When a Stephen Elop leaves a company, it is always too late..

Obviously a much different environment than America but I have to imagine there are some similar things at work.

That's pretty much true here as well. Your average straight-out-of-college-with-a-bachelors-in-CS can't program their way out of a paper bag - largely because 'writing production code' is not a subject taught in most CS programs.

Never forget: computer science isn't programming; and you don't need a computer to practice computer science. A lot of what is happening is that the practical needs of the market are diverging from the academic focus of CS programs. We've seen Software Engineering programs rise as a consequence, but those still mostly focus on graduate studies. There will probably be bachelors' programs in Computer Programming within a few more years.

We've seen Software Engineering programs rise as a consequence, but those still mostly focus on graduate studies. There will probably be bachelors' programs in Computer Programming within a few more years.

It seems that, in the UK at least, Software Engineering degrees are giving way to "game programming" degrees, likely as a matter of popularity although I find the trend disappointing when it comes to the long term view.

I'm in two minds about these, on the one hand people can program a bit better coming out of them but on the other hand they seem to lack some of the other skills around design and project management; but that is a very biased view and has been somewhat tainted by a guy who did one of these degree courses, ended up working where I was a few years ago, and without seeking permission decided to redo our Lua integration in his branch and not making these changes known until merge time, at which point I had to spend 3 hours untangling the mess he had made. That kinda thing tends to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth ;)

We've seen Software Engineering programs rise as a consequence, but those still mostly focus on graduate studies. There will probably be bachelors' programs in Computer Programming within a few more years.

It seems that, in the UK at least, Software Engineering degrees are giving way to "game programming" degrees, likely as a matter of popularity although I find the trend disappointing when it comes to the long term view.

Interesting! I'm surprised that you see Software Engineering, which is broad-based, being supplanted by Game Programming degrees, given their niche intent/application. I'm certainly not seeing that in the US. If anything, the visibility of Game Programming degree and diploma programs seems to have declined.

I'm in two minds about these, on the one hand people can program a bit better coming out of them but on the other hand they seem to lack some of the other skills around design and project management; but that is a very biased view and has been somewhat tainted by a guy who did one of these degree courses, ended up working where I was a few years ago, and without seeking permission decided to redo our Lua integration in his branch and not making these changes known until merge time, at which point I had to spend 3 hours untangling the mess he had made. That kinda thing tends to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth ;)

Heh.

Well, considering that 199 of 200 applicants for a programming job can't program,

.

I've personally interviewed graduates who can't answer "Write a loop that counts from 1 to 10" or "What's the number after F in hexadecimal?"

.

for (int x = 1 ; x != 11 ; x++ ) { System.out.println("" + x); }

10

Can I have a job now ?

Do I recall seeing that you said you were in a pretty specialized field of programming? When you pigeon hole yourself by not keeping up with the times or becoming "too good" at a certain domain it's the persons fault and not there being no jobs. Out here around San Francisco and Silicon Valley there are *always* places looking for junior and senior developers. If you can't find a job out here then you aren't looking or you really can't program. Which is the other point that you need to go where the jobs are. If you live in Indiana there probably aren't a lot of development jobs to be had.

Do I recall seeing that you said you were in a pretty specialized field of programming?

.

My field is in a specialized engineering/maintenance area [*1]. I very rarely write code ( last time I did that, I created a minor update in FORTH ) .

Unfortunately my type of work is very difficult to find, and is *always* temporary project work.

Yes I am over specialized.

No, there are no other types of work ( related to what I do ) that I can transition into. [*2]

[*1] - Electrical and mechanical engineering, specializing in instrumentation and system process controls.

[*2] - Due to age discrimination in the US tech industry, it would be very foolish of me to go back to college for 4 years to get a CS degree.

It seems that, in the UK at least, Software Engineering degrees are giving way to "game programming" degrees, likely as a matter of popularity although I find the trend disappointing when it comes to the long term view.

I'm in two minds about these, on the one hand people can program a bit better coming out of them but on the other hand they seem to lack some of the other skills around design and project management; but that is a very biased view and has been somewhat tainted by a guy who did one of these degree courses, ended up working where I was a few years ago, and without seeking permission decided to redo our Lua integration in his branch and not making these changes known until merge time, at which point I had to spend 3 hours untangling the mess he had made. That kinda thing tends to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth ;)

Interesting that you'd say that. The degree I just left was a Computer Games Development degree (http://www.csis.ul.ie/course/LM110/). Again this is Ireland not UK but its probably a bit more similar than the USA. The course director is quite involved and would be close with many of the students and is always looking for advice on how to improve the course. But the most important goal for him is to produce programmers. Even if you don't get into games you will leave the college knowing how to program in a number of languages (Java and C++ mainly, but there's plenty of freedom to do your own thing). Seems to be working well so far with some decent graduates in the last few years.

Microsoft hears its bell ringing louder, I would say why, but I will rather keep it formyself (not that I am mean).