The best way to deal with this is for search engines to unquestionally follow all request (because they can't viably afford to validate them) and then for people to request the removal every single search engine result. This is a stupid solution to 'the right to be forgotten' and needs to be killed as soon as possible.
I can't wait for businesses to start asking for their competitors to be taken off the search engine to reduce competition. If they aren't able to validate all requests and just follow them all, then you might as well.
Farmers do nothing to advance society? Welders? Carpenters? Your bias is showing.
There is a difference between keeping society going and actually advancing it to become something better. My dad is a farmer, and he is the hardest working person I know, but he does the exact same job now that he did in the 70s. The only difference is better machinery created by engineers and better seeds created by biologists. It was engineers and scientists that changed the world from 90% farmers in 1800 to 2% today, not hard working farmers. My dad's job is necessary to sustain life, but it does not advance society.
Science and technology are the backbone of progress in our civilization. On top of that are the people who find new and industrious ways to implement these discoveries. And then there are the 95+ percent of people who live their life in a way that would only create the rate of progress we saw from 1900 BC - 1900 AD, where it was measures by the century instead of by the year.
If "Society" needed more programmers they would be paying them the same compensation they would a business major, assuming equivalent education and experience. They don't.
That is assuming society understands how much it needs programmers. It doesn't. That is why many powerful people are trying to change this perception.
The problem is that it is incredibly hard for a person's own labor to be more profitable than simply rent seeking, which is basically what all business boils down to in the end. That is why business majors and lawyers are able to make more money than engineers, not because society values them more.
I gave the Allegory of the Artisan as definition of society, and your retort is that society does not have very much control over compensation. That would only be true if society revolved around executives, and it doesn't. They are "part" of society, not the "whole" or even most important part of society. Socrates explains this very well, and I have yet to see a better definition.
By "Allegory of the Artisan" I assume you mean the city allegory in books II through V of the Republic (after googling I only see the term Allegory of the Artisan in Slashdot posts by you and some ACs who I assume are you). Socrates never gives any definitions of justice in the Republic, it is more of a thinking exercise told through a dialogue. He basically gives out an exhaustive number of definitions and then proceeds to show how they fall apart. The Republic is great because it makes people think, but it is very hard to not take many statements out of context.
As long as property rights exist, you will have rent seeking behavior. It is unavoidable. And left to its own devices any society with strong property rights will reward people who put effort into rent seeking behavior as opposed to being an artisan. It is a byproduct of a legal system that allows people to own property that could later be traded for services. The fact that these people make most of the money in our society does not even hint at the possibility that we value their work more.
I agree with your points, and am more disagreeing with this latest "everyone needs to be a programmer" message.
I hardly think that wanting the number of CS students to go up a little from 4.4% is the same as wanting everyone to be a programmer.
If society really wanted to change things then there would be incentives to do so. Who does society compensate better, a Lawyer or a Lead Developer? Lead Graphic Artist or Politician? Technical writer or Paralegal?
Society doesn't really care that much how many CS students there are. But plenty of people who are interested in advancing society want more of them. That is why they are trying to fix some of the issues that are hindering smart people from entering the field. Compensation is the factor they have the least control over, so it is rarely part of their solutions (even though it would have the most effect).
There was no evidence beforehand that there are significant problems with US K-12 education on average
Until I read the rest of your post I assumed you were being sarcastic with this statement. The US spends more than any other country on education, but still ranks below average when compared to other developed countries. We have known this for a long time, but things keep getting worse. While none of this means teachers are the primary cause of these problems, it is ignorant to say that there are not significant problems in our K-12 education system.
but there was and is absolutely zero evidence that the vast majority of teachers weren't already working hard 'to achieve results' before Grover Norquist and Michelle Rhee got involved to "improve" the situation.
My employers don't care much if I am trying hard. They care what my results are. There are times when I fail, and most of the time my employer agrees that the cause of the failure was outside of my control. But the next step isn't to ignore the failure, it is to determine how I will mitigate and compensate for those outside factors. Our educational system has been showing us very clearly that it is not doing a very good job finding solutions that will make the US compare well with the rest of the world. There are not easy answers to any of these problems, as evidenced by the lack of success that many renovators are having to suffer through. Sadly I believe this means we need more revolution than evolution, but I'm not sure how that could ever happen politically.
On the other hand, there is over 100 years of evidence as to why schools tend to evolve toward seniority systems (hint: not to protect "incompetent" teachers), all of which was ignored.
Everyone would love to be insulated from office politics. If teachers unions want to be part of the solution instead of the problem, they need to find a way to identify good teachers by some metric other than seniority (which doesn't work at all). This will allow great teachers to be paid well (I see no reason why the top 1% of teachers shouldn't be making $200k+) and will allow us to remove poor ones. This is an incredibly hard problem to solve, but current teachers unions just bury their head in the sand instead of trying to find solutions. That is why you have so many outside interests getting involved.
You mean a few companies who aren't willing to pay what developers are asking.
You mean a few companies that don't have the necessary revenue to pay what developers are asking. If a company needs better developers, and it has the money to pay better developers, then it will probably increase their salary offers. You can't always increase pay to get the talent you want. Your customers and/or the industry will often dictate how much you can charge for your products or services. For instance I work at a consulting company, so it is much easier to notice the relationship between what we pay developers and what we need to charge clients. The salaries we offer must be justified by the rates we can charge the clients and still win contracts. If there is a restricted supply of developers, it is not always possible to just increase salaries to compensate.
