes, we should all be grateful to have a job in this time. But never forget this is not a one way street. No employer is going to value you unless you value yourself.
You know the code/equipment; you know the domain; you know the processes; you are known to do good work. You're worth something. If you leave, the company has to go find a replacement, train them, deadlines pushed back because a new person is coming in... and there's uncertainty if it works out... Chances are the company is understaffed as is... and losing you would just make things even more unmanageable. In short, value yourself. Don't overvalue yourself... anyone can be replaced:P
Are we moving up the value chain of programming? Of course.
However, almost all the things we can automate via compilers are things you wouldn't want to do anything. Who wants to code the assembler for a for loop? I welcome C! Who wants to code a GUI specifying pixel positions and handling resizing? I welcome come GUI designers and XAML. Who wants to write protocols encoding and decoding data? I welcome XML serialization and RPC!...
None of those things make good programs. Heck, using the right libraries and programmers that like nice sounding function and variable names, you can make c# or java really easy too. I've never found anyone hampered by syntax. A semi-colon here or brace there is simply not an obstacle to me.
I taught computer science in high school. You would be amazed at the difference. Some students get it... and some just don't. Even a simple thing like variable assignment. Those that can get it...they get variable assignments, they get sequential steps, they get functions... they really pick up the fundamentals of any language quite quickly. The rest is design. I don't think people who can program can ever understand the mind of someone who doesn't get these things. I suspect its why some kids get algebra and some just don't. They're unable to understand variables and abstract notions.
The only things you can really remove the programming from are those whose rules are pretty static. Things like very very very basic forms backed by a DB. But a variety of companies and environments already allow you do do such things. Anything that you can write a compiler for or auto-code generator for, I welcome.
well I'm a 'formal' engineer... but let's be frank here.
The world has not come to an end. The accounts will be fixed. The clients will not lose any money.
Yeah, nothing would make me happy than requiring every line of software to be written by a real engineer with responsibilities, but it's more for my benefit than society's (job security, competent colleagues.. you know how doctors and lawyers do it).
In the end, society is making the trade offs. Society is choosing to have features developed faster than a proper 'engineer' would implement them. Society is choosing to lower the cost of programs at the expense of quality. Society is choosing to deal with the results of bad quality instead of paying up front for quality engineers.
There is no 'right' and 'wrong' with these choices for society. It's easy to see the loss of quality. It's harder to see the loss of opportunity.
For example, you can say that only doctors should be able to prescribe medications for 'quality' reasons. Sure, it is easy to find an example where someone took a medicine they were not supposed to and it cost them their health. No doubt such a thing would make the news. Yet what about the missed opportunity? The person who doesn't see a doctor at all due to cost? Or the doctor who is too busy to properly diagnose and care for patients? Would society actually end up better off if less qualified people like nurses could prescribe medications? I'll leave that an open question.
I'll trivialize the issue even further. I've started seeing self-checkouts at many places. Now you can most certainly pay for quality of process and make sure no body steals. But that's not what the store/people care about. The store only cares about the following:
if( savings_from_no_cashiers > additional_money_lost_to_theft ) {
cout "we made a good decision" endl; }
And so it is with this bank. If they can deliver cheap systems with unregulated programmers that work without anything systemically catastrophic happening, why would they not? They will pay the cost to fix their mistake and maybe even lose business as customers loss faith in that bank.
If it is not true... wonderful climate change is not that bad. If it is true... wonderful... no more snow in winter!
Sorry to any part of the world negatively affected by global warming. Where I live (away from the ocean, in a cold climate), a degree warming can only be a good thing.
Teachers don't make a lot of money? Depends on what state you are in. They make 6 figures in New York. They make around 80K is many other states.
And the median wage in the US is around 30-40K.
In any case, this is a little worrying as they are paid from the public purse. What they produced should be owned by the public. What's next, a senior teacher refuses to help transition a younger teacher? They start demanding payment for these lesson plans? Pardon me, if I've seen more cooperation and 'greater good' displayed in the private sector if this is where it is heading.
What's interesting is to see just how far the internet has come alone without much regulation... and the world has not come to an end.
Even something as ridiculous as SMTP email which was has virtually no security or authentication features built it seems to have gotten by. Sure, we ended up with spam, but in the end, the world continues, solutions developed... Similarly, things like Facebook have people's personal information... and yet by in large, they haven't caused systemic problems.
