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It was before your time. Grep for 'compiler' on that page.

Joel Spolsky was, among other things, PM on Excel pre Office 95. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 07.html and http://discuss.fogcreek.com/askjoel/default.asp?cm d=show&ixPost=4201 might be of interest.

The bit in the article about how XML will solve all our data interchange problems is particularly curious. C'mon, it's just text files with a bunch of angle brackets, when it gets right down to it.

Definitely. So they could rely less on third-party publishers - see Spolsky's Something Rotten in AdSense.

It's too bad that you and so many others think that cheaper is better. It has been speculated that cheaper is not always better. In 2000 Joel Spolsky set up Frog Creek Software to prove that Better Programmers make Better Software.

I would suggest reating the above article and few other things by Joel to get an understanding of why it's not always best to go for the cheapest option. You do after all get what you pay for.

Oh and by the way I am totaly unaffiliated with Joel Spolsky, I just have a similar thinking that he sums up real well.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 38.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 70.html

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 38.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 70.html

• How do You Compensate Programmers?
• Feedback on Programmer Compensation
• Fog Creek Compensation
• Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt

• How do You Compensate Programmers?
• Feedback on Programmer Compensation
• Fog Creek Compensation
• Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt

• How do You Compensate Programmers?
• Feedback on Programmer Compensation
• Fog Creek Compensation
• Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt

• How do You Compensate Programmers?
• Feedback on Programmer Compensation
• Fog Creek Compensation
• Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt

Joel on software has this to say (from http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubber Duckies.html):

There's no software priced between $1000 and $75,000. I'll tell you why. The minute you charge more than $1000 you need to get serious corporate signoffs. You need a line item in their budget. You need purchasing managers and CEO approval and competitive bids and paperwork. So you need to send a salesperson out to the customer to do PowerPoint, with his airfare, golf course memberships, and $19.95 porn movies at the Ritz Carlton. And with all this, the cost of making one successful sale is going to average about $50,000. If you're sending salespeople out to customers and charging less than $75,000, you're losing money.

Joel Spolsky has a pretty good article about just this (what he says about software certainly applies to hardware as well), he goes a little more into the economics of it:

What this means is that if you are a software developer, the only thing that makes sense financially is to develop a Windows version first. Then, you need to evaluate the cost of doing a Mac version. If that cost is only 10% more, it's worth it. If that cost is something like 50% more, it's not worth it.

One of the biggest themes in software industry failures is a platform vendor that didn't understand that they were a platform vendor, so they alienated their key constituency: the developers.

Eliminating Microsoft is a good way of increasing your computer costs.

It might be hard to see from the end user perspective, but it's crystal clear from a developer perspective. But don't take my word for it, take Joel's:

I'd love to have a Mac version and a Linux version, but they are not good uses of limited resources. Every dollar I invest in CityDesk Windows will earn me 20 times as many sales as a dollar invested in a hypothetical Mac version. Even if you assume that Mac has a higher percentage of creative and home users, I'm still going to sell a heck of a lot more copies on Windows than I could on Mac. And that means that to do a Mac version, the cost had better be under 10% of the cost of a Windows version. Unfortunately, that's nowhere near true for CityDesk. We benefit from using libraries that are freely available on Windows (like the Jet multiuser ACID database engine and the DHTML edit control) for which there are no equivalents on the Macintosh. So if anything, a Mac port would cost more than the original Windows version. Until somebody does something about this fundamental economic truth, it's hard to justify Mac versions from a business perspective. (Incidentally, I have said time and time again, if Apple wants to save the Mac, they have to change this equation.)

And don't get me started about Linux. I don't know of anyone making money off of Linux desktop software, and without making money, I can't pay programmers and rent and buy computers and T1s. Despite romantic rhetoric, I really do need to pay the rent, so for now, you're going to have to rely on college kids and the occasional charitable big company for your Linux software.

If someone's going to do a new application, it's much more likely to be a Windows application. If someone's going to offer technical support services, they're much more likely to focus on Windows support. If someone's going to make hardware, they're much more likely to focus on getting Windows supported first.

This all means if you're not using Windows, you're going to pay for it with time or money.

(Read the whole article at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 51.html)

Sorry, the Intel/Microsoft/Cisco "We want the top 10%, and only the top 10%" isn't sustainable, even with a surplus of cheap H1B's.

Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco don't give a rat's ass whether or not they hire the "top 10%". There's no benefit to them in hiring a certain percentage. What they want is competent employees. The unfortunate reality is that a pretty large chunk (maybe 90% is hyperbole, but it's up there) of the people in the software development world just plain aren't competent. And a lot of the people griping about "there being no jobs" are just not competent. Harsh to say it, perhaps, but true.

Someone walking out and doing the bare minimum to get a degree simply does not make them a competent worker (and that goes for prestigious universities as well, like Stanford, CMU, MIT, etc). It is quite possible to get a degree and simply not *know* enough to be particularly useful.

As Joel Spolsky put it Third, and trust me on this, there's still an incredible shortage of the really good programmers, here and in India. Yes, there are a bunch of out of work IT people making a lot of noise about how long they've been out of work, but you know what? At the risk of pissing them off, really good programmers do have jobs.

And then Apple plays this whole "$50 more" game.

It's called Market Segmentation, and Joel Spolsky wrote a great article on it.

Why wasn't Microsoft first off the block with public AJAX webmail too?

This is why.

If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, skip down to the part about HTA's.

Basically, just like Sony has competing divisions (content creation & media playback) with different goals ("charge for every play!" vs. "be able to play anything!") MS is currently getting cut in two by their desire to keep their desktop dominance and their need to compete with other companies that offer great web apps.

Our small but growing startup is using Fogbugz , an excellent bug tracking tool. It is integrated with our subversion repository, and I have nothing but high praise for its ease of use and feature set.

Fogbugz easily solves this dilemma. To restate, the same bug is present in multiple revisions, and it must be fixed in each one.

One bug is created describing the problem. The bug's is marked as present in one of the revisions, and the text of the bug includes which branches/revisions it is present in. As each revision/branch is fixed, the bug is changed in the 'fix-for' to the next revision, and a comment added with info on the remaining branches to be fixed.

I would suggest to the Fogbugz development team (headed by Joel Spolsky ) that it is possible to handle this even better by allowing multiple revisions to be selected for the 'FixFor' pulldown, and then thereafter allow these to be unchecked or added to as need be.

Otherwise, the existing Fogbugz will work just fine. I can't speak to Bugzilla, but it might have a technique as well.

No, a degree doesn't 'entitle' you to anything. Here is what I'm trying to say: A cubicle is a sign of a bankrupt corporate culture, one not likely to value you. And odds are, you won't find yourself doing interesting projects at your workplace. Unless your definition of interesting is an online profit-loss worksheet for accounts receiveable. JoelOnSoftware.com has an article titled "Five Worlds" in the archive. I would definitely suggest you check it out.

Living to 300... of course we will, we'll have to work till we are 280 though.

Sort of.

Technology exists to leverage your productivity. Therefore, those who utilize technology as fully as possible are able to produce more. They are, therefore, worth more to society than those who do not. Thus, they should be paid more.

Put it like this: If you had to dig a trench to run a water pipe for a mile or two, who would you rather hire: A) A team of cheap, immigrant laborors who work under the table with their shovels or B) A well-to-do guy with a fancy, high-capacity ditch-witch tractor?

Guy B gets it done in a day or two, the team of manual laborors take a month to do an inferior job. Thus, a single guy out-produces and out-performs 10 manual laborors due to technology. Should he be paid the same as the laborors?

This effect gets more and more pronounced as the technology involved gets more sophisticated. Joel Spolsky hits on this idea in a big way in a recent "Joel on Software" article.

The divide between the haves (most notably, the "upper-middle" class now splitting away from the "middle class") and the have nots (the welfare-poor) is very sharply divided on terms of education. (and the implicit association with the ability to leverage technology)

If you're working long and hard until you're 280, it's because you haven't leveraged the technology and forces around you well enough to produce the wealth you need for the living you want. (which gets cheaper and cheaper as time goes by, though expectations seem to rise to match)

For that matter, it seems as though there's a burgeoning population of people widely acknowledged as "never going to make it" now living on the public dole. Cheaper just to pay them off with food than to try to make them fit productively in society. This, in my mind, is a rotting cancer in society - people on the dole tend to have a very low sense of self, and often feel utterly worthless as they cash their state checks. (I have a sister stuck in this very trap - it's terrible to watch)

Anyway, this rant has gone on too long. What was the question again?

