Verilog and VHDL are programming languages. They have some unique features as compared to normally used ones, but writing those is much closer to software engineering than hardware. Thinking back to my classes in them, the pure EEs almost all struggled. Those with a CS background (formally or informally) had an easier time.
Verilog and VHDL are programming languages, but when you use them for RTL design you don't use them as you would use a programming language. Did you write programs with them (e.g. testbenches) or do serious logic design? The thinking is very different. I'm old enough that HDL's weren't invented (or at least not widely used) when I graduated, but I've known lots of EE's that had no problems with them, including ones that had little software knowledge or experience. I've never known a programmer to dive in and just start doing logic design because Verilog and VHDL are programming languages. Obviously a reasonably intelligent programmer could do that, but they could also become a mechanical engineer. It's definitely a different field.
True story. Intel was stuck at 25MHz external bus speed for about a year back in 386 days. Eventually they got an engineer with ham radio experience to look at their boards...they had the bus making a 90 degree sharp turn. No amount of noise caps could fix the reflections and weird cross talk. By changing that to two 45 degree turns they made 33MHz. Pure digital thinking sucks.
Frankly I'm skeptical of that story (such things often get embellished). Even back in the 1960's you could get a copy of the MECL Design Handbook, which for years was the standard reference for high speed digital design. PCB transmission line formulas, proper layout and termination techniques, the works. Digital at up to a few hundred MHz back in the Stone Age, provided you had a small power station to run the ECL. Good way to cook breakfast though was on top of those chips.
Uh, huh. Been there, done that. I was part of a small (4 person) consulting outfit for years until the economy was pushed off a cliff. I was lucky enough to find a regular job eventually, but one of the guys stubbornly stuck to the consulting biz. He says it's come back from absolutely nothing, but not by much.
Asserting something twice doesn't make it any more true than asserting it once. Your argument that "people don't understand how the outsourcing industry works", even if it were true, has nothing to do with xenophobia.
most of those against H1Bs don't really understand how the outsourcing industry works
Then please enlighten us. It's always interesting to hear arguments about how getting screwed is good for us. Us being 99% of Americans.
it's just anecdotal evidence and pejoratives on how Indians are incapable of replacing American workers
As opposed to your, uh, speculative theories about why getting screwed is good for us?
Americans... don't have a clue on what's going on outside the country
What a shame there are no regular sources of information about what's happening beyond our provincial shores. We have to rely on the tales of sailors and flight attendants when they disembark and drink themselves silly in the taverns.
If a bussines went offshore, it's a business that never existed to begin with
Really? So those outsourced programming jobs never really existed in the first place, even when the people who formerly held them were forced to train their replacements? Computers and cell phones were never actually made in the US? Have tales of them being so been disposed of in the memory hole, which means it never happened? That's very goodthinkful. Crimethink is doupleplusbad.
Any country except for the US welcomes highly skilled workers... Japan
Japan? Now I know you're just spewing whatever you think sounds good. Japan has some of the world's most restrictive immigration.
No, because H1B, despite what it is, is the easiest way for skilled people to emigrate to the US and get a green card later.
"Despite what it is". There's an interesting phrase. Yes, let's just ignore what it actually is because it's inconvenient for your purposes. Doubleplusgood!
It's also interesting that for several hundred years the US managed to have plenty of immigration without guest worker visas. Why has that changed? Perhaps because certain tech billionaires didn't like the fact that historically American immigration law specifically forbade companies from making jobs offers to people who hadn't yet immigrated, to avoid the obvious problem of employers using it as a tactic to drive down American wages. If you wanted to come here, that was fine. Become an immigrant. If US companies wanted to hire people who hadn't yet become immigrants, forget it.
In any case, your government is not stupid.
No, it isn't stupid, it's corrupt. It's driven by bribes (oops, I mean campaign contributions) and ignores the desires of most of its citizens (you know, the ones who can't afford to pony up big bribes). If there is any popular support for the H-1B program, it's a very well kept secret.
Also, what do you mean by "your" government. It's reasonable to ask in the context of this discussion what country you're from, what country you live in, your visa status, and most importantly how you earn a living, as these greatly affect your POV. If there was any doubt about it, I'm an EE who is a US citizen. Your turn for full disclosure.
H1Bs allows for American companies to spend less on the highly skilled workers
aka driving down American wages. H-1B's opponents are quite familiar with that.
which are unproportionally well paid compared to the rest of the world
All Americans are unproportionally well paid compared to much of the rest of the world. It's hardly limited to engineers and programmers. If that's a problem, then the exchange value of the dollar should drop to balance our trade
Accounting. Skilled trades. Nursing, or possibly MD. Lawyer. Maybe even an MBA if I can stomach having one in the family.
