But that model still only makes sense when referring to data that needs to be available in a centralized location. It's great for banking apps, news sites, etc. But really, should I be doing my word processing on a remote server? And now there's a push for video game processing in "the cloud". I just don't see how that's an efficient use of server processing.
But wasn't the mainframe just the old cloud? I seem to remember there was a reason we moved away from doing all the processing on the server back in the 80s.. If only I could remember what it was.
6. "Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me
While I agree with you that every scientific theory is conjectural, the place for that debate is among the PhDs, not the high school students. Let the budding scientists learn the current theories before they go challenging them.
Okay, so you've posted the story to slashdot. That's the most important part. Next release it on wikileaks (might as well post the whole thing rather than just an excerpt) and post a link as Anonymous Coward. Voila! Streisand effect + subversive distribution!
How about rewriting the standard libraries for many procedural languages (this includes OO languages, since OO is really just a style of procedural programming) to use multi-threading whenever appropriate? For instance, any array sorter should use a multi-threaded heapsort instead of a quicksort if the array is above a certain size. The program flow would still be procedural, and the average programmer would not have to deal with parallel programming very often, and the parallel specialists can handle the libraries where its needed. Of course this won't work for every circumstance, but it would be a great way to get the most out of the code we already have.
Worse than that, good programmers (like I used to be) become crappy programmers (like I am now). I went from a great hobbyist/student doing a lot of work in C to being a crappy C#/ASP.NET programmer. Now whenever I write something for fun using C I end up with memory leaks because I forget to deal with the memory management. And it's all because I followed the money.
I'm just intimidated by the magnitude of the requested projects. Anyone have any experience with GSoC? How much mentoring do you tend to get? I'd hate to sign up, then not know where to get started, or hit a brick wall, and be told "well you should have thought of that before you applied".
Ah, okay.. In most US universities you are simply required to have a certain number of "credit hours" to graduate, and are allowed to choose how many of those hours you want to take within a school period (a period can be a semester, quarter, or occasionally a trimester). The number of credit hours for most majors is the same, though scientific disciplines do not offer much in the way of room for elective credits.
That's all well and good unless you're expected to meet unreasonable deadlines to begin with. If I have to get something done in a short period of time, documentation is not a priority. Of course, I'm the only programmer at my work, so its not like anyone else has to look at it anyway.
Hrm, that's true I suppose.. Maybe the root problem (for me) is that programming is no longer fun once the alpha stage is over and you start getting other people that actually want to use the software. Once it no longer feels like a puzzle to be solved, I lose interest.
Harder job? Maybe (I couldn't say.. I don't really know much about EE, though I really wish I did). More interesting? I don't see how. Building web apps is professional child-proofing. Its difficult, but completely unrewarding.
I graduated with a CS bachelors a few years ago thinking I would have a good shot at doing some compiler design or maybe kernel hacking.. despite the fact that I had only done these kind of things in a sterile learning environment that did not at all simulate the level of complexity involved in modern languages and operating systems.. So when I got out of school, I found out that, rather being able to get a job doing these kinds of things, I was lucky to get a web app programming job.
I'm not bitter. I should have realized this from the beginning. But I really wish someone would have pointed out to me that this was what the job market was actually like, so that I could have gone the EE route instead.
The difference is that you're talking about hiring people to develop software, whereas most consulting companies just want to charge ridiculously high hourly rates for each "analyst". The more analysts they have, and the longer it takes for them to get the work done, the better off the company is. If it's poorly produced and needs to be completely rewritten, all the better.
Really? I see postings on CL for MS jobs occasionally, but they're all for 45k/year jobs, in Seattle, where 45k/year doesn't even get you a place in the slums.
So to all the people complaining about "foreigners" (many of these folks honestly want to become US Citizens) taking good American jobs - where are you??? Why aren't you applying for the contract positions at Microsoft and elsewhere?
If you don't want to work 80 hours a week for $30k/year, they don't even consider you. Companies that hire H1Bs tend not to care whether you're competent, but whether you're willing to fill a seat. I'm guessing all the good Indian programmers are gone from those places too, because they're sick of being paid less than the janitor (Disclaimer: I have been both a programmer and a janitor.. I'm better at the former but got much more fulfillment from the latter).
That only works if your people actually pay attention to it. I have a DBA constantly complaining that I haven't given him any documentation, when I documented every table and relationship in the database in the wiki. He just doesn't like going to it. I even printed it out and dropped it on his desk, and it wasn't enough.
Slashdot Mirror
It feels like a BBS door game. I'm disappointed, as I was expecting a text interface, and puzzles. Still, it can kill 10 minutes of my day.
But that model still only makes sense when referring to data that needs to be available in a centralized location. It's great for banking apps, news sites, etc. But really, should I be doing my word processing on a remote server? And now there's a push for video game processing in "the cloud". I just don't see how that's an efficient use of server processing.