Joel Spolsky certainly disagrees. And not just in theory.

Joel Spolsky certainly disagrees. And not just in theory.

It does not even have to be "broken" for people to switch. Did people switch to Excel because 1-2-3 was "broken"? No, it simply served people's needs better, and enough barriers to entry fell that it was worthwhile to switch.

Why has Firefox adoption slowed? Because about as many people have switched for whom it is worthwhile to switch to Firefox 1.0. When Firefox 1.5 is out, expect a few more to switch, because it's a little better. Firefox 2.0 will bring another level of people. If (when?) HP or Dell or Apple start preloading Firefox, it'll grow by even more.

Don't forget that it's the primary browser for lots of Linux users. Linux usage is still growing, and every Linux user has a good chance of being a Firefox user -- and a 0% chance of being an IE user.

And remember, Any technology that surpasses 50% penetration will never double again (in any number of months).

Having worked on a huge embedded software project (think switch) where we lifted the software up ... in short, I don't think Joel knows what he's talking about.

This is almost as good as the AC who replied to Tom Christiansen asking "Do you even know anything about Perl?"

Comparing a embedded project (where newer revs of the software don't cause the capabilities of the hardware don't change) to an open-ended application (like a browser or a word-processor whose featureset is really limited by imagination) or a mass-market OS (which has to run on a wide range of hardware and take into account numerous idiosyncracies) is really comparing apples and oranges. The fact that Slashdotters think that their niche of expertise qualifies them to pronounce judgement on everything in software is really, really amusing.

And oh, about Spolsky, he is very clear about which niche his writings deal with.

It was certainly a big mistake for Netscape Inc.

It's taken the best part of a decade to get the rewrite to an acceptable state, and the company that started it is now dead.

More here (but note the article is 5 years old)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 69.html

Far from proving the other poster right, your example is a perfect illustration of why he's wrong.

And that, kids, is why you shouldn't take design advice from Slashdot. There's just too many armchair software purists around here whose experience solely consists of doing CS lab exercises or developing software solely for relatively smallscale in-house apps for their 'insights' to be broadly applicable to the real world.

That's terrible advice. Real-world code tends to be messy because you have to put in a lot of workarounds and bug fixes. When you rewrite something, you lose years of cumulative bugfixes. Suddenly obscure configurations are crashing, and you have no clue why, because the old code bears no resemblance to the new code, and the beardly expert on that platform has retired, so nobody is there to tell you that although the specs say foo should be a float, it actually expects an int.

It's one of those practices that works well in college courses, but simply falls apart when applied to a project larger than a few thousand lines of code. Tell me, did this professor have actual real world experience, or was he in academia for his whole career? I'm betting on the latter.

instead of rewriting, you should refactor, preferably with the aid of lots of regression tests. That enables you to restructure the application slowly, without changing behaviour in unexpected ways.

Things you should never do: rewrite.

You have forgotten the main reason: Microsoft hates the whole "thin client" concept, because it makes the "desktop" thing irrelevant. Most windows apps (even open-source) are damn hard to port to other OSes... except for those that are really just front-ends.

Basically that's the same reason they wanted to kill Netscape.

I'm not stating anything new here, it's all Joel: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

The Google's business model is commoditizing the "end user's computer platform". Too bad for MSFT.

Also, Google is getting too mush control over the Internet. If I control all the people's cars, I'm Overlord... Until someone takes over the oil and suddenly is on par with me. Worst nightmare (I don't control the cars, just an example).

That said, I find parent's posts completely valid, maybe except for #2: surely it's running Linux but than what? Not so much publicity...

But anyway Google *is* helping Linux. I've found Googling howtos/manuals easier than reading through windows/office/whatever help files that silently assume I'm dumb and don't want any choice :-P

Be realistic.

I am.

If your webapp is a few years old, then it's probably about time that it was rewritten anyway, just to incorporate CSS/XHTML and other stuff which didn't exist / wasn't mature enough when the project started.

These can be selectively and incremenetally rolled in.

Also, if it's a webapp, it's probably a bunch of hacks thrown together anyway - why not take version 1 as a "write one to throw away" prototype, and rewrite the entire thing, using the lessons learned?

Some sections are hacks, most aren't.

If you're doing that, there's no pain (and potential gain, if you choose the right language) in switching languages at the same time.

