Some of your observations about ``what's hot and what's not'' are part
of the reason I am growing weary of the computer employment domain.
I have worked for the past 9 years or so as a QA Test Engineer in
the fairly volatile client-server, Website ``dot com'' world as well
as in some financial companies.
It is true that there are some companies, OSs, and hardware that stay
put for a while, allowing some skills to remain marketable (e.g., IBM
AS400 machines in big financial institutions). However, even Unix
had its share of language wars: X-windows introduced an entirely
new vocabulary and syntax. Many of the built in utilities: RCS,
nroff/troff, vi became replaced with higher level programs and
languages put on top of Unix, once there was a gui available. We
hired 3 high level people at my last company just to administer
the Clear Case source control system. And I am not sure at all its
complexity was worth the benefits over simple little RCS.
In the dot com world, a new language comes in about
about every 2 weeks: html, shtml, xml, sgml, jsp, perl, java, enhanced java,
4gl, 5gl, gell gl -- just kidding.
Often the same statements (flow control, variables, arrays, etc.) just
get renamed and semi colons change to colons which change to double
dollar signs, etc. etc.
Then there are the hundreds of script languages just for particular
products, and the endless menus for MS's latest something
wizard. In my last job they hired about 5 former Russians just to create
script in the fairly popular Silk regression test program, which has
a language supposedly based on C++. They had a little subculture
training each other in the currently hot languages of the currently
hot software testing tools.
Imagine if everyday languages, or languages in any of the physical
sciences developed and/or grew anything like this? There is something
crazy and distorted about all of this. Somehow such developments
seem to connect to the very american bigger, better, faster, more
features, scalable, modular, ---. Along with this I find more and
more managers just trying to make money and get stock options, with
little concern for the welfare of their workers or the people they
sell to. They would sell canned friut or cures for aids, as long as
it was a ``hot oppurtunity''.
On the other hand, some of my friends think the computer/internet will
go the way of the telephone and TV -- having its fad time and then
settling down after a few decades to a stable of urban life.
settling down after a few decades to a stable of urban life.
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