No one teaches PROGRAMMING any more
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UD wrote:
25 years of development and, not only head-down/hands-on development, but business experience (across hospitality, accounting, financial, utilities, medical and machinery to name a few). I can read and understand a balance sheet and speak business as well as developer talk in one breath. I would consider myself a true hybrid. Yet, most dont care and the ones that do are waning quickly.
If you're located in the Midatlantic States of the US, you need a few good recruiters to help (check out Indeed.com as well, it will explain itself nicely). Right now they're asking me to slash my rates or else they go to India, China, Vietnam even Lithuania!! And by slash rates I mean from $100/hr to less than $30, some even less than $20. After I take out healthcare, mortgage, car(gas), food and simple business expenses (software, internet, etc), there is nothing left from $25/hr. Nothing. Its crazy. Um, this was a subtle but important point of what I said: they want you IN HOUSE. $100/hour consulting work is dying rapidly as a result (one of the jobs I recently interviewed for was to sepcifically avoid retaining a consultant any longer than I needed to jumpstart my own project). They'll pay part or all of your benefits, but they want you as theirs, not shared, and right now salaries in this area are running $60-85k with benefits. This won't support your current lifestyle, I'm guessing, but it beats the heck out of $12000/year or "may I take your order, please?". However, you're not going to get rich doing it.
You sure are right. Some ways of doing the business are changing, but the need for talented software developers is not going away.
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Pete Appleton wrote:
RTFM. That's how we learnt.
I "learnt" before there was any manuals to read. ;) Back in the late 70's working for Quadram I had to write device-drivers for PC's running DOS 1.1 before there WERE any "how-to" books on the subject! You had to take the Microsoft (or IBM) documentation and provided source-code examples and learn the difference between the types of drivers and how to code them. Before that it was writing FORTRAN IV on a PDP-11 and CDC Cyber-74. RTFM? No M to RTF! mov ax, 4C00h int 21h -CB :)
The documentation you're talking about was the FM I was referring to ... previously came in the form of large, ring-bound dead trees much of which just said "This page left intentionally blank" but now comes in various electronic formats that decay faster. IE - the FM, not one of the zillion "If you can't be bothered to RTFM, this explains it" books there are now. Yup, I learnt back at that time, too! Part of my learning actually came from reverse engineering CP/M :-D .loop ld bc,0003h ld hl,[2600h] int 21h djnz .loop
-- What's a signature?
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Why is that? Because some developer in India told ME to stop whining the other day. This is how he put it: "An average developer in India earns the equivalent of $1000 USD a month, gross pay. If you want to match or beat that then I would be willing to bet you'd get the contracts in America. Otherwise, you simply wont". So....... thats what we're being reduced to people. We're being reduced to $12,000 a year employees. People in WALMART make about that. Mc Donalds. Borders. And they dont have 1/10th of the pressure. So, yea, I too am looking for a new career. This one has been pulled from under my feet.
Well you should not. There are a lot of good positions for someone with CS skills. No matter what, there is a limit to what can be sent abroad, and the shortage of trained people in the us is and will remain acute. So I think your views are quite exagerated. Do a little research, and you'll find companies who need in-house people with decent skills.
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Bottom line, those of us who know not only how to code, but to write elegant code will always be in high demand. There are plenty of jobs in companies that use proper interviewing and weeding to find the diamonds in that mountain of sand that apply. I've never had a problem when I wanted to make a move.
Interesting..... Reading this has made me realise how much Google has destroyed my ability to really write code that I understand (in the sense that I wrote it from scratch after researching a book). I started with USCD Pascal on an Apple ][e, then to VAXes in univ. and thens to PCs (C, and now degenerated to VB.NET...), so I've been doing it long enough to remember gopher.... It's been a long time since I looked at a book to figure out the way to code something as against Googling to see if somebody else has done it already. D. -------- The Good Old Days - Fast FTP to a site with a huge collection of GIFs.... hold on....
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The documentation you're talking about was the FM I was referring to ... previously came in the form of large, ring-bound dead trees much of which just said "This page left intentionally blank" but now comes in various electronic formats that decay faster. IE - the FM, not one of the zillion "If you can't be bothered to RTFM, this explains it" books there are now. Yup, I learnt back at that time, too! Part of my learning actually came from reverse engineering CP/M :-D .loop ld bc,0003h ld hl,[2600h] int 21h djnz .loop
-- What's a signature?