We aren't on the same planet are we. No PAIN? What the hell do you think you are saying? There is a huge amount of pain. You go to your customers and say: "Uhh we are going to change the underlying technology of the website. No it won't offer any new features. No it won't really be any different. It also means that there will be no new features for the next 9 months, and we aren't even sure of that figure. It could be more".

You are telling me to be realistic?

Allow me to quote from someone else who expresses it well:
So you've got the Windows API, you've got VB, and now you've got .NET, in several language flavors, and don't get too attached to any of that, because we're making Avalon, you see, which will only run on the newest Microsoft operating system, which nobody will have for a loooong time. And personally I still haven't had time to learn .NET very deeply, and we haven't ported Fog Creek's two applications from classic ASP and Visual Basic 6.0 to .NET because there's no return on investment for us. None. It's just Fire and Motion as far as I'm concerned: Microsoft would love for me to stop adding new features to our bug tracking software and content management software and instead waste a few months porting it to another programming environment, something which will not benefit a single customer and therefore will not gain us one additional sale, and therefore which is a complete waste of several months, which is great for Microsoft, because they have content management software and bug tracking software, too, so they'd like nothing better than for me to waste time spinning cycles catching up with the flavor du jour, and then waste another year or two doing an Avalon version, too, while they add features to their own competitive software. Riiiight.
source

I am interested in upgrades. I am almost never interested in upgrades that dump what you have a start again. I am interested in incremental upgrades.

There is a reason I am migrating the site to .Net. There is also a reason why I am doing it in stages.

My training is as an engineer. One thing I learnt from my degree was that anyone can walk into a plan and tell them to raze it to the ground and build a more efficient, better plant. This is not a useful solution. However if you can tell them how that can adapt what they have to produce a more efficient, better solution, then you have something of interest.

It would be extremely important to use coding standards which make wrong code look wrong. Not only that it would be more difficult to inject malicious code, but if somebody made mistakes, it would be really easy to discover it.
Joel has a great article on this.

While I agree in principle on too many people being overly receptive only to the messages they prefer to hear, that argument may not be totally applicable here.

I failed in my search to find a blog entry where a former Microsoft insider (and still sympathetic to MS) had a bleaker assessment than what you would call reality.
[Search in [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/%5D for a writeup on why he did not think .Net led anywhere. Earlier than Jan. 2, 2005.]

As another comment that stated (which I was tempted to reply to) posed the damaging effect of MS dropping all those developers. it has happened before and will again whenever MS thinks its best interests are threatened. All those that follow the present trends blindly with no independent analysis are open to suffer the consequences.

Even with preparation (due diligence) the future is hard to predict.

They already have an ASP to PHP compiler which they use to build their FogBugz software. Note this is not available to the general public, just bringing it up in relation to the topic.

Granted, I don't know if it's the .NET environment to PHP but I'd wager it probably is knowing FogCreek.

I always find Joel on Software to be an enjoyable read.

*jaw hits the floor*

That's an interesting factoid. I guess it shouldn't really surprise me after Joel's big rant about APIs, in which he carries on for some time about the MSDN Magazine camp of Microsoft. These are the people who come up with newer, shinier dev tools every quarter whether people actually use them or not. Hell, there was that article a while back about Microsoft just giving away like 20 of their technologies which they're kinda not using.

So, Microsoft creates a lot of technology. They should with that huge, huge R&D budget. But there's an incredible level dissonance in the company, between upper management and workers (Steve Ballmer vs. the World) and between development teams. Maybe that's just a natural byproduct of being the world's largest software company. But it certainly sheds light on why their product development cycle is completely out of whack.

Maybe I should congratulate Ballmer, after all. Since WinFS and Monad have been removed, what you have is Windows XP++: new widgets, not much else. At least if they succeed in this push they can get some value out of those new graphical apis alone.

*jaw hits the floor*

That's an interesting factoid. I guess it shouldn't really surprise me after Joel's big rant about APIs, in which he carries on for some time about the MSDN Magazine camp of Microsoft. These are the people who come up with newer, shinier dev tools every quarter whether people actually use them or not. Hell, there was that article a while back about Microsoft just giving away like 20 of their technologies which they're kinda not using.