This same relationship is true for all companies, although in most situations this relationship is more hidden. There is an alternative to hiring expensive developers, such as dealing with lower quality software or doing your work more manually. If developers salaries rise too high, more companies choose the alternatives. There is a shortage of developers because we cannot hire enough developers at rates that our economy can support. This doesn't necessarily mean the economy doesn't have the money, but it is also the result of preconceptions regarding what software should cost.
Therefore the people with the most power to increase developer salaries are actually salesmen. I know that my salary has gone up quite a bit as the consulting company I work for has grown. This is not because I am a better employee now; it is because I have more value now that our quantity of high paying projects is growing.
But there are probably still huge gaps in knowledge that would make working in the industry very difficult at this point.
Really only true with self-education done wrong. Most college-education is done wrong, and as a result, most college products are know-nothings.
I was referring to my opinion that anyone who is really enjoying and learning from freshman level web development classes probably has huge gaps in their knowledge. I am mostly a self-educated developer, and I am doing very well in my career, so I don't hold anything against those who feel a BS in CS isn't always necessary. But this is true for only a very tiny minority of people.
But there is something more important and that's having fun. Collage is the last real time in your life you can goof off and have a good time without severe repercussions. Studies need to be important and good grades a must but with the lighter work load freshman year you should be having fun. That means making friends, dating and having a good time. Once you graduate are looking at almost 50 years of continuous 40+ hour workweeks with 2 weeks of time off a year.
Enjoy collage, its your last chance to act like a kid.
Egad, what terrible advice. This student is already self-motivated enough to learn independently and look for employment to learn job skills, and you want him to just goof off instead? College is not the last time someone has the chance to act like a kid. The last time is the two years after college when they are living at home working at a fast food joint looking for a real job because they goofed off during college.
Seriously though, at 18 it is time to start acting like an adult because you are an adult. Grade school is when you act like a kid, and high school to a lesser extent for all but the highest performers. Learn how to be a productive member of society in college.
I don't mean you can't have any fun. Just no more fun than you will have in your late 20s. Its not like your life ends once you actually start your first professional job.
Seems to me you have way more than 2+ years of experience.
While he says he has 10 years of web designing experience with 5-6 years of dabbling in PHP, he also says he really enjoyed his freshman level web development class. I had about 7 years of rudimentary programming experience before college, and all of my programming classes in the first two years were mind-numbingly boring and basic. And I was still not good enough to work as a professional developer. I have never met a self-taught developer that enjoyed their 100-200 level programming classes; they just suffered through them until the real CS classes started.
It sounds like this student is a self-motivating learner, and if that keeps up he will do quite well. But there are probably still huge gaps in knowledge that would make working in the industry very difficult at this point. I would suggest to do everything you can to get internships even in your Fresh/Soph summer, but understand you probably aren't ready to be employed as a software developer yet. I have known people who caught a lucky break writing basic websites for a family friend or something similar, but that was long before there were tools that help even laymen get a SMB website going in no time.
If you agree that it would be good for the H1-B program to be altered in ways that raise their wages, why did you argue that the program is necessary because US companies need access to cheaper labor?
I don't argue that the program is necessary because US companies need access to cheap labor. They need access to skilled labor. I conceded that we could get more skilled labor if wages went WAY up, but wages could never get that high without the jobs going overseas first. So considering wages could never hit the necessary level to get more skilled US workers, we need the H1-B program to get more skilled workers. Only 5% of the world's population is born in the US, so the vast majority of skilled IT workers are overseas.
You don't need to pick a figure that would get future doctors and lawyers to switch to careers for which they would be questionable fits; you just need a figure that is, from your source, at most $13k higher on average than H1-Bs are currently paid.
Sorry, I meant a US Market Value that would produce enough skilled IT workers for our companies. Obviously the we have a market value set now, but the problem is that this market value does not attract enough skilled US born workers. Thus the need for H1-Bs.
That's a red herring. How much do US born coders of Indian descent make compared to their H1-B counterparts?
I have continuously conceded that there are abuses. I was only pointing out that there may be other factors that cause H1-B workers to make less than the average US-born worker. It would be interested to know the statistic that you asked about though.
the argument is that H1-Bs are needed and used to get labor at below US market value (good luck trying to get a CEO to admit that)
Well that is basically a play on words. Picking a US market value that would get future doctors and lawyers to pick software development instead is just an academic exercise. That market value does not exist for a reason, because the jobs would go overseas before we hit that valuation.
There are companies who are taking advantage of the H1-B program. The Center for Immigration Studies claims that the average H1-B worker makes $13,000 less than the average American worker. But most minority groups make less money than the average worker. We should try to improve the program, not artifically limit the number of skilled workers we bring into the country. Better enforcement of the laws that already exist would go a long way.
And if it is about being able to compete, then make H1-Bs competitive to ensure they go where they are needed most. First, have H1-Bs allotted via weekly public auctions throughout the year: highest bidding companies get the workers. Second: instead of a sponsored worker being tied to a company, make them completely free to switch employers from day 1 with no additional paperwork outside of the usual tax forms. Again: the highest bidding companies will be the ones that get the workers.