You could just imagine if governments had regulated the net. Everything would have been authenticated and tracked. Committees setup to review content and preapprove forum posts. Development of the net would have been slow, trying to get 200 governments and a million special interest groups to come to an agreement and agree on standards. Instead the wild wild west seems to have come up with something diverse and workable.
I'm by no means suggesting things are 'perfect'. Far far far from it. Yet it is just good to note that in the end, society has not crumbled. People move along. There's all kinds of hate speech on the net... but people ignore it. There's all kinds of false information... but people have learned to deal with it. There's all kinds of problems with users, authentication, and anonymity... but people seem to get the things they need one. There's all kind of privacy issues (See star wars kid), but in general people get by. There's all kinds of 'standards' and technologies used, and by in large, people can get to the content they want (yes... even flash or silverlight:P ).
I ran into the same thing in one of our labs at the university. Let me just say, finding a linux distro that works and performs well on older hardware is pretty tough. Tried everything from old redhats to Corel Linux. This was a few years back and maybe I just couldn't find some niche distro... but in the end, the best OS I found to use was... Windows 95. We built some apps with QT and it did its job.
We figured if we ever got new computers, we could install linux and just recompile.
So my advice to you, sure to get you shot in slashdot... save yourself the time and effort and just get windows 95. You can get a basic browser and ssh in there.
I don't think we can do anything about this right now. As India and China have risen, any 'shortage' of top talent here, will not be made up by raising wages here. It will be made by raising wages in India and China. Considering half our top talent comes from there anyways, why not keep them there.
I could care less about money at this point. I make a good living off being an engineer. However, I do agree with the article that top talent does not go into the field. It's darn near impossible to hire anyone competent right now. Our team has been looking for ages. We have thousands of resumes in the bank, but the top talent is just not going into the field.
I don't blame them either. Were I back in high school making my choice, I'd go into a government protected career like law, medicine, healthcare... So yeah, salaries and job security do need to go up to attract the good talent back...
Slashdot Mirror
All true.
I know it is not easy saying no. I've left 2 workplaces due to this. Unfortunately, it is pervasive in the industry. I spent the first 2 years of my working life working what I would think now are insane conditions.
As in industry we either grow a pair and be professionals...
or we grow a pair collectively as a union.
Whether valid or not, the fact that businesses see most IT people as replaceable cogs... then maybe those areas should be aiming for unionization instead of acting like professionals.
But I'll still put the vast majority of the blame on us in industry. The number of us who go well above and beyond what we are paid is extraordinary. The number of us who take pride in being smarter and working harder than the rest is astonishing. I've seen people proud of the fact they stayed at work until 1 am finishing up some code. The number of us (me included... I still can't get rid of this habit... I don't have the heart for it) who let 'lesser engineers and IT staff' get by via giving away our knowledge and expertise for free is astounding. This only enforces the idea that we are replaceable cogs.
Until we change our attitudes, I'm a little hesitant to simply blame management. Management also has their own stresses. If you're lucky, you will end up in a nicely managed company with good management from top to bottom. But if you're like most companies, your manager is stressing from the demands of his manager. He'll pass that onto the workers, unless they're willing to stand up for themselves.
Pardon me if I sounded a bit off in the other post. I know how hard dealing with management is.
Ummm... No.
IT workers, and I'll throw in software developers as well, abuse THEMSELVES.
In my years, I've met only 3 engineers with backbone. They're all still gainfully employed.
Ever heard of saying 'No'... give it a try.
I know I have. It's not just about working more. It is about stupid policies. Just say no. Yet, I'm still here working away.
You have to realize one simple thing. Everyone wants to get the most. Your manager, and his manager, and his director... all want to get the most while paying the least. That's it. The fact that most IT people and engineers are sadists is to their benefit. We take some perverse pleasure in working hard for someone else. We take our pleasure in being 'smarter' than someone else.
Wake up. Grow a pair. Treat yourself like a professional and maybe you'll get treated like one in return.
Keep being a technology loving nerd sadist... and be treated like one.
Don't get me wrong, I fall into the technology loving trap as well. When work interests me, I'll put in the extra hours. Yet, 9-5 is my domain.
ummm, where to you get the idea that government is not for profit?
The only difference between government and a corporation is who gets the profit.
Corporation - profits go to investors, private sector workers.
Government - profits go to public sector workers, bureaucrats
The rest is all the same. Driving business to their industry...
