Just wait until the company wins this and all the hourly employees they've ever hired bill them for 24/7 for the entirity of their lives. The company is probably in violation of minimum wage laws if they haven't been paying for every hour every thought was conceived. If they own all thoughts, then all thoughts are works for hire, they need to start paying.
I agree completely. This is one of the reasons I love LISP macros so much. The are a lot harder to write, but once written it makes the actual application code easy to write and modify.
But it is not genius making things simple where I hear the word "maintainable" invoked. It is consultants selling "robust, scalable" systems to people with the promise that their employees will be able to maintain it.
I've been working with Perl and Java for years now. When all is said and done, Perl get more done with less effort and is just as maintainable. I've witnessed multiple places replacing a successful Perl product with a Java product and I've never seen anything good come of it. One of the reasons I believe is that they lost the hackers using Perl and instead got the Java consultants who are good at producing documents.
Graham paints with a broad brush, but some of his generalizations ring true in my experience. If you lumped people into two groups: LISP/Perl/Python vs. Java/VB/C# I think you'd have a lot higher frequency of hackers in the first group than the second. I think you'd also have a lot more mediocrity producing work artifacts justifying their existence (consultants) in the Java/VB/C# group. Sure some hackers use Java but they are the exception that proves the rule.
It has been my experience that Java developers have no problem criticizing Perl without ever having tried it. When shown, they will be amazed by what is already done and in CPAN. They say Perl is slow because it is interpreted and needs to spawn a new process for every page requested on a web server.
On a more personal note, I find that most Java developers are rather boring, unimaginative people. This is one of the reasons this is my last week of work in IT as I strike out on my own.
Java makes the mediocre programmer feel like he's done a lot. When I hear "maintainable" code, what I'm really hearing is that just anybody can do the job. Surely there is some work out there difficult enough that it requires expertise.
Some people believe that they are left brained or right brained. The intelligent people I've met are genius across the board. The tier below them are people that merely applied themselves in one area and happen to be good at something. Programming seems to have both categories of people. One in a thousand is genius, the rest are just people that did a little hard work and can handle a computer.
Don't confuse *implementation* with *creation*. When Graham uses the term hacker, he's talking about people that create where there was nothing. People that bring to life the truly original, not merely the prolific coders that write a lot.
Some people are talking about the right tool for the right job. By the time you get to that point, you are implementing the known. Hacking--as I understand Graham to be talking about it--is about exploring the unkown. Building a site that can build merchant sites as he did, chasing down fraud in your customer service records, inventing the blink tag (sarcasm). Those are the kinds of things he's talking about, not making yet another session bean to pull employee data from the database (and calling it "architecting" doesn't make it any more impressive).
The whole Java mentality (as I've seen it) is that all requirements can be gathered up front. Then it is a simple matter of implementing those requirements. There is no hacking or exploration about it. It should all be scientific. Of course, I've never actually seen a business that ran this way. Businesses have rules that nobody knows about. They won't be captured until they are shaken out by existing code. That is the reality I've seen and I won't believe otherwise until I've seen it (which I won't, see above).
After the failure of a Java project, it is pointed out that the implementation was going fine and it was the fault of the requirements that made it fail. Well, for a language that is robust, maintainable and modular, Java sure is a pain in the ass when requirements are moving around. This is not so with Perl, Python and LISP. This is why many hackers prefer those languages. They are responsive to the person exploring and creating.
PS. I should not be allowed to post after midnight. I'm sure I'm unclear/troll/flamebait/overrated but I'm sympathetic to Graham's views after my dismal experiences.
Sorry, but that joke has been going around since the 60's. It goes something like Poland (or any other country) trying to land on the sun. When it is pointed out the sun is too hot to land on, they respond that they're going at night.
I am unoriginal with my comment? Yes, but then so is Ali G, apparently. Unless they were responsible for this joke 30 something years ago.
The sites with the worst html are probably the ones that are generated by hand. They are the quick and dirty ones. Perl and PHP would be the first step of generating html. It is a testament to HTML, Perl and PHP that simple hacks that are "bad" can produce something useful. It is not a matter that some other language produces more correct html.
If your only goal is to get functional (not perfect) html then why expend the effort of using something like Java?
You need to learn that there isn't a difference on this issue. One administration was merely more effective at pushing the problem of enforcement into a time that it would have to be dealth with by another administration. Look at some of the last minute policies instituted by any president leaving office (logging bans and pardons come to mind for Clinton).
The fact that there is a minimum weight adds to the safety of the event.
You really don't want them building bikes that just barely make it through the days race. But if they have an extra half pound or so to work with and they can do whatever they want, it can go into reinforcments that *might* but probably won't be necessary.
Cycling as a sport has a drug problem because they actually try to catch the users. They could do like the American sports and have no real testing at all, then they wouldn't have anyone caught.
That would be my guess. After supporting a customer service system as a programmer and trying to pull troubleshooting information out of them for a while I learned that they think in terms of location.