I like all of these suggestions. The best part is that none of these suggestions limit the number of H1-B applications we accept. I think it is clear that we need reform of the H1-B program, but any change is hard because of the anti-immigrant sentiment in parts of our country.
Anyway the stated purpose of the H1-B is completely at odds with this problem: it's supposed to find foreign candidates for jobs which have no viable US candidates, not to allow companies to fill the slot at a "competitive" price.
H1-Bs are being used to find candidates where there are no viable US candidates. But part of the reason there are not more viable US candidates is because of salary. There is a finite number of people smart enough to work in this field, and those people are shared with other industries like medicine, law, finance, etc. If wages were to double, for instance, you would have more people of those highly qualified candidates train to be software developers instead of becoming doctors, lawyers, and bankers.
But the salary increases that would be necessary to drive more US citizens into IT would price us right out of the market. Software developers are still paid very well and it still attracts a large number of skilled people; it simply isn't enough. And since soft skills are not as important in IT as they are in many other highly paid professions, it is a prime target for offshoring. This is why I am a big fan of bringing IT workers into the US instead of sending our tech jobs overseas.
But pray tell what non-US firms actually vie With Google, Oracle, Apple, or Microsoft?
First off, the very fact that the United States has continued to pro-actively attract IT talent from around the world has helped stop serious competitors from emerging outside of the US. Our country had a huge head start in this industry, but just looking at the auto industry can show that a huge lead can still be squandered.
But there are still foreign competitors to all of these companies. Baidu, Naver and Yandex are still very large competitors in the Internet search market in China, Korea, and Russia. Many android mobile device companies are foreign based which directly compete with Apple. Oracle and Microsoft may be the top two software companies in the world, but German based SAP is the third.
No one can dispute that the United States still has a commanding dominance in the IT industry. But it would be a mistake to believe that this could never change. The first step in losing that lead would be to tell foreign technology workers to stay in their home country and start building new companies there instead.
But, these are jobs that would be filled by Americans if businesses weren't allowed to import.
This is very unlikely, especially in the IT field. The US is part of a global economy, and that means we have to compete with foreign companies. The United States has been taking advantage of skilled foreign labor since its inception. I want the world's best and brightest working for IBM, GE, Google, etc. instead of their foreign counterparts. These workers aren't just going to work the rice fields if we don't bring them to the US. They are going to work for companies that are trying to steal American industries instead of just a few jobs.
Almost every company in the US is competing against foreign companies. They cannot always just raise local wages to the level it would take to attract American employees, because it would make it that much harder to compete with their foreign rivals. They cannot always wait to train new employees when there is a large supply of already trained workers that their foreign competitors could pull from.
I would move past writing software for yourself. While "intermediate" is obviously subjective, you are very unlikely to be at that skill level if you have never sold software or written software for money. Writing software for yourself is so much easier. You can change your goals based on what is easier or what skills you already have. You don't have to figure out difficult problems just because that is what the customer wants.
Since it can be so hard to find work with no experience, and with no academic credentials, a close second is to write software for free for someone else. I started developing software without a degree by writing CRM/ERP software for small companies (not that I even knew what those initials meant at the time). It taught me not only how to write better software, it taught me how to gather requirements and deal with customers. There will probably still be huge gaps in your abilities because of a lack of mentoring from someone in the industry, but it help you prove yourself enough to get a job in the industry.
Even if you can't find anyone who wants your help with software, a fake web-based CRM/ERP software project is a great way to learn skills that are actually useful in industry. And you will still have something to show employers if they want an example of your work.
Or tech companies can just start or move to somewhere else. This isn't the 19th or early 20th century where everyone in one industry has to be close to one another. Even the auto industry is spread out all over the World now. And with something like software, there is absolutely no reason to be in SV - I can't think of any other industry that is more portable than software.
And don't tell me that nonsense of "it's where the skilled people are".
Well there is a great debating technique; just call their rebuttal nonsense before they even say it. Although it works much better when you actually give reasons why the predominant theory is nonsense instead of just throwing it out there without backing it up.
While people may want to believe that technology has progressed far enough that it doesn't matter where you live, reality does not seem to back that up. Humans still seem to be far more social. I know I work better with the coworkers that come to the same office than I do with our remote workers; mostly because I have built friendships with them. I have good rapport with many remote coworkers, but it is not the same.
There are many tangible examples of the benefits of living close to coworkers. Topics we talk about during lunch or while playing golf or poker benefit not only our current job but improve job prospects in the future. I have networked at a coworker's barbeque, at fundraising events, at house warming parties, etc. While it is hard to track just how much of a benefit these interactions are, even if they rarely yield million dollar contracts they are probably worth the extra cost of living in or very near a major city.
Employers and employees both gain employment opportunities by being near a critical mass of employees. More employers means you have more "job security" because you can easily find new work. More employees means you can find better employees or more specialized employees if you need to, or ramp up/down for projects easily without needing to hire consulting firms at $200+ per hour. Even in the suburbs it can be very hard to find talent.
On top of that, most affluent people simply want to live near large cities. The larger the city, the more culture/food/entertainment is available. I grew up in a farm town, and I cannot express just how much better life is living in the suburbs. The food is much better, the schools are immeasurably better, the options for what to do on a Friday night don't include "hang out in the Walmart parking lot", etc.
