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Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

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Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#101

Post by NY_USA_Hacker »

shadowfox wrote: post #99
NY_USA_Hacker wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware: I've done some of the world's best work in computer security, e.g., nicely beyond David J. Marchette, 'Computer Intrusion Detection: A Statistical Viewpoint', ISBN 0-387-95281-0, Springer-Verlag, New York, 2001. Yes, my work became peer reviewed, original research published in one of the better Elsevier journals of computer science, And I have a long background from Yorktown Heights and in DoD work. Still I d…

I must admit that I lost the thread of the argument towards the end :(

The "thread" is that there is a mess, and main cause is gumment messing up the situation.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#102

Post by xiaoma »

Derbasti wrote: post #64
cynest wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is not the case in the United States ... where the reputation ladder is topped by jobs like doctor or lawyer That would be a sample of environments where higher education is strongly pushed. In the area I grew up in, the amount parents spent pushing their kids to excel in athletics above anything else is stupid. I know a 6th-grade teacher who complains about kids not having any time for homework because they p…

Are you saying that engineering does not require higher education in the US? It sure does in Europe...

It requires education, but not necessarily schooling.

My friend's father worked on some later Apollo missions and ended up leading a Titan engineering group with no college degree. He was a damned good engineer, though. If it were possible to earn mathematics degrees by test taking, he'd easily have had a graduate degree.

In the beginning he was a technician (which didn't require a degree), and once during crunch time he literally fixed a buggy electrical component an engineer was showing to his boss in front of his eyes. In his words after that one lucky break, he never looked back and just kept working his way up, excelling and proving himself in each position. After a point, the fact that he had no degree made his managers take more notice of him. Clearly a man who had to work his way up through several levels he wasn't supposed to be eligible for had something unique.

It's difficult, especially in the defense industry, but sometimes talent wins out over credentials.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#103

Post by Derbasti »

xiaoma wrote: post #102
Derbasti wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that engineering does not require higher education in the US? It sure does in Europe...

It requires education, but not necessarily schooling. My friend's father worked on some later Apollo missions and ended up leading a Titan engineering group with no college degree. He was a damned good engineer, though. If it were possible to earn mathematics degrees by test taking, he'd easily have had a graduate degree. In the beginning he was a technician (which didn't require a degree), and once during crunch tim…

Funny. That is totally different in Europe. Engineering very much requires higher education, which definitely includes at least a basic understanding of business, economics, law etc. and of course good knowledge of physics, mathematics and deep insight in some engineering field. This is usually taught as a bachelor's degree. (Bachelor of Engineering)

That said, there are some able men and women who carry out engineering jobs without a degree (even though IIRC they can not call themselves engineers)

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#104

Post by kragen »

econo_girl wrote: post #13
mattdeboard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an implicit "smart & passionate" qualifier on the title of the article. There's a shortage of smart and passionate geeks. It's not about cramming more people into the Computer Science pipeline. That will make absolutely no impact on the actual problem.

The principles of supply and demand apply just as much to the market for "smart and passionate labor" as "all labor". If demand exceeds supply, the price is too low. Even if you assumed that the ability to program was purely the result of some genetic mutation, so that there were X programmers in the world and there could never ever be any more, there still wouldn't be a shortage if prices rose enough - because there…

> The principles of supply and demand apply just as much to the market for "smart and passionate labor" as "all labor".

The supply and demand curves can be proven to have an intersection under the assumption that they're monotonic in different directions. But with regard to "smart and passionate labor", that assumption is flawed. Offering people more money for labor doesn't necessarily enable more of them to become passionate about it. So it's entirely possible for the market to fail to clear.

That's not what's happening now, of course.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#106

Post by walrusty »

georgieporgie wrote: post #66

If you go into computer science, you will: * Work with a lot of socially underdeveloped people. Hey, they spend their time fighting compilers, not reaching consensus. Soft skills are largely irrelevant. * Probably work in one of a very few technology hubs around the world. This is all the more painful when you realize how little interaction you actually need with your team, and you could be doing your job from a shac…

> My advice to young people is to pursue your interest in CS, but major in something else.

This sounds like a big mistake. I did not major in CS but instead later learned on my own and found that there's a shit-ton of holes in my CS-know-how to fill in -- and they're very difficult to fill in on your own. It's easy to learn a language, or how to admin Apache on your own; it's far more difficult to learn algorithms or compilers on your own.

> Being in a non-CS field with outstanding computer skills makes you very special.

Disagree here too. I got my degree in physics. So now I can program pretty well, have an undergrad in physics, and am basically qualified for PHP or Java dead-end jobs.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#107

Post by xiaoma »

Derbasti wrote: post #103
xiaoma wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires education, but not necessarily schooling. My friend's father worked on some later Apollo missions and ended up leading a Titan engineering group with no college degree. He was a damned good engineer, though. If it were possible to earn mathematics degrees by test taking, he'd easily have had a graduate degree. In the beginning he was a technician (which didn't require a degree), and once during crunch tim…

Funny. That is totally different in Europe. Engineering very much requires higher education, which definitely includes at least a basic understanding of business, economics, law etc. and of course good knowledge of physics, mathematics and deep insight in some engineering field. This is usually taught as a bachelor's degree. (Bachelor of Engineering) That said, there are some able men and women who carry out engineer…

I think maybe you misread my comment. He had an excellent education, across the board. It wasn't attained through formal schooling.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#108

Post by hkarthik »

Periodic wrote: post #96
mavelikara wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really quite sure they're offering market value for the kind of talent they're looking for. So, what's the problem? The OP seems to suggest that offering _significantly above_ the market value would be the solution.

If you were a smart and talented computer programmer and you saw a headline on HN, "Disqus doubles salaries, and still looking to hire", you might be more inclined to check them out than if they were just offering market rates. A weird thing about programmers is that they aren't used up when they are bought. They aren't consumed. There is just a minimum benefit that needs to be perceived before it becomes worthwhile…

Paying above market salaries is also a slippery slope. If your salaries are too high, you can send the wrong message about the quality of the work environment.

I live in Dallas and over here the shops that pay a lot tend to overwork you, they have mostly uninteresting problems, and they use outdated technical environments. For them, the high salary just helps them slap on the golden handcuffs.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#109

Post by berntb »

lispm wrote: post #92
berntb wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter argument, consider DARPA. They do important R&D that no one else do. (As far as we know; it is a relatively open process). You could make quite a good argument that military, academic and industrial research are partly orthogonal; they complement each others. But I can agree that to waste money and really build the military equipment is mostly a waste of money. :-)

The D in DARPA is for 'Defense'. For some time it was just ARPA. They added the D so that nobody makes the mistake to misunderstand the nature of their research: advanced research for military. Automated warfare, weapons of the future, soldier of the future, robot drones, ... The other stuff like material, sensors, etc. is just basic research needed for weapons. I would propose to shift the research money to projects…

My point was, the research money for DARPA are well spent -- and probably increase human science and technology in better ways than most any other use of that money. Including e.g. emergency health care.

If you have that much trouble with weapon research I'm sorry, but don't throw out the advanced prosthetics with the water.

(Sorry for coming in late.)

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