

What kinds of software development are in high demand? (Greg Kuperberg) - SandB0x
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3197932/what-kinds-of-software-development-are-in-high-demand

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aaronbrethorst
"Skate where the puck's going, not where it's been."

Right now, I make my living building iPhone and Rails apps. I have more work
than I know what to do with it. However, I expect I'll be doing something
different in four years.

There is absolutely no way I could, in good conscience, recommend to a kid
heading into college right now that they should plan on cultivating my exact
skillset and expect employment in four years.

Rather, I think it's critical for them to be highly educable and able to
cultivate a keen sense of which way the wind is blowing.

~~~
MisterWebz
_There is absolutely no way I could, in good conscience, recommend to a kid
heading into college right now that they should plan on cultivating my exact
skillset and expect employment in four years_

Could you explain why? I thought web development would become even more
important in the future. Or were you talking about the Rails framework?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I don't doubt for a second that web and
mobile development (or mobile web development) will become increasingly
important.

I was referring to the specific tools and frameworks I use today: Rails, iOS,
and so on. Hence the reference to educability; basically, I think it's far
more important for the OP on Stack Overflow to ensure his kid knows how to
learn than anything else.

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ratsbane
You could also look at it as what kind of industry do you want to be entangled
in. Bioinformatics seems especially interesting. Financial, banking, and
trading-related programming also require a commitment to domain-specific
knowledge. It's all programming but sometimes programming relates to another
discipline.

~~~
tom_b
To expand on this comment, I strongly feel that without deep domain-specific
knowledge, new software engineers will mostly windup in IT dev/support roles
in enterprise software shops - a tenuous choice for a long and satisfying
career.

For new students, I would recommend that most people should probably get a
major in another field with a either a second major in CS or even just a minor
in CS. This is mainly to make sure you have an acceptable credential to signal
potential employers you have the CS "chops" to do the dev work. I wish I had
done this as an undergrad.

I work directly on a bioinformatics team and almost everyone doing interesting
work has a biology degree (MS or PhD) even though they are mostly doing
software dev.

I'm also continually surprised by new CS grads who think their job will
consist of being handed a list of requirements and told to write some code to
solve the problem.

