After all there is more joy in heaven when one sinner repents...
But seriously, as a manager you deal with people. They do what they want, and there is nothing you can do about that. Computers, on the other hand, are more amenable, and do what you want, but you have to ask nicely. But let's not kid ourselves, the only thing worth doing in this entire business is programming; anything else is a sideshow. So you want to make a contribution? Well, there has never been a better time to start. The world is full of open-source projects where the people who make things happen also let you know how they do it. Find something that you think is the mutt's nuts and whatever language it is written in, lean that, and take the time to understand how things really work. It will cost some time, for sure, but that's how it's done. It seems that you don't want to be limited in your understanding of what is required to get things working. This is a good attitude. The world is full of people who pull things out of their arses without having a clue.
More power to your elbow, Sir.
Man, I live about 430 miles from the office, but you know what? We have this technology shit which means that you can (nature of job depending obviously) work from just about anywhere. And in my experience over the last 8 years, it works just fine. I have a 30-second commute to work, and you know, it beats the living crap out of the alternatives. Yes, there are exceptions, but I imagine that these can be dealt with be simply being sensible. I think that in 40 years time, in the IT game at least, that anyone who looks back at employers who insisted that you work in an office will realise that they were working for paranoid idiots who thought that they and their employees bleeding time, money and diminishing resources was a smart business plan.
Errr. You do realise that your arguement reads a little as if you're are saying that that the automotive industry is in the ascendant whilst the oil exploration and pertrochemical industries are in decline? I'm not expert in rhetoric, but I belive that this sort of thing is called a false dichotomy (real rhetoric experts, feel free to jump in). One might make a similar arguement that most modern fashion challenges don't benefit from working on the level of textile design, or for that matter, growing cotton. Well, perhaps on a very narrow level indeed, but it does seem rather silly to mistake a desirable outcome for the reality of how it is achieved. I appreciate that I am somewhat misrepresenting your core point to leap into the discussion, but it is really quite impossible to not get a little peeved about these holy language wars which seem to break out at the drop of a hat (there is a post somewhere else in this article where someone states that they "hate assembler snobs", which makes about as much sense as hating farmers if you value being able to eat).
Look, as many others have pointed out, the whole point of computers, as viewed as a universal machine, is that you, as the programmer, get the damn things to churn out perfect copies of what you have told them to do, once, twice, one hundred, one million, tens of trillions of times. There has never, in human history, been anything close in terms of amplifying effort unless Archimedes himself has been elevated to some celestial plane where he does indeed have a long enough lever. That said, whilst people are thinking themselves smartarses for writing stuff in Java (the only language which is quicker to write than to run), then
a) the point is being missed, a bit, and b) best that other smart people look for better, faster ways of making stuff work.
Oh, and in the day job, 'C' is very much a high-level language. It is fine and, most importantly, portable for the purposes required, but our stuff simply would not work without breaking out the dreaded assembler here and there (there is tons of Java too, but we prefer not to speak about that). So what? The appropriate tool for the job and all that. The IT world truly amazes me. Do we really imagine that "news for plumbers, stuff that matters" would have long debates about the superiority of the spanner over the sink plunger? Some languages are perfectly fine for applications where the end user has all the processing power they need on their desk. Other stuff has to play nicely in a multi-user, multi-tasking, multiprocessing environment, and there it is best to use (and if it is important to you) learn the appropriate way to get the best out of that. Of course some commentators have a bit of an agenda here - I know and am familiar with language x, so it's the best thing since sliced bread and everyone should bow down to my incandescent genius - but that's bollocks. All it does is give the rest of the world the impression that this is a long way away from being even close to a profession; something which is very much encouraged by the common perception of the industry here in the UK (but you already knew that by the way I spelled "arguement") - stories of large systems developments going expensively tits up are ten a penny. Whilst it appears that the basic values in our business remain "x" is better than "y", then I don't expect that to change real soon now. Which is a pity; the world is at our fingertips guys (and gals). About time we take a leaf (only the one, mind) out of the book used by lawyers, doctors and other sundry self-serving trades and stop pissing on our own fireworks for a change.
Just my $0.02
I guess that you people are talking about IT, not software. I suppose that that's a modern idea - when I started out in the business it was just computers - big things with IBM on the side, and they were pretty much of a piece. You really had to inhabit that world to understand it; users, such as they were, were pretty much at the mercy of the same things as the so called expert; some were keen and took pains to understand what they were doing, others blew in the wind. But like anything else with an intellectual twist to it, taking the time to understand how the environment one is working in works is a worthwhile exercise. I don't think that I am the smartest person in the world, but it took me about 2 weeks to figure out that the best way to approach things was to learn stuff that a) walks out the door with you when you leave and b) other people want. If you want a career in, or involving, computers, best be prepared to sit on your arse and spend lots of time getting to know what you are doing. If you can, and are good at getting things done, this whole discussion is moot. Make your own luck and ignore this horseshit.