Like it or not, having a city densely population with talented workers is still a useful thing.
So you are basically saying that Silicon Valley will still exist and humans will still live there, but it will having nothing to do with its former glory? I think that is pretty much what the article said as well.
The ancient Greeks had the philosphy of mind, body, and spirit - like on the YMCA signs. Then in the 1930s the whole dumb jock thing started.
Why? Racism.
When the African-Americans were allowed to compete with whites, many did well and disturbed some people's idea that white people were superior. So, they (racist whites) made up the lie that really talented atletic people are stupid - as an attack on Black people.
Correlation does not equal causation. While some change in attitude may have changed in the past 100 years, plenty of other factors were at work other than the end of segregation. The primary cause was the increase in money going into sports and increased popularity of professional sports as a result of television. Before that sports were just hobbies of students. But once money started to pile in, sports became the focus. Once kids with no hopes of even being accepted into college could get full scholarships for playing ball, where do you think their priorities are going to lie?
And the dumb jock thing has been around since the ancient Greeks when philosophers of the time characterized athletes as "useless and ignorant citizens with dull minds." (Coakley, J.J. 1994, Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies). Any time you have a group of people who can live their lives without being educated you are going to find a stereotype regarding their intelligence. I am willing to bet farmers have just as bad of an intelligence stereotype as athletes, and that profession is almost 85% white.
I work at a consulting company that is over 90% male, and I cannot imagine how hard it is for the women working there to fit in. It is basically a frat house. We have golden tee and an Xbox in the office, go to sports bars during lunch breaks, have numerous fantasy sports leagues, play team sports together, and can be very crude in the office (when clients aren't there). Most women aren't interested in these things. It is very hard for women to fit in in this atmosphere, but it is great for creating an inviting atmosphere for men.
It would take a considerable pay bump for me to leave this fun of a work setting. I assume they are saving quite a bit of money, perhaps tens of thousands per employee, by creating a setting that is so attractive for their core demographic of employees. So its hard to say that this is something that should change.
How about a maths degree (47% women) or physics (40%)?
Where are you pulling these statistics? I was a physics major and in I never had a 300 level class with more than 20% women. I went to the American Physical Society and found that in 2010 about 20% of physics degrees are given to women. Math and Statistics on the same site was at about 40%, but that does seem a bit fishy based on my experience (although I was in school in 2000). I wouldn't be surprised if they were counting Math education degrees in their statistics. And math education degree is as similar to a real math degree as JavaScript is similar to Java.
I could be wrong though, my experience only has a sample size of one college in a few year period over 10 years ago.
But Google and Facebook provide best in class services to me for free and all I have to do in return is use them.
If only that were the case. I never wanted a Google+ account, and never used it. But Google created one anyway when I signed up for another service.
Not only that, but Google collect data on you even of you don't sign up for any of their services. They spy on you via adverts on third party websites.
There's nothing wrong with you choosing to exchange your privacy in return for "free" services. The problem is them collecting data from people who haven't agreed to that arrangement.
If Google is automatically creating a Google+ account, its only because you are using other Google services that are basically being funded by their search and advertising money. And if you are being tracked by 3rd party adverts that is because you are visiting sites that are funded by Google adverts revenue, so you are still taking advantage of their "free" services.
Remember, with Google, you - and what you do online - are their product. That information, and your "eyeballs" are what they sell. Expect them to behave accordingly.
And thank god that companies like Google have found ways of turning me into a valuable product without any effort on my part. It has taken a lot of work to turn myself into a product that I can sell to employers for a good paycheck. But Google and Facebook provide best in class services to me for free and all I have to do in return is use them.
every grad program in the US requires several letters (maybe not the for-profit degree mills?). they should also be from people you did research with to count for anything. crazy that higher education is so inaccessible in this country and that a big part of getting in is popularity.
I did more research, and it looks like we are both wrong. There are far more programs than I thought which do require references, but by no means all. A small sample size of 10 schools in my state gave 60% needing references. So it does seem to be more common than I thought, but by no means universal. And the other 40% where still quality schools, not diploma mills.
If you can get into fucking grad school shouldn't you know this? What the fuck? I can't get in because you need 4 fucking references but at least I know CS theory...
Anyone with a BS degree can get into grad school. Perhaps not MIT or Stanford, but all but the top CS program in my state have no entrance criteria above just filling out an application (and the top program is not in a metropolitan area, so forget studying there while working).
The changes from iPad 3 to iPad 4... Were just barely enough to go out and buy one, we were on the fence.
You lost me there. There was almost no difference between these two models, and they were released six months from each other. Just a slightly faster processor, but nothing near what it would take to upgrade if you passed on the iPad 3 or already had one.
I have not bought an iPad Air and I likely won't for another year or two, it is indeed lighter than the 4, but overall it isn't enough of a change to make it worth the bother.
While nowhere near the change we saw in iPad 2&3, the iPad Air is much nicer than the 3/4. My wife has an iPad 3 and I have the Air, and it is amazing just how much lighter it is and how nice that is. At first I was upset that they didn't just keep the same size and increase battery life, but now I am very happy with the lighter weight. My wife's iPad 3 actually feels pretty clunky now.
But still, I would agree that it is pretty silly for most people to upgrade their iPad more frequently than every other year. Similar to cell phones.
