Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987) • Hacker News Board

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#371

Post by igouy » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

timonoko wrote: post #32

chrisco255 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why the desktop revolution didn't really take off until the 90s after seeing that the Mac was released in the early 80s.

In 1988 I watched when they tried to use the Smalltalk environment with its windowing system in software production. It was very robust and well for a week, but then it just choked up. Not enough memory and virtual too slow.

In 1988 I developed a production planning / scheduling tool with Smalltalk/V 286 on a PC/AT with 1MB of extended memory.

iirc Still being used on a daily basis, 5 years later.

http://sdmeta.gforge.inria.fr/FreeBooks/SmalltalkVTutorial/S...

https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=P...

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#372

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

momento wrote: post #124

donatj wrote: post #49

I don’t hear much about it these days, but circa 2004 when I was going into computer science I had multiple teachers and a guidance counselor warn me that all the jobs would be going to India and tell me I should pursue something else. This seemed to be very much the prevailing wisdom of the time. I pursued it anyway as it was my passion. I was one of five students in my program that had been a huge multi-campus prog…

My father was very strongly against my decision to get into web development (2012) and he echoed this sentiment heavily. I distinctly remember him yelling at me as a teenager; "you'll be living under a bridge in 5 years if you do this! India has this market!". He eventually kicked me out for not listening, forcing me to to borrow money from a friend to pay tuition in my final semester. Needless to say he was complete…

It is a shame.

Worst thing is, with parents, we get to regret these things for longer than they do.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#373

Post by quickthrower2 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

IQunder130 wrote: post #115

quickthrower2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah 2001! 6 months and dozens of applications to get a job offer. I would have done 100s of applications had their been that many to apply to. Low points was being rejected from a job maintaining access databases in a small town. Being rejected from another job because I hadn’t suggested manually unrolling a loop as an alternative solution to a problem and I said “oh yeah you could do that I guess” (feedback: bad…

>6 months and dozens of applications to get a job offer. I honestly can't tell if this is supposed to be good or bad. Graduated in 2020 and spent over a year looking for work with several hundred applications sent. Ended up enrolling in a masters because of it, only got a job last month.

I thought it was bad, since most applied for jobs while studying (the big companies that come to the uni type of thing) and had jobs lined up. I decided not to disrupt my studies with this so waited until I graduated to look for work.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#374

Post by quickthrower2 » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 12:25 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #127

quickthrower2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah 2001! 6 months and dozens of applications to get a job offer. I would have done 100s of applications had their been that many to apply to. Low points was being rejected from a job maintaining access databases in a small town. Being rejected from another job because I hadn’t suggested manually unrolling a loop as an alternative solution to a problem and I said “oh yeah you could do that I guess” (feedback: bad…

"Also probably heavily affected my lifetime earnings as I started on £18k." I graduated in 2014 and also started on £18k, as a junior C++ programmer :P Don't beat yourself up on it.

I don't beat myself up. I had 3 offers. 2 for 18k and one for 17k for the government. The fact I had 3 offers but nothing before that for 6 months was probably an artifact of getting better at interviewing. The job I eventually got I was accused of being "too polished".

The highest starting salary I applied for was 25k, and the highest I heard anyone get was 40k, but working on a trading desk for 12 hours a day.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#375

Post by whatshisface » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

the_only_law wrote: post #331

whatshisface wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay people are getting with their basic Python skills still outstrips non-programming professions at the same level of experience by a large margin. I also would like to express some skepticism about the embedded development pay scale idea, because a lot of those jobs are at engineering-first firms that put software, and by extension programmers, last.

> because a lot of those jobs are at engineering-first firms that put software, and by extension programmers, last. I may be wrong, but I’m also skeptical of ever applying to these sort of positions because I feel they’d likely carry other aspects of engineering firms like heavy credentialism. l.