Take a look at the drug war. It's a business for police officers, prison guards, lawyers...
Or take a look at public education. it's a business for teachers and teacher unions.
All great questions. Similar questions can be raised for things like software as well.
I always say... we do not live in a free market libertarian society. We just don't. Period.
So why do we expect certain classes of our society to operate under such rules (artists, film makers, software, writers...). They deserve no protection!
Here we are in a world where 1/3 of the economy is funded by taxation. Teachers, bureaucrats, civil servants... don't get paid per use. They negotiate their labor with some abstract entity (government) and then just pay themselves. No money to pay them? Who cares... drive the country into debt.
Here we are in a world where doctors, lawyers, accountants protect their trade through legal enforcement. Only doctors can prescribe pills...
Here we are in a world where you simply have to have constant cash flow. The government demands property taxes from you or it kicks you out of your home. This prevents you from living a low cost of living.
And in this kind of world... such 'open source culture' finds it fit to drop the menial protections (patents, copyrights, vendor lockin...) given to artists and software programmers to maintain a decent living?
Now you can argue such open source culture means some people still pay for stuff. That is fine. But that should be up to the writers, film makers... to make that choice. They can avail themselves of the protections or not.
That is a very false conclusion.
The Japanese are a few years behind... but they are suffering the same fate as the Americans.
Young Japanese (on mass) do not find science and engineering all that interesting anymore and they aren't willing to sacrifice to just do it as a job.
There's also the salary curve. As your society gets more services and regulations, there are 'easier' ways to make money, you can be a financial person, a doctor, lawyer, public sector worker, transit worker ... Your best and brightest go into those areas.
Contrast this with say H1Bs. Now you get the best of the best from other countries where the pay/work vastly exceeds anything they could earn in other industries.
That said, the need for H1Bs is simply not that useful these days. If a company wants to make use of foreign labor, they could just setup a foreign branch :P
yeah, I'm a libertarian myself.
But at this point, I'm giving up. I don't see people turning towards freedom. So I have to allow for a left-wing approach that solves our structural problems as well. If I had the choice between a left-wing candidate that promised to make journalism/engineering true professions with such job protections and another regular republican... I'd vote for the left-wing candidate. But I don't see that happening :P They enjoy the fruits of our indentured servitude far too much.
Do me a favor, take the CEO of walmarts salary... and now divide it by the number of walmart workers... and see how much it works out when distributed... hint... it's a few dollars per employee per year.
Taxing the rich at the top of this scheme does not solve the problem.
As to teachers. Most are overqualified with unnecessary schooling, especially in the nigh pay states (typically by government decrees as a form of job protectionism and justification for their pay). The same goes for doctors and other professionals. As a quick example, you typically need a bachelors degree and then a few years of med school in the US. In many countries (even western countries like the UK), you go straight from high school into medical school. I think we could get just as good doctors under such a system.
You might also want to look at the reality that we had schools and teachers long before they were highly paid union members.
And no, there is no need for the government to decree things. There is no need for the government to set prices. Under option 2, people would pay what they could afford. Prices would adjust naturally. If we simply mandated government balanced budgets, this would handle their end as well.
But this is option 2.
I'm fine with granting protectionism to fields as well (as in option 1).
I disagree :P
that would be option 2 on my list of good ways to solve the problem.
There are really 2 good ways to handle this.
1. To place artificial barriers to entry. For example, you could say that any piece of 'news' must be presented by a certified journalist. Just like any prescription must be done by a doctor. Or lawyers have their own provisions. For programmers you could have certain requirements like any piece of software in use must have a certain number of maintainers... Basically turning such jobs into professions with the same level of protection as doctors, lawyers... Oh I'm sure we can come up with some excuse like 'quality' to enforce this :)
2. We embrace the lowering of costs and focus on reducing our cost of living. As good private sector jobs (auto-workers, engineers...) go away, that high-end tax base drops as well. So the payment to the public sector should drop as well. There is no intrinsic reason a teacher should earn more than a waitress. I know I'd rather be a teacher than a fast food server. I've been both :) We can then focus on low property taxes... having a lost cost of living. And we would all be able to have more 'stuff' as things would cost very little. We could simplify the legal and tax system as well as remove the medical monopoly from doctors...
