Computer programmers used to play goofy games, like trying to write the one-line program that would do the most powerful things.
If they were using different languages, the person armed with a language called APL would almost certainly be the winner. While FORTRAN and COBOL hackers scribbled frantically, the APLer just made a few elegant keystrokes and sat back.
Yet, if you asked that APL programmer to explain the program a few weeks later, you might receive a blank stare. People joked that “APL was a write-only language” because even the author often had trouble understanding a program written in it.
Such were the vagaries of what may have been the most powerful computer language ever hatched by a Canadian. Yes, I know that James Gosling, an alumnus of the University of Calgary, was the “father of Java.” He and I have talked about it. And yes, there is a now a game called “Perl Golf” in which you try to do the most work in that scripting language with the fewest number of (key-) strokes. Java and Perl are good and useful and popular, but APL was . . . beautiful.
APL was the brainchild of computer scientist Kenneth E. Iverson, Alberta-born and Harvard-educated. He rocked the IT world in 1962 with his entirely new idea for a programming language.
It used a special keyboard with Greek letters. It did amazing things. It was indistinguishable from magic. Modestly, he called it APL, for A Programming Language.
Geeks all over the world felt their age when Ken Iverson died recently on Oct. 19. He did the computer scientist version of dying in the saddle – suffering a stroke while sitting at his keyboard. He was working on a successor to APL called the J Language – even more powerful than APL, and no need for Greek letters. (You can download it for free.)
His son Eric told the world via the Internet that “in his last days, Ken expressed confidence that the J seeds he had planted had taken root and was satisfied that the steady and healthy growth would continue.”
Which brings us to a burning question: Where are the next generation of Iversons and Goslings going to come from? Enrolments in computer science programs are dropping alarmingly, and the dot-com bust didn’t help things one bit.
Educational institutions are working hard to convince kids that computers are indeed great fun. The University of Calgary, for example, has after-school and summer programs for “technologically advanced youth” in areas such as software development and even cybersecurity. On a national basis, the Software Human Resources Council of Canada (SHRC) has just unveiled a new website to inform youth about IT careers.
I must disclose that I sit on the board of the SHRC and helped it plan out its revamped IT careers site, which is called, logically enough, DiscoverIT.org. It has entertaining features for kids such as an IT Time Machine and a Make Your Own Music Video application.
On a more serious note, young people and their parents can get credible information about the IT careers of today and tomorrow, including what they pay and how you get into them. Of course, the salary ranges are just indications (I’ll bet plenty of systems analysts make less than $53,000 or more than $81,250) but they’re certainly helpful.
Recently, I made a donkey of myself doing some high-volume video rants worthy of Junkyard Wars, extolling the virtues of IT careers to kids. One was for the Science Alberta Foundation and it will probably show up on their website to embarrass me.
I do this because there is a real danger that young people will decide that an IT career is boring, irrelevant or that “its time has come and gone.”
That may actually be true for the “pure play” computer geek. We probably don’t need lots of people inventing wacky new computer languages. But we need some.
And you never know, there may be a young Iverson or Gosling lurking out there.
What we definitely need are people who are totally comfortable with computers, and who know how to integrate them intelligently into business and everyday life.
There’s a move afoot by CIPS, the Canadian Information Processing Society, to push professionalism and credentials in IT. “The business environment is changing,” says CIPS national president Rick Penton. “CIOs and their IT organizations are taking on formal accountability and responsibility to meet the emerging business demands in areas such as security, privacy, disaster recovery, business continuity and risk management.”
The implication is that you are trusting some pretty important corporate family jewels to the IT crew, so you’d better choose them well. Penton points to a Software Human Resources Council study that found a lot of blunders in hiring IT professionals: “Seventy-five per cent of employers found themselves hiring staff who lacked the expected required skills for their positions.” The SHRC estimates that hiring errors cost the firms “an average of $37,000 annually.”
Yes, I have the CIPS-issued Information Systems Professional (ISP) credential after my name because, heck, I’ve earned it and might as well flaunt it. It helps reassure people that I am not some guy in a garage who once read a book about computers.
The ISP basically says that you have a computer science degree or the equivalent, along with work experience. It also, and this is more and more important in today’s world, confirms that you subscribe to a code of ethics.
There was once a movement to license computer programmers such as doctors or engineers. I figured that was wrong-headed, because, hey, maybe 14-year-old James Gosling wouldn’t have gotten a licence to program. On the other hand, if you’re creating the software that engineers use to build bridges, you do need to be held accountable. To me, the ISP addresses these issues quite intelligently.
So, type a few lines of code in memory of Alberta farmboy Ken Iverson and keep your eyes peeled for the next smart kid who might have a goofy-but-great idea that will change the world of information technology.
Web watch:
www.jsoftware.com
www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/Jlang.html
Tom Keenan, ISP, is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)