If they have an inquisitive mind, a knack for building and designing things, and a desire to play with big toys or to create, what else could fill that void?
A good hobby. Everybody ought to have one. Electronics is a splendid choice.
Look, if you keep a nice resume, don't act like a freak in the interview process, and are willing to move to get a job, there is no excuse for not finding work in America. None.
So any increase in unemployment must be due to people suddenly forgetting how to write resumes, starting to act like freaks, and being less willing to move despite greater desperation.
this situation is temporary and the electrical engineers are going to see very good pay rise and job opportunities soon
Are you an academician by chance? Because you talk like one when they're trying to find more suckers (err, students). Prosperity is just around the corner!
Did you look at the numbers in the article? Between 2002 and 2013 EE jobs dropped from 385k to 292k. That's a 24% decline! Plus the BLS expects EE jobs to grow at only half the rate of jobs overall. Not a bright future.
Despite all the sequester madness we're still seeing older employees leave faster than we can replace them.
The nice thing about the DC area is that it's pork heaven. That's why it never saw the same sort unemployment as the rest of the country (and hence perhaps why so many in government were oblivious to it).
Agreed. If the paycheck clears it's a good job. In my current job my official position is MTS (member of the technical staff - old term borrowed from Bell Labs) which means it covers anything that requires the use of a slide rule.
Seriously, can we all drop the assumption that xenophobia is why people hate the H-1B program? Can we all stop assuming that opposition to the US government's H-1B program is the same as having anything against the people who are H-1B visa holders?
I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that it's a knee jerk assumption. In the case of serious H-1B cheerleaders it's a cheap tactic to suggest that anyone who opposes it must be a bigot. Can we also stop calling H-1B visa holders immigrants? It's a guest worker visa. The word "immigration" is used in conjunction w/ the H-1B as a propaganda tactic. "Immigration" is a word intimately intertwined with US history and mythology, so saying you oppose something that's associated (however inaccurately) with immigration is like saying you're opposed to motherhood and apple pie. Another disingenuous tactic.
I certainly didn't say it was the only reason for high unemployment, but it is something that's unnecessary, gratuitous, and completely under the control of the US government. There are limits to what we can do about foreign competition, but the H-1B program is something that's completely under the control of the US government. While we're at it, 65,000 people per year (soon to rise to 180,000) is more than a "few".
I'm not advising them to get into any specific field. It's more a matter of discouraging them from entering any field that's probably a dead end. Other than that I think they should make their own choice. Frankly the oldest starts HS next year, so there's still a few years to make a choice.
I certainly wouldn't discourage that. I also think skilled trades deserve respect (one grandfather was a cabinet maker and the other a tool and die maker). I should note though that in college the humanities aren't the only alternative to engineering.
Would a "computer engineer" be an electrical engineer?
In my experience people (including me) don't distinguish between CE and EE, any more than they ever distinguished between electrical and electronic engineers. CE is a specialty in EE, but so are RF, antenna design, power systems, etc.
This is not about how many engineering hours are used, just about what kind of hours are used.
You still have to have hardware to run on, but most of the features are software.
Project starts with a hardware design, testing, and getting ready for production,
But that's only 10-20% of the engineering hours.
The rest is software.
Broaden your horizons. Computers and embedded processors are far from the be all and end all of EE. I'm an EE who for many years has spent about 50% of his time writing software, so I'm hardly anti-software. However, I've found many programmers are very egocentric about this. Not all EE is designing in processors to run software on!
Power systems are hot these days, after many years of being a backwater. Ever get involved in antenna design (which is more important than ever), or any kind of RF or microwave? Do you have any idea how much work goes onto designing those chips you see scattered all over the board?
What country do you live in? From the way you write I'd guess you're not an American. As an American EE, believe me I'm sympathetic, but I'm curious what things are like in other countries.
No, it sounds like that unemployed EE was complaining about a lack of demand, not a dearth of supply. In theory the two are supposed to follow each other. In practice, demand for EEs is higher than ever - just not in America.
What's that, electronics isn't obsolete? Are you sure?
I am an EE, but suffer from the severe handicap of being an American.
More proof there is a STEM shortage! Uh, shortage of demand that is. Of course academia and the cheap labor lobby will spin this as a supply shortage, insist on more money and students to keep EE departments open, and even more importantly insist on more H-1B's.
I am an EE, and like every other EE I know, I advise my children to stay the hell out of engineering.
I was just going to say that. The 2% unemployment is because people take a week off between jobs. It's entirely nonexistent.