Pete Appleton wrote:
The documentation you're talking about was the FM I was referring to ... previously came in the form of large, ring-bound dead trees much of which just said "This page left intentionally blank" but now comes in various electronic formats that decay faster. IE - the FM, not one of the zillion "If you can't be bothered to RTFM, this explains it" books there are now. Yup, I learnt back at that time, too! Part of my learning actually came from reverse engineering CP/M
Programming sure was fun back then, wasn't it? It's still OK - but back then it was more of an adventure. Later! -CB :)
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...Or math, which is where I think the fundamental problem lies. I work at a University and teach a couple of classes and our computer science classes have been getting smaller from enrolling freshman, but the real eye opener is the transfer from Computer Science to Digital Media (web development, graphics design...). Basically, kids are saying, "I like games and love browsing the internet, I think I'd like to learn about computers." They quickly realize Calculus 1 is way over their head and shift over to a degree that requires no math, but still has everything to do with computers. So, in summary, I don't think our pre-collegiate schools (high school, middle school, elementary school) are preparing our youth for Math like we were 10 years ago (and I'm only 27).
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UD wrote:
25 years of development and, not only head-down/hands-on development, but business experience (across hospitality, accounting, financial, utilities, medical and machinery to name a few). I can read and understand a balance sheet and speak business as well as developer talk in one breath. I would consider myself a true hybrid. Yet, most dont care and the ones that do are waning quickly.
If you're located in the Midatlantic States of the US, you need a few good recruiters to help (check out Indeed.com as well, it will explain itself nicely). Right now they're asking me to slash my rates or else they go to India, China, Vietnam even Lithuania!! And by slash rates I mean from $100/hr to less than $30, some even less than $20. After I take out healthcare, mortgage, car(gas), food and simple business expenses (software, internet, etc), there is nothing left from $25/hr. Nothing. Its crazy. Um, this was a subtle but important point of what I said: they want you IN HOUSE. $100/hour consulting work is dying rapidly as a result (one of the jobs I recently interviewed for was to sepcifically avoid retaining a consultant any longer than I needed to jumpstart my own project). They'll pay part or all of your benefits, but they want you as theirs, not shared, and right now salaries in this area are running $60-85k with benefits. This won't support your current lifestyle, I'm guessing, but it beats the heck out of $12000/year or "may I take your order, please?". However, you're not going to get rich doing it.
"but they want you as theirs, not shared" I think that says it all. I dont want to be "theirs" anymore. I did that. I've been there. I put in my time. I worked those long nights and weekends without pay. Starting in the early 80's and worked my butt off 50, 60 hours a week for a "salary w/benefits" job and got laid off at the hint of lower profits, numerous times. I heard all the BS that a captive employer can tell me. 60-85K sounds nice but when you take out the unpaid OT, the fact that you really can not go on vacation because when you DO take a few days off you come back to find out there's a ton of work on your desk and/or you get an attitude for taking time off, the pagers going off in the middle of the night, the weekends, etc - its just not worth it. The salary is ultimately reduced to a $35K job and my fiance makes more than that as a secretary with NO pressure. She leaves her job at 5pm and on the weekends never once thinks about it. Now, some will say that self-employed contract worker types put in 60+ hours a week and cant take vacation either. This is only partially true. While I work my butt off, still, and probably more so than when I worked "captive" employment, the rewards far outweigh the negatives. First, I bill for every 15 minutes of my time. Second, I get to shape the project, speak to VPs and CEOs, interface with CIOs - directly.. Not through some layer of management that doesnt care or know squat. I get to develop the product and deliver it myself. I also control my own schedule. If I want a 2 week period off then I build it in. If I want 5 or 6 weeks off then I build it in. I know this isnt for a lot of folks. Its not simple but it is damn rewarding to earn 6-figures and to have earned it all on my own. No recruiters, no large company giving me a desk and priorities that shift from hour to hour. I am definitely in a drought at this point and living off of savings right now. I might consider captive employment for the time being but I recently turned down a position at 90K because they not only wanted me to rewrite the entire internal system but they wanted me to train the only other developer there on new technologies, hardware + software, mentor him, work very closely with marketing and sales to the point where I would go out on new sales calls - so that I would be available on the spot to determine if the delivery of the product was technically achievable (the product IS data, itself).. Apparently sales and marketing were/are wasting a lot of money over-prom
