<p>My dad says that many jobs are becoming programming-oriented--his physicist friends say phd theses these days involve a lot of programming (modelling & simulation), his hardware friends all have to do some programming, even his stockbroker acquaintainces say stockbrokering (banking or whatever you call it) is turning into a big programming field. </p>
<p>Do people on this forum working in the real world see the same trend? my dad worked in software for a long time, so i think he might be a little biased.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure i don't want to be a software engineer, but I want to know if it really is as important to be good with programming as my dad says it is.</p>
<p>in picking classes for next year, i'm thinking of taking some CS classes. I've taken a scientific computation class, know how to do object-oriented programming, can work with data structures, and can do event-driven GUI apps. any recommendations of what kinds of CS classes would be good for the guy in a technical field who doesn't want to be a programmer, but wants to get some useful programming skills?</p>
<p>A lot of engineers code smaller-sized programs for various uses in various languages. Need to test 100 different simulation parameters? Write a program to do it and leave it running overnight. While coding is becoming an essential skill, it seems as if you may already have the essentials you will need down pat. If you know the difference between a vector and a linked list, you probably know enough.</p>
<p>most of the engineering programs these days require you to take atleast one programming course (C++), if they don't yo should learn it anyway because its useful.</p>
<p>One of the reasons I was given job offers at several companies was because I have experience in programming, and I'm in structural engineering. Lots and lots of the larger companies are starting to write their own proprietary code for their own purposes, if they do larger and more complex projects then it becomes a necessity to know how to make computers do the heavy lifting for you.</p>
<p>So, I definitely see that trend. I think programming skills are a must these days, at least for the top engineering candidates, in terms of both mathematical computation and in GUI programming applications. Gotta make it work flawlessly, and gotta make it so that other engineers can easily use it.</p>
<p>Computing is becoming more and more pervasive through all aspects of the business world. Inventory systems, automobiles, microwaves, TVs, and virtually everything seems to have some connection to computing. Programming is being used in accounting (models), biochem (bioinformatics), retail (inventory systems with custom reports needed), etc. One large area now is in web site coding - not just a simple web site, but rather more complex ones with server-side applications needed. Web sites are a must now for every business.</p>
<p>The short answer - taking at least a basic programming class will likely benefit you, if not directly by actually coding in your career, then by understanding the basics so you can interface with the people who will be coding for you.</p>
<p>All engineers have to understand programming of some sort. If not regular c/c++, then matlab at least. </p>
<p>Even for an engineer does not program as part of his/her job, eventually he/she will have to use software tools and/or interface with the people who write them.</p>
<p>For example, just the other day I was talking with someone about weird behavior of a program electrical engineers use very frequently, called spice. While what we had was not a bug, we were using the program at its extreme conditions, just showing it is extremely useful to know how such programs operate and what their inherent limitations are, even if you're not the one that writes it.</p>