Great Hackers…
are a rare find, but this article by Paul Graham (of “A Plan For Spam” fame) tells you how to sniff them out, how to manage them and be like one of them if you wish. Better yet, get the book.
This is a magnibrilliant article, and echos many of my beliefs. That is not to say that I’m one of those that he speaks about – if not for the fact that I do program Windows applications and use the Java programming language. I do, however, share the same ideals.
While we’re on the topic of Java programmers and employment and how they relate to the variation in wealth, I ran some simple queries on SEEK (AU/NZ’s job search site) today. The findings for various programming languages are as follows:
Java: 315 jobs
Python: 4 jobs
Perl: 87 jobs
C++: 108 jobs
C#: 88 jobs
PHP: 22 jobs
COBOL: 62 jobs
VB: 171 jobs
Eliminating some duplicates from multiple agencies commissioned to fill the same vacancy, we can see that Java has at least a factor of 20-50 openings more than other types of programming jobs. For a while, I was contemplating whether to sell out to the J2EE hype (flame me!!!) but the article has inspired me to stay true to my path. The sky brightens up again.