> on keeping outsiders out. one thing i didn't mention, though should have,
> was the influx of those godamned ferriners. this will likely be THE
> biggest impulse to professionalize, particularly has the labor market is
> filled with more skilled "natives".
Hm. In this regard, the Slashdot story yesterday which highlighted the plight of H1B visa workers was interesting. A fair smattering of comments identified in some way with the H1Bers. I don't know why /. seems to attract the 'liberal geek set', but it certainly seems to be more liberal than say #freebsdhelp on EFFnet.
I suspect that what we're actually going to see is a split - where the consultants go one way, and the 'commodity programmers' go another. After all, before this latest round of venture-capital largesse, that's pretty much where things were sitting anyway, with a fairly large rift starting to develop between the 'systems analysts' and the plebs.
And then, of course, you have the little groups of lefties, like the IWW section for IT and telecoms workers, and sites like Monkeyfist.com - but their 'lack of professionalism' probably will be an employment barrier to them in the future (as it might well be for me - we'll see).
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844