Slashdot Mirror
The best way to deal with this is for search engines to unquestionally follow all request (because they can't viably afford to validate them) and then for people to request the removal every single search engine result. This is a stupid solution to 'the right to be forgotten' and needs to be killed as soon as possible.
I can't wait for businesses to start asking for their competitors to be taken off the search engine to reduce competition. If they aren't able to validate all requests and just follow them all, then you might as well.
Farmers do nothing to advance society? Welders? Carpenters? Your bias is showing.
There is a difference between keeping society going and actually advancing it to become something better. My dad is a farmer, and he is the hardest working person I know, but he does the exact same job now that he did in the 70s. The only difference is better machinery created by engineers and better seeds created by biologists. It was engineers and scientists that changed the world from 90% farmers in 1800 to 2% today, not hard working farmers. My dad's job is necessary to sustain life, but it does not advance society.
Science and technology are the backbone of progress in our civilization. On top of that are the people who find new and industrious ways to implement these discoveries. And then there are the 95+ percent of people who live their life in a way that would only create the rate of progress we saw from 1900 BC - 1900 AD, where it was measures by the century instead of by the year.
If "Society" needed more programmers they would be paying them the same compensation they would a business major, assuming equivalent education and experience. They don't.
That is assuming society understands how much it needs programmers. It doesn't. That is why many powerful people are trying to change this perception.
The problem is that it is incredibly hard for a person's own labor to be more profitable than simply rent seeking, which is basically what all business boils down to in the end. That is why business majors and lawyers are able to make more money than engineers, not because society values them more.
I gave the Allegory of the Artisan as definition of society, and your retort is that society does not have very much control over compensation. That would only be true if society revolved around executives, and it doesn't. They are "part" of society, not the "whole" or even most important part of society. Socrates explains this very well, and I have yet to see a better definition.
By "Allegory of the Artisan" I assume you mean the city allegory in books II through V of the Republic (after googling I only see the term Allegory of the Artisan in Slashdot posts by you and some ACs who I assume are you). Socrates never gives any definitions of justice in the Republic, it is more of a thinking exercise told through a dialogue. He basically gives out an exhaustive number of definitions and then proceeds to show how they fall apart. The Republic is great because it makes people think, but it is very hard to not take many statements out of context.
As long as property rights exist, you will have rent seeking behavior. It is unavoidable. And left to its own devices any society with strong property rights will reward people who put effort into rent seeking behavior as opposed to being an artisan. It is a byproduct of a legal system that allows people to own property that could later be traded for services. The fact that these people make most of the money in our society does not even hint at the possibility that we value their work more.
I agree with your points, and am more disagreeing with this latest "everyone needs to be a programmer" message.
I hardly think that wanting the number of CS students to go up a little from 4.4% is the same as wanting everyone to be a programmer.
If society really wanted to change things then there would be incentives to do so. Who does society compensate better, a Lawyer or a Lead Developer? Lead Graphic Artist or Politician? Technical writer or Paralegal?
Society doesn't really care that much how many CS students there are. But plenty of people who are interested in advancing society want more of them. That is why they are trying to fix some of the issues that are hindering smart people from entering the field. Compensation is the factor they have the least control over, so it is rarely part of their solutions (even though it would have the most effect).
There was no evidence beforehand that there are significant problems with US K-12 education on average
Until I read the rest of your post I assumed you were being sarcastic with this statement. The US spends more than any other country on education, but still ranks below average when compared to other developed countries. We have known this for a long time, but things keep getting worse. While none of this means teachers are the primary cause of these problems, it is ignorant to say that there are not significant problems in our K-12 education system.
but there was and is absolutely zero evidence that the vast majority of teachers weren't already working hard 'to achieve results' before Grover Norquist and Michelle Rhee got involved to "improve" the situation.
My employers don't care much if I am trying hard. They care what my results are. There are times when I fail, and most of the time my employer agrees that the cause of the failure was outside of my control. But the next step isn't to ignore the failure, it is to determine how I will mitigate and compensate for those outside factors. Our educational system has been showing us very clearly that it is not doing a very good job finding solutions that will make the US compare well with the rest of the world. There are not easy answers to any of these problems, as evidenced by the lack of success that many renovators are having to suffer through. Sadly I believe this means we need more revolution than evolution, but I'm not sure how that could ever happen politically.
On the other hand, there is over 100 years of evidence as to why schools tend to evolve toward seniority systems (hint: not to protect "incompetent" teachers), all of which was ignored.
Everyone would love to be insulated from office politics. If teachers unions want to be part of the solution instead of the problem, they need to find a way to identify good teachers by some metric other than seniority (which doesn't work at all). This will allow great teachers to be paid well (I see no reason why the top 1% of teachers shouldn't be making $200k+) and will allow us to remove poor ones. This is an incredibly hard problem to solve, but current teachers unions just bury their head in the sand instead of trying to find solutions. That is why you have so many outside interests getting involved.
You mean a few companies who aren't willing to pay what developers are asking.
You mean a few companies that don't have the necessary revenue to pay what developers are asking. If a company needs better developers, and it has the money to pay better developers, then it will probably increase their salary offers. You can't always increase pay to get the talent you want. Your customers and/or the industry will often dictate how much you can charge for your products or services. For instance I work at a consulting company, so it is much easier to notice the relationship between what we pay developers and what we need to charge clients. The salaries we offer must be justified by the rates we can charge the clients and still win contracts. If there is a restricted supply of developers, it is not always possible to just increase salaries to compensate.
