

IT salary survey says: ‘You’ve never had it so bad’ - vaksel
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/05/janco_salary_survey_january_2009/

======
habibur
Compare these two senerio.

Suppose the whole world needs a treatment for a virus. A medicine has been
released. The world will still need a doctor per 1000 patient to diagnose and
pescribe it. That translates to hundread million active jobs.

Now suppose a new computer virus is in the wild. One man codes the solution
and releases it, say for free. The world will not need a second man for this
solution, ever. Zero job created.

Once a software has been built and finished, it's a done job. How many cycles
can one run enhancing it, or find a better solution? For a software to be used
by 5 billion people, how many programmers do we need? Compare it back with the
doctors.

~~~
mdasen
It's true to an extent. However, most people aren't that adept with computers.
My friends constantly ask me to fix things on their computers when there are
perfectly available fixes out there. Likewise, if a treatment is over-the-
counter, people can treat themselves. The prescription example is more an
issue of legislating a business model - if the government legislated that
people had to have an IT guy diagnose their computer and dispense the
treatment, it would be the same. NOTE: Clearly there are good reasons for
legislating that certain treatments be administered by a doctor and not the
patient themselves. I'm not trying to argue that it's a maliciously legislated
model, just that people often do treat themselves with OTC stuff.

People really often need help with their computers. Even simple things like
installing drivers. They're available right from the manufacturer. You click a
few things and then you're done. Yet, people in their 20s ask for help because
they can't understand it.

Like medicine, software can always be better. So, even if you think that
administration isn't an issue to be dealt with, there's still a lot to be done
to make computers better and there always will be. Can my computer understand
my voice? There's software, but it's not Star Trek-like. More to be done.

~~~
eru
How about exchanging doctors with medical researchers and drug designers ---
to make the analogy fit?

