Yes, you really do need a mix, and I think the tech world as a whole is starting to realize it. (I can't speak for whether Microsoft or Sun has done so, of course.) Experience and energy both count; you get the best results when you have both.
It's "recognition" in the sense of "being recognized for his accomplishments," not in the sense of "getting lots of PR." And believe it or not, to a lot of people the first is more important than the second.
Interestingly, Hardwired was a very successful early cyberpunk novel by Walter Jon Williams, and he's had to fight very hard over the years to protect the name. IIRC, he got in a dispute with Wired over Hotwired a few years ago -- I think they were the ones who initiated it, but I'm not sure.
the original poster seems to think that Qwest is just some little company that MS partnered with, when in reality they serve tens of millions of customers.
For a broad enough definition of the word "serve," this is true.
(I live in Denver. You can see the big blue "Q" on Qwest HQ from damn near everywhere in the city. I hate that thing.)
I'd argue that the difference really is intellectual as much as it is economic. Anyone who uses any non-Microsoft setup on the desktop -- whether that's a Mac, or a PC running Linux or BSD -- has almost certainly put some thought into the choice of operating systems and hardware. Someone running Windows may have put some thought into it and come to a rational decision, but more likely just went with it because it's the default. Or, to put or more bluntly: smart people may use Windows, MacOS, Linux, or BSD, but dumb people just use Windows.
Well, okay, now that I think about it, interfaces-with-implementation do have many of the same problems as multiple inheritance, although at least with i-w-i you don't have to worry about the constructor and variables. But anyway. My point is that I've never seen the use of Java-style interfaces (what does COM do with them?) and would really, really like to see i-w-i, or multiple inheritance for that matter, in PHP -- and, come to that, in Java. I've had to resort to some ugly hacks in both languages to get around this lack.
What irritates me is that they seem to have copied Java's useless interface model. What the hell is the point of interfaces that only allow you to put the signature, not the implementation, in the interface, anyway? (Okay, I know what the point is, but IMO it's still absurdly limiting.) In both Java and PHP, I'd really like a way to put implementation code in interfaces that are shared by multiple classes -- this would offer much of the power of multiple inheritance, without most of its problems.
Your statement implies to me that you believe there's no way to teach management.
I do not deny that there may be some way to teach management in a way that would improve the way management is generally done. I do deny, however, that the way management is currently taught bears any resemblance to such a method.
*Every* skill can be factored into repeatable, trainiable, learnable units and best practices.
Certainly many skills can. I suspect that "every" is overstating the case.
Else we wouldn't have universities.
Well, ideally the purpose of a university education is to teach more that just "repeatable, trainiable, learnable units and best practices" -- it should teach critical thinking skills that can be applied to a wide variety of situations, not just buzzwords and learning-by-rote. This, IMO, is one of the major problems with the current state of "business education" -- business courses are such pablum compared to those in just about any technical or liberal arts field that people with management degrees have never learned to stretch their brains.
I agree that it should work that way. The problem is that, like many/.ers, I've observed that reading management books pretty much never leads to reflection or self-evaluation. Instead, it leads to horrible managers thinking they're good ones because they're stuffed with the latest buzzwords. Meanwhile, good managers -- who are reflective, self-evaluative people by nature -- just go on quietly doing their jobs.
YES. This, like every other instance of management 13375P33X I've ever seen, is pseudo-intellectual blather by pseudo-educated people who lacked the brains and dedication to ever learn anything worth knowing. Good managers learn by common sense and OJT; those who think management can be condensed into buzzword-laden bestsellers are inevitably terrible at actually doing it.
They clearly know how to run a business -- nobody's denying that. But the way they run that business is to make two products that pretty much carry the rest of the company, even though those two products, in and of themselves, aren't especially good. The mystery is not what they do, but why everyone else lets them get away with it.
No, it's more as if the only succesful cars Ford ever made were the Model T and the Model A, and every other car they ever made -- every single one -- lost them money, and yet people kept buying Fords and praising the company as the leader of the automotive industry.
Does Microsoft's midlife struggle signal that the glory days are over for tech? Not a bit. While industry revenue growth is slowing, there's still plenty of innovating to do. Microsoft just has to figure out a better way of going about it.
No, it means the rest of the tech world will go on innovating, and Microsoft will go on copying, and make money -- not insane shit-tons of money, maybe, but plenty of it -- just like always. They've never innovated anything; they've always made their money by being clever businessmen, not brilliant inventors. Nothing has to change.
Crichton and Atwood are both ideological technophobes; using their deliberately nightmarish visions of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know as a guideline to the future of biotech is an insanely bad idea.
An intense workout in and itself "makes you weak in the knees, and reduces your overall strength and stamina levels" -- but I don't suppose anyone will argue with the fact that working out often increases your life expectancy overall. I can understand why people would develop the belief that ejaculation weakens a man and robs him of some mysterious life energy, but that belief, based on short-term observation and guesswork and hunches rather than systematic study is, like so many such beliefs, wrong.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is thought that men should try to conserve their semen as much as possible, as it is viewed as their source of vital energy. The more you ejaculate, the more it reduces your life expectancy.