This same relationship is true for all companies, although in most situations this relationship is more hidden. There is an alternative to hiring expensive developers, such as dealing with lower quality software or doing your work more manually. If developers salaries rise too high, more companies choose the alternatives. There is a shortage of developers because we cannot hire enough developers at rates that our economy can support. This doesn't necessarily mean the economy doesn't have the money, but it is also the result of preconceptions regarding what software should cost.
Therefore the people with the most power to increase developer salaries are actually salesmen. I know that my salary has gone up quite a bit as the consulting company I work for has grown. This is not because I am a better employee now; it is because I have more value now that our quantity of high paying projects is growing.
But there are probably still huge gaps in knowledge that would make working in the industry very difficult at this point.
Really only true with self-education done wrong. Most college-education is done wrong, and as a result, most college products are know-nothings.
I was referring to my opinion that anyone who is really enjoying and learning from freshman level web development classes probably has huge gaps in their knowledge. I am mostly a self-educated developer, and I am doing very well in my career, so I don't hold anything against those who feel a BS in CS isn't always necessary. But this is true for only a very tiny minority of people.
But there is something more important and that's having fun. Collage is the last real time in your life you can goof off and have a good time without severe repercussions. Studies need to be important and good grades a must but with the lighter work load freshman year you should be having fun. That means making friends, dating and having a good time. Once you graduate are looking at almost 50 years of continuous 40+ hour workweeks with 2 weeks of time off a year.
Enjoy collage, its your last chance to act like a kid.
Egad, what terrible advice. This student is already self-motivated enough to learn independently and look for employment to learn job skills, and you want him to just goof off instead? College is not the last time someone has the chance to act like a kid. The last time is the two years after college when they are living at home working at a fast food joint looking for a real job because they goofed off during college.
Seriously though, at 18 it is time to start acting like an adult because you are an adult. Grade school is when you act like a kid, and high school to a lesser extent for all but the highest performers. Learn how to be a productive member of society in college.
I don't mean you can't have any fun. Just no more fun than you will have in your late 20s. Its not like your life ends once you actually start your first professional job.
Seems to me you have way more than 2+ years of experience.
While he says he has 10 years of web designing experience with 5-6 years of dabbling in PHP, he also says he really enjoyed his freshman level web development class. I had about 7 years of rudimentary programming experience before college, and all of my programming classes in the first two years were mind-numbingly boring and basic. And I was still not good enough to work as a professional developer. I have never met a self-taught developer that enjoyed their 100-200 level programming classes; they just suffered through them until the real CS classes started.
It sounds like this student is a self-motivating learner, and if that keeps up he will do quite well. But there are probably still huge gaps in knowledge that would make working in the industry very difficult at this point. I would suggest to do everything you can to get internships even in your Fresh/Soph summer, but understand you probably aren't ready to be employed as a software developer yet. I have known people who caught a lucky break writing basic websites for a family friend or something similar, but that was long before there were tools that help even laymen get a SMB website going in no time.
If you agree that it would be good for the H1-B program to be altered in ways that raise their wages, why did you argue that the program is necessary because US companies need access to cheaper labor?
I don't argue that the program is necessary because US companies need access to cheap labor. They need access to skilled labor. I conceded that we could get more skilled labor if wages went WAY up, but wages could never get that high without the jobs going overseas first. So considering wages could never hit the necessary level to get more skilled US workers, we need the H1-B program to get more skilled workers. Only 5% of the world's population is born in the US, so the vast majority of skilled IT workers are overseas.
You don't need to pick a figure that would get future doctors and lawyers to switch to careers for which they would be questionable fits; you just need a figure that is, from your source, at most $13k higher on average than H1-Bs are currently paid.
Sorry, I meant a US Market Value that would produce enough skilled IT workers for our companies. Obviously the we have a market value set now, but the problem is that this market value does not attract enough skilled US born workers. Thus the need for H1-Bs.
That's a red herring. How much do US born coders of Indian descent make compared to their H1-B counterparts?
I have continuously conceded that there are abuses. I was only pointing out that there may be other factors that cause H1-B workers to make less than the average US-born worker. It would be interested to know the statistic that you asked about though.
the argument is that H1-Bs are needed and used to get labor at below US market value (good luck trying to get a CEO to admit that)
Well that is basically a play on words. Picking a US market value that would get future doctors and lawyers to pick software development instead is just an academic exercise. That market value does not exist for a reason, because the jobs would go overseas before we hit that valuation.
There are companies who are taking advantage of the H1-B program. The Center for Immigration Studies claims that the average H1-B worker makes $13,000 less than the average American worker. But most minority groups make less money than the average worker. We should try to improve the program, not artifically limit the number of skilled workers we bring into the country. Better enforcement of the laws that already exist would go a long way.
And if it is about being able to compete, then make H1-Bs competitive to ensure they go where they are needed most. First, have H1-Bs allotted via weekly public auctions throughout the year: highest bidding companies get the workers. Second: instead of a sponsored worker being tied to a company, make them completely free to switch employers from day 1 with no additional paperwork outside of the usual tax forms. Again: the highest bidding companies will be the ones that get the workers.