The alternative is the current unstable system. Whereby those in the private unregulated sector keep pushing themselves to efficiency and 0 cost. While those in regulated professions and the public sector keep pushing for more. Basically a form on indentured servitude by those in the public sector and regulated profession upon those in the private sector.
ummm, I've known many engineers who left the field to be teachers.
Teaching is not a poor profession. In places like New York you can reach 6 figures with a pension and job security.
If anything, this kind of article misses the point entirely.
You do not need to make science *cool* or hire *cool* teachers or make science *fun*.
I've seen colleagues leave the field. They love the cool part of their job. They just hate their actual job. They feel underpaid, overworked, no job security...
You know the things you eventually find important after you get out of the naive student stage.
So if these people who *love* science would probably choose a different career path if they could redo everything... is the problem really about making science *cool*?
Indeed, I would say there are more than enough people interested in science. The difference is in terms of actual working conditions.
In India/China... getting into tech is a world full of riches and opportunity. Hence, their best and brightest go into it.
In today's America/Western World, getting into tech is a middle class job with no job security. Hence a *perceived* shortage of talent. It is not a real shortage, as their are plenty of capable people. They are just choosing other fields.
If you are talented enough to be a good scientist/engineer... you're smart enough to be a doctor, lawyers, teacher, nurse, banker... and that is where the talent goes. ... I got my B of Education, but unfortunately, where I live (Ontario, Canada), teaching pays very well and such the jobs are hard to come by. If I could get into the school system, I'd leave my engineering career in a split second. Pay, pension, lifestyle, vacation... oh hell ya. And yes, I taught and I've done supply teaching. It's a great job to be a teacher.
As a matter of fact, paying teachers more will only make this problem worse. As it makes another profession even more appealing than engineering. Case in point... me
Your beliefs were right, they just don't exist in reality.
I still hold forth that a free (libertarian) society provides the best opportunity for all people.
Every other system has some ruling class that gets to sit on its laurels.
That said, we do not live in a free society. ... ...
Wall-street is not the free market.
The healthcare system is not free market.
Transit is not the free market.
Government is not the free market.
So yeah, if you want a job, you either have to go into a free market part of the economy (high tech, engineering, home contracting...). An increasingly rare part of the economy.
Or, play the game that gets you into a non-productive protected job in one of the non-free market fields.
If you want a good life, my suggestion is to give up your ideals, and join the maifa (government public sector, health care, wall street... ).
"Scientists are indifferent to the details, but want only to see this threat addressed."
You really think scientists are some holy group of people who only see the objective nature of the global warming problem? How do you even make a general statement like that? I don't know.
In case you missed the point...
Police officers are indifferent to the details, but only want a safe neighborhood.
Lawyers are indifferent to details, but only want to see justice served.
Teachers are indifferent to details, but only want to see kids learn.
Priests are indifferent to details, but only want to see us live a moral life.
If you actually have the audacity to agree with the above statements, you must need some growing up to do.
Scientists are not some scared group of people who only seek to serve humanity and not abuse their position and power; who are not corruptible by money and game. That's the same thinking that gets people into thinking a theocracy is a good idea.
With all these things, you have to separate the people from the equation.
Is science pure? Absolutely. I trust the scientific method more than anything else as far as reaching conclusions and figuring things out.
Yet, does that mean I would want a society run by scientists? Hell no. Scientists are just people. They *try* and hold up a certain code of ethnic. But you know police officers also have a code of ethics. So do lawyers. So do doctors. And how often does their code of ethnics interfere with protecting their job, their ideals...
The answer... all the time.
We basically keep the drug war going because it employs police officers, lawyers, prison guards... Some of them speak out, but in general, they enjoy the fruits of their labor even to the detriment of society.
I would even suggest, the only reason science has such credibility is that science has traditionally had no power.
No one has a reason to lie about the theory of gravity. It has no political and social consequences.
Yet, start talking child care, education, climate change... now there's huge political, social, and monetary consequences.
Which is why I fear the ever increasing power given to science. Now you have money and politics in science. ...
Suddenly the grant a scientist is applying for depends on the appropriate results from a study...
Suddenly, the hype a scientist can generate about 'their' issue means they get more fame and more money.
Suddenly, the power entrusted in the form of laws is enticing to scientist who wishes to mold society.
So what is so special about a scientist? Nothing. They will hold their ideals as much as
police officers, catholic priests, lawyers, doctors... yeah... those same priestly ideals that condemned premarital sex, while they molested children.
