Um...have you seen how much it costs to complete a "law school"? In terms of costs vs ROI for degrees...between law and engineering you'd be better sticking with engineering. It's cheaper to get...and despite what you may have heard not every lawyer goes to court and gets paid 400/hr.

^^^^THIS. I can't agree with this more. This is the biggest issue with getting into the field. Just because contractors and outsourcing is a small percentage of all IT workers does not mean they don't drastically impact the employability of everyone in the industry.

The IT staff of Universities that I know of do not outsource or use a vendor. They do in fact have their own IT staff. Most are students simply because they can get free tuition. You can't open a production system to be the play toy of every two bit college student that wants real world experience. There is a reason they're in college and there is a reason they don't get hired straight out of the door. IT'S BECAUSE THEY KNOW NEXT TO NOTHING REQUIRED TO DO THE JOB!!!! 1-2 semesters working on some small project on Java and a bunch of trivial basic courses in software development is not an acceptable level of knowledge. A computer science degree that teaches you some EE courses, a crap load of basic courses in multiple languages, and basic design classes is a very good start. It's still just a start and has no comparison to real world systems. Sure there are a few bright ones but most are not die hard tech heads...and even the ones that are have a crap load to learn before anyone should trust them to code something in the real world. I've only met 2 fresh out of college grads out of many that I'd trust on a production system. A University's IT and programming needs is a production system will real world risk/lawsuits if someone fucks something up.

The real problem is instead of people like me training fresh college grads on our systems I'm training contractors from India. At least in my company that's why I believe "no experience" jobs are almost impossible to find. They'd rather give those positions to contractors from India they can axe if they aren't worth anything.

Cops and FBI agents are paid less than a lot of IT workers. Pay range should not be the driving force behind the corruptability of someone. Let's face it, if an IT worker was going to rip of a company or commit an illegal act they'll be doing it for a lot more than anything someone in that pay range would be getting paid.

I disagree with #1. The best IT people are hard working and NOT lazy in the least. The best IT people even in IT are the go to person. If someone knows you have knowledge about a given subject or even believes speaking to you could cut the time they spend on something in half...they will talk to you first. It is true that they move from one project to the next...but to imply they are Lazy is not in the least bit correct. The company pushes them as hard as they can because they know they can do whatever task is assigned to them.

On #4 I agree completely. No company is going to give you a raise unless their hand is forced. I've seen several situations where an idiot looks for another job, tells his boss he got a job offer and suddenly he gets promoted. I've also seen situations where the best IT guy in the world never gets promoted above what he could find in the field with his experience because HR knows that's his market value...regardless of how much a guru he is they get promoted based on market value and not based on merit.

If you don't work for a company that forces you to develop in language xyz then you should pick the language that fits your needs...not pick a language and then start writing away. Yes...most languages can be bent upside down and backwards to do almost anything. That's ignoring the point though.

You're completely free to choose. Most of us don't have that luxury. Study carefully what you want to do and pick the best language for that task. Do not ask a large group of tech heads what language they love best. All we are going to do is preach up and down what we use the most. I use J2EE at work and PHP at home. For old school applications that actually exist on the freaken computer they are being used on...I honestly like QT but I'd love to have another chance to try python as a long time ago I did some work with tcl/tk.

Regardless of what you pick someone is going to have a problem with your choice. In fact if you're looking forward to years of development chances are the language you choose may not be the language of choice for new projects when you finally get around to finishing it off.

Pick the right language for the job...don't pick the most popular language out there unless you're looking to be employed again in the field.

Wow. My last post on slashdot was modded flamebait...but this post isn't... Oh wait this post is now flamebait too...hmm.

Are you completely insane? Reread what you wrote. Classifying people into subspecies and "Walmart people"...not to mention your very own genetic sister is somehow below the level of acceptable human standards to reproduce????

Contrary to what many here would have all of us believe...intelligent people are not the rightful owners of the planet. The children of those "Walmart people" and even your sister's children are very capable of equalling and god forbid surpassing your own intelligence. The environment of a child has so many impacts on their potential it is not even funny.

For anyone anywhere on this planet to assume your children has more of a right to live than another's because of IQ, income level, or your job title...speaks volumes to how countless horrid acts in our history have occurred.

I hate to break it to you...I know nothing about you or your sister...but I can assure you...your logic of reasoning is flawed the second you begin to cast any form of judgement over someone.

Painting with such huge strokes and determining a persons rightful place on this planet is somehow unnatural because they were not murdered or killed or had an accident a long time ago screams volumes about yourself and very little about reality.

I don't normally go out of my way to attack someone...but my god man not even your own sister is worthy of having children??

Perhaps I'll say the one thing that many slashdotters would never admit to...what ensures your line down the generations is not your income level, your IQ, or your job title...it's your social ability to interact with everyone. You know...the slut...the man whore...the charming git you all love to hate....even a complete slob/moron that has no job can get laid and find a woman and have children if he or she knows one simple thing...the thing many on here failed to learn all through their lives...how to be a social person...how to interact and how to notice the queues that tell you you could get laid if you just put the effort into it.

Hate the world all you want and how all the wrong people are reproducing...but the truth is natural selection is working perfectly. Just because you don't like the answer it gives you doesn't mean you get to claim that somehow the machine is broken and you're the rightful heir to the planet.

The companies that give the software engineer title to actual software engineers...of course they are happy and content. Their company probably doesn't try to screw them over. I'd like to note that many companies have programmer analysts doing the work of a software engineer just so they don't have to pay them what a software engineer gets paid.

Actually it's statements like this that will cause our nation to crumble from "internal problems". No amount of corruption will destroy a nation if that nation remains united regardless of who is fucking over who. If you honestly believe any amount of corruption in the federal government today is going to destroy the nation then you honestly need a history lesson in what real federal and state corruption has existed before in the USA.

