A Computer Programming History Lesson

Several years in the past, I turned into doing a look at on behalf of three universities in which I have been asked to analyze what programming guides have been being taught at the one’s universities in contrast to what programming languages students had been genuinely desiring to learn to get jobs once they rejoined the workforce.

My research at that time led me to the discovery that the technical faculties had been doing a much higher activity of staying technically modern and applicable path-wise than the colleges were doing. In those days, it took much more time to build curriculums for college kids than today, and taking detailed courses online became nearly impossible – it needed to be accomplished in lecture-room classes. So once a professor had built a running curriculum for their college students, they tended to apply it for many years almost without exchange.

Computer Programming

I particularly don’t forget while interviewing one elderly professor at one of the colleges I was working at, announcing to me after I had confronted him approximately the truth that he turned into nevertheless imparting a course on a 3GL programming language (Cobol) that no person turned into hiring for to any extent further, the world has moved forward to more technically current 4GL and above languages such as C, C+, C++, Forte, SQL and others then getting used; who said to me that he turned into “coaching college students how to examine – no longer a way to get jobs the use of a selected language, so the language being taught within the magnificence become irrelevant.”

This sentence stayed with me at some stage in that day, and in an eerie accident later that equal afternoon, I happened to take a taxi experience with a driver who, because it turns out, had taken four years of college classes within the area of IT and programming and that is one of the academics he had taken a route from. I asked him why he was riding a taxi. He told me, almost crying on the memory of it, that to try to make a better life for his own family (he had a spouse and small youngsters), he had borrowed hugely and spent the whole lot he needed to get his IT-based totally degree from the college in the hopes of creating greater earnings once he had his IT diploma.

After getting it, he discovered he couldn’t find a job with his diploma. He had spent his money mastering essentially obsolete programming languages; groups had been now not hiring for them. They were, in truth, laying people off who had the identical capabilities he had discovered, and the businesses had been replacing the existing workforce with extra technically modern-day assets so they may construct structures that were more technically contemporary, more scalable, efficient, bendy, and ultimately, greater worthwhile.

I have been in the IT consulting profession for over 30 years. The reality is that we as specialists have nearly usually been introduced into systems transport situations because we had been more technically modern and informed than the internal group of workers groups had on board. Rather than spending the money on their own inner body of workers to deliver them to technical foreign money, I have often seen where they could rent experts to construct the new structures required because they had been in a rush to regain enterprise competitiveness. Their existing workers were left to maintain the vintage facilities while the brand-new ones were being constructed. Once the brand new systems were built to replace the vintage:

This sample inside the IT world repeats itself repeatedly, even nowadays. Not everywhere, granted. However, it indicates enough instances to see this as a real sample inside agencies. Knowing this sample exists is something that professional experts use as part of their income pitches with companies to get consulting and IT transport tasks. “Are your income slowing down? Our new systems permit you to regain competitiveness inside the marketplace” – a quote regularly heard.

So, the lowest line is IT consulting, and IT is fashion because it relates to IT staff within businesses. It’s far from my enjoyment that nowhere within this career is there actual career safety. Corporate structures have a “Lifespan”. They get rotated out simply because the IT staff assists them until they become internal “Superstars.” While specialists are available to construct the new systems, they can join the new development groups.

My backside line to this lecture thus far is that to hold getting paid, you virtually have to keep technically cutting-edge as an IT professional, and it’s miles on your most effective to look that you preserve getting the training and revel in modern-day languages, infrastructure technologies, development environments, SDK’s, and many others. And associated systems implementation and deployment techniques.

The second part of this article is about what you do with them after you have learned the languages via your courses. How do you operate your new skills to earn cash? You could look for a job and get at the worker wagon at that factor with an organization. You could experience the job for so long as you can remain technically contemporary or “perceived” to be technically current with the aid of that employer’s management and HR teams.

Your 2d option is to research the artwork of professional consulting so you can use the capabilities and information you’ve got to promote and land very profitable consulting engagements. Note that you may make a lot more money as a professional representative if you stay busy and t and technology is changing so unexpectedly out there that there are many slots available if you are the local present day. You want to recognize how to get the paintings and a way to defend yourself financially, even as negotiating the terms of your employment.

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Spent a year testing the market for sock monkeys in Naples, FL. My current pet project is donating robotic shrimp in Hanford, CA. Spent several months getting my feet wet with weed whackers worldwide. Spent 2001-2006 training shaving cream in Hanford, CA. Crossed the country lecturing about bathtub gin in West Palm Beach, FL. Spent 2001-2007 implementing licorice with no outside help.