I like all of these suggestions. The best part is that none of these suggestions limit the number of H1-B applications we accept. I think it is clear that we need reform of the H1-B program, but any change is hard because of the anti-immigrant sentiment in parts of our country.
Anyway the stated purpose of the H1-B is completely at odds with this problem: it's supposed to find foreign candidates for jobs which have no viable US candidates, not to allow companies to fill the slot at a "competitive" price.
H1-Bs are being used to find candidates where there are no viable US candidates. But part of the reason there are not more viable US candidates is because of salary. There is a finite number of people smart enough to work in this field, and those people are shared with other industries like medicine, law, finance, etc. If wages were to double, for instance, you would have more people of those highly qualified candidates train to be software developers instead of becoming doctors, lawyers, and bankers.
But the salary increases that would be necessary to drive more US citizens into IT would price us right out of the market. Software developers are still paid very well and it still attracts a large number of skilled people; it simply isn't enough. And since soft skills are not as important in IT as they are in many other highly paid professions, it is a prime target for offshoring. This is why I am a big fan of bringing IT workers into the US instead of sending our tech jobs overseas.
But pray tell what non-US firms actually vie
With Google, Oracle, Apple, or Microsoft?
First off, the very fact that the United States has continued to pro-actively attract IT talent from around the world has helped stop serious competitors from emerging outside of the US. Our country had a huge head start in this industry, but just looking at the auto industry can show that a huge lead can still be squandered.
But there are still foreign competitors to all of these companies. Baidu, Naver and Yandex are still very large competitors in the Internet search market in China, Korea, and Russia. Many android mobile device companies are foreign based which directly compete with Apple. Oracle and Microsoft may be the top two software companies in the world, but German based SAP is the third.
No one can dispute that the United States still has a commanding dominance in the IT industry. But it would be a mistake to believe that this could never change. The first step in losing that lead would be to tell foreign technology workers to stay in their home country and start building new companies there instead.
But, these are jobs that would be filled by Americans if businesses weren't allowed to import.
This is very unlikely, especially in the IT field. The US is part of a global economy, and that means we have to compete with foreign companies. The United States has been taking advantage of skilled foreign labor since its inception. I want the world's best and brightest working for IBM, GE, Google, etc. instead of their foreign counterparts. These workers aren't just going to work the rice fields if we don't bring them to the US. They are going to work for companies that are trying to steal American industries instead of just a few jobs.
Almost every company in the US is competing against foreign companies. They cannot always just raise local wages to the level it would take to attract American employees, because it would make it that much harder to compete with their foreign rivals. They cannot always wait to train new employees when there is a large supply of already trained workers that their foreign competitors could pull from.
I would move past writing software for yourself. While "intermediate" is obviously subjective, you are very unlikely to be at that skill level if you have never sold software or written software for money. Writing software for yourself is so much easier. You can change your goals based on what is easier or what skills you already have. You don't have to figure out difficult problems just because that is what the customer wants.
Since it can be so hard to find work with no experience, and with no academic credentials, a close second is to write software for free for someone else. I started developing software without a degree by writing CRM/ERP software for small companies (not that I even knew what those initials meant at the time). It taught me not only how to write better software, it taught me how to gather requirements and deal with customers. There will probably still be huge gaps in your abilities because of a lack of mentoring from someone in the industry, but it help you prove yourself enough to get a job in the industry.
Even if you can't find anyone who wants your help with software, a fake web-based CRM/ERP software project is a great way to learn skills that are actually useful in industry. And you will still have something to show employers if they want an example of your work.
Or tech companies can just start or move to somewhere else. This isn't the 19th or early 20th century where everyone in one industry has to be close to one another. Even the auto industry is spread out all over the World now. And with something like software, there is absolutely no reason to be in SV - I can't think of any other industry that is more portable than software.
And don't tell me that nonsense of "it's where the skilled people are".
Well there is a great debating technique; just call their rebuttal nonsense before they even say it. Although it works much better when you actually give reasons why the predominant theory is nonsense instead of just throwing it out there without backing it up.
While people may want to believe that technology has progressed far enough that it doesn't matter where you live, reality does not seem to back that up. Humans still seem to be far more social. I know I work better with the coworkers that come to the same office than I do with our remote workers; mostly because I have built friendships with them. I have good rapport with many remote coworkers, but it is not the same.
There are many tangible examples of the benefits of living close to coworkers. Topics we talk about during lunch or while playing golf or poker benefit not only our current job but improve job prospects in the future. I have networked at a coworker's barbeque, at fundraising events, at house warming parties, etc. While it is hard to track just how much of a benefit these interactions are, even if they rarely yield million dollar contracts they are probably worth the extra cost of living in or very near a major city.
Employers and employees both gain employment opportunities by being near a critical mass of employees. More employers means you have more "job security" because you can easily find new work. More employees means you can find better employees or more specialized employees if you need to, or ramp up/down for projects easily without needing to hire consulting firms at $200+ per hour. Even in the suburbs it can be very hard to find talent.
On top of that, most affluent people simply want to live near large cities. The larger the city, the more culture/food/entertainment is available. I grew up in a farm town, and I cannot express just how much better life is living in the suburbs. The food is much better, the schools are immeasurably better, the options for what to do on a Friday night don't include "hang out in the Walmart parking lot", etc.
