Is it me or has computer programming degenerated into "50 different ways to slap information from a database onto a webpage"?
Maybe I should start looking for something totally different. I'm starting to wonder how much longer I want to stay in this field, at least as a primary job.
don't despair
spur on 2004-05-21T07:03:42
The more news I read online, the more impression I get that you're right. DBWeb indeed became the most popular programming area. Thus the flourishing of stuff like J2EE.
But despair not. There's plenty of interesting programming to be done, it just has to be found. Besides, one can try to use "interesting programming" to help make "common programming" (DBWeb) simpler, so one will have more time for pet projects ;-))
there is interesting stuff to do
TeeJay on 2004-05-21T07:50:27
As far as perl goes there is Market Trading, Webservices (not blogs and rdf, but actual useful web interfaces joining useful applications together), search engines and the still unsolved problem of ecommerce. There is also the whole geo-data space which is quite interesting, as well as the bio-perl arena and good old text munging which is getting more and more interesting with all the PartOfSpeach tagging and identifying meaning and context from natural language. As well as irc bots, etc.
Of course there is lots of money to be made banging databases onto the web, and there are plenty of cowboys quite happy to knock up a PHP or ASP page to make your dodgy Access 'application' into an 'ecommerce website'.
Routine
pudge on 2004-05-25T22:54:15
National Review recently printed an
article about outsourcing from Cato assoc. director Daniel Griswold, and in it, he wrote, "IT companies are increasingly outsourcing thankless jobs -- routine programming, data entry, and system monitoring -- abroad." I read this and nodded approvingly.
In the latest issue, a letter-writer complained, "There is really no such thing as 'routine programming.' We have not yet advanced to a point where programming can be performed by anyone but a highly educated, experienced person. The construction of a software project is still a creative endeavor, more art than science."
To this, I scoffed heartily. The author replied to the letter, saying, "By 'routine programming,' I meant those tasks that are more limited and more easily delegated." That's fine, but I would have said, "Nonsense. Most programming these days can be done by monkeys, children, or cabbage. Have you ever actually seen Visual Basic?"