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"but they want you as theirs, not shared" I think that says it all. I dont want to be "theirs" anymore. I did that. I've been there. I put in my time. I worked those long nights and weekends without pay. Starting in the early 80's and worked my butt off 50, 60 hours a week for a "salary w/benefits" job and got laid off at the hint of lower profits, numerous times. I heard all the BS that a captive employer can tell me. 60-85K sounds nice but when you take out the unpaid OT, the fact that you really can not go on vacation because when you DO take a few days off you come back to find out there's a ton of work on your desk and/or you get an attitude for taking time off, the pagers going off in the middle of the night, the weekends, etc - its just not worth it. The salary is ultimately reduced to a $35K job and my fiance makes more than that as a secretary with NO pressure. She leaves her job at 5pm and on the weekends never once thinks about it. Now, some will say that self-employed contract worker types put in 60+ hours a week and cant take vacation either. This is only partially true. While I work my butt off, still, and probably more so than when I worked "captive" employment, the rewards far outweigh the negatives. First, I bill for every 15 minutes of my time. Second, I get to shape the project, speak to VPs and CEOs, interface with CIOs - directly.. Not through some layer of management that doesnt care or know squat. I get to develop the product and deliver it myself. I also control my own schedule. If I want a 2 week period off then I build it in. If I want 5 or 6 weeks off then I build it in. I know this isnt for a lot of folks. Its not simple but it is damn rewarding to earn 6-figures and to have earned it all on my own. No recruiters, no large company giving me a desk and priorities that shift from hour to hour. I am definitely in a drought at this point and living off of savings right now. I might consider captive employment for the time being but I recently turned down a position at 90K because they not only wanted me to rewrite the entire internal system but they wanted me to train the only other developer there on new technologies, hardware + software, mentor him, work very closely with marketing and sales to the point where I would go out on new sales calls - so that I would be available on the spot to determine if the delivery of the product was technically achievable (the product IS data, itself).. Apparently sales and marketing were/are wasting a lot of money over-prom
UD wrote:
Sure, I might have stress right now looking for work but, in the end I thought about it... I am in complete control. I can change my career, develop a product and sell it or sit back and live off the money I was able to save earning 6 figures for the past 5 years. I think in time this oursourcing thing will turn around. Especially since people over seas are getting a bit more daring and asking for higher rates. Eventually near-shore outsourcing will get into full gear and eventually it will come back in-sourcing once companies realize that there are no silver bullets and our tax-base has been so badly eroded that they cant raise gas or cigarette or alcohol taxes enough to pay the bills of the nation.
Very true. It's not for me. I have excellent communication skills but minding my own business would drive me nuts without an administrative assistant...and my wife, who is one, has this phobia about filing at home LOL...Her early retirement opportunity is coming up in a few years, so we are keeping aware, but I'll tell you this: I'm not ready to bet my family on the IT consultant market right now...in about a year and a half, two years, after the floating talent has been sucked from the available workforce and everyone is hunkered down to sit out the recession, consultants will be in vogue again; until then, if a consultant doesn't have some long-term recession-proof contracts, they may need to get out of the rain for a little bit. As for your client/wannabe boss, they are like too many in business who see our skills are a commodity - some of our skills are "straight off the shelf", but the best of us bring a distinct edge with us that these businessmen secretly hope to get along with the commodity, then to pay sweatshop wages and benefits for top-office work. That's how I got my first permanent programming job. I won't, can't do it again, and agree with your decision not to. My current employer offers much better benefits than does your attempted employer (I work for a large corporation). I'm very comfortable here except for my 90-mile round trip every day. The longer I stay, the more problems with interesting opportunities wind up on my desk. Due to the workload and the software gymnastics required occasionally, I'm relatively secure against layoff (something that cannot be said for the phone people who work for us). I keep a line out for positions of similar security closer to my home, but haven't found one yet.
