<p>Oracle and SQL are GREAT to learn. :-)</p>
<p>Ye, having a grudge against and not knowing how to tweak Oracles SQL and other tools and libraries ended up hurting me similar to having to learn a bunch of Office or windows stuff in general I never wanted to do for work. I was too much into innovation but just not into telecommunications(which is good money!) or social media percentage this ROI that bubblehead nonsense. I’m more into getting down VB right now and getting better with modern Linux programming even though will prolly need SQL since looks like no one else came out with anything better used on a medium to large scale. I’m not much of fan of MySQL either but on principal begrudgingly deal with but really just wish they would delegate that stuff to someone else.</p>
<p>“I don’t know how many are actually out of work but if you are a good CS person and know practically ALL of the following languages you can find work…”</p>
<p>What is your source for that? The reality is that older software/ hardware engineers are dumped and replaced with younger workers.</p>
<p>“I have to admit I am pretty amazed how many Indians have moved to Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, SJ, Cupertino and parts of Mt. View, Saratoga, and Los Gatos in the past 10 to 15 years.”</p>
<p>Why are you “amazed” by this? Most of these Indians are brought here by tech companies on H1-B and L-1 visas as cheap labor.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where was the DBA or Data Architect?</p>
<p>Hmmm, well even though that is true and does happen I wouldn’t say it is the norm and is a bit of a over generalization. Trust me mate, I have major problems with people working and living here ILLEGALLY but it’s not as out of control as it was like 5 years ago.
Older ones that got slower or burnt out do tend to get weeded out and there is age discrimination that does happen in the workforce I agree. I think it’s more of selling yourself, honing in on developing better or more skills, and keeping up with changing technology. I tend to think that it is not really the big vs. small but fast vs. slow so it really depends on who has the more savvy skills.</p>
<p>I call Silicon Valley a Masters minimum environment if you want to survive unless already have like 5, 7, 10+ straight programming experience whether went to school for it or not. A smart person with an associates or bachelors can survive here but would hit a glass ceiling when it came to being a part of the managerial class. Someone with a bachelors and skillz could get their feet wet in SF, which is why I would call a Bachelors minimum city, even though a Masters is recommended. Business jobs in the city I find tend to be better than many CS jobs and prefer CS jobs in the valley over many business ones.</p>
<p>Hmmm, well even though that is true and does happen I wouldn’t say it is the norm and is a bit of a over generalization. Trust me mate, I have major problems with people working and living here ILLEGALLY but it’s not as out of control as it was like 5 years ago.
Older ones that got slower or burnt out do tend to get weeded out and there is age discrimination that does happen in the workforce I agree. I think it’s more of selling yourself, honing in on developing better or more skills, and keeping up with changing technology. I tend to think that it is not really the big vs. small but fast vs. slow so it really depends on who has the more savvy skills that is the more creative problem solver and efficient programmer. They have to be personal and likable though if want the whole well paid serf 9 to 5 job, not some CS crank. There are also plenty of telecommuting gigs that you can do well enough with on your own time as long as you don’t have to go to too many California meetings.</p>
<p>I call Silicon Valley a Masters minimum environment if you want to survive unless already have like 5, 7, 10+ straight programming experience whether went to school for it or not. A smart person with an associates or bachelors can survive here but would hit a glass ceiling when it came to being a part of the managerial class. Someone with a bachelors and skillz could get their feet wet in SF, which is why I would call a Bachelors minimum city, even though a Masters is recommended. Business jobs in the city I find tend to be better than many CS jobs and prefer CS jobs in the valley over many business ones.</p>
<p>Imported cheap labor is the NORM. The current cap on H1-B visas is 85,000, and they can stay in the country for up to 6 years. 85,000 X 6, you do the math. Then there are the thousands of workers here on L-1 visas. </p>
<p>And what does “illegal” have to do with this? I am not talking about illegal immigrants. Workers here on visas are completely legal.</p>
<p>What makes you qualified to say that it is the norm? Really? That is a huge claim. Can you prove it?</p>
<p>Where Are U.S. Tech Jobs Going?</p>
<p>“This Committee has been working hard to address one of the country’s most pressing issues, U.S. competitiveness,” said Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN). “As is widely recognized, our competitiveness and high standard of living is derived largely from our technological superiority. But almost on a daily basis we read announcements that more high-tech jobs are being offshored to developing countries.” </p>
<p>A recent University of Texas study found that of the 57 major announcements of locations of global telecom R&D facilities in the past year, more than 60 percent were located in Asia, versus a meager nine percent located in the U.S. </p>
