> If your son's passion is CS then do CS.

That sounds great - but the reality is that engineers have discovered that much of their field has relocated overseas, and that it starts to become difficult to stay employed, competitive and current after 25 years in the field. Of course, it's possible - I've been working in the field for 30 years, continue to love it, and have no problems with employment. But there are 10 people who've dropped out for every person such as myself - and the reality is that CS is only a half-career - something that you can only do for the first half of your life with any certainty. So, it's worth being practical.

> If his passion is mathematics, there is much more available than being a data analyst

Right - I'm using generic terms since I don't know what exactly he might end up doing: machine learning? statistician? data mining?

He's interested in both fields - and feels that he could probably do more programming and math as a mathematician of some sort than as a CS major - who may end up as yet-another application developer doing very little math and constantly racing to stay current.

That's a risky strategy - a lot of those guys lost their jobs during the y2k conversion from in-house to ERP apps.

I'm 47 and develop using python and parallel databases. My strategy is to continue to be an expert at data management - data quality, data logistics, various types of databases, reporting, data warehousing, scoring and analytics. I think I'll be able to hang in there until I'm 65.

The challenge is that when I'm 55+ I probably won't be up for 60 hour weeks. So, I'm definitely assuming that I'll need to start to stick with the 40 hour work week at some point in the future.

It's amazing how much your style matters when you walk in the door and meet people for the first time.

One of the most impressive developers I've ever known had a very hard time with first impressions because of his white hair.

I can vouch for this.

I've got two kids to put through college - and they are both very skilled and capable of going to some of the best schools in the country where their combined bills could come to $500,000.

Then there's retirement - potentially without much social security thanks to the far right.

Then there's the possibility of getting an injury or illness - again, with very little safety net.

I'd do far better living off $60k in western europe.

So, a number of salary surveys have shown that engineers hit their peak salary around the age of 45-55, but it then declines. This is quite the opposite of very many fields - lawyers, doctors, etc can work until they are 70.

My son is planning to major in math and just take a minor in computer science, then work as a data analyst. What do you think?

> If you want to use Postgres, fine. Use it. But you make yourself look very small when you go out of
> your way to put down such a fine project as MySQL just because your Postgres can do ... what ... oh yeah - you didn't even mention.

LOL, please - do yourself a favor and spend some time on the mysql pages looking at their bug reports. Pay special attention to all the 'silent failures' that can lead to data corruption.

Then look into what MySQL AB has said about transaction, triggers, stored procedures, views, subselects, etc in the past. That you don't need them. Then consider what we've learned about databases over the past 40 years, and decide if that advise is worth anything is or just misinformation.

Then look at the likelihood of having to pay mysql licensing feeds.

We used to use mysql at my office. It's been abandoned in favor of postgresql for the following primary reasons:
- porting difficult
- licensing complexity
- data corruption problems
Now, note that we're primarily a db2 shop. But that we've got db2, oracle, postgresql, sql server, and mysql. I've used them all, though am most experienced with db2 (18 years of experience there). I've got no problem with us bringing aboard another database if that makes sense. But the mysql problems are serious and unique. Until they are resolved it will stay on the b-list...