Come now Mr Latimer, the longer we live, the more experience we bring to bear on issues. The judgements we make tend to be quicker and more incisive as a result. Easily mistaken for prejudice, unfortunately.

Academics, like any other grouping, will tend to look after their own kind - it's a natural, human instinct, much like motherhood. Show me an altruistic academic, and I'll happily recant, but in my experience since they live and work isolated from the relative hurly burly of commerce, they have little to add to debates on business issues. This does not, of course, prevent them from doing so.

Programmers who take pride in their work tend, in my experience, to write better (fewer bugs) and more useful (closer to user requirements) software than those who don't. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

The ACS isn't self-serving because it does things I disagree with, but because that is its charter. You would be as likely to see an ACS press release announcing that IT education should be reduced as to see those lipsticked pigs flying.

>>The idea that 10 year olds are better with computers than 35 year olds is a myth.<<

My only observation would be that you cannot know many ten-year-olds.

>>People do need to understand something of how their society and economy operates, and electronic processing/information technology has taken and will take further a large part of that operation.<<

There's the problem. You take the industry far too seriously. The sooner IT becomes an on-demand capability, like electricity, with a grid delivery system and a focus on appliances rather than the unbelievably primitive concept of the PC, the more useful it will become. But at the same time, anyone who isn't directly involved in the delivery capability itself will need to know absolutely nothing about the process. That will remain the province of the well-qualified, fully-trained professional.

Well-meaning amateurs and geeks will for a while insist that their home-made systems are superior to the grid and its services, but will eventually achieve the status that radio hams hold today. Quaint.

Response to Pericles:

Self-serving means that actions are taken for the interests of a few against the rest. In contrast, ACS has a "commitment to the wider community to ensure the beneficial use of ICT". It members must "place the interests of the community above those of personal or sectional interests." (http://www.acs.org.au/)

It is a bad sign that one would presume facts to perpetuate a slur against an organisation; in this case the words "...that is its charter". I hope that this is merely a case of ill-considered comment.

And because you are keen to make assumptions, no I am not a member or associate of the ACS.

Getting back to the main topic, there is an inherent contradiction in your writing. If you think that ten year olds are better than 35 year olds, then why is it that computing is in your view an "industry"? A professional industry where children have matching skills – this does not make sense.

For every subject taught in high school (English, Mathematics, Science, Commerce, Art, Agriculture...) there is a professional equivalent: (writers, mathematicians, scientists, business people, artists, farmers...)

If we take your argument seriously then one could also say, "Professional writers who take pride in their work make fewer grammatical mistakes and use a level of English appropriate for their audience" OR "The sooner mathematics becomes an on-demand capability the more useful it will become." OR "Well-meaning amateur artists will insist that their painting and sketching are superior to photographs but they are a quaint minority"

I have explained that in this age of information, programmatic use of IT has become a general skill not a specialised one (I use programmatic in it's broader sense.) Your counter argument, that IT is a specialised skill because professional programmers are specialists (or that amateur programmers are quaint !?!) is both flawed and misrepresents the how people are utilising IT in the real but imperfect world.

I am happy to concede that our divergent views are due to differing views of what the future shall hold.

Pericles.

"I employ some of the brightest and best etc"

Sure.. but how long before 'shareholder value' and 'pressure for cost reductions' or that other bogeyman 'Market forces' from your competitors and all the other buzz words force you to shift your programming momentum to Bangalore or Cyber Jaya ?

I'm not suggesting you will do it, or even will need to, so much depends on your industry and how "IT" relates to it and how big a part of your company it is. But given the trend in the large corporations, and even government, I would not be a programmer for quids now unless I was an extremely innovative genius who could quickly translate a bright idea into a very saleable and protectable product and get it to market world wide. Or.. I had a close 'blood and cultural' connection to certain segements of the community who like to trade in shares a lot... (don't know if u read about that-Melbourne and Sausage Software/Visard/Solution6 story)

On another thread I saw that IT experts now have to accept $65k whereas they previously could command $100k

David L
my comments were meant to stimulate thinking rather than be grandiose statements of economic finality :)

Pericles,
your abence from some of the more controversial threads is noted. Come on, u always have things to say.

DL, my point is not that the ACS is doing anything dishonest or devious, instead merely performing its legitimate function. To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davis, "they would say that, wouldn't they?"

Your attempts to analogize my position are also a little far fetched, given that we have produced in Australia some outstanding programmers "merely" by teaching them high school mathematics, and allowing them to expand this into a computing degree at university. Some schools also teach Latin, German, History, Geography, Classical Greek, French, Italian and Chinese, to which no profession (bar teaching) is directly attached. Plenty are indirectly related of course, in the same way that mathematics is an ideal lead-in to a university course in computing.

So once again, what is the imperative for them them to be differently armed or skilled before they choose this step?

And make no mistake, the general public - largely uneducated in "IT", but increasingly familiar with the web browser - is becoming very adept at "utilising IT in the real but imperfect world."

B-D, the answer to your question is quite long and involved, and is to do with the way in which companies will in future be interrelating with the "grid" and the services it provides. But in general terms, outsourcing core business functions is a fad that will soon have run its course anyway, and the need to grow and nurture in-house programming and systems skills will actually start to increase in a few years. But the realities of the market, and the more business/less (overtly) technical focus of the programmer's function will never again turn it into a substantial six-figure job, I'm afraid. But that's true of so many areas, isn't it?

What is needed more than anything is a de-mystification of IT, so that folk can relate to it in the same way they do accountants. We know roughly what they do, we know they had to get a degree to do it, and that they were probably pretty good at maths at high school. More than that, we don't need to know.