[pm90]

Usually I don't give comments like yours the dignity of a reply but it seems like even the best of people in this forum have latched on to certain incorrect ideas, so I'm gonna try one more time.

I wasn't saying your friends and family are incompetent, I was saying they are incompetent programmers, at least right now. I don't believe that everyone can or wants to do software engineering for a living, just like not everyone can or wants to be a chef, or a pilot. Its really important to understand that we can't retrain everyone to fulfill certain roles.

[Chris2048]

> they are incompetent programmers, at least right now

So train them. They will want to be trained and fill those roles if the salary is high.

> I don't believe that everyone can or wants to do software engineering for a living

Why can't they? Offer easy entry, and the promise of a high salary, and more people will want to do these jobs. If everyone got to do what they wanted, we'd have a surplus of firemen and veterinarians, and few accountants and garbage men.

[pm90]

> Why can't they? Offer easy entry, and the promise of a high salary, and more people will want to do these jobs. If everyone got to do what they wanted, we'd have a surplus of firemen and veterinarians, and few accountants and garbage men.

I'm not gonna argue too much on this since people seem to have set their minds on it. Having personally taught in American high schools as part of various outreach programs...I can say that, no, programming is not something you can "train" everyone into. Sure, there are some with aptitude for it, others without it who do want to learn and can be "trained" as you say. But you need to rethink the whole public education system from a very early stage to make it easier for students to be good learners and ultimately good programmers.

> easy entry, and the promise of a high salary

Its already there, yet....crickets.

[Chris2048]

> people seem to have set their minds on it

You're not wrong, people are just stubborn?

> programming is not something you can "train" everyone into

Would you be as happy to conclude that teaching isn't something everyone can do?

If there is some general failing with the entire educational system, "immigration" won't fix that; but this is a tractable/solvable (if difficult) problem if foreign countries are able to produce good students.

> Its already there

Is it? What counts a "high", outside SV? Why are SV wages limited to SV?

Previous posters describe CS majors working for Starbucks/McDonalds - if entry is easy, how could this be?

[pm90]

> Previous posters describe CS majors working for Starbucks/McDonalds - if entry is easy, how could this be?

They most certainly do not...please read the actual post. The post says their college graduate friends...not graduates in CS. Anecdotally, I haven't seen any American with a CS degree be out of job for a very long time unless they were doing something really wrong (i.e. not applying/following up with interviews).

> Would you be as happy to conclude that teaching isn't something everyone can do?

Hah, good point. I am willing to concede I might be a terrible teacher. But if we go along this path, where do you stop? You are trying to find fault in the system, in the teachers etc...essentially looking for a reason other than the most obvious conclusion: not everyone can or wants to be a programmer. Like I said, I do agree with this reasoning though: perhaps if we change the system to have better teachers, a better education system that makes CS more appealing, perhaps there would be more CS graduates.

> If there is some general failing with the entire educational system, "immigration" won't fix that; but this is a tractable/solvable (if difficult) problem if foreign countries are able to produce good students.

Immigration is not meant to fix your education system. They are not mutually exclusive: you can do both. The real reason foreign countries are able to produce good students is an interesting one; personally I get the impression that one of the major reasons is their sheer size ~3 billion people in Indian and China alone. However, one of my friends has correctly pointed out that the 3rd largest foreign student community in US universities after Indian and Chinese is: Korean.

[Chris2048]

> The post says their college graduate friends...not graduates in CS

Ah, I concede this. Maybe this isn't an issue in US as it is in the UK..

> They are not mutually exclusive: you can do both

What stops industry becoming dependent on it though? There are big advantages to H1B visa workers, there is a risk that it saps market demand. Immigration might be the path of least resistance to solving labor shortage, rather than any long-term native plans.

If technology comes to be seen as a reliable high-paid job, via being sustainably high-paid, then it's reputation will bring in more people. Immigration is a threat to this. You can argue industrial benefit to this, but how sustainable is it? What if the US lost it's attractivity, what would happen to the H1B workers then? The US needs to figure out how to produce workers - being able to skim the cream from other demographics is a benefit, but a dangerous temptation as well.

[pm90]

There is absolutely nothing that stops the industry from being dependent on it. It is a very real risk. But restricting immigration is certainly not the solution.

I've seen you argue for a market where demand doesn't meet supply as a desirable state for the labor market. If you do believe that, then there is really no basis for this particular debate. The principle of my argument has been that there is a problem, labor shortage which cannot be fixed by the solutions offered. If you're arguing that the labor shortage is not a problem, then that is a completely different debate.

[unprepare]

>Ah, I concede this. Maybe this isn't an issue in US as it is in the UK..

You shouldnt, i later specified i was including CS grads - i was a CS major until i switched to MIS, so most of my college friends are from one of those two programs.

[unprepare]

I wrote a whole long thing, but i think its much better to just illustrate my point.

You claim that H1B's:

1. can and should be used for entry level positions, because it is impossible to find entry level employees for programming

2. companies are completely unable to fill programming positions with US employees.

So lets investigate those claims then. Well, good place to start is probably looking at the top job titles of H1B visa holders.[1] Turns out the number 1 title by far, is 'Programmer Analyst' kinda vague, so lets try to dig in and see what that really is.

To do that, we can look for the top H1B visa employers[2] that appears to be Cognizant at 15,680 in 2015, followed by Infosys and TATA.

Well now that we know who the top employer of H1Bs is and what the top job title is, should be pretty easy to find an open position on their job board, right? Then we can look at the requirements for the 'Programmer Analyst' job and see what exactly is so specialized that no US college graduate is capable of accomplishing.

Weirdly, even though they filled over 33,000 of this job merely 2 years ago (an average of almost 100 jobs filled per day!) There is only 1 single job posting for a 'Programmer Analyst'[3]

Even weirder! the requirements for this job:

>Requirement: Basic computer knowledge, Good Communication skills and willing to work in night shifts

Well, that doesnt seem like such a demanding position to me....

Infosys had 0 job listings under that same title, TATA's careers site has no job listings at all[4]

But yeah, maybe you are right, maybe its just a coincidence that the top H1B job title has only 1 single listing across the top 3 H1B visa employers. Better keep letting them hire immigrants, since those stupid college grads 'cant code to save their lives' as you so put it.

[1]http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-Category.asp...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Top_H-1B_employers_b...

[3]https://cognizant.taleo.net/careersection/1nacorp/jobdetail....

[4]http://www.tata.com/careers/index/Career

[pm90]

Let me repeat that I am not denying the existence of H1B fraud. I am saying that H1B can and should be used for entry level positions as well. And if there are companies abusing the system, as you point out, they are breaking the law. They should be prosecuted and stopped.

[unprepare]

an H1B visa is specifically for someone in a "Specialty occupation" and very specifically requires experience in the field.

>(3) 12/ For purposes of section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b1) , the term `specialty occupation' means an occupation that requires--

>(A) theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge; and

>(B) attainment of a bachelor's or higher degree in the specific specialty (or its equivalent) as a minimum for entry into the occupation in the United States.

So, since 'Entry Level' means someone without experience in the field - the H1B visa clearly does not apply to them.