>Really? I've heard this from many different sources and I have to wonder is it such a good thing.
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>How many of you have heard comments like, "Things were much easier before we got computers." When fixing a bug in a program (yours or someone else's). "I guess this is what you would call 'Job Security' ", with that smirk that lets you know exactly what that person thinks of your ability. "You don't do anything. You just sit in front of that computer all day."
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>The point is that it is not just the jobs that our important. It is people's attitudes in general towards programmers. Look at how public opinion towards M$ has changed in the last few years. I have a problem with anyone who tries to stamp out competiveness. There are so many things that Microsoft can do to better its image and provide a better programming environment for all of us.
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>What about some sort of "program" to allow younger aspiring programmers the availability of an "advisor", to get past some of the road blocks that hindered us all. I believe that we all have a responsibility to make things easier for others to develop and better themselves as programmers. It is very easy to fall into the selfish stance where I will only do things that benefit me, I will not divulge any of my secrets. But this hinders the development of us all.
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>Look at the movie "Lorenzo's Oil" as an example. When the efforts of the best of the science community comes together to work as a team, science can make leaps, where normally they would be crawling at their normal competitive pace.
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>These problems, like the year 2000 problem, may provide us with more jobs, but it really points to a deeper problem within the programming community.
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>UT is a good example of a good environment in which to learn and develop, because many are willing to provide support. At the same time they are not a profit driven organization which speaks very highly of those that put UT together.

I must admit that I've not heard anyone saying how things were better before computers. Or at least not lately. I'll give you an example of when it did happen though - I did an application some time ago (COBOL - Digital VAX, to just give a sense of time frame here) that was written for some government "budget analysts". These two guys worked with paper and pencil and while I was there writing the application.....I got those kinds of comments. I made friends with these two, knowing that they were the "heavy" users. When I indicated that the system was going to go live in late July, the panic that came about in meetings was nearly overwhelming. As you know, the govt starts it's fiscal year on Oct 1 and the fear was that the system would hose everything and they'd be having to work gadzillions of hours to correct everything. Of course, in Aug and Sept they always worked gadzillions of hours of OT because everyone was submitting their finalized budgets.....well to make a long story shorter...the system went up just fine, the analysts didn't have to put in ANY overtime for the new year.
Now they couldn't live without their computers.

I suspect that a higher percentage of those with Y2K problems are operating mainframes with apps built at a time of very expensive disk storage. It is the mgmt of these companies or institutions that has been responsible to accepting the task of Y2K and for those that haven't seen it coming or bothered to recognize it, oh well, they should get fired. For those that are just working at these places, no one should be pointing fingers at programmers and thinking that their jobs are cushy. When the Y2K #*$&% starts rolling down hill, though the current crop of programmers didn't create the mess, it'll be in their hands to fix.

Steve