The unemployment numbers don't count the legions of people that have left over the years because they couldn't find work. Get a job as a burger flipper to try and make ends meet and poof, you're no longer an unemployed programmer. Do that for a year or two until the next upturn in the programming racket and you'll never get another job in programming. Low unemployment - it's magic!
Let me guess - none of them were any good at what they did (all the ones I know personally are the rare exceptions). Or they were over 30. The really smart ones though moved to another field before they were outsourced.
there is a massive demand for engineers in a variety of fields that is simply not being met. That, by definition, is a shortage
The prices aren't going up, which is the objective sign of a shortage. Anybody can say they have a "massive demand", but if it's not backed by money, it's nonsense.
In this instance, I don't think I even need to start linking the proof because EVERYONE, especially on slashdot should be aware of this
The "everybody just knows it" argument. Sorry, but that's pure hand waving. Please cite some evidence.
Ironically you're say there is a shortage of STEM, where the first rule is to make measurements and use objective data, yet you resort to "everybody knows" to argue that there's a shortage!
you can't do that when you are trying to grow the economy
I'll believe that the supposed shortage of STEM people is hindering the economy when supply exceeds demand. That in turn would be indicated by a long term trend of increasing prices. It ain't there. Money talks, and it ain't saying a word.
there definitely is a quantatitive statistical base for putting that money into stimulation for math and science education
Unemployment amongst programmers who can actually program useful stuff is basically zero.
And you know this how? Lemme guess, you know some programmers who can actually program (according to your judgement of course) and right now they're working. QED.
programmer salaries have been going up rapidly
Cite statistics. Anecdotes need not apply (especially from Bay Area recruiters).
Slashdot Mirror
Verilog and VHDL are programming languages. They have some unique features as compared to normally used ones, but writing those is much closer to software engineering than hardware. Thinking back to my classes in them, the pure EEs almost all struggled. Those with a CS background (formally or informally) had an easier time.
Verilog and VHDL are programming languages, but when you use them for RTL design you don't use them as you would use a programming language. Did you write programs with them (e.g. testbenches) or do serious logic design? The thinking is very different. I'm old enough that HDL's weren't invented (or at least not widely used) when I graduated, but I've known lots of EE's that had no problems with them, including ones that had little software knowledge or experience. I've never known a programmer to dive in and just start doing logic design because Verilog and VHDL are programming languages. Obviously a reasonably intelligent programmer could do that, but they could also become a mechanical engineer. It's definitely a different field.
True story. Intel was stuck at 25MHz external bus speed for about a year back in 386 days. Eventually they got an engineer with ham radio experience to look at their boards...they had the bus making a 90 degree sharp turn. No amount of noise caps could fix the reflections and weird cross talk. By changing that to two 45 degree turns they made 33MHz. Pure digital thinking sucks.
Frankly I'm skeptical of that story (such things often get embellished). Even back in the 1960's you could get a copy of the MECL Design Handbook, which for years was the standard reference for high speed digital design. PCB transmission line formulas, proper layout and termination techniques, the works. Digital at up to a few hundred MHz back in the Stone Age, provided you had a small power station to run the ECL. Good way to cook breakfast though was on top of those chips.
Uh, huh. Been there, done that. I was part of a small (4 person) consulting outfit for years until the economy was pushed off a cliff. I was lucky enough to find a regular job eventually, but one of the guys stubbornly stuck to the consulting biz. He says it's come back from absolutely nothing, but not by much.
No, because it IS xenophobia in most cases.
Asserting something twice doesn't make it any more true than asserting it once. Your argument that "people don't understand how the outsourcing industry works", even if it were true, has nothing to do with xenophobia.
most of those against H1Bs don't really understand how the outsourcing industry works
Then please enlighten us. It's always interesting to hear arguments about how getting screwed is good for us. Us being 99% of Americans.
it's just anecdotal evidence and pejoratives on how Indians are incapable of replacing American workers
As opposed to your, uh, speculative theories about why getting screwed is good for us?
Americans ... don't have a clue on what's going on outside the country
What a shame there are no regular sources of information about what's happening beyond our provincial shores. We have to rely on the tales of sailors and flight attendants when they disembark and drink themselves silly in the taverns.
If a bussines went offshore, it's a business that never existed to begin with
Really? So those outsourced programming jobs never really existed in the first place, even when the people who formerly held them were forced to train their replacements? Computers and cell phones were never actually made in the US? Have tales of them being so been disposed of in the memory hole, which means it never happened? That's very goodthinkful. Crimethink is doupleplusbad.