So, Microsoft creates a lot of technology. They should with that huge, huge R&D budget. But there's an incredible level dissonance in the company, between upper management and workers (Steve Ballmer vs. the World) and between development teams. Maybe that's just a natural byproduct of being the world's largest software company. But it certainly sheds light on why their product development cycle is completely out of whack.

Maybe I should congratulate Ballmer, after all. Since WinFS and Monad have been removed, what you have is Windows XP++: new widgets, not much else. At least if they succeed in this push they can get some value out of those new graphical apis alone.

First, to all you Slashdotters out there - I'm not trying to feed the trolls - this post looks legit to me

Of course its not legit! Ask yourself why someone claiming to be who she is would post that in a trademark in Austrailia thread on Slashdot, of all places. It was originally posted on Joel on Software, as a quick Google search discovered:

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel .3.178798.3

The trolls thank you for the free meal.

Ahhh.. you have to ask former microsoft employee why..

This man needs +5 insightful tattooed on his fore-head.

Simon

Even if your schedule had a bunch of more immediately practical classes (XML, Java, blah blah) they'd be obsolete soon enough. Look at college as a place to learn the more unchanging basics (e.g. algorithms, how-a-programming-language-works, etc.) and broaden your mind beyond computers (take classes you're interested in).

Learning to write may be the most useful software development skill you can learn in college, more so than a lot of the more specialized CS or software engineering classes; most any class with papers (vs. problem sets) will help you learn to write.

The place to learn the syntax of a particular language, or a new API or technology, is from books. Or online docs. Read as much as you can. Also read about things like interaction design, development methodology, coding style, etc. not just technical manuals. There are tons of people on the internet dishing out advice to new programmers, for example http://joelonsoftware.com/ is popular.

As you read, you have to write code. Try to use what you learn, and try to read things that address problems you're having. This will make the reading "stick."

A tough thing for new programmers is to realize that you have to write tens of thousands of lines of code before you stop sucking. Maybe 100K lines or more. No matter how smart you are. That's going to take a couple of years of daily practice, and lots of smart people aren't used to needing that much practice.

You're way better off putting a big dent in this _before_ you start your first job. Especially because many entry-level jobs have you write the wrong kind of code. It's best if you try to design and architect all your nonworking, terrible practice code, but your first employer won't let you. So even when you get a job, if you want to get good at programming you should probably have a weekend project that's more "from scratch" with you in charge, vs. the more common first job of maintenance programming directed by others.

To me I'd really want to hire someone who could show a lot of code already written in spare time. It means they have a lot of their initial tens of thousands of lines of practice behind them, and it shows that they really like the work and are capable of doing it.

Sample work (and practical experience) will make a much bigger difference in interviews than which classes you took. If you have good sample work you don't even need a degree in a computer-related field.

This was predicted long ago in one of Joel's most popular essays. Joel Spolsky used to work in Microsoft and he foresaw the exploitation of cookie and information swap:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 47.html

[snip]

...One day, Expedia could start offering higher fares to customers who have more than a million dollars in their Investor stock portfolio. There's not really anything technically impossible about this, and it's probably legal, too... ...The scary thing is that if you use Internet Explorer, Microsoft controls your web browser...

[/snip]

"Species" is an abstraction. Abstractions leak. Consider the sexual crossing of genes, the non-uniform application of environmental pressures across a population, the importation of new DNA via cross-breeding/microevolution, the occasional mutation... with the various forces of differentiation at work, it's hard to imagine how a species could keep itself together unchanged for the long haul. The miracle of life is not that species split apart but that their individuals members are--for a time--able to spawn new members despite everybody having different DNA.

If you have difficulty relating to this, look at human languages. They work in mostly the same way... if, for instance, you were to geographically isolate two groups of English speakers for several centuries, you would likely get two child languages that were mutually unintelligible.

You may find this post to be more applicable to your original question. Also, I am not a geneticist, but I believe that you are overestimating the role of mutations in driving change.

I hate Microshaft because of their business practices, which do extend into shoddy products that they make. Windows is just the beginning. It isn't all that bad of an OS, but it is so easy to flat-out ruin. Viruses are easy to write for Windows. It's code is just one big heap, a monolith of sorts.

