Bruce Webster argues that there is not a shortage of IT engineers, there is, however, a shortage of talented ones. His graph of students studying IT related fields pretty much follows supply and demand as the tech booms of the 80s and 90s drew heavily upon anyone they could to fuel their growth, and then during their contraction students decided IT wasn't that good a career bet and enrollment dropped off.
Nothing mind bending in that.
The competency thing is bogus in my opinion, it is arguing for some Mozart inherent genius type aspect to IT as a career path. That is why people think IT and software people are assholes.
Software does have large disparities in productivity from developer to developer, though I consider that more a competency and training issue than anything else. Others also have better talents in visualising data in an object or non-contiguous manner, others have the resilience to hunt down a morale destroying bug to one line of code in an obscure library. There are always many talents on show in any development team.
Webster argues that even with the growth in supply and demand during the booms that there is not enough talented IT engineers to supply all the needs of modern business.
In my opinion, there is no shortage of IT engineers -- particularly not after the vast numbers drawn into the industry due to Y2K and the dot-com boom -- there's just a shortage of talented ones. This is why you get conflicting claims and statistics about "personnel shortages" in the IT industry (cf. here vs. here, as well as the battle over raising the limit on H-1B visas and the offshoring debate).
He does not say whether talent is the same as competent. Presumably a tertiary education in computer science does leave one competent in the profession at the very least?
I suspect the major reason of off-shoring, H-1B visas and even foreigners with greencards (ie me) working in the United States is because American companies are viewing the labor pool as a global one.
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