<p>As Dr. Alan Blinder, one of today’s witnesses testified, these examples seem to be only the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Blinder has estimated that more than one in four American jobs are vulnerable to offshoring. More striking is his finding that most American technical jobs in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are amongst the most vulnerable to offshoring. </p>
<p>[Committee</a> on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Reps :: Press Release :: Where Are U.S. Tech Jobs Going?](<a href=“http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1874]Committee”>http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1874)</p>
<p>Read Professor Matloff’s work:</p>
<p>[Norm</a> Matloff’s H-1B Web Page: cheap labor, age discrimation, offshoring](<a href=“http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html]Norm”>Norm Matloff's H-1B Web Page: cheap labor, age discrimation, offshoring)</p>
<p>You can’t use Matloff for everything, Homer.</p>
<p>First, when he says “technology industry” he isn’t referring to engineering as a whole. He is referring specifically to IT and computers. You have used this before to justify your claims that it affects nearly all engineers. It doesn’t.</p>
<p>Second, he is one person. A single, outspoken person on this issue. There aren’t a lot of people supporting him. Does he make valid points? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that everything he says is law and you have yet to show any real evidence supporting all of his stances.</p>
<p>This issue is a real concern for people in IT and computer engineering, but it isn’t something that should convince people to not pursue the major. There is still merit in going that route even if you are an American.</p>
<p>I won’t claim to be an expert in computer-related professions, but neither are you. Neither of us are qualified to make such blanket statements like you routinely make.</p>
<p>Yes I am well aware of what you speak about Homer and agree with you on many points. I don’t know if I’d say if it’s the norm as much as how rampant it was like 5 years ago. I’m not really for or against HB1, L1, and student visas as long as are renewed which is not always the case. There just are a large number of variables with so many different castes of Indians to deal with. Some Indians are very humble, practical, good programmers, with excellent business and communication skills while others are arrogant, impractical, mediocre programmers, with horrible American style business and communication skills. Although it did happen and there are problems, I don’t think CS and business got as hit hard in wage ceilings as in the engineering field unless dealing with US government contracting. I pay more attention to the actually working world then most and have lived right in the heart of high tech hubs for 20+ years.</p>
<p>What Homer says is true to a degree but if I think about it too much get really upset about it which isn’t good for me. I’ve watched my wages plummet to barely a living wage for what I know and could do. That is one of the reasons I got out while I could and went on to more life enriching things and stuff closer to my interests. I’d say a good programmer with a CS degree has more options for jobs than a EE but may not get paid as much depending on who for which tend to be a different type of employer.</p>
<p>As our knowledge, technology and business processes continue to rapidly advance it makes very good economic sense to delegate some of the basic work to developing countries with lower wages. This has been happening since the beginning of time and will continue to happen.</p>
<p>Think of it this way. If you were making 7 figures and that income required you to spend your time doing higher level functions and tasks, would you still mow your own lawn, or fix your own garbage disposal, or change your own oil? Of course you wouldn’t (unless it was purely for sport) because it wouldn’t make sense to perform those operations when you could be paying someone on the cheap to do it while you’re off doing the work that is going to yield a better investment on your time and energy.</p>
<p>In fact, it’s not just an economic principle at work here, but a human one. Our brains evolved to delegate most of the fundamental tasks of living to our more primitive subconscious, allowing our newer, more advanced frontal cortex to perform higher cognitive functions like critical thinking, math, goal-setting, i.e, all the things that make a human life worth living.</p>
<p>Honestly, while SOME business programming may be subject to outsourcing, that is only one aspect of IT. Business Analysts meet with a company’s end-users to determine project specifications. The specifications are broken up into individual coding tasks. Some of those coding tasks can be outsourced (subject to proprietary business concerns), but you need an interface (a person) between the coders (where language impedences, whether they are familiar with English or not, abound). This interface is further complicated by time and distance from the end-users.</p>
<p>I worked for a firm that outsourced some coding tasks to China. I had to come in early in the morning to talk to the Chinese team leader and tell him what I wanted, provide QC for the programs, and iterate this through many cycles(much more than would have been needed had the language(Colloquialisms)/time/distance impedence not been there). In the end, the code was poorly written and difficult to maintain due to the many thrashings the code went through because of the inheirent difficulties involved in long-distance communication. Database changes needed to be coordinated in order to get the code to work. This added another layer of complexity to the process.</p>
