[GTALUG] Co-op Issues

[Russell Reiter]

On Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:18 AM Gary via talk <talk at gtalug.org wrote:

> I think we should all learn to speak Mandarin
> /gary
>

tl;dr
This might not be too far fetched a comment given the current state of the
art. Who is to say that the computers of the future wont be based on
cartographic and pictographic languages like a Kanji character set over the
idiographic scripts used today. Quantum computing factors may even demand
this.

When I lived downtown, in early 2000, I made extra money by helping UofT
students connect the 386's they could purchase for $40 to the UofT dialup
network. I'd tune the systems irq's, etc, usually to avoid sound system
conflicts and help them setup Pine so they could check mail from home.
Typically these students were in academic disciplines not EE or CompSci.

One of my neighbours however was a Phd candidate in Comp Sci from China. He
spoke excellent English and was quite interesting to talk to. He was a
state sponsored candidate and the Chinese Govt. paid his tuition and gave
him a small living allowance. One day he asked me a question that he said
was topmost in the mind of the Chinese bureaucracy at the time.

He asked why North America was hiring so many programmers from India and
few if any from China. I explained the issue of India's former Colonial
rule and that there were a great number of Indian citizens who were fluent
English speakers. He said yes but, he'd seen some of the code and that it
was excessively verbose and that Chinese programmers were trained to write
as compact code as possible.

I pointed out that interpretive software sets were on the rise and that
compiled applications for workflow were on the wain, in principle if not in
general at the time. I also said that no matter how well code is commented
and for longevity's sake; a programmer has to understand certain idiomatic
constructs of spoken languages which may be somewhat restated in the way
the interpretation of commonly used code may be assumed in the future by a
native, or at least a highly exposed to English speaker.

He was a very nice fellow, took what I said to heart and he gave me a small
gift when he returned to China. I had given him and his friends an apple
pie I made once and that was his thanks for being a good neighbour.


> On 19-02-23 09:23 AM, Don Tai wrote:
>
> The average Chinese dev will make about $10k CAD.
>
> On Sat, 23 Feb 2019 at 08:45, Gary via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
>
>> Here's an interesting article from the U.S. census bureau, which likely
>> applies to Canada as well:
>>
>> "The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that 74 percent of those who have
>> a bachelor's degree in science, technology, engineering and math —
>> commonly referred to as STEM — are not employed in STEM occupations."
>>
>> https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-130.html
>>
>> This is not surprising because according to payscale.com the average
>> Indian programmer makes just $8,300 cdn for the entire year.  IBM now
>> has more employees in India than it does in America.
>>
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/technology/ibm-india.html
>>
>> Industry is making a concerted effort to perpetuate the skills shortage
>> myth so that they can beguile politicians and persuade them to open the
>> floodgates of immigration. This has the effect of saturating the market
>> and lowering wages.
>>
>> And they have succeeded:
>>
>> https://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Computer_Programmer/Salary/5f88d602/Toronto-ON
>> Note that a letter carrier makes more money.
>>
>> /gary
>>
>>
>> On 19-02-22 07:03 PM, nick via talk wrote:
>> > Greetings All,
>> >
>> > I don't know if someone would be willing to give some advice on finding
>> Co-op.
>> > For the last two semesters including semester I've been looking and
>> found very
>> > little for my skills. Don't know what's up as literally getting in
>> contact with
>> > folks at AMD got me contacts. Maybe someone has experience with the
>> CO-OP program
>> > either hiring or otherwise.
>> >
>> > If someone wants a resume that's fine I would prefer to send it
>> directly rather
>> > than to a public list through,
>> >
>> > Nic
>> > ---
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>>
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>
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