We were a big company. Every developer was responsible for unit testing of their software. It would only go to QA for system-level testing. If it failed, it went back to the developer to be fixed. We had a VERY low failure rate as a result! FWIW, I was the one who instituted this process.
My father was a cosmic ray physicist, one of the top in the field. He even invented a cosmic ray "telescope: to view these events! It was called meson manner.:-) He also had a lab on top of Mount Evans in Colorado that did the same. I still have sympathies for the graduate students that had to spend a winder there!
Never let school get in the way of your education! I suppose I am such. I studied engineering, languages, creative writing, English literature, statistical genetics, analytical chemistry, music theory - all to a graduate level. I have worked as an accountant, auto mechanic, software engineer, and serious improvisational jazz violinist. I am a published writer of articles and books in software engineering, and have a US Patent as sole inventor of a means to enable adaptive systems (systems that don't require programming to adapt to their environments - a form of AI). At least all of this keeps me from being bored!:-)
I don't even lock my phone these days. If the cops want to access your data, they will. At least, by not securing my phone, I can remote lock it down if it is stolen. With no lock, I think cops will be at a loss to access the phone. "What is your access key? Me: what access key?"
I was working for Nokia Mobile Phones when MS took it over. A week before the deal was complete, MS said that everyone would be kept on. Two weeks after the deal was complete, they laid off 20,000 of us! Yeah. MS is a predator! We were a division of Nokia that was serving over 100 million customers world-wide...
Two weeks before Microsoft closed its takeover of Nokia Mobile Phones where I worked at the time, they assured all the employees that there would be no layoffs and everyone had a secure position. Two weeks after the takeover was complete, they laid off 20,000 of us... Our entire division was decimated and basically shut down. I wonder what happened to the 100 million customers we were serving?
The co-inventor of ethernet at PARC, Robert Metcalf, has been a friend of mine for 35 years. My sympathies to Thacker's family for their loss. I never knew him although I may have met him in the early 1980's in the Silicon Valley. As a commercial computer sales rep in the Valley back then I sold Robert the first 100 IBM PC's for his startup, 3-com. When I was an engineer in Boston in the late 1980's and early 1990's we would meet for dinner before IEEE meetings.
First offense, reprimanded certainly. If someone is good enough to finish their expected work load quicker than expected, then working on other stuff that benefits the company is appropriate. Personal projects should be done on personal time, and not using company resources! As a principal engineer at a tier-one company in the 1990's and 2000's I often had time after finishing my "work". That's when I was thinking and studying ways to improve our software and processes. When I got home, I would work on "personal" projects after dinner and playing with my cat.
I have, in my 35 year career as a software engineer, had one time estimation rule-of-thumb that has held up well. Take the best estimated time, double that, and add 10%. Never fails!
I have been writing C since the early 80's and C++ since the early 90's. For large-scale robust systems, C++ is the way to go. It provides for greater degrees of abstraction, debug-ability, and clarity of intent. I only use C any longer for kernel development.
Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration. Sound familiar?:-) I had an idea for computer systems that could adapt to their environments without programming (the 1% part). After 5+ years of hard work and experimentation, I had it into production! Even got a US Patent for it. So, I think the 1% vs 99% stuff is pretty correct.:-) BTW, if you have a device with a chip in it, disc drive, or flat panel display, that software probably built it! I agree with Linus in that innovation doesn't come at the push of a button. First you need to understand your domain, and then you may be able to start seeing around the corners.
One of the main things that ancient beers provided was something potable that did not have serious infectious bacteria, which most of the water then did have. Drink been - get drunk. Drink water - get typhoid!
This the sort of thing that happens when engineers (especially software engineers) don't think outside of the box and considering the consequences of the code they write.
Knuth has my utmost respect, and for the most part I agree that software patents suck. Some are inventions in the truest sense of the word and worthy. In my egoistic way I would like to think mine is such. Here is the link. Check it out, and then tell me what you think.
https://www.google.com/patents...
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We were a big company. Every developer was responsible for unit testing of their software. It would only go to QA for system-level testing. If it failed, it went back to the developer to be fixed. We had a VERY low failure rate as a result! FWIW, I was the one who instituted this process.
NEVER! We only use our TV for DVD videos. No network connection, and no TV connection. KEEP OUT OF MY LIVING ROOM!
This person should get an award for reducing the noise on Twitter!
Why aren't these cables armored and buried underground? This is incompetence on the part of the cable providers, entirely!
