Software developer profession expanding

Employment prospects for software developers are looking up. There's a greater number of developer positions globally than there are qualified software engineers to fill them. This gap will continue to increase as the number of available jobs increases. Meanwhile, remaining fears on the part of some parents and students about IT job security after the dot-com fallout--while unwarranted--are negatively affecting software engineering enrollments, which will also temporarily widen the gap. In addition, fears surrounding outsourced SE jobs might be unfounded, as these are often lower-level positions in which software engineers wouldn't be interested. Also, obituaries for John Vlissides and James E. Tomayko are included. © 2006 IEEE.