I expect there are interesting Java jobs. However, a lot of companies who aren't particularly interested in technology tend to gravitate to Java or .Net because nobody ever got fired for writing a boring application on those platforms. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with Java. I just have trouble imagining an insurance company paying some Java developers to do basic research on fundamental computer sci…
Most boring applications are on the web - currently javascript. Insurance companies and banks need interesting algorithms and math sometimes (I had such position and liked it).
There are tons of enterprise web applications written in Java.
I don't think it's even the programming that's the problem. There's a ton of Stupid Computer Shit we all know, mostly from messing around on our own time, that makes programming or doing anything else with computers much easier. A set of skills for navigating and troubleshooting issues, and a hard-earned intuition for where and how to look for answers. My CS program was really easy and I still don't know how people w…
I believe that being in the "engineering mindset" is at odds with what many people are used to. I think it's the culture that some see and get scared away from, even if that perception isn't 100% accurate. People interested in fixing CS "inclusivity" should address this first.
Given that computer science isn't engineering (they are distinct but different disciplines), can you elaborate on what you mean by the engineering mindset?
I know a number of universities in NZ have non comp sci paths to programming careers through their engineering department. Maybe there's some course diversification going on?
Being a software engineer is often about the merging of the discipline of CS and the art of programming. I think most software engineers are strong in one and get by in varying degrees in the other. The few that are strong in both end up being the "very good" programmers we all know or have heard about. For some, that semicolon is a nagging reminder of their mistakes. For others, it's a small detail they zoom past as…
You start saying 'software engineer' and end with programmer. Clarify your terms. There is a huge difference between willing to take on liability for your faults versus slinging code.
> You start saying 'software engineer' and end with programmer. Clarify your terms.
Eh, it snuck in there. I specifically changed programmer to software engineer in multiple spots to disambiguate it because I was talking about "programming" as an act distinct from applied CS. I missed doing so at the end.
> There is a huge difference between willing to take on liability for your faults versus slinging code.
Based on your assumption of what I meant, it sounds like you have something you wish to express on this point. Perhaps you should do so in more detail?
CS jobs in the west are victims of Globalisation. We simply cannot compete with Asia and Eastern Europe with regards to wages. Hence outsourcing which has been ongoing for decades. We _can_ compete on quality and solutions, but these are hidden properties which might or might not be a problem in the finished product. Business people consider scope and cost first and foremost. In addition, many of the best and highest paid programmers are self-thought. This works, because 99.9% of your career will be bread and butter CRUD apps anyone can do. At the university we studied algorithms and data structures which we will never use or implement. When was the last time you had to do a breadth-first-search on a graph? I really cannot recommend anyone in the west to study CS today.
The grief factor of learning to code is on a different scale to every other major. One missing semicolon will take your whole tower down, and you realise this in the first day of practical exercises. Even if you are of the opinion that CS is math, and coding doesn't come into it, you will hit a coding wall early on. In fact, every exercise in CS has this problem. You add a new thing (eg inheritance), and it breaks. B…
Ugh. That was me.
At age 14 I used to copy BASIC into my Atari 600XL, QBASIC into my old 5150 and 486 PC, some HTML in the 90s, some Python, Perl others here and there.
So I tried to go for CS about ten years out of school and Java got me.
Aside from the many valid theories already listed, I'd add:
perception of dullness
Many people find the idea of staring at code all day, regardless of potential for remuneration, boring. Worrying about every little character, futzing around with compilers and debuggers, and reading manuals isn't many people's idea of fun.
Over the years, several non-developers have commented on this to me; "boring," "dry," and "dull" were generally the adjectives used. It's also perceived by many (rightfully) to be especially prone to the "retrain on your own dime" issue (which has become more common across industries and jobs, but in software dev is particularly acute.) The idea of spending your weekends having to learn a new library or brush up on your fundamentals to interview yet again isn't appealing, and it wouldn't surprise me if younger people were already very clued into this.
"Most desired career among young people: 'YouTuber'":
I've been pretty curious about this as well. Why aren't there more women on oil rigs? We try to add diversity, but it feels so manufactured. Society has evolved the games and roles we play. It will evolve further down the line as well. What is considered acceptable for men, women, westerners, easterners, low-income, high-income will all be noticeably different in 100 years. Culture adjusts with time, and we see that…
Off and on, I do contract work for oil companies and I can say with some certainty that it's a pretty hostile environment toward women. Let me give some examples to see if I can build a picture. On the technology end of things, I used to go to the conference SEG, which a lot of deals for technology are made on the side. I've not been for the last 4-5 years, but they used to be really aggressive about their use of boo…
Well put. I work in engineering at a large industrial plant very similar issues here. There is a huge effort from management aimed at improving workplace diversity but at least from my limited point of view seems difficult to attract female applicants for open positions. I think partially it's remote location our plant is not in a very attractive place to start a family etc. Also the issue you identified where "coal face" experience is seen as a rite of passage into upper management.
My sister is also a mechanical engineer she worked on remote mine sites for a while and then at a power plant. She took a few years off to have children and now has no desire to get back to that kind of lifestyle. She works for the government now.
And my own experience is that I learned coding and using Linux on my free time several years before entering college, where I studied engineering, which required no little effort. Programming is hard, I'm not denying it, but so is everything else if you plan to get paid doing it.
In my experience it is much more stressful and hard to learn these things for a course, because you're not interested in them but HAVE to use them in order to do something (e.g. hand in your assignment with git). Now I'm looking at git again in my free time it's a pretty nice tool, and I can't imagine that I loathed it so much when I had to use it for a course.
It's great that this was part of an assignment. Git is a fantastic, incredible tool. Along with testing, it's one of the skills I figure is just as important as the things you learn in university, but which typically isn't taught there.
The grief factor of learning to code is on a different scale to every other major. One missing semicolon will take your whole tower down, and you realise this in the first day of practical exercises. Even if you are of the opinion that CS is math, and coding doesn't come into it, you will hit a coding wall early on. In fact, every exercise in CS has this problem. You add a new thing (eg inheritance), and it breaks. B…
Nothing against comp Sci, but engineering is its own set of problems as you have to take a lot more advanced math classes than comp Sci, while taking all your calculus based engineering problems. Some you use techniques to convert to simple algebra problems...that end up being 2-3 pages long. All while having to learn CAD, robotics, practice circuits, design trusses, and yes, quite a few programming languages (basic, C, assembly, VHDL, Matlab, and PLC (ladder logic))to name a few. Each one of those has its own set of problems from the install to the OS to the awful assignments...etc. Then each class itself is often taught really harshly. I often had multiple choice tests...sounds good right? Not great when you make 1 sign error on an entire page of calculations and get 0/10 points. I had a design project once that I spent weeks on and went above and beyond everyone else in class. 30 pages on the design with pages of equations and optimizations. 1 page had a minor error that carried to another, but overall not too bad. 70/100. Not to sound overly dark, but engineering school was extremely difficult and by far the worst 4 years of my life. I graduated with a good GPA, but I studied pretty much non-stop those 4 years. Some people manage to make great grades with very little effort, but it is rare. Again, nothing against comp Sci. Any program that focuses on logical problem solving is A-ok in my book, I just don't want anyone to get the idea that engineering is in any way easy. It is often a cruel and harsh mistress.