But wasn't the mainframe just the old cloud? I seem to remember there was a reason we moved away from doing all the processing on the server back in the 80s.. If only I could remember what it was.
There is.. (check my achievements, its actually "Contradictor"), but this isn't how you get it.
you're just trying to get a contradiction achievement.
Yeah, but that's only if your city is adjacent to a water square. Otherwise you have to wait a few hundred years until you can build a hospital.
This would be almost a fair assessment.. In 1992.
6. "Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me
While I agree with you that every scientific theory is conjectural, the place for that debate is among the PhDs, not the high school students. Let the budding scientists learn the current theories before they go challenging them.
Okay, so you've posted the story to slashdot. That's the most important part. Next release it on wikileaks (might as well post the whole thing rather than just an excerpt) and post a link as Anonymous Coward. Voila! Streisand effect + subversive distribution!
Stop wasting your time reading slashdot.
How about rewriting the standard libraries for many procedural languages (this includes OO languages, since OO is really just a style of procedural programming) to use multi-threading whenever appropriate? For instance, any array sorter should use a multi-threaded heapsort instead of a quicksort if the array is above a certain size. The program flow would still be procedural, and the average programmer would not have to deal with parallel programming very often, and the parallel specialists can handle the libraries where its needed. Of course this won't work for every circumstance, but it would be a great way to get the most out of the code we already have.
Worse than that, good programmers (like I used to be) become crappy programmers (like I am now). I went from a great hobbyist/student doing a lot of work in C to being a crappy C#/ASP.NET programmer. Now whenever I write something for fun using C I end up with memory leaks because I forget to deal with the memory management. And it's all because I followed the money.
I'm just intimidated by the magnitude of the requested projects. Anyone have any experience with GSoC? How much mentoring do you tend to get? I'd hate to sign up, then not know where to get started, or hit a brick wall, and be told "well you should have thought of that before you applied".
Ah, okay.. In most US universities you are simply required to have a certain number of "credit hours" to graduate, and are allowed to choose how many of those hours you want to take within a school period (a period can be a semester, quarter, or occasionally a trimester). The number of credit hours for most majors is the same, though scientific disciplines do not offer much in the way of room for elective credits.
What do you mean by contact time?
That's all well and good unless you're expected to meet unreasonable deadlines to begin with. If I have to get something done in a short period of time, documentation is not a priority. Of course, I'm the only programmer at my work, so its not like anyone else has to look at it anyway.
Hrm, that's true I suppose.. Maybe the root problem (for me) is that programming is no longer fun once the alpha stage is over and you start getting other people that actually want to use the software. Once it no longer feels like a puzzle to be solved, I lose interest.
Harder job? Maybe (I couldn't say.. I don't really know much about EE, though I really wish I did). More interesting? I don't see how. Building web apps is professional child-proofing. Its difficult, but completely unrewarding.
I graduated with a CS bachelors a few years ago thinking I would have a good shot at doing some compiler design or maybe kernel hacking.. despite the fact that I had only done these kind of things in a sterile learning environment that did not at all simulate the level of complexity involved in modern languages and operating systems.. So when I got out of school, I found out that, rather being able to get a job doing these kinds of things, I was lucky to get a web app programming job.
I'm not bitter. I should have realized this from the beginning. But I really wish someone would have pointed out to me that this was what the job market was actually like, so that I could have gone the EE route instead.
how long until Canada starts patrolling its borders to keep illegal immigrants from the United States out? Probably not long.
I wanted to move to Canada, but found out I can't get a job there since I'm not a citizen of any of their favorite countries.
How can Super Mario World be more influential than Super Mario Bros., when the latter was explicitly the influence for the former?
The difference is that you're talking about hiring people to develop software, whereas most consulting companies just want to charge ridiculously high hourly rates for each "analyst". The more analysts they have, and the longer it takes for them to get the work done, the better off the company is. If it's poorly produced and needs to be completely rewritten, all the better.
Really? I see postings on CL for MS jobs occasionally, but they're all for 45k/year jobs, in Seattle, where 45k/year doesn't even get you a place in the slums.
So to all the people complaining about "foreigners" (many of these folks honestly want to become US Citizens) taking good American jobs - where are you??? Why aren't you applying for the contract positions at Microsoft and elsewhere?
If you don't want to work 80 hours a week for $30k/year, they don't even consider you. Companies that hire H1Bs tend not to care whether you're competent, but whether you're willing to fill a seat. I'm guessing all the good Indian programmers are gone from those places too, because they're sick of being paid less than the janitor (Disclaimer: I have been both a programmer and a janitor.. I'm better at the former but got much more fulfillment from the latter).
That only works if your people actually pay attention to it. I have a DBA constantly complaining that I haven't given him any documentation, when I documented every table and relationship in the database in the wiki. He just doesn't like going to it. I even printed it out and dropped it on his desk, and it wasn't enough.