In short. give scientists power and they will abuse it. Period.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. it doesn't just apply to kings and priests. It applies equally teachers, nurses, scientists...
Science is not the antidote to money and power.
Money and power will corrupt science.
People in society have an absolute right and duty to question every word that supposedly comes from scientists.
Yeah. Metering just causes too many social problems. Many people just write off entire services if they have to keep track of how much they use.
I've always been in favor of you get X MB uncapped per month. Once you cross X MB, then you get throttled (yes... evil throttling...) . I think lets the user get away without worrying about anything. It also allows ISPs to target that 3% of users who are streaming videos all the time.
Linux is not for mainstream users because people want it to be free.
You will always find programmers and people willing to write open source code out of sheer interest or as part of a company for a technical aspect.
However, who gets to pay for the grunt work that is of little interest to anyone and of no use to corporations who just want to use the linux ecosystem? The answer... no one.
Such in the case with documentation. No body has a passion to document all the little details of a system. Corporations that might sponsor certain projects, don't really have an interest in that either as they just tend to use the components and are likely staffed by technical people. As a matter of fact, it might (only in certain cases) be in their interest not to make the components too user friendly, so they can sell support.
Until people get used to the idea of selling a linux distribution to the end user, these problems will not be fixed.
This is not a case where you can expect a huge party to make a one time payment to fix all these issues.
Perhaps netbooks or the like will start this process.
One the items often missed here is the exempt employees are supposed to be able to exercise judgment. It's a vague concept in many circumstances. However, if you are able to exercise judgment, you MUST be able to use the following word:
NO.
Do some companies make it hard to say no? Absolutely. Been there done that. But that is what you must do. If you are a worker bee that just takes instructions from management... you are not a professional and you should be paid overtimes.
It's amazing to me the number of people who never even TRY to say no. I don't know how I'd act if my manager actually threatened to fire me for saying no. It's never happened. Granted, I am sure it has cost me in terms of promotions, bonuses... Perfectly fair if you ask me. Someone else is willing to work harder than me... they deserve it.
I'm a pretty reasonable person. I'll put in some extra hours if a deadline is coming up. I'll do a late night call once in a while if there's an emergency. If I start to see a pattern... emergencies happening weekly... then it ain't an emergency and management had better start budgeting for that.
And yes, we should all be grateful to have a job in this time. But never forget this is not a one way street. No employer is going to value you unless you value yourself.
You know the code/equipment; you know the domain; you know the processes; you are known to do good work. You're worth something. If you leave, the company has to go find a replacement, train them, deadlines pushed back because a new person is coming in... and there's uncertainty if it works out... Chances are the company is understaffed as is... and losing you would just make things even more unmanageable. In short, value yourself. Don't overvalue yourself... anyone can be replaced :P
Are we moving up the value chain of programming? Of course.
However, almost all the things we can automate via compilers are things you wouldn't want to do anything. ...
Who wants to code the assembler for a for loop? I welcome C!
Who wants to code a GUI specifying pixel positions and handling resizing? I welcome come GUI designers and XAML.
Who wants to write protocols encoding and decoding data? I welcome XML serialization and RPC!
None of those things make good programs. Heck, using the right libraries and programmers that like nice sounding function and variable names, you can make c# or java really easy too.
I've never found anyone hampered by syntax. A semi-colon here or brace there is simply not an obstacle to me.
I taught computer science in high school. You would be amazed at the difference. Some students get it... and some just don't. Even a simple thing like variable assignment.
Those that can get it...they get variable assignments, they get sequential steps, they get functions... they really pick up the fundamentals of any language quite quickly. The rest is design.
I don't think people who can program can ever understand the mind of someone who doesn't get these things. I suspect its why some kids get algebra and some just don't.
They're unable to understand variables and abstract notions.
The only things you can really remove the programming from are those whose rules are pretty static. Things like very very very basic forms backed by a DB. But a variety of companies and environments already allow you do do such things.
Anything that you can write a compiler for or auto-code generator for, I welcome.
well I'm a 'formal' engineer... but let's be frank here.
The world has not come to an end.
The accounts will be fixed.
The clients will not lose any money.
Yeah, nothing would make me happy than requiring every line of software to be written by a real engineer with responsibilities, but it's more for my benefit than society's (job security, competent colleagues.. you know how doctors and lawyers do it).
In the end, society is making the trade offs.