I do not hate the giant for the sake of hating them. That is just stupid. And if they adopted Linux without bastardizing the OS, I'd be in favor of it. Maybe call it Winux or something (pronounced "winks"). Maybe get off of the IP high-horse and go a little Open Source (without attacking us, the people who make /. great). Maybe stop invading and monopolizing other markets. Apple is not the major innovator that people purport them to be, but they do have the creative spirit and they do innovate many products. Apple didn't invent the .mp3 format nor did they invent the player, nor did they even invent the small hard drive. But they did put them together into a user-friendly, elegant, and stylish package that seamlessly worked and synchronized with the user's computer. Instead of being a weed, as M$ is, they are more of a collaborator.

As for the hardware, I have one quasi-word for you: OSx86. M$ has in the past done a fairly good job of keeping hardware interoperable, yet even Linux Distros seem to do a good job. The proof of the pudding, however, is the software interoperability and backward compatibility. The Win API is significantly different in Vista, something that will break backward compatibility. With tools like Wine and Rosetta, Microsoft no longer has a monopoly on the API. Plus, since Vista promises no backward-compatibility (although I only know a bit about it, so someone feel free to correct me), and at most it would use something like the "classic" emulator in OS X. I actually hope that M$ can reinvent itself, so that maybe we will actually have competitive computer companies that are providing products that equal or surpass Moore's law. Wouldn't that be great? Then us /. folks would have even less of a life :-D.

God! I feel like a complete dumbass now! I only suspected this to be a troll but I just wasn't sure. The formatting was the give-away.

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel .3.178798.34

This is the source of the parent's text... I guess we'll know it when we see it again....

Except Avalon doesn't really fit the definition of vaporware, especially since a beta can be downloaded.

You really believe there are no developer tools on linux? Countless IDEs to choose from. From Anjuta to Kdevelop to Eclipse. Countless simple editors. Countless other tools like profilers, version control, etc etc. Detailed and thorough documentation on every tool you'll ever use. Please keep you uninformed opinions to yourself next time. Saves you the embarrassment.

Yeah, there's a ton of IDEs; a few are decent. However, none really do as much as Visual Studio. The same IDE can be used to develop web applications, simple forms-based applications, advanced C++ projects, Windows Mobile/Smartphone projects, etc., and it works very well with .NET. It can debug just about everything it can do. There are also third-addons available, amazingly even including a PHP addon. Visual Studio 2005 is introducing a lot of new features.

.NET? .NET is BS. Read this very good article about .NET. It'll explain alot.

That article is 5 years old and was written when .NET was first announced... you may want to see the same author's article from four years later, in which he says ".NET is a great programming environment that manages your memory and has a rich, complete, and consistent interface to the operating system and a rich, super complete, and elegant object library for basic operations."

Well, imagine creating an application with nice 3D animation like that is a NO BRAINER. That's what Avalon + the new developer tools + .NET on Windows Vista will let you do, easier than a fart. Linux fan boys, enjoy your GCC.

Avalon? Avalon is supposed to be an XML descriptive language for GUI widgets, something like XUL or gladeXML. The only difference is that these tools exist right now while avalon is vaporware. So I'll go write a GUI in XML and finish it in a few minutes, while you still wait for avalon.

New developer tools? You really believe there are no developer tools on linux? Countless IDEs to choose from. From Anjuta to Kdevelop to Eclipse. Countless simple editors. Countless other tools like profilers, version control, etc etc. Detailed and thorough documentation on every tool you'll ever use. Please keep you uninformed opinions to yourself next time. Saves you the embarrassment.

.NET? .NET is BS. Read this very good article about .NET. It'll explain alot.
Now, If you're talking about managed programming languages like C# etc. there's mono. Pretty much everything .net has been transferred or will be soon, so your windows code will work on mono. Plus, mono has other extra subprojects you can use, not available on windows,

So yeah, you wait for your new tools MS fanboy, while we already have them.

There's an insane amount of bitching about how terrible the job market is, how inane and shortsighted HR departments are, blah blah blah.

If that's all true, then those business are ripe for being raped of their marketshare. Start your own business!

It takes virtually NOTHING to startup a company these days... a 1U server of commercial quality runs less than $1,000, hosting can be had for about $100/month and the Operating System is free...

Give yourself a few months worth of beans and/or working part-time, sleep on a couch with a cheapie computer borrowing the DSL service from a neighbor's wifi connection, and you can do a startup for next to NOTHING.

Why aren't you doing it? If YOU are in charge, you can't be fired. If YOU are in charge, you'll be able to use sensible HR policies to get the really good ones, too.