<p>While outsourcing is an issue, for anyone to state that it is a reason not to pursue a CE degree is just ridiculous. It is a factor that must be weighed along with many others when pursuing any profession.</p>
<p>Businesses realize now that there are many costs associated with outsourcing and that code quality suffers overall. These factors naturally limit its use. To state otherwise, without experiencing outsourcing, and when your perspective is formed only by quoting from various articles on the subject is foolish and quite presumptuous. </p>
<p>Homer parrots the positions of others, and is fixated on one person’s views in particular. I’m fine with hearing what he has to say, but all his posts ought to come with a lack-of-real-experience disclaimer.</p>
<p>Yes I do think businesses looked at the cost benefit analysis and realized outsourcing wasn’t as profitable if had to constantly tweak other people’s code. There were a lot of fake degree’s and bunk companies coming out of India claiming they could do stuff they couldn’t or at least not very well. The Chinese just have a different approach to coding but many of them do other types of jobs in SV. </p>
<p>Ironically I tend to think the way people like InMotion12 thinks is more robotic and theoretical than human or personable. Beyond a clever intellectual facade, it comes across as more rationalizing scheming type primitive behavior with hypothetical nonsense to try to justify his behaviorism’s applying to some conceptual “human nature” disposition which I tend to be skeptical about and personally see as a form of mental sickness and chauvinistic, just saying so no hating. I think such thinking goes beyond entrepreneurship and opportunism towards exploitation and hubris. Even though I understand the basic premises I tend to notice a greater amount of human folly and holes in such logic.</p>
<p>“You can’t use Matloff for everything, Homer.”</p>
<p>Fair enough. There are plenty of others, like Ron Hira at Rochester and Vivek Wadhwa at Duke. Google them and you can read their work:</p>
<p>How “Guestworkers” Promote Outsourcing </p>
<p>The tech industry lobbies hard for more visas for high-skilled temporary workers. But in reality, the program is dominated by low-wage workers with rank-and-file skills. Rather than preventing work from going overseas, the program is speeding it up. </p>
<p>[How</a> “Guestworkers” Promote Outsourcing | The American Prospect](<a href=“http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_guestworkers_promote_outsourcing]How”>http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_guestworkers_promote_outsourcing) </p>
<p>Loopholes enable employers to hire H-1B workers at below-market wages, and bypass American workers, never even entertaining their applications for a position. In fact, some firms replace American workers and their contractors with guest workers on H-1B and other visas, at times even having their American workers train their foreign replacements. This is not a hypothetical problem: According to news reports, companies like I.B.M., Nielsen and Pfizer have engaged in such practices. </p>
<p>[Do</a> We Need Foreign Technology Workers? - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/do-we-need-foreign-technology-workers/]Do”>Do We Need Foreign Technology Workers? - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Homer,</p>
<p>“tech industry” is not engineering…</p>
<p>Also Homer, many of the people on this board works in engineering or software engineering. So we know more about what is going on. We do this type of work for a living(I just do it part-time right now, because of college).</p>
<p>Homer, go get a job in engineering, or software engineering then tell us how bad it is.</p>
<p>So tech companies do not employ engineers? How can tech not be engineering? It might not be chemical or civil engineering, but certainly it is software engieneering.</p>
<p>But you have repeatedly (not necessarily in this thread) applied these trends in the tech industry to engineering as a whole. That simply isn’t valid. When these articles you find refer to the tech industry, they mean IT and other computer fields.</p>
<p>None of us denies that outsourcing happens. What all the people on here deny is that it is destroying any hope for EEs, CompEs and CS guys. There have been so many people on here telling you (and the people you seek to dissuade from pursuing such fields) that it isn’t as bad as you make it out to be. Many of those people on here have actual experience in the tech industry. I really don’t see how you can so vehemently deny that they know what they are talking about as compared to you, someone with no experience in any engineering field who gets all if his information from sources who he Googled.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I still would very much like to know why it is that you devote so much time searching for articles and reading up on this stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with your field. You have repeatedly refused to answer several people on here who have asked you that, and we are all very curious to figure out just what makes you tick.</p>
<p>But those who say that outsourcing is not bad (often leaving out the hundreds of thosuands of jobs taken by imported foreign labor) post no proof. No data. Even the US Congress has found that outsourcing is a major problem.</p>