Like it or not, having a city densely population with talented workers is still a useful thing.
So you are basically saying that Silicon Valley will still exist and humans will still live there, but it will having nothing to do with its former glory? I think that is pretty much what the article said as well.
Good to know, thanks.
The ancient Greeks had the philosphy of mind, body, and spirit - like on the YMCA signs. Then in the 1930s the whole dumb jock thing started.
Why? Racism.
When the African-Americans were allowed to compete with whites, many did well and disturbed some people's idea that white people were superior. So, they (racist whites) made up the lie that really talented atletic people are stupid - as an attack on Black people.
Correlation does not equal causation. While some change in attitude may have changed in the past 100 years, plenty of other factors were at work other than the end of segregation. The primary cause was the increase in money going into sports and increased popularity of professional sports as a result of television. Before that sports were just hobbies of students. But once money started to pile in, sports became the focus. Once kids with no hopes of even being accepted into college could get full scholarships for playing ball, where do you think their priorities are going to lie?
And the dumb jock thing has been around since the ancient Greeks when philosophers of the time characterized athletes as "useless and ignorant citizens with dull minds." (Coakley, J.J. 1994, Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies). Any time you have a group of people who can live their lives without being educated you are going to find a stereotype regarding their intelligence. I am willing to bet farmers have just as bad of an intelligence stereotype as athletes, and that profession is almost 85% white.
I work at a consulting company that is over 90% male, and I cannot imagine how hard it is for the women working there to fit in. It is basically a frat house. We have golden tee and an Xbox in the office, go to sports bars during lunch breaks, have numerous fantasy sports leagues, play team sports together, and can be very crude in the office (when clients aren't there). Most women aren't interested in these things. It is very hard for women to fit in in this atmosphere, but it is great for creating an inviting atmosphere for men.
It would take a considerable pay bump for me to leave this fun of a work setting. I assume they are saving quite a bit of money, perhaps tens of thousands per employee, by creating a setting that is so attractive for their core demographic of employees. So its hard to say that this is something that should change.
How about a maths degree (47% women) or physics (40%)?
Where are you pulling these statistics? I was a physics major and in I never had a 300 level class with more than 20% women. I went to the American Physical Society and found that in 2010 about 20% of physics degrees are given to women. Math and Statistics on the same site was at about 40%, but that does seem a bit fishy based on my experience (although I was in school in 2000). I wouldn't be surprised if they were counting Math education degrees in their statistics. And math education degree is as similar to a real math degree as JavaScript is similar to Java.
I could be wrong though, my experience only has a sample size of one college in a few year period over 10 years ago.
But Google and Facebook provide best in class services to me for free and all I have to do in return is use them.
If only that were the case. I never wanted a Google+ account, and never used it. But Google created one anyway when I signed up for another service.
Not only that, but Google collect data on you even of you don't sign up for any of their services. They spy on you via adverts on third party websites.
There's nothing wrong with you choosing to exchange your privacy in return for "free" services. The problem is them collecting data from people who haven't agreed to that arrangement.
If Google is automatically creating a Google+ account, its only because you are using other Google services that are basically being funded by their search and advertising money. And if you are being tracked by 3rd party adverts that is because you are visiting sites that are funded by Google adverts revenue, so you are still taking advantage of their "free" services.
Remember, with Google, you - and what you do online - are their product. That information, and your "eyeballs" are what they sell. Expect them to behave accordingly.
And thank god that companies like Google have found ways of turning me into a valuable product without any effort on my part. It has taken a lot of work to turn myself into a product that I can sell to employers for a good paycheck. But Google and Facebook provide best in class services to me for free and all I have to do in return is use them.
every grad program in the US requires several letters (maybe not the for-profit degree mills?). they should also be from people you did research with to count for anything. crazy that higher education is so inaccessible in this country and that a big part of getting in is popularity.
I did more research, and it looks like we are both wrong. There are far more programs than I thought which do require references, but by no means all. A small sample size of 10 schools in my state gave 60% needing references. So it does seem to be more common than I thought, but by no means universal. And the other 40% where still quality schools, not diploma mills.
If you can get into fucking grad school shouldn't you know this? What the fuck? I can't get in because you need 4 fucking references but at least I know CS theory...
Anyone with a BS degree can get into grad school. Perhaps not MIT or Stanford, but all but the top CS program in my state have no entrance criteria above just filling out an application (and the top program is not in a metropolitan area, so forget studying there while working).
The changes from iPad 3 to iPad 4... Were just barely enough to go out and buy one, we were on the fence.
You lost me there. There was almost no difference between these two models, and they were released six months from each other. Just a slightly faster processor, but nothing near what it would take to upgrade if you passed on the iPad 3 or already had one.
I have not bought an iPad Air and I likely won't for another year or two, it is indeed lighter than the 4, but overall it isn't enough of a change to make it worth the bother.
While nowhere near the change we saw in iPad 2&3, the iPad Air is much nicer than the 3/4. My wife has an iPad 3 and I have the Air, and it is amazing just how much lighter it is and how nice that is. At first I was upset that they didn't just keep the same size and increase battery life, but now I am very happy with the lighter weight. My wife's iPad 3 actually feels pretty clunky now.
But still, I would agree that it is pretty silly for most people to upgrade their iPad more frequently than every other year. Similar to cell phones.