Re: UKNM: ho ho ... oh.

[Robert Hamilton]

> There is a simple problem here, there are nowhere near enough GOOD

> programmers in the UK (i.e. people who can spec the program, see problems in

> advance and incorporate solutions into the costings). Yes, I am biased

> (after all I write programs for a living ) but I have not meet many

> programmers who I would trust to offload work onto.


Remember how there was a big fuss that "Nasty Java will give the Internet

back to programmers and techies", just when HTML had allowed the content

people to wrestle it into their grasp? Well, it's fairly simple: content

shouldn't be produced by technical people, and programming shouldn't be done by non-

techies. Alas the web suffers badly from people not adhering to this principle.


I agree that there are very few PROGRAMMERS working in this game - most

people are probably better defined as SysAdmins or Internet Power-users, who 

have learned a bit of Perl. This is becoming more apparent as more businesses 

make the net a part of their process - they need real systems integration 

ability (boring but true) in order to achieve their aims. Not HTML'ers.


The problem is, when we do "spec the program, see problems in advance and

incorporate solutions into the costings", some cowboy outfit is likely to come

along and say to the client "Nooo, you don't need all that, we'll do you a

website for £10,000, no problem". I'm sure we've all been there.


R (suffering from Easter egg withdrawal symptoms)

Robert Hamilton : Technical Director, indexfinger


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