On 2022-08-21 17:50, Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> On Sun, 2022-08-21 at 07:08 -0700, techlists@phpcoderusa.com wrote:
>
>> I think the Universities
>> will dry up.
>
> I H O P E S O !
M E T O O ! ! !
>
> Degree discrimination really frosts my petunias. Very little of the
> programming I've
> done or seen done couldn't be done by a fairly bright person, perhaps
> with 3 or 4
> programming courses in junior college. To me, the higher education
> system is class
> warfare, plain and simple. And I have a BSEE degree.
I would agree, especially PHP. I think some make PHP more difficult
than it needs to be.
>
>> I first looked at college in 1978 and that year it was $275 a semester
>> at the University of Arizona. I ended up going to junior college and
>> it
>> was $100 my first semester the spring of 1979.
>
> I took programming and business courses at Santa Monica Community
> College, for
> $20/course. My income tripled, so both the state of California and I
> laughed all the
> way to the bank.
>
Nice!!
>
>> When I was first exposed to programming in 1983 a bachelor's degree
>> was
>> required to be a programmer. I think that requirement is long gone. I
>> think employers are looking for just skills.
>
> 1983 was the tail end of the glass house, IBM Mainframe era, which was
> almost a
> monopsany. By 1985, with DBASE, Turbo Pascal, and the rise of
> affordable 286's,
> the Kitchen Table Programmer made his or her move, running circles
> around the
> mainframe programmers on minis or micros.
Interesting observation. I started programming on dBaseII in 1986. A
manager gave me an Otrona Attache portable computer
https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1227 telling me
I was the only one who had any computer experience. At that time I was
working on an Associates degree in programming.
In 1986 I bought a Commodore 64 and the next year I bought an 8088
garage clone that has 2 360M floppies and 640K of RAM. A couple years
later I got a Seagate ST-225 hard drive, which as I recall, was all of
20MB and cost somewhere around $300.
I followed the dBase clones all the way to 2000.
I was exposed to Turbo Pascal in junior college and at the university.
> But still, many employers screen out the
> non-degreed. They claim it's because the graduate at least proved
> he/she could
> complete something. But all too often, what a college degree proves is
> you didn't
> have to spend all your time supporting your family as a kid. By the
> way, 1984 was
> when I busted into professional programming: Whitesmith Pascal on a
> PDP11/23 running
> TSX multitasking over RT/11. The next year I started professional
> programming in C.
>
Nice!!
>>
>> I think self study is big today.
>
> Huge. And also these inexpensive online courses.
>
>
>> And if the economy does crash I'm
>> thinking that the next generation of programmers will be self thought
>> and might just be more inclined to be using Linux.
>
> LOL, depends on the severity of the crash. If it's too bad the guy
> knowing how to
> grow crops, sanitize water, and buy/sell stuff will be on top.
I've heard that. Don't think I'll become a farmer in my old age....
> But yeah, if it's
> only like 1982 or 2008-2009, and there aren't enough rich kids to fill
> the
> programming positions and they don't import hordes of H1-B's, then
> yeah, self taught
> will be more of a thing. By the way, it's already doable: I've seen
> folks do it here
> in Orlando.
>
> Incidentally, I've seen a formula used, time and time again, for
> self-taught
> programmers to succeed hugely:
>
> 1) Learn the technology to a level of plausible expertise.
>
> 2) Network, network, network.
>
> 3) Get yourself installed as a presenter at multiple
> shows/clubs/groups.
>
> 4) Network, network, network.
>
> 5) Lowball your way into getting your first client.
>
> 6) Network, network, network.
>
> 7) Whipsaw multiple clients to raise your rates.
>
> 8) Network, network, network.
>
> 9) Rinse, lather, repeat.
>
>
> SteveT
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list -
PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss 
(text/plain)