I had a call from my brother out in Vancouver last night and he asked me to BLOG about this question. He works for Telus and he feels that languages like Java script, coffee and other script oriented tools could make it possible to introduce something like a computer based trade school. He figures that the basic computer skills that most kids have coupled with a 8 month program could turn out a lower cost programmer. He asked me to ask my readers what they thought of the idea.
I’m not sure that I’m keen to create a new lower class of software designer, but if the languages have become advanced enough to dumb down the requirements, who am I to stand in the of progress.
The computer science industry is definitely going through a down turn and the number of jobs in the field has significantly decreased. When this happens in other industries, the people who really love what they are doing and are good at it, get the jobs and the others find something else to do. I don’t think that I’m ready to change jobs, but I have lots of others waiting in the wings just in case.
I met a software designer yesterday that had written a program for the iPhone and iPad that was all about fixing your bike. He released it 5 years ago and it finished the first year with over 100K in revenue. This year he expects it to be closer to 300K. He doesn’t need to have another job but he missed the human interaction so he’s spending some time as a contractor. It is nice to see that some local people have been successful with mobile apps because the majority of people I know are not. I’m thinking about doing an app for Tae-Kwon do, but even that may have a limited audience.
Well it’s Friday and it was another fun filled week programming for Android. Between the Android SDK, NDK and GIT, I’ve had enough of TLA’s for one week. (Three Letter Acronyms)
I did manage to pick up a couple of good mixed up metaphores this last week. My middle brother made a reference to being a thorn in someones ass, Andrew Fisher said he had been around that bush a few times and my wife says I snore like a freight train.
Have a good weekend… Keep smiling….