Second chance in IT?

[Peter Gibbons]

Over the years one of the themes on this forum has been that technology is so easy these days that every kid can assemble awesome applications from 'prefabricated' building blocks.

While there are some areas where this may be true - there are others that still require good knowledge and understanding of a lot of different concepts and technologies.

Let's take iPhone/iPod/iPad development. The development language is Objective C and you don't get GC when doing iOS development. You have to understand pointers. You have to understand OpenGL. And you still have to know Java or C# to do the backend work. ( Since Objective C is not very commonly used on the server for historical reasons. ) There are a lot of iOS APIs that you have to know well.

iPhone development was discounted on this forum "because there is no money in it". However right now I am seeing contracts that offer $50/hour and this may look a bit low but if you are veteran C developer without much work - $50/hour does not look bad. Plus the rates may rise in the future - we don't know.

I still remember when Java started to get popular - a few people on RR found many reasons why they didn't want to deal with it. Later on they concluded that they have missed the train and Java had already too many API's to learn.

That's fine. If somebody has missed the train - it doesn't make much sense to run after it.

But then .NET and C# came up and there was lot of discussion about them and I vividly remember a member of Open IT forum - a MSFT C++ developer ( he hasn't showed up here lately ) that have been for years without work that still didn't jump on the .NET bandwagon immediately. He tried to many years later when the train was already moving full speed and .NET has accumulated vast amount of libraries.

There are a lot of things that are unfair in the IT area ( everywhere if you think about it ) . However at the end everybody has to manage their own career and if you think you will be doing technical work for the next 5 or 10 more years you have to jump on and ride one of the major technological waves that come every few years.

[The Gorn]

There are a lot of things that are unfair in the IT area ( everywhere if you think about it ) . However at the end everybody has to manage their own career and if you think you will be doing technical work for the next 5 or 10 more years you have to jump on and ride one of the major technological waves that come every few years.

Completely agreed with all of your post. That is a REALLY nice synopsis.

Objective-C and the iPhone, all I wonder is what it will do in the next year or two. It seems like you're attaching yourself to just one vendor there and that is usually bad news.

I am not talking smack about iPhone, but one thing that was stated authoritatively at the conference I attended this month, by one of the top SEO speakers: iPhone users of e-commerce sites, and mobile web users in general, categorically spend FAR less online at these sites, than users of desktop OSs who visit those sites. I don't know how that fits into your point.

[Peter Gibbons]

It seems like you're attaching yourself to just one vendor there and that is usually bad news.

Goddard,

I agree. But if somebody is let's say an embedded developer - I think going to iPhone/iPad development is actually liberating in way.

You could write an iPhone/iPad app and put it the App store. Yes - it has to get Apple's blessing. You could also do contract work for other companies. But if you are doing contract embedded development - all  you can do is contract work. So with iPhone/iPad you have bigger market and more options. You could also do Mac OS X development. It's not exactly the same but there are a lot of things that appear very similar.

By the way iPhone/iPad/Objective C was just an example.

The point was - once in a while there are major technological waves and if somebody is keeping their eyes open they can ride one for a few years.

[The Gorn]

The point was - once in a while there are major technological wave and if somebody is keeping their eyes open they can ride one for a few years.

Without doubt, mobile applications are here to stay for several years. That's the wave. I think you are calling this exactly right.

[Aussie]

When one follows the mainframe to PC to Web to Mobile succession, it just seems to me that the associated applications have become so juvenile and, to coin a phrase, downright crap.  It's almost like IT applications entered a midlife crisis some 20 years ago, had a stroke when the dot.com boom busted, and are now in the psychogeriatric ward.

[The Gorn]

Aussie, it sucks, but that's the work that is available.

I knew one or two mainframe guys in the 90s. They couldn't swallow desktops or LANs. Pretty much the same argument - "small scale toy applications."

They are lonnnnggg gone from IT.

[Aussie]

So am I.  But the mature (in more ways than one) mainframe stuff is still being maintained, only by 3rd World nations.  No wonder Indian bosses exclude Westerners from conversations....."Shh, grown-ups are talking."

[Peter Gibbons]

Aussie,

You are correct to a point if we are talking about GUIs:

Most powerful - least popular
--------
C++ Qt
Java Swing
ActionScript v3 Flex
JavaScript HTML
----
Least powerful - Most popular.

The iPhone/iPad with Objective C and OpenGL rivals C++/Qt - just the screen is small.

Mainframes are not competing in this area - they could still be used on the server side.

I don't know much about mf they may be much more advanced - but most of the world is running fine on UNIX, Linux and Windows Server.

[Aussie]

"most of the world is running fine on UNIX, Linux and Windows Server."