So why are you here whining on Slashdot about how horrible it all is???? If it's half as bad as you claim, you have the opportunity to become RICH!!!!

PS: I'm quite familiar with the startup routine - I haven't had a "job" in some 15 years, and have started quite a few businesses, successfully fed, clothed, raised, and home-schooled my family of 5 kids in one of the more economically depressed counties in California.

Startups can be thrilling! Pull up your sleeves, and don't just "think outside the box", throw the box out altogether. You'd be amazed at what you can accomplish if you:

1) Find something people will pay for,

2) Deliver that something as efficiently as possible, cost-effectively, and with a smile,

3) Wash, rinse, repeat. Before you know it, your clients are almost friends, and do most of your sales work for you by giving referrals...

Contact me if you're curious... I'd be happy to offer my experience to anybody who is serious.

My job is to find good find people (where good = technically skilled and - this is really important - has a good personality fit with the rest of the team) and recruit them to our team.

Once they're on it, my job is to get them integrated into what they do, although much of that now is left to my three technical leads, one of whom will succeed me as manager when I move up (or out) one day.

My job is to keep bureaucratic BS of all kinds away from them so that they can focus on their jobs. Happily, there's not much BS in this company.

My job is to set goals, manage projects, and review performance.

My job is to make sure my people have good morale, keep everyone pulling in the same direction, and keep them motivated.

Note that if I've done the first things right (finding and recruiting good people and keeping BS away from them) those last points are very easy. Choose the right people and they'll be almost self-managing. Just point them in the direction you need them to go, keep them happy, and they'll produce for you.

I'm a big fan of Joel Spoelsky's writings.

And yes, my job is to keep our costs within bounds we can afford. I am, after all, a manager and have that responsibility to my company. Fortunately, that too is fairly easy if I have done all of the other things right.

All that being said, I nevertheless sympathize with the original poster's lament. I am not technically incompetent like her/his boss is made out to be; I'm just not as a good a programmer as the people I manage, but hey, it's not my job to be as good as them. It's my job to manage them. Like you said, it's how good I am at my job that matters, not how good I am at theirs.

Still, I am not technically incompetent, as the OP describes her/his boss. I have solid work experience as a sysadmin and network engineer and I am better than my staff in those areas. And, I love technology, I've been crazy about computers since the first time I saw one. So I do appreciate the OP's lament.

What would I do about it? I'd advance my skills as far as I could in that job (or as far as I could stand to work there, whichever came first) and then move on. I have worked under an incompetent manager (not just technically incompetent, but incompetent at managing, too) just once, and that's how I dealt with the situation. When I moved on, it was to a much better position at a much better salary, with a much better manager, who in turn recruited me away from that place to follow him when he took a new job himself.

The article talks about how business-related interest groups can be developed and how they can help the bottom line, but they don't talk about all the other non-business, 'special-interest' groups and how they function within the corporation and how they help productivity & morale, even if the results are less than fiscally apparent.

Reminds me of this article that someone linked to yesterday about how companies can do wonders for recruitment if they use low-cost, high-value devices to lure workers (free soda, juice, lunch, etc).

Also, did anyone else read 'Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel' and think 'nuklear' ?

Makes you wonder why those startups can't improve working conditions. Is it more expensive to improve working conditions than to increase salaries, or just too difficult for these entrepreneurs to do?

i think it's just stupidity. joel from joel on software has a good article about paying people in things "cheaper than money." and that in the end it's cheaper for the company, for example, to give away free drinks because employees value it more than it cost you. here's the article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 50.html

This is a troll, but sigh, I'll bite.

Thinking that a CS degree is a "dead end" is the wrong takeaway. The answer is that it depends on what you want to do. Talented architects and computer scientists will always be in demand, as there are lots of interesting problems to solve, and true CS talent is scarce (and, amusingly, will only get scarcer over the next few years as enrollment in CS programs stays low.) The theory will still be much the same in 20 years, even if we're not programming using today's technology.

In addition, the assertion that "the days of a geek making it into upper management are over" is patently false. Google, Microsoft, Apple and Oracle are obvious counterexamples, and I'm sure everyone else can come up with more. If you want to have have a leadership in a company that produces new technology, you had better be a geek. On the other hand, if you're no more than a typical rank-and-file coder, things do not look good.

