aqsis

Oh jeez! Not this crap again.

What an utterly ridiculous question, one that could only come from the mind of an indoctrinated theist.

Why do theists have children when there's at least a 50% chance they'll burn in hell for eternity? Wouldn't it be safer just to not have kids and not take the chance?

I don't believe in an afterlife of any kind, so I raise my children to be good people and make the most of the one life they have.

Sound like software development might be a good opportunity for your dad to put his analytical skills to good use in his retirement. I'd suggest finding an existing open source project that relates to a field that he has particular interest in. That might be something related to his career or other interests throughout his life. Choosing a project that has an innate interest to him is more likely to be "sticky" and would make learning the new technologies and systems more achievable. By far the best place to start would be on Github of course, scan through the projects on there for something that jumps out and is looking for contribution.

Good communication, both ways. As an engineer, you'll be faced with situations where you have to explain something highly technical to someone not so technical, and more likely more often, understand what someone non-technical is asking for. Being able to interpret non-technical requirements into technical requirements is a really valuable skill.

Pandemic - my daughter and I love playing this, because it's collaborative, you all win, or you all lose.

I wouldn't stress it too much. It used to be that a lots of places on your work history was frowned upon, but in my experience as a hirer, it's not such a big deal these days. It shouldn't affect your hireability in the future in any measurable way.

Yep, I'm the same. At my last company they tried many times to get me to take a big monitor "like everyone else", but I feel more effective on a single MacBook Pro with multiple desktops and the awesome trackpad.

Spot on, came to say exactly the same thing. If you don't trust the people you hire, then don't hire them.

Productize: make it reliable, secure, polished, i.e. make it a product, not a prototype.

The only advice I can give is from my perspective as an employer at a large SaaS company recently. As CTO I was responsible for building a large team covering various skills, including a large number of software engineers. My experience led me to a position where I would actually favor candidates who had significant experience over those with academic qualifications. I have often found, not always but often, that highly qualified engineers need to be "retrained", as software development in the commercial world is (IMHO) a very different discipline to that taught in academia.

I should stress, that my experience is in very specific fields, visual effects, games, retail intelligence, VR, and this may colour my advice. It is entirely possible, in fact likely, that academic qualifications are more valuable than experience in other sectors. I would advise researching the nature of the sector you want to work in, if possible speak to various companies and agencies who specialise in that area, and see what the general expectation is. You may find that a lack of formal qualification might hinder you even getting to interview.

Summary, I personally don't feel that academic qualifications hold any particular value over experience, and strongly believe that someone who is motivated to learn themselves brings value in a different way to a business. But that might not be the opinion of every business or sector, so be careful.

Simple, because Facebook are a threat to the entire way of life for mainstream press, so they will jump all over this, spin it and twist it in all sorts of wonderful, self serving ways to ensure their continued existence against the beast that is threatening to turn them into inconsequential dinosaurs.

None, you'd be wasting your time and energy. Languages come and go, good software design principles stand the test of time. Spend your energy wisely, learning good core principles, which can then be applied easily to any language you get forced to use at any point, be that by an employer, or the guardians of a platform.