Re: [LUG] UK digital skills report

Firstly - my thanks to Paul for his work. I would never be dismissive of it - I am genuinely astonished that people like him give up their time and efforts and am sorry he feels unsupported (but to be fair, us here in the lug are doing more even if it's very little than those outside of it). And before he asks - I have no interest in teaching children (I don't actually like them that much as a species), nor am I particularly sociable. I'm happy to support or help via email/irc but that's as deep into the lug as I want to go.

On 18 February 2015 at 18:06, Simon Waters <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The security market is bemoaning the loss of the hacker/cracker ethos, where younger people aren't interested in breaking things (most of them break easily enough). Probably also that it is a skill which is useful for defending (somewhat - it is over-egged), but illegal to practice, bit like lock breaking except a lot more varied, and the important locks are replaced every time someone publishes a way to break them.

WARNING: Upcoming generalisation.

I think there's an extra hurdle to kids today. The development tools and abstraction is far, far more removed than "Eeh, when we were kids and all this were fields". It must be much harder to actually understand what a computer is doing (And honestly, I think that inevitable step was taken with Windows95. I remember a senior op staring at my desktop waiting for it to boot and asking plaintively; "Just WHAT is it doing?")

Coding fashions seem driven by fashion and reward (jobs) - app development, niches etc. It's a rare program these days that can be developed by one guy in a bedroom, and you could argue that the greatest skill in programming now is working as part of a team. That might mean you end up knowing only how to code one thing.Â It's hardly even worth building your own computer now - a skill I enjoy immensely but it's harder to justify year on year.

Sysadmins are about the only breed that I think still has a personal knowledge of what's going on under the water these days, and good ones seem to be getting rarer.

I can't really recommend general IT as a career either, as it is hugely uncertain, medicine and Undertaking are probably more reliable fields. There is always room for specialist expertise, but people who

I can't either. Entry levels are overly contended, management sometimes poor, targets change like the wind and too many people don't know what they're doing.

can build you a general server, are largely fungible. There will always be room at the top, but the skills needed are changing fast, and when the dust settles who knows where things will be.

Not sure the dust will settle. Computers have changed the world over the past couple of decades, and will continue to do so, and the rate of software development is still breathtaking.

Take programming languages

I sometimes hold the opinion that there should only be around five programming languages. Low level, interpreted, scripted, compiled, web: ASM, BASIC, Perl, C, PHP Â

Nobody else in the world will agree with me, or if they do about the number they won't about the languages I chose.Â But I think some might agree that there are just too many damned languages;

Take this as evidence:Âhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages

You could argue there are some that don't qualify as languages in there, and yet I can think of some that do which aren't listed - and that's before we get too far into meta and macro languages and scripting.

Anyway, wondering off the point a bit. Which is: It's bewildering to a newbie and small wonder one of the most often asked question by the aspiring coder is: "What language do I learn?" and time and time again I see that answered not by an unbiased response, but by somebody recommending a language that they know for no other reason than they do.

But current leading job in Exeter for IT, want Linux, Windows, switches and networking, databases, vmware, Chef/Puppet, and they want to pay you what you'd get for 5 years of teaching, or about the same as a junior policeman or junior fireman. Not to do down those roles, but you'll need an IQ in the top percent or two and 5 to 10 years experience to even be anywhere near that.

But they might get somebody for it - and unless the interviewers are both excellent at the requirements themselves AND are great interviewers, they'll probably get somebody who told a good tale about their capabilities and experience; and then they'll be moaning that IT is difficult to staff for.Â

But hey, isn't the true skill of an IT professional just knowing the right questions to punch into google? :)