Quote Originally Posted by mattyx
also, i would be somewhat concerned about the continuing shift of programming skills/jobs to asia and india. you should be ok, because you have the hardware side to fall back on, and the languages you are pursuing are not the most commonly outsourced ones, but you never know.
Yes! I totally neglected to mention that very practical economic aspect of entering into the "programming/development" career track right now. Even in the last 12 months there has been an enourmous shift of "standard" programming work from the US and the EU to overseas houses in Asia and India. Simple economics is why. Some of those guys are freaking talented too. Do be aware that this is a real issue here. Think of it like what happened in the 60's with many low-end industrial/textile/autoparts/manufacturing jobs in the US going to Japan and Mexico. Same concept. Lower costs for labor and litigation is next to non-existent. If you have a "niche" talent or insight into a highly skilled task that needs to be automated, then you are probably in pretty good shape. But run-of-the-mill "programing" jobs, especially at the corporate levels, are likely to be shifted overseas. Some niches that require you have training in some other skill (i.e. healthcare) + programming to be successful, are less likely to be shifted overseas in the immediate future. Other "protected" segments from the mass exodous of programming jobs are: Intellectual Property (i.e. working on a program that is mission critical for a company, they won't want to trust that to someone they can't watch). The NSA and other government agencies are always looking for sharp programmers (no kidding), and those jobs aren't going to be shifted overseas... unless some nit-wit bean counter is just looking at the cost and not the interests of national security... nah! lol

Remember the first rule of Automation: "In order to effectively automate a task, you must first understand it." That is how you can determine you "niche" programming status. How many other klownz can do what you do? If the answer is "a lot" then perhaps you should add to your non-programming toolbox as well.

Good point on the status of VB. It will undoubtedly be around a while longer, but it has been essentially excommunicated by MS, thus there have already been "end of life" announcements for it. It's days are finitely numbered, but it may kick around longer than I think. Unfortunately, MS does not subscribe to the point of view that "the end of life for our products is when the last person stops using them". That's why they make lots of money too

Some of the scariest talent, IMHO, is in the game engine an netcode programmers. Those guys are mighty creative in both an artistic, and a technological way. I have a tremendous amount of respect for what they have been able to do for "entertainment". Some of the solutions to the massive technological problems they face to make everything so "unreal" are very, very clever. Maybe you can find a place on one of those teams, that would be like a dream job, lol.

Again, best of luck!

BoH