[thechat] A question for Issac...

[DESCHAMPS Stéphane DSI/SICOR]

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : thechat-bounces at lists.evolt.org
> [mailto:thechat-bounces at lists.evolt.org]De la part de Martin Burns
> 
> > I'm wondering if there's still *one* place that has web dev jobs 
> > a-plenty, since the dotcom bubble burst.
> 
> Depends on what you mean both by "a-plenty" and "web dev"

Actually I meant *offering jobs*.

> I don't think we'll ever get back to the same number of people doing 
> front-end production, for a number of reasons:

Of course not, and your reasons are all perfectly valid, and I agree wholeheartedly.

> > FWIW note that France is as much a devastated country as 
> anywhere in 
> > the world. They all ask for Java in job offers, and I'm sure they 
> > don't even know what they're asking for.
> 
> Well I can't speak for the people you've been talking to, but 
> I've just 
> been struggling to find contractors with Java/JSP/XML skills to do 
> integration between an eMarketing system and the client's legacy 
> system. And those were genuinely the skills needed to use the 
> eMarketing system's SDK.

To be more precise: oftentimes here at the moment they ask for java not even knowing what java is. It's just a buzzword here, like VisualBasic was when office applications were being integrated in enterprise-sied systems, ten years ago.

I've got an example not far from here. The Powers-that-be have decided they'll use one big java thing that costs an awful lot of Euros. They didn't consider that some PHP CMS might do the job. And don't even try to tell them now that they've bought the product.

In job offers here it's the same: whatever the offer, be it for a big company or a middle-sized one, they know only Java. This must be qualifying a web dev as a good man who knows everything. And every day in my company I see good core developers making incredible beginners mistakes whenever they come close to putting up web pages. --not to mention no culture inaccessibility, etc.

Oh, forget it, I'm ranting, I guess.

> I'm very much finding that the demand for numbers of people is in
> 1) People able to do integration - both between systems and 
> integrating 
> front end work into systems - but with enough of an understanding of 
> the front end code and design not to screw it up

See above :-)

> 2) People who understand enough of a client's *business* needs to be 
> able to design the solution, choose which packaged components are 
> needed (and spec where bespoke work is necessary), define how 
> its to be 
> configured and document it in such a way that both developers and 
> clients understand it.

That's more and more the direction I'm taking in my professional career.