Posted on 05/11/2005 11:19:33 AM PDT by beeler
"America is slipping!" It's become a standard lead, guaranteed to grab readers' attention. Add in a few alarmist quotes from self-serving lobbyists with hidden agendas, along with the obligatory conclusion that "Education is the answer," and you've got the economic horror movie that Americans love so much to watch.
CNET News.com has got this formula down pat. Its piece, Can Johnny still program?, laments that in the annual collegiate programming contest held by the Association for Computing Machinery, the best that any American team could do this year was a miserable 17th place. The United States hasn't won a world championship since 1997--"an ominous sign for the U.S. tech industry," News.com fears.
"Oh my god," readers must have thought. "How could the quality of American computer-science students have sunk so quickly in the short time span of just eight years?" It's an absurd conclusion, of course, but readers have been conditioned to believe any claim, no matter how outlandish, about the decline of the U.S. educational system.
But let's see what News.com didn't tell you.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
Program what?
it has nothing to do with the educational system, the marketplace is pushing the best people out of engineering because US industry is taking it offshore in pursuit of lower wages.
Bingo.
I am a software engineer since late 80's and I had told all my children I'd rather them become lawyers, yep lawyers than follow ole dad. At least they will have work.
Not sure if folks will take the time to actually read this article, due to their axe-grinding. However, I loved the last paragraph! Thanks for posting.....
that is what's happening everywhere, american engineers are steering their children away from those programs. the entire profession is going to be lost in one generation - its all going offshore or to foreign nationals who are entering US colleges.
Yep.
There are plenty of professions which must be done by people licensed to operate in that state. Sounds like a trade union to me.
Programming is not one of them. I wish the government would tax companies import duty on the programs that they have authored outside of America. Doesn't matter that it comes to America through a wire. It is still imported product.
Television, VCR, and other electronics production left America.
This too will leave.
We are not in a good ecomonic position. What do we "make" anymore?
It is one of the things that made the Soviet Union strong and the nations weak. They couldn't leave because there was nothing to hang the economy on. They all made "parts" of things.
I wouldn't do THAT....Lawyers can be EASILY offshored....believe me, it's coming.
I'll get around to the article, the point of these early posts isn't "can" Americans still program, it questions if it is still "profitable" to do so.
California imposed a tax on those who work at home. A software programmer who authored a package and sold it would fall under this tax. Screenwriters were exempted from the tax.
There are legitimate problems because much is being done to discourage people from staying in the industry.
Add to that work visas to bring over additional programmers (who then send their paychecks home).
ACTUALLY, I'd encourage my kid to be an entrepreneur doing something they LOVE.
Yes...but wait a minute ...arent we all missing the central point of REAL capitalism....a good economy, high standard of living, increasing GDP..are all correlated with DECREASING WAGES... not INCREASING ones.
Thats why Nigeria is the model to strive for high tech economies in the Western world.
Or so its been implied by a couple 'uber' capitalists on this forum... follow their logic to its extrapolated conclusion.
Just what we DON'T need - more government interference with industy, any industry..........what do you think is driving all these companies to offshore?????
blame java - when beginners learned BASIC, their imagination took off.
anything he sets his mind to.
I did not know any html coding until I started posting here on fr. I do not pretend to be an expert but I do have more confidence in being able to figure it out.
I think the problem is that teachers are totally USELESS with reall issues. The teachers are far too wraped up in teaching about sexual exprimentation, religion is eeeevil, and how to fit a condom on a cucumber rather than spend time on useful information.
"Johnny" is left to teach himself. Another reason a university degree has less and less real world meaning or relevance.
Yes but you can always sue to get something for nothing ( or become a politician ) instead of reading the want ads or working at Wal-Mart.
Computing was great in the 80's then someone forgot to put a lock on our technology and gave it away for teh sake of one big happy world.
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