They would say things like, "This data isn't in this program." They thought of the data as being in a specific program. If all their programs stopped retreiving data at once they would tell me that all the programs were broken rather than the database was down. No amount of explanation could convince them the data was in the database. For their purposes their view of things was perfectly appropriate I suppose, but it didn't help troubleshooting.
We have higher level of design done. We've got all the patterns nailed down. We're sending specifications to them at the class level.
You're right. Coding is nothing special. In fact, it's a very small part of doing the job. It's roughly 20% maybe? I won't dispute programmers are roughly the same everywhere but if we hire 3 more analysts because the programmers won't be local, we could have just hired 4-5 local programmers instead.
The benefits to hiring a local programmer are many. You can start them when you need them. You can have them work on ancillary tasks much easier to fill time (this becomes a problem when you've scheduled offshore resources and you can't deliver tasks for them for whatever reason, you still owe them). The turnaround time for resolving an issue is nearly immediate compared to the day long delay caused by time zones working with India.
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are projects where it's wortwhile. Especially projects that already know everything about the product. I just can't get over the feeling that I'm part of (and beneficiary of) a conspiracy to use offshore work to actually produce *more total revenue* for the consulting firm than the client would be willing to pay for locally. Again, this is why I hate my job.
Anyone notice that in their efforts to use outsourcing, companies are willing to commit themselves to levels of specifications that are just insane? I'm doing this right now. I'm writing up specifications that are so detailed it would be just as easy to write the code. Of course, if I was writing the code I would be discovering bugs at the same time and problems would be corrected sooner. I figure the number of our analysts is equal to the number of analysts and coders we'd have needed for a similar local project. All the money spent on outsourcing could have just been spent on documentation.
Outsourcing in my limited (just this 1 project) seems to be a good way for consultants to draw a fat fee while they manage the outsourced project. It is like watching someone buy something expensive but they're happy because they saved 20%. Not posting anon just in case this will get me fired and force me to move on.
Slashdot Mirror
Just wait until the company wins this and all the hourly employees they've ever hired bill them for 24/7 for the entirity of their lives. The company is probably in violation of minimum wage laws if they haven't been paying for every hour every thought was conceived. If they own all thoughts, then all thoughts are works for hire, they need to start paying.
You mean:
If you take out the punctuation, it's down to twelve lines of comments.
I agree completely. This is one of the reasons I love LISP macros so much. The are a lot harder to write, but once written it makes the actual application code easy to write and modify.
But it is not genius making things simple where I hear the word "maintainable" invoked. It is consultants selling "robust, scalable" systems to people with the promise that their employees will be able to maintain it.
I've been working with Perl and Java for years now. When all is said and done, Perl get more done with less effort and is just as maintainable. I've witnessed multiple places replacing a successful Perl product with a Java product and I've never seen anything good come of it. One of the reasons I believe is that they lost the hackers using Perl and instead got the Java consultants who are good at producing documents.
Graham paints with a broad brush, but some of his generalizations ring true in my experience. If you lumped people into two groups: LISP/Perl/Python vs. Java/VB/C#
I think you'd have a lot higher frequency of hackers in the first group than the second. I think you'd also have a lot more mediocrity producing work artifacts justifying their existence (consultants) in the Java/VB/C# group. Sure some hackers use Java but they are the exception that proves the rule.
It has been my experience that Java developers have no problem criticizing Perl without ever having tried it. When shown, they will be amazed by what is already done and in CPAN. They say Perl is slow because it is interpreted and needs to spawn a new process for every page requested on a web server.
On a more personal note, I find that most Java developers are rather boring, unimaginative people. This is one of the reasons this is my last week of work in IT as I strike out on my own.
Java makes the mediocre programmer feel like he's done a lot. When I hear "maintainable" code, what I'm really hearing is that just anybody can do the job. Surely there is some work out there difficult enough that it requires expertise.
Some people believe that they are left brained or right brained. The intelligent people I've met are genius across the board. The tier below them are people that merely applied themselves in one area and happen to be good at something. Programming seems to have both categories of people. One in a thousand is genius, the rest are just people that did a little hard work and can handle a computer.
Don't confuse *implementation* with *creation*. When Graham uses the term hacker, he's talking about people that create where there was nothing. People that bring to life the truly original, not merely the prolific coders that write a lot.
Some people are talking about the right tool for the right job. By the time you get to that point, you are implementing the known. Hacking--as I understand Graham to be talking about it--is about exploring the unkown. Building a site that can build merchant sites as he did, chasing down fraud in your customer service records, inventing the blink tag (sarcasm). Those are the kinds of things he's talking about, not making yet another session bean to pull employee data from the database (and calling it "architecting" doesn't make it any more impressive).
The whole Java mentality (as I've seen it) is that all requirements can be gathered up front. Then it is a simple matter of implementing those requirements. There is no hacking or exploration about it. It should all be scientific. Of course, I've never actually seen a business that ran this way. Businesses have rules that nobody knows about. They won't be captured until they are shaken out by existing code. That is the reality I've seen and I won't believe otherwise until I've seen it (which I won't, see above).