Any country except for the US welcomes highly skilled workers ... Japan
Japan? Now I know you're just spewing whatever you think sounds good. Japan has some of the world's most restrictive immigration.
No, because H1B, despite what it is, is the easiest way for skilled people to emigrate to the US and get a green card later.
"Despite what it is". There's an interesting phrase. Yes, let's just ignore what it actually is because it's inconvenient for your purposes. Doubleplusgood!
It's also interesting that for several hundred years the US managed to have plenty of immigration without guest worker visas. Why has that changed? Perhaps because certain tech billionaires didn't like the fact that historically American immigration law specifically forbade companies from making jobs offers to people who hadn't yet immigrated, to avoid the obvious problem of employers using it as a tactic to drive down American wages. If you wanted to come here, that was fine. Become an immigrant. If US companies wanted to hire people who hadn't yet become immigrants, forget it.
In any case, your government is not stupid.
No, it isn't stupid, it's corrupt. It's driven by bribes (oops, I mean campaign contributions) and ignores the desires of most of its citizens (you know, the ones who can't afford to pony up big bribes). If there is any popular support for the H-1B program, it's a very well kept secret.
Also, what do you mean by "your" government. It's reasonable to ask in the context of this discussion what country you're from, what country you live in, your visa status, and most importantly how you earn a living, as these greatly affect your POV. If there was any doubt about it, I'm an EE who is a US citizen. Your turn for full disclosure.
H1Bs allows for American companies to spend less on the highly skilled workers
aka driving down American wages. H-1B's opponents are quite familiar with that.
which are unproportionally well paid compared to the rest of the world
All Americans are unproportionally well paid compared to much of the rest of the world. It's hardly limited to engineers and programmers. If that's a problem, then the exchange value of the dollar should drop to balance our trade
Engineering is future proof.
Worldwide? Maybe. In the US? Not so certain.
What else would you advise your kids to do?
Accounting. Skilled trades. Nursing, or possibly MD. Lawyer. Maybe even an MBA if I can stomach having one in the family.
If they have an inquisitive mind, a knack for building and designing things, and a desire to play with big toys or to create, what else could fill that void?
A good hobby. Everybody ought to have one. Electronics is a splendid choice.
a lot of electronics these days is plugging together parts off the shelf with well known standardized technologies
A lot of software these days is plugging together libraries and frameworks off the shelf with well known standardized technologies.
FPGAs alone probably knock out a big need for EE work- the software there will more or less design the hardware for you
Compilers alone probably knock out a big need for programming work- the software there will more or less write the code for you.
Mechanical engineers also have little to do these days because they have CAD packages to do it all for them.
it needs a programmer to write the inputs not an EE
What do you mean by inputs? Verilog or VHDL? The only thing RTL design has in common with programming is the syntax.
Look, if you keep a nice resume, don't act like a freak in the interview process, and are willing to move to get a job, there is no excuse for not finding work in America. None.
So any increase in unemployment must be due to people suddenly forgetting how to write resumes, starting to act like freaks, and being less willing to move despite greater desperation.
this situation is temporary and the electrical engineers are going to see very good pay rise and job opportunities soon
Are you an academician by chance? Because you talk like one when they're trying to find more suckers (err, students). Prosperity is just around the corner!
Did you look at the numbers in the article? Between 2002 and 2013 EE jobs dropped from 385k to 292k. That's a 24% decline! Plus the BLS expects EE jobs to grow at only half the rate of jobs overall. Not a bright future.
Despite all the sequester madness we're still seeing older employees leave faster than we can replace them.
The nice thing about the DC area is that it's pork heaven. That's why it never saw the same sort unemployment as the rest of the country (and hence perhaps why so many in government were oblivious to it).
Agreed. If the paycheck clears it's a good job. In my current job my official position is MTS (member of the technical staff - old term borrowed from Bell Labs) which means it covers anything that requires the use of a slide rule.
Seriously, can we all drop the xenophobia
Seriously, can we all drop the assumption that xenophobia is why people hate the H-1B program? Can we all stop assuming that opposition to the US government's H-1B program is the same as having anything against the people who are H-1B visa holders?
I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that it's a knee jerk assumption. In the case of serious H-1B cheerleaders it's a cheap tactic to suggest that anyone who opposes it must be a bigot. Can we also stop calling H-1B visa holders immigrants? It's a guest worker visa. The word "immigration" is used in conjunction w/ the H-1B as a propaganda tactic. "Immigration" is a word intimately intertwined with US history and mythology, so saying you oppose something that's associated (however inaccurately) with immigration is like saying you're opposed to motherhood and apple pie. Another disingenuous tactic.
