Slashdot Mirror
Quirky Engineers Gone the Way of the Dinosaur?
Milican writes "I think its time we ask our fellow Slashdotters, 'is there still room in a company for a quirky 'guru', or are projects so large now by necessity team-based development rules.' Read this article on Embedded.com and decide for yourself." I think this article didn't describe someone really 'quirky' though - it was someone who didn't really want to work.
Mad propz to my double-headed strapon and molecule-thick penis.
:o)
...where have all the trolls gone?
they are all at purplesplash, you rockstupid bitch!
My gaze scans the walls of this apartment
To rectify the confines of my tomb
I'm the cyclops in the tenement, I'm the soul without the cause
Crying 'midst my rubber plants, ignoring beckoning doors
Clippings from ancient newspapers lie scattered cross the floor
Stained by the wine from a shattered glass
Meaningless words, yellowed by time, faded photos exposing pain
Celluloid leeches bleeding my mind
You've finished playing hangman, you've cast the fateful dice
Advice, advice, advice me This shroud will not suffice
And thus begins the web
Attempting to discard these clinging memories
I only serve to wallow in our past
I fabricate the weave with my excuses
Its strands I hope and pray shall last
Oh please do last
Searching the roofs for a sniper, a viper, a fighter
Death in the shadows he'll maim you, he'll wound you, he'll skin you
For a long forgotten cause, on not so foreign shores
Boys baptised in wars
Morphine, chill scream, bad dream
Serving as numbers on dogtags, flakrags, sandbags
Your girl has married your best friend, loves end, poison pen
Your flesh will always creep, tossing turning sleep
The wounds that burn so deep
Your mother sits on the edge of the world
W when the cameras start to roll
Panoramic viewpoint resurrect the killing fold
Your father drains another beer, he's one of the few that cares
Crawling behind a Saracen's hull from the safety of his living room chair
Forgotten sons, forgotten sons, forgotten sons
And so as I patrol in the valley of the shadow of the star-spangled banner
I must fear evil, for I am but mortal and mortals can only die
Asking questions, pleading answers from the nameless faceless watchers
That stalk the carpeted corridors of White House
Who orders desecration, mutilation, verbal masturbation?!
I in the guarded bureaucratic wombs
President, President care for your children, order them not into damnation
To eliminate those who would trespass against you
For whose is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever and ever, Amen
Halt who goes there?!
Death...
Approach friend.
You're just another coffin on its way down the USA
When your children's stony glances mourn your death in a terrorist's smile
The bomber's arm placing fiery gifts on the supermarket shelves
Alley sings with shrapnel detonate a temporary hell
Forgotten Sons
From the dole queue to the regiment a profession in a flash
But remember Monday signings when from door to door you dash
On the news a nation mourns you unknown soldier, count the cost
For a second you'll be famous but labelled posthumous
Forgotten sons, forgotten sons
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
Mother Brown has lost her child
Just another Forgotten Son
Instead of arguing with the author, lets focus on something useful. He writes:
"We've spent a lot of time making Linux techie-friendly - powerful, configurable," he says, "but not enough time making it easy for Aunt Tillie to use." Why should Linux try to lure Aunt Tillie? "Because," Raymond says, "dat's where da money is."
Well, I couldn't care less about Aunt Tillie I'm a programmer. Note, I'm not a developer. Developers, IMHO, are people who need pretty little drag and drop silliness to get their work done. It may be that they need these "IDEs" because they really can't program or it may be that when a manager says "The SVP of Marketing promised The Big Customer delivery by this afternoon" developers need these drag and drop tools to meet deadline, it doesn't matter. Developers are the people who care about Aunt Tillie and her OCD need for cute WYSIWYG apps, and to a developer Linux sucks.
Why should we care? Because were ever the developers go Aunt Tillie follows, NOT the other way around. Remember, Aunt Tillie couldn't spell computer before she learned about Quicken. Now she changes banks because they don't support online bill paying. She thought AOL was a country music station until her daughter went off to college and forced her to learn how to email. Now Aunt Tillie can't live without v-mail images of her 18-month-old grand daughter, and she wants broadband so she can video stream with her sisters on the coast.
I'm a programmer and I think Linux has been and still is a beautiful programming platform, but it has a long way to go before it's can claim to be a good development platform, and we need the developers if we want Aunt Tillie.
How do we turn Linux into the most powerful development platform ever built? How do we make it so powerful even MS Windows developers will want to work on it?
Or I'll start talking about penisbirds, a Beowulf cluster of Natalie Portmans bathing in a tub of hot grits, Frist Psots, Frost Pists, etc.. .
Ah, Robert Elz.
I do that, too. I can't explain why, but it just seems more personal.
I'm going to play quake
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)