Ok, by and large psychologist != medically qualified (at least here in the UK) and certainly not a pharmacologist. So testimony is basically pulled out of their arse. Secondly, being bipolar myself (and YMMV), I would be inclined to the view that most of the available medication (apart from Lithium) actually makes things worse, not better. But that's a side issue.
Yer basic problem here is a legal system where throwing mud is a legitimate tatic. How on earth anyone could extrapolate a photograph on FB (unless, as suggested above, of cutting off someones head with a chainsaw) into making a meaningful judgement as to the fitness of ability to be a good parent is a mystery to me. Horseshit of the highest order.
I liked the words "dumberer" and "cleverality", and will perhaps use them in conversation in future. Does that mean that I have learned more about the modern world as expressed through the interweb, and have thus increased the proportion of dumberer to cleverality?
In case no-one noticed, the last two attempts to blow anything up in flight, using a shoe, then pants, were utterly inept. Consequently, passengers have to take off their shoes, and now go through naked blob-body scanners. So the bad guys no longer have to actually come up with a viable attack, just persuade some idiot to somehow carry a noxious (of any description) substance onto a plane and fiddle about with it in order to ramp up the hysteria and precautions to a new and invidious level.
We are making ourselves hostages to fortune here, because you just know how the next two attempts (I'm predicting both male and female protagonists) are going to go.
At which point I hope that you've already unloaded any airline stock you happen to own.
Remember, you read it here first!
And I cannot stress how much you should be glad that your paycheck goes via a bank that runs its core systems on a mainframe instead of relying on your fuckwitted opinions as to how to implement data processing in a robust and scalable manner. Write a powershell script about that motherfucker!
Interesting point of view you have there. I always thought that the S/38, As400 & iSeries came out of the same place as the S/34 and S/36, OCL and all. I work on iSeries daily and consider them shite in comparison to the current flavour of zSeries, which can also run all the stuff you mention. Sure you're not thinking of the fabled "Summit" line of which a few bits, eg. FBA disks actually made it into the real world? Received wisdom back then was not that it was too innovative, rather that IBM's customers were somewhat unlikely to make the requisite investment in replacing circa 3 trillion dollars worth of software development just so that IBM could sell them some "cool" new machines.
I believe that the point has been made more eloquently elsewhere, but what the hell, here goes... If these bastards can genuinely predict the future, why don't they give us next weeks lottery numbers? You people over there had a tragedy the other week for sure. Please entertain the notion that there was only one person to blame.
Slashdot Mirror
After all there is more joy in heaven when one sinner repents... But seriously, as a manager you deal with people. They do what they want, and there is nothing you can do about that. Computers, on the other hand, are more amenable, and do what you want, but you have to ask nicely. But let's not kid ourselves, the only thing worth doing in this entire business is programming; anything else is a sideshow. So you want to make a contribution? Well, there has never been a better time to start. The world is full of open-source projects where the people who make things happen also let you know how they do it. Find something that you think is the mutt's nuts and whatever language it is written in, lean that, and take the time to understand how things really work. It will cost some time, for sure, but that's how it's done. It seems that you don't want to be limited in your understanding of what is required to get things working. This is a good attitude. The world is full of people who pull things out of their arses without having a clue. More power to your elbow, Sir.
Man, I live about 430 miles from the office, but you know what? We have this technology shit which means that you can (nature of job depending obviously) work from just about anywhere. And in my experience over the last 8 years, it works just fine. I have a 30-second commute to work, and you know, it beats the living crap out of the alternatives. Yes, there are exceptions, but I imagine that these can be dealt with be simply being sensible. I think that in 40 years time, in the IT game at least, that anyone who looks back at employers who insisted that you work in an office will realise that they were working for paranoid idiots who thought that they and their employees bleeding time, money and diminishing resources was a smart business plan.