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Ray Cassick wrote:
YIKES! Do I win for the longest thread contest?
:laugh: You get my vote.
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funny i read your post just today. this morning i lectured a group of statisticians "VBA in Excel 2007". i was told by them and their boss that they _already_ knew programming, familiar with macros in excel 2003, and just needed to learn the 2007 way for tasks they were doing, plus how to do complex structured sampling for election statistics, in VBA. lets just say if-then-else was a fascinating concept, much better than what they get in excel formulas. ( ! ).
Eric D. Georgiades Networking Professional / Multimedia Developer
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...Or math, which is where I think the fundamental problem lies. I work at a University and teach a couple of classes and our computer science classes have been getting smaller from enrolling freshman, but the real eye opener is the transfer from Computer Science to Digital Media (web development, graphics design...). Basically, kids are saying, "I like games and love browsing the internet, I think I'd like to learn about computers." They quickly realize Calculus 1 is way over their head and shift over to a degree that requires no math, but still has everything to do with computers. So, in summary, I don't think our pre-collegiate schools (high school, middle school, elementary school) are preparing our youth for Math like we were 10 years ago (and I'm only 27).
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funny i read your post just today. this morning i lectured a group of statisticians "VBA in Excel 2007". i was told by them and their boss that they _already_ knew programming, familiar with macros in excel 2003, and just needed to learn the 2007 way for tasks they were doing, plus how to do complex structured sampling for election statistics, in VBA. lets just say if-then-else was a fascinating concept, much better than what they get in excel formulas. ( ! ).
Eric D. Georgiades Networking Professional / Multimedia Developer
I am getting sick of these colleges graduating students who can't move into a programming job and get into the groove within a few days. I am sick of graduates with only .NET experience. I am sick of graduates with only OOP knowledge. It seems that C, Fortran, Forth, Assembly language, software engineering, debugging, diversity, problem solving, and efficient coding skills are all becoming a lost art. If you are a CS graduate and you don't conceptually understand unregisters, binary, and bitwise operations Don't have knowledge of 5 or more languages, all the major operating systems (not just Windows, MacOS, and Linux). I mean all I listed including but not limited to Unix, OS/2, RiscOS, Sun systems. Experience with microcontroller and embedded programming, and not just PIC with PICBASIC, I mean embedded ARM7TDMI, PowerPC, etc... Conceptual knowledge of RISC, CISC, ZISC, and VLIW, the differences between each, and programming for each. Then you need to GO BACK TO COLLEGE. And obviously not the one you graduated from...a GOOD one. Here is a test to see if you got what you paid for with your CS degree. If you can't read this, go back to college...a GOOD college. global _fact section .text _fact: mov eax, [esp+4] cmp eax, 1 jnle L1 mov eax, 1 jmp L2 L1: dec eax push eax call _fact add esp, 4 imul eax, [esp+4] L2:
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I am getting sick of these colleges graduating students who can't move into a programming job and get into the groove within a few days. I am sick of graduates with only .NET experience. I am sick of graduates with only OOP knowledge. It seems that C, Fortran, Forth, Assembly language, software engineering, debugging, diversity, problem solving, and efficient coding skills are all becoming a lost art. If you are a CS graduate and you don't conceptually understand unregisters, binary, and bitwise operations Don't have knowledge of 5 or more languages, all the major operating systems (not just Windows, MacOS, and Linux). I mean all I listed including but not limited to Unix, OS/2, RiscOS, Sun systems. Experience with microcontroller and embedded programming, and not just PIC with PICBASIC, I mean embedded ARM7TDMI, PowerPC, etc... Conceptual knowledge of RISC, CISC, ZISC, and VLIW, the differences between each, and programming for each. Then you need to GO BACK TO COLLEGE. And obviously not the one you graduated from...a GOOD one. Here is a test to see if you got what you paid for with your CS degree. If you can't read this, go back to college...a GOOD college. global _fact section .text _fact: mov eax, [esp+4] cmp eax, 1 jnle L1 mov eax, 1 jmp L2 L1: dec eax push eax call _fact add esp, 4 imul eax, [esp+4] L2:
Regarding my above post, "Unregisters" is a typo. I meant "Registers"
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Regarding my above post, "Unregisters" is a typo. I meant "Registers"
One more thing. You need to be able to be able to adapt to any new technologies. You should have experience with several different programming languages, all with different styles because a REAL programmer should be able to start programming in a new language or framework within a day, begin to understand and be programming with it (with the help of a reference) within a week, and master it withing 2-3 weeks. Obviously with a huge language like C++ you can't master entire APIs within this time frame, but in 2-3 weeks of straight programming, you should be able to understand the language structure fully to the point where the only thing you should need to reference are the language specific functions. For example, C is a small language. The language structure itself is VERY simple yet BASIC programmers think it is overwhelming and cryptic. Well, if you had a REAL CS degree, you would understand that C is NOT cryptic and is actually simpler than .NET languages. Try learning Forth and assembly language :) Try programming in hex.
