I had to reply, just so Caitlin didn't feel like this list was her private
domain.....

Caitlin said:
> I know that Leslie Damon has offered to give the talk she gave
> last year again on 'what kind of cs area is your personality suited to'
(I
> hope that's right)

Yes, I have agreed to give my talk again this year, as a way of working off
the debt I acquired by failing to give Caitlin the slides to post last
year, after I promised to.   Watch out -- she'll definitely crack the whip
over you if you default on promises!  :^)

Seriously, I'm glad to do it again, and if you take me up on it I promise I
really will post the slides this time.  To give you a better idea of the
topic:

I gave it some cutesy name for the posters last year:  "Coding Blues?
Alternative Careers in Computer Science".     When I first started out in
the field, I thought that if you were technically competent you obviously
had to aspire to being a programmer/software engineer.  Now, many years
later, I have spent a lengthy amount of time in the field, with only a
small percentage of it as a developer.  I'm not really personality-wise
ready or able to sit in a cubicle all day and code, code, code.   In the
talk, I try to highlight the other areas of commercial software companies
that need technically competent people, but that you might not have
realized existed.  I do try to talk about what personality traits serve you
best in the various fields, so in that sense Caitlin's description is
accurate.     I've been accused of being opinionated once or twice in my
life, and this would be your chance to hear my opinions of the relative
merits of different jobs in software.

Regards,

Leslie

Leslie Damon
TXSeries Encina Development
IBM Pittsburgh Lab
(although living and working in Essex, VT)