Re: [tlug] [OT] Questions about Employment in Japan

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

Wow. No wonder Stephen's a professor. I'm pleased that I seem to have
been lucid enough that he understood what I was getting at.

I must admit to a slight emotional bias towards PhDs myself, when it
comes to hiring, but on reflection, I attribute it to so many good
people in the Haskell world having them; I have little doubt about the
order of cause and effect there.

I agree that writing is definitely something to pursue. Not only is it
an incredibly difficult skill to teach, but of course doing it well
forces you to think, which is a skill that is very broadly applicable
indeed.

I'd go so far as to say you should start a blog, and write a weekly
essay of a few hundred words on whatever you've found interesting
lately. It's a good way to practice. Use a psuedonym if you don't want
your estate digging up and broadcasting your juvenelia after you're
dead. :-)

I also, now that it's been pointed out, highly agree with Stephen's
suggestion to study accounting. I'd always wondered why I seemed to have
a penchant for it, and I now realize why. Accounting is in fact very
similar to computer programming. Building an IT system is often like
building an accounting system: you're creating a model of some part of
the world and using that model to answer questions about the world.
They are eerily similar disciplines.

And of course, even when you're not writing financial accounting systems
per se, you still need to write an accounting system of some sort to
track something.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974
           Functional programming in all senses of the word:
                   http://www.starling-software.com