If you're starting out, I have bad news - given the decreases in salaries for people who've had 10 years experience, I hate to say this but the timing of your graduation is QUITE BAD. Offshoring fueling the latter along with the economic downturn and I don't expect things to improve much.
I have over 10+ years in tech, worked at a major software company and left for the dot bomb craze. I gave up lots of salary for equity and while the company was profitable and public, the market tanked a mere few weeks bef
I think about half of what you said is true, a quarter is sometimes true and sometimes not, and a quarter is downright wrong. Being grumpy, I'll start with the wrong part:
Anyone starting school today... my advice is forget tech. If you feel it in your soul (like you should do it), fine, go to a tech school like DeVry, start making money and save it. Going to traditional 4 year programs for CS is an utter waste of time. Way too much change and like I said it's always about what you did in the last six mon
You couldn't disagree with me more strongly because it seems YOU ARE a Phd candidate since it seems Spazoid12 took the time to look at your profile. I didn't.
Kinda funny really, the fact that it crossed my mind and it turned out to be true. In fact, it was the FIRST thing when I read your post.
Unlike academia, APIs rule our lives in the IT trenches. It's not about O(N), chaos theory, Turing Machines, NP Completeness, it's about what APIs you've used of late not about mental masturb*ti*n.
Read my response to Spazoid - I've been "in the trenches" and I have a pretty good perspective of what life in the IT industry is actually like. It's not a complete perspective, of course, but neither is anyone else's. If you can't be bothered to look into it a little bit before assuming I "don't have the frame of reference," well, I'm not sure how much stock I put in your perspective either.
I never called APIs superfluous details: when you're trying to make something, you've got to know your tools. I'll be the first to agree that such details matter. At the same time, they're not enough: knowing how to work a lathe isn't the same thing as knowing what to make with one. My whole point was that you should go to school to learn the fundamentals, AND teach yourself how to use the current tools.
I'm sorry your friends had bad experiences with Ph.D. programs. If it was "all about ego" then maybe they ran into the wrong people. There are jackasses everywhere, and accademia is no exception. In any event, the Ph.D. thing is a tangent - I've never said that you need a Ph.D. to write code. But I do think a solid undergraduate background in mathematics and CS helps a lot.
Bad news (Score:5, Interesting)
I have over 10+ years in tech, worked at a major software company and left for the dot bomb craze. I gave up lots of salary for equity and while the company was profitable and public, the market tanked a mere few weeks bef
Mixed bag (Score:2)
Re:Mixed bag (Score:1)
Kinda funny really, the fact that it crossed my mind and it turned out to be true. In fact, it was the FIRST thing when I read your post.
Unlike academia, APIs rule our lives in the IT trenches. It's not about O(N), chaos theory, Turing Machines, NP Completeness, it's about what APIs you've used of late not about mental masturb*ti*n.
While APIs may "
Re:Mixed bag (Score:2)
I never called APIs superfluous details: when you're trying to make something, you've got to know your tools. I'll be the first to agree that such details matter. At the same time, they're not enough: knowing how to work a lathe isn't the same thing as knowing what to make with one. My whole point was that you should go to school to learn the fundamentals, AND teach yourself how to use the current tools.
I'm sorry your friends had bad experiences with Ph.D. programs. If it was "all about ego" then maybe they ran into the wrong people. There are jackasses everywhere, and accademia is no exception. In any event, the Ph.D. thing is a tangent - I've never said that you need a Ph.D. to write code. But I do think a solid undergraduate background in mathematics and CS helps a lot.