CNN article on 50 best jobs -- #1 is software

Laboratory tests have proven conclusively that research causes cancer in rats.

When sufficiently redacted, all information is meaningless.

Not very insightful. This the best you can offer?

"Engineer" rates #17, below chiropractor and physician assistant and technical writer.

Imagine hacking code, rubbing backs, or editing manuals 40 hours a week for the rest of your working life. That would be like joining the Living Dead to me.

The best thing about occasionally programming an embedded app is that I know it will soon be over, and I can get back to real engineering. I'd sink into despair if I knew that, after this one was done, there was an infinite train of additional programming tasks lined up...

John

John,

I so get what you are saying! However, I also get so tired of trying to find parts that actually work the way the specs. say they should (been burned by this a few times), or getting parts from companies that seem to produce more specs. than actual parts, then having to design a card because the days of the easy to use DIP are over, etc.

The advantage of software is that I don't have to by "If" statements and the like, nothing on back-order for nine months, and they don't wear out. Sill, as you say, making something move, blink, or even smoke, is a rewarding feeling!

Dave,

Pretty much. You point to a Reader's Digest view of the world, expect a Reader's Digest answer. You're showing mass-consumer media articles to a technical audience.

I just finished writing a book on how to be an embedded engineer. I think it's a much better job than being a pure software guy, especially in the sense those clowns meant it. Hanging your career on app-level shrinkwrap crap is pretty much painting an outsourcing target on your back.

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 07:11:21 -0700, John Larkin

What do you consider to be "real engineering"?

That's easy:

1) you crossposted without limiting F'up2

2) Any "study" searching for the N "best" of any type things is bogus almost by definition.

3) Any study published in a URL that contains "money" twice is almost guaranteed to be phony, biased, or incorrectly reported --- most likely all three combined.

4) Any study trying to compare jobs "objectively", without relation to the person doing them, is an exercise in futility --- a job is a *much* too personal thing to be qualifiable like that.

Every year, in every country of the world, pupils and students see such "studies" and, taking them at face value, make breathtakingly bad decisions based on them, causing floods of students in certain fields, and shortages in others. IMHO a law against publishing such "studies" wouldn't be the worst of all possible ideas. Adequate punishment: the publisher owes everyone who believed them a job, for as many months as passed between that study and the next one of its ilk.

--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

Discovering a unfilled need; contacting potential users and getting their opinions on what they'd like; researching the competition; researching the literature for theory and techniques; researching and testing available parts; conceiving/brainstorming a hardware/software architecture; writing the spec sheet and the preliminary manual; getting user opinions again; design; pcb layout and packaging; fpga and firmware design; putting it together and making it work; test sets and test procedures; final datasheets and manuals; press releases and web pages; tweaks; next project.

The "design" bit is my favorite part.

John

In article , larwe writes

I would agree. Especially when the definitions are very vague. It's not just a mass market survey to a technical audience. put the same survey in front of any specialist forum and they will knock holes in it re their own area of expertise.

It also depends on who the sample was. Ask in New-York, San Francisco, Seattle and Memphis and you will get 4 completely different sets of answers.

Ask in some parts of "Hillbilly" land USA* and Pig farmer will be Heaven judging by the film Deliverance :-)

*Not sure which part of the US the hillbillys etc reside.

It depends on many things. I know many software engineers (who don't do hardware) who only work in the embedded field and vise-versa. I know many who would refer to themselves a "programmers" (mind you that is mainly in the PC field).

On the other hand what is an "engineer" in 17? Many who call themselves Engineers are mechanics there are many branches of "engineering"

This survey is rather pointless.

Again that depends on your view. Programmer is a very secure job... lots of foreigners keep coming here with projects for us to do :-)

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/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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In article , Gary Reichlinger writes

Now there is the question!

fixing cars building bridges making aeroplanes designing aeroplanes using a lathe

Most of my fathers engineering involved a lot of mathematics and very little else. (designing gas turbine blades)

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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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On that note, where are there such shortages? Only ones I know of are in pharmacy and nursing. Maybe also a shortage of physicians, especially in areas that don't pay so well, but then again, the med schools are already at maximum capacity anyhow (and maybe even the pharmacy schools)...

Regards,

Mike

5 Any study that does not define its terms before use is bogus. when "everybody knows" the meanings few do 6 Any study that does not analyses the respondents is bogus (and publish the analysis.

Asking at Lourdes for a view on abortion is not going to give the same result as the same survey in an average metropolis.

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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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Depens on where "there" is, geographically and politically, and on when you need the information. Not much point discussing that in an international newsgroup.

--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

Considering, the mile wide paintbrush that has be used to pigeon hole the categories, any answer is just as meaningless. Software can mean anything to those doing the survey from script files, to complex scientific multi-processor algorithms to decipher the CERN linear accelerator.

No doubt the engineer category covered

Mechanical (including garage mechanics called engineers) Civil Electronic Electrical Plumbing and sewage Plant engineer (as in factories) plus many other categories.

These surveys are as meaningless as the recent headlines about "Twice as many children taking cocaine", as a ROUNDED up figure changed from 1% to 2% which actually was a difference between 1.3% and 1.85%, nearer a third. Considering the statistical accuracy and the subjects it is a meaningless change more like noise on a measurement.

Very simplified stats in magazines/newspapers and news are no use to anybody. Even a simple 20% is meaning less without knowing the total quantity, as in five people and one causes a 20% change in some survey.

--
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
    PC Services
              GNU H8 & mailing list info
             For those web sites you hate

CNN is 99% bullshit and 1% news.

Mayberry. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

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Driving a train.

Woooo-wooooo!

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Hold the MAYO & pass
                                  at               the COSMIC AWARENESS...
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You can add anyone with experience or training in exploration or production of oil and gas. However, about six years ago, those people might have been sleeping on park benches.

I would rate at least half of those tasks as less interesting than embedded programming. None of them would be possible without the program.