"It's sad, but true. The courses that I used to offer here have to come to end. ... Honestly, I thought I might be teaching these courses into my retirement, but the enrollment numbers don't lie. Since 2023, there has been a complete collapse in the market for continuing education."
Personally, I'm finding this kind of story lately shocking and heartbreaking.
I kept coming back to his course listing to find some that were on site, but they were all online. I wanted to take my current team to the same onsite experience I had with Dave over 15 years ago. Classes taught in person are so much better.
I think that even if you will never code, it will teach you how to think—especially if you also learn math, stats, and other engineering courses.
You start to see patterns that let you understand what input leads to what output, and so to organize your actions in a way that will generate preferred outcomes.
I do not think this is actually AI: currently, there is a narrative (gradually dying out) that AI will replace software engineers and you don't need CS/Software Engineering education as a result. It's the "leaders" who listen to this.
People still learn math, despite the calculator existing. Accounts still learn accounting, despite Excel and accounting software existing.
If/when it does change in 12-24 months, I think companies need to take a serious look at the people in these “leadership” positions. If the quality of their thinking on big things like this is that bad, and so easily swayed by marketing and hype, then they don’t seem qualified for the positions they’re in.
One annoying thing is how long it takes for things to sway back into equilibrium.
It's getting quite exhausting having to endure all these major events of the 21st century and their consequences - 9/11 and the Iraq war, the 2008 financial crisis, covid-19, and now AI.
But I guess it's better than all out war and conquest as was with most of human history.
I wonder about his marketing channels. If it was primarily SEO, that has taken a huge hit especially for programming related searches since AI answers showed up at the top of the SERP.
What I agree with is that things will come back around in 12 to 24 months.
What I don't agree with is that I also consider this to be AI.
In fact, when you use AI, the stratification of input is very clear. In the end, even in software engineering, the quality of what AI produces depends heavily on how you prompt it. And there's no way around it—AI will inevitably do better than most people. It's pointless to say to an encyclopedia, 'I know more than you.' For a human to beat AI, the only way is to dig deeper into the latest technologies, but that's something only scholars who are up to date with cutting-edge academic trends can do. Most ordinary people won't be able to win against it.
However, I think software engineering will continue to exist. The reason is the stratification of input. In the end, software skills might become something like a subset selection technique for prompting within a specific domain.
I've decided to go back to graduate school to get my Professional Educator's License in Secondary Education, final destination unknown
He's long been a fabulous teacher to adults; kids will be lucky to have him.
Best wishes to him going forward.
I wish there was video material of the courses taught by Dave available for purchase.
You can find some video material from O'Reilly Media
"It's sad, but true. The courses that I used to offer here have to come to end. ... Honestly, I thought I might be teaching these courses into my retirement, but the enrollment numbers don't lie. Since 2023, there has been a complete collapse in the market for continuing education."
Personally, I'm finding this kind of story lately shocking and heartbreaking.
I kept coming back to his course listing to find some that were on site, but they were all online. I wanted to take my current team to the same onsite experience I had with Dave over 15 years ago. Classes taught in person are so much better.
I think that even if you will never code, it will teach you how to think—especially if you also learn math, stats, and other engineering courses.
You start to see patterns that let you understand what input leads to what output, and so to organize your actions in a way that will generate preferred outcomes.
Seeing even these experienced professionals quit teaching programming, it seems like AI has had a big impact on the education market
I do not think this is actually AI: currently, there is a narrative (gradually dying out) that AI will replace software engineers and you don't need CS/Software Engineering education as a result. It's the "leaders" who listen to this.
Will change back in 12 - 24 months.
Agreed, it seems like really short-term thinking.
People still learn math, despite the calculator existing. Accounts still learn accounting, despite Excel and accounting software existing.
If/when it does change in 12-24 months, I think companies need to take a serious look at the people in these “leadership” positions. If the quality of their thinking on big things like this is that bad, and so easily swayed by marketing and hype, then they don’t seem qualified for the positions they’re in.
One annoying thing is how long it takes for things to sway back into equilibrium.
It's getting quite exhausting having to endure all these major events of the 21st century and their consequences - 9/11 and the Iraq war, the 2008 financial crisis, covid-19, and now AI.
But I guess it's better than all out war and conquest as was with most of human history.
I wonder about his marketing channels. If it was primarily SEO, that has taken a huge hit especially for programming related searches since AI answers showed up at the top of the SERP.
There are points I agree with and points I don't.
What I agree with is that things will come back around in 12 to 24 months.
What I don't agree with is that I also consider this to be AI.
In fact, when you use AI, the stratification of input is very clear. In the end, even in software engineering, the quality of what AI produces depends heavily on how you prompt it. And there's no way around it—AI will inevitably do better than most people. It's pointless to say to an encyclopedia, 'I know more than you.' For a human to beat AI, the only way is to dig deeper into the latest technologies, but that's something only scholars who are up to date with cutting-edge academic trends can do. Most ordinary people won't be able to win against it.
However, I think software engineering will continue to exist. The reason is the stratification of input. In the end, software skills might become something like a subset selection technique for prompting within a specific domain.