The media brain washing of countless people to believe exactly what you just stated is what can destroy this nation. Let me put it another way. We're more likely to collapse from the extreme political positions we've seen in the past 15 years than any amount of corruption. Our nation has lived through and ignored far worse corruption than anything you could list about the current legislative or executive branches.

Our "internal problems" are far simpler than any deviate being in power. Greed and the lust for control has destroyed a lot in history...we'd be wise to understand what our real destructive forces are instead of blindly blaming "the other team".

I'd like to add another example to this. I'm also working in the industry as a programmer analyst. It is VERY difficult to get your foot in the door and very difficult to convince upper management that you don't actually need a degree to do your job even better than those Senior programmers above you. Depending on the company you work for you can expect a lot of hard work ahead to even get noticed. But it does and will happen. In my personal opinion I know that someone without a degree worked far harder to get what they have than someone with a degree. That seams almost backwards when you think about it...but the truth is college doesn't prepare you for the real world and many CS grads find out they don't have what it takes to do what they want...some even find out they don't really like it. Someone without a degree but still the same job title as someone with one proves they are there because they enjoy what they are doing...in general anyway.

I personally had to do a lot of work for no pay to get pointers on my resume. Then when I finally had a job I was stuck in the Helpdesk. I seized every opportunity that came my way to show I knew how to code and code well. I used that to get a real programming job at the same company receiving high marks from just about everyone. It's a long struggle and I'm still not where I want to be but I'll get there eventually.

As far as comments on going into management are...that's the last thing I'd ever want. It takes me away from doing what I actually enjoy doing. And honestly there are a ton of non management positions where you have to train and direct other programmers what to do and how to do it...in a year on the job that's the position I'm in...telling people two pay grades above me how to code something.

But you will continually run into people you have to prove yourself to. They'll hear you have no degree and immediately they will discredit everything you say and do. Programming is truly one of the few fields out there where all you need to gain experience is an Internet connection and a computer...the rest is up to you...you can't really say that for a lawyer or a doctor. This is one of the major reasons I'm against forcing a standard certification for programming. The problem with the few bad coders isn't that they are missing a degree or a certification...the problem is the industry doesn't properly deal with them in a timely manor. Instead they are allowed to stay on because honestly most managers don't even understand who is a good programmer or who is a bad programmer. All they know is what got done and when...who actually did the work though usually gets somewhat cloudy in most situations.

It's very difficult to get into the field without a degree. You have to prove you know how to code...and then you have to know someone that knows you know how to code..that's what gets your foot in the door in most places and even then it's an uphill battle. So please only do it if you really truly love to code and are great at it...otherwise you'll give the rest of the no degree folks out there a bad name...lol.

I think this is a good point to make when you consider how many "no degree" people go out and start their own business. No one takes them seriously otherwise.

There is something to be said about it. I'm actually in a state of my life that sounds a lot like what he wrote...granted I do still get out to bars though to try and pick up a girl. But I have no interest in a real relationship. For me the choice is more about keeping a balance of stress in my life. I simply have to much going on to be able to handle a relationship. I fully intend on "getting back out there" as one of my friends tell me to do. But I'm really worried about becoming to comfortable with this lifestyle...and becoming numb as you put it.

There's something to be said though about that lifestyle...it's far easier to fall into it with the current creature comforts we all have. It's easy to forget what being human is all about. And a lifestyle that ignores a primal need to socialize, reproduce, or to compete inside a culture with others...perhaps is one hiding from honestly living.

Thanks for calling it comfortably numb...that's an appropriate phrase. Nothing to push you out of the lifestyle you have...you have to realize lack of wanting something doesn't mean you're not missing something very important in life.

How exactly does an online profile or an e-mail tell any women if you are a piece of shit or a nice guy. That's the entire point of the article. The decisions made to go forward with someone or to ditch someone is based entirely on the wrong aspects. The chemistry of your conversations is what promotes the relationship and causes it to get to the next stage. The next stage is how the relationship deals with issues or conflict sometimes months after you first start.

In the case of online profiles though that initial chemistry is based off of a profile or e-mails and hopefully moves on from there. An e-mail or a profile tells you nothing about the actual chemistry two people have while being in the same room with each other.

That's why some online and long distance relationships are somewhat funny. They start based on a false reality of who or what a person is and if real life contact doesn't properly replace that false perception you may find yourself two years into some "relationship" with someone you honestly don't really know.

That's why you need to take contact offline as soon as possible but getting to that point for a lot of women is a large step to take when they have so many choices to choose from. I personally see no advantage to being online unless you're to shy to ask a girl out in person.

What do you think breaking away from the union would do to that economy? All US related traffic would be rerouted to OR and WA. Oh right what about silicon valley? Is that in Northern or Southern Cali?

And the US would do quite well making Seattle the cheapest port on the western coast and increasing the cost of energy. How do you think those natural resources will fare when they have to get through US customs imports now on the easter border of the CA?

Well a federal government doesn't exist without the union of the states after all.

How many people would leave the state because they want to be a part of America? How many new interested parties would suddenly move in to seize control.

This is of course ignoring the fact that if CA actually survived on its own for more than six months the US would invade and force them back into the Union. And if you think the increase in troops after 9/11 was impressive wait till states start to leave the Union again.

face it, separation and lack of compromise is moving us backward in time. If CA leaves the Union then honestly humanity fails at having any form of society. This is why the current state of Congress is such bullshit. If you can not compromise in a society then you have no part of being in it. I'd just hope the idiots that elected those into the House realize how fucked up they made the system and vote them out.