I don't mind the idea of applying, as long as you negotiate seriously.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#376

Post by vmception » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

rejectedandsad wrote: post #350

vmception wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hedge funds are not uniform enough to have any predictable set of skill requirements some need a node js script, some swear by python because an area of computational finance has gathered around it, some swear by languages closer to the metal, some have use cases that are better off with low latency stacks, others dont some are modifying FPGAs, others have simply negotiated a payout from a court case and will teach y…

Yup; all they need is high IQ people, preferably with pedigree (something I don’t have and am still sad about)

Its useful to understand where you are on the totem pole.

You may come from a background where “college” was a given, or a background where college was quite a dramatic feat as nobody else in your family had done it before, but either way while they are praising you its important for you to know the limits of the “any college” experience early on

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#377

Post by jcelerier » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 6:11 AM UTC

BBC-vs-neolibs wrote: post #280

jcelerier wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder on which world you live - around here the salary for hard real time on embedded are around 30-40k. Personal data point : a few years ago, after my PhD (revolving around some aspects of real-time), I did some interviews to stay fresh and was offered 35k to work on embedded chips used in Dassault missiles. I told them that I was already making more from freelance consulting at that time, they said tough luck.

35k per month? Per year?

Year

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#378

Post by loftyal » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 7:50 AM UTC

momento wrote: post #124

donatj wrote: post #49

I don’t hear much about it these days, but circa 2004 when I was going into computer science I had multiple teachers and a guidance counselor warn me that all the jobs would be going to India and tell me I should pursue something else. This seemed to be very much the prevailing wisdom of the time. I pursued it anyway as it was my passion. I was one of five students in my program that had been a huge multi-campus prog…

My father was very strongly against my decision to get into web development (2012) and he echoed this sentiment heavily. I distinctly remember him yelling at me as a teenager; "you'll be living under a bridge in 5 years if you do this! India has this market!". He eventually kicked me out for not listening, forcing me to to borrow money from a friend to pay tuition in my final semester. Needless to say he was complete…

I'm going to assume you havn't left out any other details, In this case, wow, no offence but your Dad has serious issues

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#379

Post by momento » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:03 AM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #139

momento wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was very strongly against my decision to get into web development (2012) and he echoed this sentiment heavily. I distinctly remember him yelling at me as a teenager; "you'll be living under a bridge in 5 years if you do this! India has this market!". He eventually kicked me out for not listening, forcing me to to borrow money from a friend to pay tuition in my final semester. Needless to say he was complete…

Wow there's so much to unpack there. While professionally sounds like you're doing just fine, I hope you're doing okay personally.

I was not aware of how much damage he did until my mid 20's and it led to about 2 years in therapy to work through it all. This story is one of countless stories where he has acted out of line. A benefit of my career is that I had enough capital to pay out of pocket for a very effective therapist.

I ended up gaining a far better understanding of who he is as a person and perhaps even why he is the way he is. This has allowed me to come to terms with his actions enough to forgive and forget (for the most part) and move forward with my life. I still call him once a year on fathers day, an attempt to extend the proverbial olive branch, but he never picks up.

All in all my life goes on and I am happy and healthy. I am extremely grateful for the community I live in, the fantastic friends I have surrounded myself with and (most importantly) my incredible wife who helped me through a lot of the pain over the years. I wouldn't be where I am today were it not for her.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#380

Post by raffraffraff » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 8:30 AM UTC

krige wrote: post #93

lordnacho wrote: post #64

My biggest issue with education is the whole "study this, get a job doing that" idea. It's plainly wrong, and it sucks in people who drink the koolaid and think there's an easy route to work. Very little is learned in college that is necessary for general employment. By general I mean just about everything that isn't licensed, like being a doctor. What college does is it throws a bunch of hard but irrelevant subjects…

That's entirely not the point of college. College isn't supposed to give you job skills. There are other educational avenues far superior for that purpose. College is supposed to install you with broad and reasonably thorough knowledge base in the general direction you chose as well as shape your perception of the world and the underlying mechanisms. It wasn't ever supposed to be a required qualification for the mode…

Surely that's not the case with proper engineering degrees where someone might be expected to spec out steel for a load-bearing structure that cannot fail without loss of life.