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

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

#51

Post by ggm » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:38 AM UTC

I started my CS degree in 79 and entered the workforce in 82 and at no time did anyone in the UK imply to me it was a shrinking field.

I think this may be a niche view of the US education system, because I was working in UCL-CS in 87 and got no sense it was in contraction there, nor in Australia when I moved here 87-88 and in fact at no time in my personal experience, has CS or SW eng been in decline as a taught subject. Ok maybe 1-2 year windows of reduced entry requirements, but shortages of jobs? Nope.

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

#52

Post by yaboy » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:40 AM UTC

chadcmulligan wrote: post #37

I think CASE - (Computer aided software engineering) was starting to come about that time iirc. Business folk would just drag and drop stuff in these new fangled GUI's and everyone would go home early. Edit: That crab stuffed fillet sounds good

Only $9.95!

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

#53

Post by madaxe_again » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:48 AM UTC

anonu wrote: post #13

Was this the actual feeling at the time? Or just one reporters perspective, spun into a story. I feel like the ad for $7.95 prime rib is probably a more relevant data point from the past than this article. Edit: Gourmet House: https://www.bismarckcafe.com/blogs/260/remembering-gourmet-h...

In the 80’s and 90’s in the U.K., in my experience, definitely.

My parents were always hugely dismayed by my interest in technology, said it was all just a flash in the pan, a waste of time, it’ll rot your brain. My boarding school from 7-12 (‘90-‘95) banned all computers and electronics because they were considered a distraction. You wanted to use a BBC micro, you sat on the now-imprisoned geography master’s knee, and he’d give you the key to his basement. I digress, but technology was so unpopular and unwanted you could only access it via pedophile.

Even at secondary school in the late 90’s the careers service told everyone who expressed any interest in tech than they needed to choose a realistic career, say a doctor or a lawyer, as technology is just a fad, the internet is just a gimmick, but people will always be having accidents and ending up in court.

As a kid, I honestly felt like I was the only person in the country who didn’t think computers were useless.

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

#54

Post by mikewarot » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

In 1981, I knew for sure there was no money to be made as a programmer, even though it was what I really wanted to do. So I studied Electrical Engineering instead. College didn't work out, and I did a fair bit of programming, and some electronics repair/design work. Clearly I was wrong. 8)

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

#55

Post by musesum » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

By 2001, three companies I co-founded went under. One was going public in April 2000 (oops), plus a couple others failed after 911. I wound up living in my car and writing code in a cafe. There were quite a few of us. The owner was sympathetic. You could buy a tea and share a table for hours. Refills were free. One web developer said he was changing careers to house cleaning. Oddly, it was quite liberating.

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

#56

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:52 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by yojo » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:56 AM UTC

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…

I experienced the exact same thing (graduating in 2005) to the extent that it dissuaded me from getting a CS degree at all. Outsourcing was supposed to be the end of programming jobs in America.

My career took a 6 year detour until I finally made my way to programming professionally. I wish I’d had your conviction - the jobs I did in between weren’t half as fun and my career started that much later.

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

#58

Post by jasonkester » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:56 AM UTC

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…

To be fair, 2002-2003 would have been a pretty rough time to graduate as a developer. The industry hadn’t yet recovered from the whole dot com thing and there were still a million “converted business major” developers on the market who hadn’t yet got the hint that they should go to law school.

The advice you got might not have applied to you on the way in. But it certainly applied to all the students those professors had just seen graduate. It probably took them a few years to notice the tide coming back in.

Incidentally, the jobs had all been “going to India” for a long time by then. I’ve personally heard about them going there for at least 30 years now and I don’t doubt they will continue to do so in the future. At this point I’m not overly convinced they will all make it.

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

#59

Post by quicklime » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #5

Syonyk wrote: post #4

> "It's not a video games major." If it was true in the 80s, it was certainly true in the early 2000s when I was getting my CprE degree. I met quite a few people who were studying ComS or CprE for reasons that can be summed up as, "I built my own computer, I like video games, people said I'm good with computers, so I should be a Computer Science/Computer Engineering major!" They rarely lasted more than a semester or…

> If you can write solid C, ring 0/EL3 doesn't scare you off, or you can figure out how to cram 10 pounds of hard realtime code into a 5 pound microcontroller... yeah, you'll go far. Come out having done the minimum, knowing Python and Javascript, well... there's an awful lot of competition for most of those positions if you're just a basic coder, not skilled at using those to accomplish interesting real world tasks…

Is being "closer to business problems" really the sole reason? Or even a big reason?

From the numbers I've seen, DevOps people are the best paid of all types of developers, but they aren't closer to business problems than React/Rails devs.

I think it has more to do with the fact that most embedded developers are working on niche platforms and niche problem domains, so they don't enjoy the same level of job mobility as React/rails devs, who in turn don't have as much mobility as a DevOps person.

Moving companies is by far the easiest way to get a pay rise. Job mobility gives you more negotiating power, and thus a higher salary.

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

#60

Post by drzaiusapelord » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #38

nostrademons wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entered college in 2001 just as the dot-com bubble was bursting. Freshman year graduating seniors were still pretty optimistic. Sophomore year I declared as a physics major, despite having worked at a dot-com and enjoying programming for fun, as a bunch of family friends started floating "Why would you go into software when all the jobs are being outsourced to India anyway?" Junior year I knew that I liked programmin…

My uncle dropped out of Waterloo in the early 70s because everyone figured there weren't enough computers for computer science to be useful. Like Professor Frink said: "I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them" I entered Waterloo in 2002 and I took "Computer Science for Business" where a confi…

btw Futurama's writers were paraphrasing this:

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

(of course in 1943 that was a totally reasonable thing to think considering they were the size of a small house and ran on thousands of vacuum tubes that needed constant replacing and started in the millions of dollars)