Weekly Topics - Week 8: Professionalism

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This week’s topic is about Professionalism. I'm going to write a short depiction about the IT sector in my home country. I’ll describe how it changed during the last 20 years. My home country is Germany, so we’ll have a look on the IT sector there. 20 years ago, the society for the German language chose the word “multimedia” as the word for the year [1]. A big change in the IT sector is, that nowadays the customers have all the IT equipment at home. The customers turned into users. That caused IT systems so to be more efficient, but also easier to use and cheaper. Sensitivity to data protection has declined significantly over the past 20 years. While Germans are still concerned about their personal data (especially in an EU comparison), they are now much more open with their data. The vice president of the society of informatics Andreas Oberweis said, that “Today, there is more of a serenity about data protection issues that almost borders on carelessness." There are also some technologies that were expected to be a huge hit, but they disappeared a few years later. The RFID-Chips were supposed to be a game changer for the logistics sector, trade sector and productions. But soon technical problems appeared that couldn’t be solved to this day. However, many IT-ideas became reality over the last 20 years. For example, 20 years ago it was a big goal to automate corporate processes. The technology should enable flexibility and quick and easy adaptation to changing conditions. But are the new technologies demand the same knowledge on IT staff like the old ones? According to Oberweis: No. He said:
“Ten years ago, the focus tended to be on knowledge and skills in the technical field, combined with general problem-solving skills and creativity. Today, IT graduates should also have teamwork skills, communication skills and business acumen. Surprisingly, the industry that has reshaped both our social lives and our work has not itself changed all that much.”.

Another source claimed this: "Software developed 20–30 years ago was much simpler compared to modern software, with respect to functionality, security, performance, and scalability. Only a handful of libraries or frameworks were available at that time to implement any functionalities." [2]

Software development is a complex process, and programming is just one of the areas to contribute to modern software [2]. 

It's easy to see, that the IT sector changed a lot during the last 20 years. If it is harder today to work in this sector or easier is not my expertise. But it's safe to say, that it changed a lot and demands different skills now.



[1] https://www.audimax.de/informatik/entwicklung-der-it-branche-in-den-vergangenen-20-jahren/
[2] http://greiterweb.de/spw/Software-Entwicklung-damals-und-heute.htm

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