However, most pure CS students definitely lack communications skills, business sense, and an understanding of social graces and human behavior -- and these things aren't played up enough in most CS curricula. Your great ideas aren't worth much if your coworkers can't stand to be around you or are laughing to themselves when you're talking or presenting.

The good news is geeks can often pick up the business side (CEOs of aforementioned companies being good examples), but I've never met a pure business major who could truly pick up the important CS stuff like algorithms and systems analysis (your brain just stops being able to pick that stuff up after a while.) The pure management majors here at MIT learn to write great memos and know how to dress up for interviews, but that's about it (compared to the science majors) -- they can talk the business side, but are clueless about the underlying technology. (To be fair, most CS majors around here can't form complete English sentences or withstand direct sunlight.)

I'm glad I started out towards the geek side and stayed in CS, because picking up the business side isn't that intellectually hard --it's just different. And you'd be surprised how much your CS intuition applies to the business side as well -- a lot of my pure business buddies just don't understand logic, systems, or basic concepts of probability, for example, and consequently make stupid business decisions. Joel Spolsky has a good take on both sides of the issue.

Anyway. A CS degree is still very valuable, but only (or especially so) when paired with the ability to communicate and lead others.

-fren

"Yes, but Microsoft has enough of a grip on the industry that anything it does becomes a defacto standard. The situation with IE and IE only web sites is a good indication of this."

Indeed, but that was pretty much the case from the late '90s onwards - I'm talking about more recent history (the last year or two alone), when the "web standards good" meme has penetrated to the point that even Microsoft are at least paying lip-service to it. And (IIRC), IE7 is tipped to have better CSS standards support in the next beta.

"Yes, we, the technical community know better, but the "normal" user just wants to go to a site. If Firefox does not work there, they don't care why, they just want it to work. So they dump Firefox back for IE."

Currently, yes, but in the last year or two alone I've seen a huge upswing in the number of people who know to blame bad websites rather than their non-IE browser. I'm not saying it's anywhere near common enough yet, but (in my experience) it's certainly more than it ever used to be...

"The real challange is to get Web developers to adhere to standards. Then, when IE fails, the average user will scream. THAT will make IE start following the standards, or will drive the Web developer back to IE specific features. But as long as sites work with IE (and IE's quirks), the average user does not care."

You're right, but the web design community's the one driving the adoption of web standards. Sure there'll always be shitty IE-only sites knocked up by some wannabe-1337 W3bM4stX0r in his bedroom, and some companys will (stupidly) settle on an IE-only policy for some time to come, but in general the industry is moving towards standards in a big way, and what "the industry" does now, home users tend towards in a few years time.

"This, of course, does not take into account other issues like the "user experience" and security. These may drive users over, but then Microsoft is (or appears to be) fixing them. For instance tabbed browsing in IE 7."

I wouldn't worry about this too much - Microsoft wants IE to die, and with it the whole web as a user-interface. They won the browser war, and instead of improving the web-browser-as-UI and stealing a march on any future competition they let it stagnate in favour of Avalon.

Read Joel Spolsky's "How Microsoft Lost the API War". It's very interesting, but with hindsight we can see their counter-strategy.

Basically, the web took MS by surprise. They caught up quick with IE3, and included lots of proprietary technology to encourage vendor-lockin on their browser. The trouble is, since HTML, CSS and Javascript are developer tools you have to release the specs/docs/reference materials for them, and then nothing stops someone else deciding to support your proprietary extensions in their browser. Because HTML/CSS/Javascript are open standards, it's also very hard to tie them to a particular platform.

MS tried to solve both these problems with ActiveX, but they bungled the design and implementation so badly that people eventually rejected it. Had ActiveX had a decent security model and lower barrier-to-entry (ie, you didn't have to be a full-on Windows developer to develop for it), it could well have buried "open" alternatives, and locked the web into as much of a Microsoft monopoly as the Office industry (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc).

(As an aside, this is also the reason Flash and Java applets never took over more of the web - web designers like things that are thought to be secure, but people generally adopt things with a low barrier to entry - why is Visual Basic apparently still the world's most popular programming language? Why have so many more people learned Javascript than Java or C? Why are interpreted scripting languages more popular than compiled programming languages? Anyway...)

DHTML/CSS/Javascript is beginning to turn in