Society is choosing to have features developed faster than a proper 'engineer' would implement them.
Society is choosing to lower the cost of programs at the expense of quality.
Society is choosing to deal with the results of bad quality instead of paying up front for quality engineers.
There is no 'right' and 'wrong' with these choices for society. It's easy to see the loss of quality. It's harder to see the loss of opportunity.
For example, you can say that only doctors should be able to prescribe medications for 'quality' reasons. Sure, it is easy to find an example where someone took a medicine they were not supposed to and it cost them their health. No doubt such a thing would make the news. Yet what about the missed opportunity? The person who doesn't see a doctor at all due to cost? Or the doctor who is too busy to properly diagnose and care for patients? Would society actually end up better off if less qualified people like nurses could prescribe medications? I'll leave that an open question.
I'll trivialize the issue even further. I've started seeing self-checkouts at many places.
Now you can most certainly pay for quality of process and make sure no body steals.
But that's not what the store/people care about. The store only cares about the following:
if( savings_from_no_cashiers > additional_money_lost_to_theft )
{
cout "we made a good decision" endl;
}
And so it is with this bank. If they can deliver cheap systems with unregulated programmers that work without anything systemically catastrophic happening, why would they not? They will pay the cost to fix their mistake and maybe even lose business as customers loss faith in that bank.
As a Canadian I say...
If it is not true... wonderful climate change is not that bad.
If it is true... wonderful... no more snow in winter!
Sorry to any part of the world negatively affected by global warming. Where I live (away from the ocean, in a cold climate), a degree warming can only be a good thing.
I love these myths.
Teachers don't make a lot of money? Depends on what state you are in.
They make 6 figures in New York. They make around 80K is many other states.
And the median wage in the US is around 30-40K.
In any case, this is a little worrying as they are paid from the public purse. What they produced should be owned by the public. What's next, a senior teacher refuses to help transition a younger teacher? They start demanding payment for these lesson plans? Pardon me, if I've seen more cooperation and 'greater good' displayed in the private sector if this is where it is heading.
What's interesting is to see just how far the internet has come alone without much regulation... and the world has not come to an end.
Even something as ridiculous as SMTP email which was has virtually no security or authentication features built it seems to have gotten by. Sure, we ended up with spam, but in the end, the world continues, solutions developed... Similarly, things like Facebook have people's personal information... and yet by in large, they haven't caused systemic problems.
You could just imagine if governments had regulated the net. Everything would have been authenticated and tracked. Committees setup to review content and preapprove forum posts. Development of the net would have been slow, trying to get 200 governments and a million special interest groups to come to an agreement and agree on standards. Instead the wild wild west seems to have come up with something diverse and workable.
I'm by no means suggesting things are 'perfect'. Far far far from it. Yet it is just good to note that in the end, society has not crumbled. People move along. There's all kinds of hate speech on the net... but people ignore it. There's all kinds of false information... but people have learned to deal with it. There's all kinds of problems with users, authentication, and anonymity... but people seem to get the things they need one. There's all kind of privacy issues (See star wars kid), but in general people get by. There's all kinds of 'standards' and technologies used, and by in large, people can get to the content they want (yes... even flash or silverlight :P ).
I ran into the same thing in one of our labs at the university. Let me just say, finding a linux distro that works and performs well on older hardware is pretty tough. Tried everything from old redhats to Corel Linux. This was a few years back and maybe I just couldn't find some niche distro... but in the end, the best OS I found to use was... Windows 95. We built some apps with QT and it did its job.
We figured if we ever got new computers, we could install linux and just recompile.
So my advice to you, sure to get you shot in slashdot... save yourself the time and effort and just get windows 95. You can get a basic browser and ssh in there.
just a quick addon to this.
I don't think we can do anything about this right now. As India and China have risen, any 'shortage' of top talent here, will not be made up by raising wages here. It will be made by raising wages in India and China. Considering half our top talent comes from there anyways, why not keep them there.
honestly,
I could care less about money at this point. I make a good living off being an engineer.
However, I do agree with the article that top talent does not go into the field. It's darn near impossible to hire anyone competent right now. Our team has been looking for ages.
We have thousands of resumes in the bank, but the top talent is just not going into the field.
I don't blame them either. Were I back in high school making my choice, I'd go into a government protected career like law, medicine, healthcare...
So yeah, salaries and job security do need to go up to attract the good talent back...