as the economy worsens.
This kind of stuff is bound to happen when there are people walking around with frivilous music gadgets that cost more than most poor people's monthy rent payment.
Good hunting.
If you check the transcripts of the court proceedings, you were cited 213 times, 215 if you count references to "Worlds Most Installingest QuickTime Proponent". Your efforts are not in vain my friend, not in vain at all.
Most programmers are equivalent the plumber of 40 years ago. The difference is that people are smarter now and the plumbing is more complicated. Programming seems like a white collar job, but it mostly isn't. Very few of you are actually innovators or doing things that require much thought.
The first plumbers were probably very smart people compared to their fellow citizens. After awhile though plumbing techniques become routine and not very interesting. This is the state of programming right now. Sure you think it's nifty when you use OO programming, linked lists and recursion, but really it's old hat. Once you've spent a few months doing it you don't have to think much to implement these ideas in different ways. Many programmers don't even do that much - their job is look up function names for solutions other people have made and just string them together.
In some ways plumbing takes more discipline and skill than programming - there's no undo button and debugging is much harder.
Unless you're writing cutting edge AI applications or working for NASA or one of the very few companies like it, you're a glorified plumber who gets paid a lot because everyone hasn't caught up to your scheme yet. But they are catching up and soon you'll be lucky if you can make as much writing that clever PHP shopping cart system or that VB image viewer than the plumber fixing your toilet.
And that brings us to the reason IT professionals are unhappy: Ego. They're used to people telling them how smart they must be for "knowing computers" and that was further validated by having been paid more than other professions which require about the same level of expertise and intellect. This made up for tedium of their job - knowing the idiosyncrasies of one router vs another or one language vs another. Thinking you are the shit because you can memorize the 7 layers of networking, make some sense of the 2003 Internet poster you hung up in the server room or being or write a TCP packet on a piece of napkin. While it's true that you can hold the company hostage with your knowledge or simply because you have all the admin passwords - it's not as much fun without everyone telling you how great you are, your peers and your checkbook.
Another ego booster frequently used is that of the IT professional convincing themselves that it was through their unique vision of how the servers should be networked that justifies their greatness and pay scale. The people who made Microsoft and Linux software had the vision, not you. You're simply carrying out their vision. Sure Microsoft's vision may suck and Linux's vision may be a little less rigid, giving you more freedom; it all pales in comparison to creating something of your own design.
The sad truth is that we can't all be innovators. Many of us suck at it and we have to be plumbers. Though we can always fool ourselves otherwise.
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I think this is more of a statement about how easy a conductor's job is rather than how far robotics have progressed.
as the economy worsens. This kind of stuff is bound to happen when there are people walking around with frivilous music gadgets that cost more than most poor people's monthy rent payment. Good hunting.
If you check the transcripts of the court proceedings, you were cited 213 times, 215 if you count references to "Worlds Most Installingest QuickTime Proponent". Your efforts are not in vain my friend, not in vain at all.
Most programmers are equivalent the plumber of 40 years ago. The difference is that people are smarter now and the plumbing is more complicated. Programming seems like a white collar job, but it mostly isn't. Very few of you are actually innovators or doing things that require much thought.
The first plumbers were probably very smart people compared to their fellow citizens. After awhile though plumbing techniques become routine and not very interesting. This is the state of programming right now. Sure you think it's nifty when you use OO programming, linked lists and recursion, but really it's old hat. Once you've spent a few months doing it you don't have to think much to implement these ideas in different ways. Many programmers don't even do that much - their job is look up function names for solutions other people have made and just string them together.
In some ways plumbing takes more discipline and skill than programming - there's no undo button and debugging is much harder.
Unless you're writing cutting edge AI applications or working for NASA or one of the very few companies like it, you're a glorified plumber who gets paid a lot because everyone hasn't caught up to your scheme yet. But they are catching up and soon you'll be lucky if you can make as much writing that clever PHP shopping cart system or that VB image viewer than the plumber fixing your toilet.
And that brings us to the reason IT professionals are unhappy: Ego. They're used to people telling them how smart they must be for "knowing computers" and that was further validated by having been paid more than other professions which require about the same level of expertise and intellect. This made up for tedium of their job - knowing the idiosyncrasies of one router vs another or one language vs another. Thinking you are the shit because you can memorize the 7 layers of networking, make some sense of the 2003 Internet poster you hung up in the server room or being or write a TCP packet on a piece of napkin. While it's true that you can hold the company hostage with your knowledge or simply because you have all the admin passwords - it's not as much fun without everyone telling you how great you are, your peers and your checkbook.
Another ego booster frequently used is that of the IT professional convincing themselves that it was through their unique vision of how the servers should be networked that justifies their greatness and pay scale. The people who made Microsoft and Linux software had the vision, not you. You're simply carrying out their vision. Sure Microsoft's vision may suck and Linux's vision may be a little less rigid, giving you more freedom; it all pales in comparison to creating something of your own design.
The sad truth is that we can't all be innovators. Many of us suck at it and we have to be plumbers. Though we can always fool ourselves otherwise.
Until your job gets exported, that is.