Instapundit usually puts up good, interesting links, but this one by Cindy Perman on disappearing jobs suffers from the fact that the woman who wrote it has no idea what she’s talking about, at least when it comes to computers:
While computer software engineers, the guys who write the software, are projected to be among the fastest-growing jobs, rising 32 percent over the next 10 years, demand for computer programmers, the guys who write the instructions for a computer to use that software, is expected to shrink 3 percent in the next decade.”
What on earth is she trying to say here? “The instructions for a computer to use that software” are, in fact, the software. Does she mean system architects vs. programmers? Those with engineering degrees and those without? Programmers versus Technical Writers (who tell people how to use software, not computers how to run the software they’re already running)? It’s so incoherent you can’t tell what she means.
As a science fiction writer (I think it was S. M. Stirling) said on a convention panel once: “You ever notice how a newspaper article on a subject you’re an expert in always has lots of errors? Well, all the rest of the articles have just as many errors, you just don’t know it.”
At least the article provides a handy example of why so many “Reporters and Correspondents” jobs are going away…
Tags: Cindy Perman, computer illiteracy, journalism, MSM, technology
I think the term “computer software engineer” is overused and misused, as a symptom of resume bloat. If I could define that term, it would be “computer programmers who design software that makes other programmers more effective”.