4 ms·

What kinds of software development are in high demand? (Greg Kuperberg)

25 points by SandB0x 16y ago

aaronbrethorst 16y ago
"Skate where the puck's going, not where it's been." Right now, I make my living building iPhone and Rails apps. I have more work than I know what to do with it. However, I expect I'll be doing something different in four years. There is absolutely no way I could, in good conscience, recommend to a kid heading into college right now that they should plan on cultivating my exact skillset and expect employment in four years. Rather, I think it's critical for them to be highly educable and able to cultivate a keen sense of which way the wind is blowing.
- MisterWebz 16y ago
  There is absolutely no way I could, in good conscience, recommend to a kid heading into college right now that they should plan on cultivating my exact skillset and expect employment in four years Could you explain why? I thought web development would become even more important in the future. Or were you talking about the Rails framework?
  - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
    Sorry, I should have been more clear. I don't doubt for a second that web and mobile development (or mobile web development) will become increasingly important. I was referring to the specific tools and frameworks I use today: Rails, iOS, and so on. Hence the reference to educability; basically, I think it's far more important for the OP on Stack Overflow to ensure his kid knows how to learn than anything else.
ratsbane 16y ago
You could also look at it as what kind of industry do you want to be entangled in. Bioinformatics seems especially interesting. Financial, banking, and trading-related programming also require a commitment to domain-specific knowledge. It's all programming but sometimes programming relates to another discipline.
- c1sc0 16y ago
  Strongly second this: there is more value in learning to code and then apply those skills on a problem set outside of IT.
- tom_b 16y ago
  To expand on this comment, I strongly feel that without deep domain-specific knowledge, new software engineers will mostly windup in IT dev/support roles in enterprise software shops - a tenuous choice for a long and satisfying career. For new students, I would recommend that most people should probably get a major in another field with a either a second major in CS or even just a minor in CS. This is mainly to make sure you have an acceptable credential to signal potential employers you have the CS "chops" to do the dev work. I wish I had done this as an undergrad. I work directly on a bioinformatics team and almost everyone doing interesting work has a biology degree (MS or PhD) even though they are mostly doing software dev. I'm also continually surprised by new CS grads who think their job will consist of being handed a list of requirements and told to write some code to solve the problem.

25 points by SandB0x 16y ago

"Skate where the puck's going, not where it's been." Right now, I make my living building iPhone and Rails apps. I have more work than I know what to do with it. However, I expect I'll be doing something different in four years. There is absolutely no way I could, in good conscience, recommend to a kid heading into college right now that they should plan on cultivating my exact skillset and expect employment in four years. Rather, I think it's critical for them to be highly educable and able to cultivate a keen sense of which way the wind is blowing.

MisterWebz 16y ago
There is absolutely no way I could, in good conscience, recommend to a kid heading into college right now that they should plan on cultivating my exact skillset and expect employment in four years Could you explain why? I thought web development would become even more important in the future. Or were you talking about the Rails framework?
- aaronbrethorst 16y ago
  Sorry, I should have been more clear. I don't doubt for a second that web and mobile development (or mobile web development) will become increasingly important. I was referring to the specific tools and frameworks I use today: Rails, iOS, and so on. Hence the reference to educability; basically, I think it's far more important for the OP on Stack Overflow to ensure his kid knows how to learn than anything else.

ratsbane 16y ago

You could also look at it as what kind of industry do you want to be entangled in. Bioinformatics seems especially interesting. Financial, banking, and trading-related programming also require a commitment to domain-specific knowledge. It's all programming but sometimes programming relates to another discipline.

c1sc0 16y ago
Strongly second this: there is more value in learning to code and then apply those skills on a problem set outside of IT.
tom_b 16y ago
To expand on this comment, I strongly feel that without deep domain-specific knowledge, new software engineers will mostly windup in IT dev/support roles in enterprise software shops - a tenuous choice for a long and satisfying career. For new students, I would recommend that most people should probably get a major in another field with a either a second major in CS or even just a minor in CS. This is mainly to make sure you have an acceptable credential to signal potential employers you have the CS "chops" to do the dev work. I wish I had done this as an undergrad. I work directly on a bioinformatics team and almost everyone doing interesting work has a biology degree (MS or PhD) even though they are mostly doing software dev. I'm also continually surprised by new CS grads who think their job will consist of being handed a list of requirements and told to write some code to solve the problem.