My father was a cosmic ray physicist, one of the top in the field. He even invented a cosmic ray "telescope: to view these events! It was called meson manner. :-) He also had a lab on top of Mount Evans in Colorado that did the same. I still have sympathies for the graduate students that had to spend a winder there!
Never let school get in the way of your education! I suppose I am such. I studied engineering, languages, creative writing, English literature, statistical genetics, analytical chemistry, music theory - all to a graduate level. I have worked as an accountant, auto mechanic, software engineer, and serious improvisational jazz violinist. I am a published writer of articles and books in software engineering, and have a US Patent as sole inventor of a means to enable adaptive systems (systems that don't require programming to adapt to their environments - a form of AI). At least all of this keeps me from being bored! :-)
I don't even lock my phone these days. If the cops want to access your data, they will. At least, by not securing my phone, I can remote lock it down if it is stolen. With no lock, I think cops will be at a loss to access the phone. "What is your access key? Me: what access key?"
I was working for Nokia Mobile Phones when MS took it over. A week before the deal was complete, MS said that everyone would be kept on. Two weeks after the deal was complete, they laid off 20,000 of us! Yeah. MS is a predator! We were a division of Nokia that was serving over 100 million customers world-wide...
I would not purchase an iPhone if it were free... I trust Apple almost as much as I "trust" Microsoft!
So did I, and I agree.
Two weeks before Microsoft closed its takeover of Nokia Mobile Phones where I worked at the time, they assured all the employees that there would be no layoffs and everyone had a secure position. Two weeks after the takeover was complete, they laid off 20,000 of us... Our entire division was decimated and basically shut down. I wonder what happened to the 100 million customers we were serving?
The co-inventor of ethernet at PARC, Robert Metcalf, has been a friend of mine for 35 years. My sympathies to Thacker's family for their loss. I never knew him although I may have met him in the early 1980's in the Silicon Valley. As a commercial computer sales rep in the Valley back then I sold Robert the first 100 IBM PC's for his startup, 3-com. When I was an engineer in Boston in the late 1980's and early 1990's we would meet for dinner before IEEE meetings.
First offense, reprimanded certainly. If someone is good enough to finish their expected work load quicker than expected, then working on other stuff that benefits the company is appropriate. Personal projects should be done on personal time, and not using company resources! As a principal engineer at a tier-one company in the 1990's and 2000's I often had time after finishing my "work". That's when I was thinking and studying ways to improve our software and processes. When I got home, I would work on "personal" projects after dinner and playing with my cat.
I have, in my 35 year career as a software engineer, had one time estimation rule-of-thumb that has held up well. Take the best estimated time, double that, and add 10%. Never fails!
Fortran, then BASIC, then 8008 assembler, then C, COBOL, x86 assembler, SQL, Dibol, Snobol, Smalltalk, C++, ... Latest serious language is PHP.
Or as we call it, Linux with Java. No Windows systems in our house!
I have been writing C since the early 80's and C++ since the early 90's. For large-scale robust systems, C++ is the way to go. It provides for greater degrees of abstraction, debug-ability, and clarity of intent. I only use C any longer for kernel development.
They made it once. They can make it again. Not easy, but it should be easier than the first time, when they weren't even sure it could be made!
Forget this one at your peril. This will come back and bite MS on the rear end!
Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration. Sound familiar? :-) I had an idea for computer systems that could adapt to their environments without programming (the 1% part). After 5+ years of hard work and experimentation, I had it into production! Even got a US Patent for it. So, I think the 1% vs 99% stuff is pretty correct. :-) BTW, if you have a device with a chip in it, disc drive, or flat panel display, that software probably built it! I agree with Linus in that innovation doesn't come at the push of a button. First you need to understand your domain, and then you may be able to start seeing around the corners.
One of the main things that ancient beers provided was something potable that did not have serious infectious bacteria, which most of the water then did have. Drink been - get drunk. Drink water - get typhoid!
Gee, what a coincidence. MS moves their European offices to Munich, and Munich "decides" to switch back to Windows... Boy, have I a deal for you!
This the sort of thing that happens when engineers (especially software engineers) don't think outside of the box and considering the consequences of the code they write.
Knuth has my utmost respect, and for the most part I agree that software patents suck. Some are inventions in the truest sense of the word and worthy. In my egoistic way I would like to think mine is such. Here is the link. Check it out, and then tell me what you think. https://www.google.com/patents...
https://www.google.com/patents...