After the failure of a Java project, it is pointed out that the implementation was going fine and it was the fault of the requirements that made it fail. Well, for a language that is robust, maintainable and modular, Java sure is a pain in the ass when requirements are moving around. This is not so with Perl, Python and LISP. This is why many hackers prefer those languages. They are responsive to the person exploring and creating.
PS. I should not be allowed to post after midnight. I'm sure I'm unclear/troll/flamebait/overrated but I'm sympathetic to Graham's views after my dismal experiences.
Emacs has this feature already (of course). It is not limited to debugging either, it can handle most any topic.
M-x doctor
Sorry, but that joke has been going around since the 60's. It goes something like Poland (or any other country) trying to land on the sun. When it is pointed out the sun is too hot to land on, they respond that they're going at night.
I am unoriginal with my comment? Yes, but then so is Ali G, apparently. Unless they were responsible for this joke 30 something years ago.
Because it's so hot near the sun, NASA plans to go to Mercury at night.
The sites with the worst html are probably the ones that are generated by hand. They are the quick and dirty ones. Perl and PHP would be the first step of generating html. It is a testament to HTML, Perl and PHP that simple hacks that are "bad" can produce something useful. It is not a matter that some other language produces more correct html.
If your only goal is to get functional (not perfect) html then why expend the effort of using something like Java?
I'll have your statue done in carbonite.
And a McDonald's.
You need to learn that there isn't a difference on this issue. One administration was merely more effective at pushing the problem of enforcement into a time that it would have to be dealth with by another administration. Look at some of the last minute policies instituted by any president leaving office (logging bans and pardons come to mind for Clinton).
Actually, yes. As a U.S. citizen he can claim any title he wants and we can call him by any title we please. Slashdot poll anyone?
It is the self-replicating part that makes it fail the definition of worm.
There is another term for code that requires a user to run and do things. It is called a "program".
The fact that there is a minimum weight adds to the safety of the event.
You really don't want them building bikes that just barely make it through the days race. But if they have an extra half pound or so to work with and they can do whatever they want, it can go into reinforcments that *might* but probably won't be necessary.
Yea, the "it's time to rest on our laurels" memo didn't really work out for Netscape.
Cycling as a sport has a drug problem because they actually try to catch the users. They could do like the American sports and have no real testing at all, then they wouldn't have anyone caught.
Look on the bright side, nostalgia is better than it has ever been.
Less suckage.
More money.
That would be my guess. After supporting a customer service system as a programmer and trying to pull troubleshooting information out of them for a while I learned that they think in terms of location.
They would say things like, "This data isn't in this program." They thought of the data as being in a specific program. If all their programs stopped retreiving data at once they would tell me that all the programs were broken rather than the database was down. No amount of explanation could convince them the data was in the database. For their purposes their view of things was perfectly appropriate I suppose, but it didn't help troubleshooting.
I used to keep things directories like C:\downloads or C:\pictures.
I've finally given up and moved those directories into My Documents since all the dialogs keep resetting to look under My Documents first.
I suppose the real problem is a lack of symbolic links.
I've nearly always used two digits to express the date and I've never been confused about which century I'm in.
Although I did show up 100 years late for a meeting once...
If you really want to be a stickler, I suggest you start counting years from the very first one.
You may be unaware but the medical journals recently switched from Slashdot as their primary point of release.
Yes, but XML has an "X" in it and this makes it cool.
We have higher level of design done. We've got all the patterns nailed down. We're sending specifications to them at the class level.
You're right. Coding is nothing special. In fact, it's a very small part of doing the job. It's roughly 20% maybe? I won't dispute programmers are roughly the same everywhere but if we hire 3 more analysts because the programmers won't be local, we could have just hired 4-5 local programmers instead.
The benefits to hiring a local programmer are many. You can start them when you need them. You can have them work on ancillary tasks much easier to fill time (this becomes a problem when you've scheduled offshore resources and you can't deliver tasks for them for whatever reason, you still owe them). The turnaround time for resolving an issue is nearly immediate compared to the day long delay caused by time zones working with India.
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are projects where it's wortwhile. Especially projects that already know everything about the product. I just can't get over the feeling that I'm part of (and beneficiary of) a conspiracy to use offshore work to actually produce *more total revenue* for the consulting firm than the client would be willing to pay for locally. Again, this is why I hate my job.
Anyone notice that in their efforts to use outsourcing, companies are willing to commit themselves to levels of specifications that are just insane? I'm doing this right now. I'm writing up specifications that are so detailed it would be just as easy to write the code. Of course, if I was writing the code I would be discovering bugs at the same time and problems would be corrected sooner. I figure the number of our analysts is equal to the number of analysts and coders we'd have needed for a similar local project. All the money spent on outsourcing could have just been spent on documentation.
Outsourcing in my limited (just this 1 project) seems to be a good way for consultants to draw a fat fee while they manage the outsourced project. It is like watching someone buy something expensive but they're happy because they saved 20%. Not posting anon just in case this will get me fired and force me to move on.