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...Or math, which is where I think the fundamental problem lies. I work at a University and teach a couple of classes and our computer science classes have been getting smaller from enrolling freshman, but the real eye opener is the transfer from Computer Science to Digital Media (web development, graphics design...). Basically, kids are saying, "I like games and love browsing the internet, I think I'd like to learn about computers." They quickly realize Calculus 1 is way over their head and shift over to a degree that requires no math, but still has everything to do with computers. So, in summary, I don't think our pre-collegiate schools (high school, middle school, elementary school) are preparing our youth for Math like we were 10 years ago (and I'm only 27).
Basic arithmetic, number theory, boolean algebra, and matrix transforms are really all that is absolutely required for programming. Unless you are writing an application that needs to perform calculus, its not that essential. I have programmed for over 25 years, and rarely have I needed to utilize true calculus. Remember at the microcode level a computer can not do anything other than descrete operations. Granted that when you actually do need to perform true calculus, you do need to understand it fully, because a computer does not have that capability, you have to program it, but really it is mostly translating to decrete math, which is not that difficult if you understand it. The name 'calculus' I think intimidates most of them, once you explain how to break it down to descrete math, they would not be so intimidated by it. Unfortunately, most math and statistics classes are not taught from a computer programming perspective at all and so they only think it is over their head, because no one actually breaks it down to the descrete operations. I developed my understanding of math from the computer operation perspective which helped me immensely overcome any fear of high level math. Start teaching 'Computer Math' and tell them only afterwards which parts are actually calculus, you might see your enrollment go back up. chash360
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UD wrote:
Sure, I might have stress right now looking for work but, in the end I thought about it... I am in complete control. I can change my career, develop a product and sell it or sit back and live off the money I was able to save earning 6 figures for the past 5 years. I think in time this oursourcing thing will turn around. Especially since people over seas are getting a bit more daring and asking for higher rates. Eventually near-shore outsourcing will get into full gear and eventually it will come back in-sourcing once companies realize that there are no silver bullets and our tax-base has been so badly eroded that they cant raise gas or cigarette or alcohol taxes enough to pay the bills of the nation.
Very true. It's not for me. I have excellent communication skills but minding my own business would drive me nuts without an administrative assistant...and my wife, who is one, has this phobia about filing at home LOL...Her early retirement opportunity is coming up in a few years, so we are keeping aware, but I'll tell you this: I'm not ready to bet my family on the IT consultant market right now...in about a year and a half, two years, after the floating talent has been sucked from the available workforce and everyone is hunkered down to sit out the recession, consultants will be in vogue again; until then, if a consultant doesn't have some long-term recession-proof contracts, they may need to get out of the rain for a little bit. As for your client/wannabe boss, they are like too many in business who see our skills are a commodity - some of our skills are "straight off the shelf", but the best of us bring a distinct edge with us that these businessmen secretly hope to get along with the commodity, then to pay sweatshop wages and benefits for top-office work. That's how I got my first permanent programming job. I won't, can't do it again, and agree with your decision not to. My current employer offers much better benefits than does your attempted employer (I work for a large corporation). I'm very comfortable here except for my 90-mile round trip every day. The longer I stay, the more problems with interesting opportunities wind up on my desk. Due to the workload and the software gymnastics required occasionally, I'm relatively secure against layoff (something that cannot be said for the phone people who work for us). I keep a line out for positions of similar security closer to my home, but haven't found one yet.