I certainly didn't say it was the only reason for high unemployment, but it is something that's unnecessary, gratuitous, and completely under the control of the US government. There are limits to what we can do about foreign competition, but the H-1B program is something that's completely under the control of the US government. While we're at it, 65,000 people per year (soon to rise to 180,000) is more than a "few".
I'm not advising them to get into any specific field. It's more a matter of discouraging them from entering any field that's probably a dead end. Other than that I think they should make their own choice. Frankly the oldest starts HS next year, so there's still a few years to make a choice.
I certainly wouldn't discourage that. I also think skilled trades deserve respect (one grandfather was a cabinet maker and the other a tool and die maker). I should note though that in college the humanities aren't the only alternative to engineering.
What country? What part of the country? What university? What specialization?
Would a "computer engineer" be an electrical engineer?
In my experience people (including me) don't distinguish between CE and EE, any more than they ever distinguished between electrical and electronic engineers. CE is a specialty in EE, but so are RF, antenna design, power systems, etc.
What sort of EE courses did you not take because EE was your minor instead of your major? As an EE I'm curious.
This is not about how many engineering hours are used, just about what kind of hours are used.
You still have to have hardware to run on, but most of the features are software.
Project starts with a hardware design, testing, and getting ready for production,
But that's only 10-20% of the engineering hours.
The rest is software.
Broaden your horizons. Computers and embedded processors are far from the be all and end all of EE. I'm an EE who for many years has spent about 50% of his time writing software, so I'm hardly anti-software. However, I've found many programmers are very egocentric about this. Not all EE is designing in processors to run software on!
Power systems are hot these days, after many years of being a backwater. Ever get involved in antenna design (which is more important than ever), or any kind of RF or microwave? Do you have any idea how much work goes onto designing those chips you see scattered all over the board?
What country do you live in? From the way you write I'd guess you're not an American. As an American EE, believe me I'm sympathetic, but I'm curious what things are like in other countries.
No, it sounds like that unemployed EE was complaining about a lack of demand, not a dearth of supply. In theory the two are supposed to follow each other. In practice, demand for EEs is higher than ever - just not in America.
What's that, electronics isn't obsolete? Are you sure?
I am an EE, but suffer from the severe handicap of being an American.
More proof there is a STEM shortage! Uh, shortage of demand that is. Of course academia and the cheap labor lobby will spin this as a supply shortage, insist on more money and students to keep EE departments open, and even more importantly insist on more H-1B's.
I am an EE, and like every other EE I know, I advise my children to stay the hell out of engineering.
Start with the BLS.
Programming jobs are expected to increase at the same rate as jobs on the whole: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-programmers.htm#tab-6
EE jobs at only about half the average rate: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm#tab-6
Do those sound like fast growing fields to you? That's why there is no shortage.
I was just going to say that. The 2% unemployment is because people take a week off between jobs. It's entirely nonexistent.
The unemployment numbers don't count the legions of people that have left over the years because they couldn't find work. Get a job as a burger flipper to try and make ends meet and poof, you're no longer an unemployed programmer. Do that for a year or two until the next upturn in the programming racket and you'll never get another job in programming. Low unemployment - it's magic!
Let me guess - none of them were any good at what they did (all the ones I know personally are the rare exceptions). Or they were over 30. The really smart ones though moved to another field before they were outsourced.
there is a massive demand for engineers in a variety of fields that is simply not being met. That, by definition, is a shortage
The prices aren't going up, which is the objective sign of a shortage. Anybody can say they have a "massive demand", but if it's not backed by money, it's nonsense.
In this instance, I don't think I even need to start linking the proof because EVERYONE, especially on slashdot should be aware of this
The "everybody just knows it" argument. Sorry, but that's pure hand waving. Please cite some evidence.
Ironically you're say there is a shortage of STEM, where the first rule is to make measurements and use objective data, yet you resort to "everybody knows" to argue that there's a shortage!
you can't do that when you are trying to grow the economy
I'll believe that the supposed shortage of STEM people is hindering the economy when supply exceeds demand. That in turn would be indicated by a long term trend of increasing prices. It ain't there. Money talks, and it ain't saying a word.
there definitely is a quantatitive statistical base for putting that money into stimulation for math and science education
Is there? Then please cite it.
Unemployment amongst programmers who can actually program useful stuff is basically zero.
And you know this how? Lemme guess, you know some programmers who can actually program (according to your judgement of course) and right now they're working. QED.
programmer salaries have been going up rapidly
Cite statistics. Anecdotes need not apply (especially from Bay Area recruiters).
43 comments and not a single reference to Minority Report? Is this Slashdot? Nor is it just a silly geek reference.