The vast majority of big business applications are a mirage floating on top of a IBM mainframe bedrock.  A world running fine on just UNIX, Linux and Windows Server is like a world running fine without steel.

[lorb]

However at the end everybody has to manage their own career

Agreed.

You have to jump on and ride one of the major technological waves that come every few years.

Disagree.  Jumping on the latest things seems obvious, but in practice you are then competing against all the students fresh out of college.

You pointed out Java and .net.  My guess is that their mistake wasn't not jumping on hot technologies but rather not jumping on good technologies.  Java and .net are sensible technologies in their own right.  If you use one of them regularly, the 'huge platform API' thing isn't a big deal, and for example .net copied a lot of ideas from Java's API.

I remember when Adobe Air came out.  First they want 1 year experience when it isn't even 1 year old.  That is worth say $35/hr or more.  6 months later, you need 2 years experience with it and it is paying $20/hr.  Six months after that they want at least 2 years experience and it's worth $15/hr.  Why?  Because a bunch of kids probably jumped on it as the latest greatest thing to show their parents "how stupid they are", their generation knows best.  Business can use this groupthink against them.

[Peter Gibbons]

lorb,

If you search on Dice for "Java Flex" you would find quite a few hits. A lot of them are contracts and some like the one below pay quite good - $800/day.

http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=302&dockey=xml/6/d/6d30ad3c2e827cf6cc09cead2d3d3a01@endecaindex&source=19&FREE_TEXT=flex+java+contract&rating=99

I haven't seen anybody offer just $20/hour for Flex development.

The way I look at this - there are now a lot of Java developers. It appears that there are very few developers that know Java and Flex. What do I lose if I spend some time playing with it? In fact I have done this and have pretty good idea about how to use it.

If you let's say learned Flex - you still know a lot of stuff that recent graduates don't know. Plus - are there colleges that actually teach Flex? I am sure there ones that tech Flash but Flash and Flex are not the same.

Basically if you are unwilling to learn new technologies you are like the companies that milk their existing product line until it becomes obsolete and then close shop never having invested in R&D on new products.

[lorb]

you are like the companies that milk their existing product line until it becomes obsolete and then close shop never having invested in R&D

Obsolete is a very strong word.  What dies of obsolescence besides the buggy?  That one word is a catch-all definition for anything that doesn't presently have mass appeal.  "current industry standards" is a better, yet sill totally cheesy and lame term, IMO.  "The software industry", I bet Goddard would only be getting started if you asked him what that meant.

You might not suspect this, but I get rid of a lot of stuff.  My real test is not whether or not something is obsolete but whether or not it is efficient.  Something new may be inneficient in an overall sense.

[Peter Gibbons]

Obsolete is a very strong word.  What dies of obsolescence besides the buggy?

Character based interfaces.
DOS based applications.
Windows 3.1 applications.
??

Yes - these things don't have mass appeal.

You maybe the greatest Turbo Pascal programmer and really, really great salesman - I don't think you will have success convincing a client to let you develop new application using TP for DOS.

Or a more realistic example - I am proposing to create Java applet for a public facing web site.
I know I could do a great job. The applet will work ... just a small glitch. Every client of this company must have the Java Web Start installed. That's not a problem right ?

So - I would say - technologies that don't have mass appeal are obsolete.

[Aussie]

"So - I would say - technologies that don't have mass appeal are obsolete."

Sometimes neccessity trumps appeal. 

Given the climate change debate, plus all that BP schmutz down in the Gulf, one could hardly say that the technology of the internal combustion engine currently has 'mass appeal'.  But the alternatives that do have appeal....electric, fuelcell etc.....just don't cut it as practical.  Consequently, the IC is hardly obsolete.  Maybe it should be, but it ain't.  Won't be anytime soon either.

Same applies to IT technology.

[lorb]

DOS based applications.

After my move, I have very few possessions, but  interestingly enough I do have a PC with pure DOS, all command-line with a chess database GUI app.  Nothing the matter with it for what it does.

More realistic example.  I was a PLC programmer, we used straight DOS for a real-time app!  There were timing bugs with some plants that were nearly unresolvable.  It's f'ing nuts, but it took years for them to port it over to Windows.  There were plants out in the field running all their equipment by pushbutton or mouse or automatically through this system!  Yes, they knew it was DOS (original programmer still hadn't finished porting it to Windows when I left there, never saw it in use) and had problems, I had to visit their 'control office' so to speak when the plant was f'ing up.  YES, it happens!!  < 5 years ago.

We would say, "ewww, look we upgraded you to Windows XP!"  But it would be the same DOS program.  For years they practically begged us for the upcoming Windows version of the program.  IOW, even the interactive GUI actually ran in DOS.