Errr. You do realise that your arguement reads a little as if you're are saying that that the automotive industry is in the ascendant whilst the oil exploration and pertrochemical industries are in decline? I'm not expert in rhetoric, but I belive that this sort of thing is called a false dichotomy (real rhetoric experts, feel free to jump in). One might make a similar arguement that most modern fashion challenges don't benefit from working on the level of textile design, or for that matter, growing cotton. Well, perhaps on a very narrow level indeed, but it does seem rather silly to mistake a desirable outcome for the reality of how it is achieved. I appreciate that I am somewhat misrepresenting your core point to leap into the discussion, but it is really quite impossible to not get a little peeved about these holy language wars which seem to break out at the drop of a hat (there is a post somewhere else in this article where someone states that they "hate assembler snobs", which makes about as much sense as hating farmers if you value being able to eat). Look, as many others have pointed out, the whole point of computers, as viewed as a universal machine, is that you, as the programmer, get the damn things to churn out perfect copies of what you have told them to do, once, twice, one hundred, one million, tens of trillions of times. There has never, in human history, been anything close in terms of amplifying effort unless Archimedes himself has been elevated to some celestial plane where he does indeed have a long enough lever. That said, whilst people are thinking themselves smartarses for writing stuff in Java (the only language which is quicker to write than to run), then a) the point is being missed, a bit, and b) best that other smart people look for better, faster ways of making stuff work. Oh, and in the day job, 'C' is very much a high-level language. It is fine and, most importantly, portable for the purposes required, but our stuff simply would not work without breaking out the dreaded assembler here and there (there is tons of Java too, but we prefer not to speak about that). So what? The appropriate tool for the job and all that. The IT world truly amazes me. Do we really imagine that "news for plumbers, stuff that matters" would have long debates about the superiority of the spanner over the sink plunger? Some languages are perfectly fine for applications where the end user has all the processing power they need on their desk. Other stuff has to play nicely in a multi-user, multi-tasking, multiprocessing environment, and there it is best to use (and if it is important to you) learn the appropriate way to get the best out of that. Of course some commentators have a bit of an agenda here - I know and am familiar with language x, so it's the best thing since sliced bread and everyone should bow down to my incandescent genius - but that's bollocks. All it does is give the rest of the world the impression that this is a long way away from being even close to a profession; something which is very much encouraged by the common perception of the industry here in the UK (but you already knew that by the way I spelled "arguement") - stories of large systems developments going expensively tits up are ten a penny. Whilst it appears that the basic values in our business remain "x" is better than "y", then I don't expect that to change real soon now. Which is a pity; the world is at our fingertips guys (and gals). About time we take a leaf (only the one, mind) out of the book used by lawyers, doctors and other sundry self-serving trades and stop pissing on our own fireworks for a change. Just my $0.02
I guess that you people are talking about IT, not software. I suppose that that's a modern idea - when I started out in the business it was just computers - big things with IBM on the side, and they were pretty much of a piece. You really had to inhabit that world to understand it; users, such as they were, were pretty much at the mercy of the same things as the so called expert; some were keen and took pains to understand what they were doing, others blew in the wind. But like anything else with an intellectual twist to it, taking the time to understand how the environment one is working in works is a worthwhile exercise. I don't think that I am the smartest person in the world, but it took me about 2 weeks to figure out that the best way to approach things was to learn stuff that a) walks out the door with you when you leave and b) other people want. If you want a career in, or involving, computers, best be prepared to sit on your arse and spend lots of time getting to know what you are doing. If you can, and are good at getting things done, this whole discussion is moot. Make your own luck and ignore this horseshit.
Ok, by and large psychologist != medically qualified (at least here in the UK) and certainly not a pharmacologist. So testimony is basically pulled out of their arse. Secondly, being bipolar myself (and YMMV), I would be inclined to the view that most of the available medication (apart from Lithium) actually makes things worse, not better. But that's a side issue. Yer basic problem here is a legal system where throwing mud is a legitimate tatic. How on earth anyone could extrapolate a photograph on FB (unless, as suggested above, of cutting off someones head with a chainsaw) into making a meaningful judgement as to the fitness of ability to be a good parent is a mystery to me. Horseshit of the highest order.
Most of the people to whom I have introduced it mean the Firefox icon wherever it appears.
I liked the words "dumberer" and "cleverality", and will perhaps use them in conversation in future. Does that mean that I have learned more about the modern world as expressed through the interweb, and have thus increased the proportion of dumberer to cleverality?
It certainly draws your attention as to just how many dumb people there are!
In case no-one noticed, the last two attempts to blow anything up in flight, using a shoe, then pants, were utterly inept. Consequently, passengers have to take off their shoes, and now go through naked blob-body scanners. So the bad guys no longer have to actually come up with a viable attack, just persuade some idiot to somehow carry a noxious (of any description) substance onto a plane and fiddle about with it in order to ramp up the hysteria and precautions to a new and invidious level. We are making ourselves hostages to fortune here, because you just know how the next two attempts (I'm predicting both male and female protagonists) are going to go. At which point I hope that you've already unloaded any airline stock you happen to own. Remember, you read it here first!
And I cannot stress how much you should be glad that your paycheck goes via a bank that runs its core systems on a mainframe instead of relying on your fuckwitted opinions as to how to implement data processing in a robust and scalable manner. Write a powershell script about that motherfucker!
Interesting point of view you have there. I always thought that the S/38, As400 & iSeries came out of the same place as the S/34 and S/36, OCL and all. I work on iSeries daily and consider them shite in comparison to the current flavour of zSeries, which can also run all the stuff you mention. Sure you're not thinking of the fabled "Summit" line of which a few bits, eg. FBA disks actually made it into the real world? Received wisdom back then was not that it was too innovative, rather that IBM's customers were somewhat unlikely to make the requisite investment in replacing circa 3 trillion dollars worth of software development just so that IBM could sell them some "cool" new machines.
I believe that the point has been made more eloquently elsewhere, but what the hell, here goes...
If these bastards can genuinely predict the future, why don't they give us next weeks lottery numbers?
You people over there had a tragedy the other week for sure. Please entertain the notion that there was only one person to blame.