... and beliefs like that are the reason that folk medicine, no matter how effective it may occasionally be, generally fails in comparison to "Western" (actually, just scientific, which is emphatically culture-neutral) medicine. The beliefs may happen to correspond with biological realities, but just as often they contradict them -- as in this case, since we now know that men who ejaculate frequently live longer.
Quibble. I would argue that a patent covers a concept or idea; whereas copyright covers a specific implementation of a concept or idea.
Except that's not how patents on physical inventions work. Patents on almost everything except software cover implementations of ideas, and ideas for physical objects are not patentable at all. Only in software and other non-physical areas (e.g., "business methods" patents, which are even more absurd than software patents) are ideas given such protection. That's one of the major reasons that even people like me, who support IP law in general, think software patents are a horrible idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you really do need a mix, and I think the tech world as a whole is starting to realize it. (I can't speak for whether Microsoft or Sun has done so, of course.) Experience and energy both count; you get the best results when you have both.
I couldn't find the word "beleagured" anywhere in the article.
Oh, wait. Sun, not Apple. Got it.
It's "recognition" in the sense of "being recognized for his accomplishments," not in the sense of "getting lots of PR." And believe it or not, to a lot of people the first is more important than the second.
Interestingly, Hardwired was a very successful early cyberpunk novel by Walter Jon Williams, and he's had to fight very hard over the years to protect the name. IIRC, he got in a dispute with Wired over Hotwired a few years ago -- I think they were the ones who initiated it, but I'm not sure.
The United States invented the motorized aircraft, the polio vaccinne, the internet, the light bulb, the movie camera.
Maybe, yes, yes, no, and maybe, in that order.
There really is very little difference between Americans and Canadians, besides cultural and political systems.
... besides cultural and political systems.
Um, there's very little difference between the residents of any two countries in the world
For a broad enough definition of the word "serve," this is true.
(I live in Denver. You can see the big blue "Q" on Qwest HQ from damn near everywhere in the city. I hate that thing.)
I'd argue that the difference really is intellectual as much as it is economic. Anyone who uses any non-Microsoft setup on the desktop -- whether that's a Mac, or a PC running Linux or BSD -- has almost certainly put some thought into the choice of operating systems and hardware. Someone running Windows may have put some thought into it and come to a rational decision, but more likely just went with it because it's the default. Or, to put or more bluntly: smart people may use Windows, MacOS, Linux, or BSD, but dumb people just use Windows.
China.
That is all.
Well, okay, now that I think about it, interfaces-with-implementation do have many of the same problems as multiple inheritance, although at least with i-w-i you don't have to worry about the constructor and variables. But anyway. My point is that I've never seen the use of Java-style interfaces (what does COM do with them?) and would really, really like to see i-w-i, or multiple inheritance for that matter, in PHP -- and, come to that, in Java. I've had to resort to some ugly hacks in both languages to get around this lack.
What irritates me is that they seem to have copied Java's useless interface model. What the hell is the point of interfaces that only allow you to put the signature, not the implementation, in the interface, anyway? (Okay, I know what the point is, but IMO it's still absurdly limiting.) In both Java and PHP, I'd really like a way to put implementation code in interfaces that are shared by multiple classes -- this would offer much of the power of multiple inheritance, without most of its problems.
Your statement implies to me that you believe there's no way to teach management.
I do not deny that there may be some way to teach management in a way that would improve the way management is generally done. I do deny, however, that the way management is currently taught bears any resemblance to such a method.
*Every* skill can be factored into repeatable, trainiable, learnable units and best practices.
Certainly many skills can. I suspect that "every" is overstating the case.
Else we wouldn't have universities.
Well, ideally the purpose of a university education is to teach more that just "repeatable, trainiable, learnable units and best practices" -- it should teach critical thinking skills that can be applied to a wide variety of situations, not just buzzwords and learning-by-rote. This, IMO, is one of the major problems with the current state of "business education" -- business courses are such pablum compared to those in just about any technical or liberal arts field that people with management degrees have never learned to stretch their brains.
I agree that it should work that way. The problem is that, like many /.ers, I've observed that reading management books pretty much never leads to reflection or self-evaluation. Instead, it leads to horrible managers thinking they're good ones because they're stuffed with the latest buzzwords. Meanwhile, good managers -- who are reflective, self-evaluative people by nature -- just go on quietly doing their jobs.
No shit. Hearing management monkeys talk about "parameters" and "matrices" and "sigmas" is like hearing a dog bark about quantum physics.
YES. This, like every other instance of management 13375P33X I've ever seen, is pseudo-intellectual blather by pseudo-educated people who lacked the brains and dedication to ever learn anything worth knowing. Good managers learn by common sense and OJT; those who think management can be condensed into buzzword-laden bestsellers are inevitably terrible at actually doing it.
Yes, because it's correct. (And I don't see why it's clumsy.)
They clearly know how to run a business -- nobody's denying that. But the way they run that business is to make two products that pretty much carry the rest of the company, even though those two products, in and of themselves, aren't especially good. The mystery is not what they do, but why everyone else lets them get away with it.
No, it's more as if the only succesful cars Ford ever made were the Model T and the Model A, and every other car they ever made -- every single one -- lost them money, and yet people kept buying Fords and praising the company as the leader of the automotive industry.
No shit.
I love this bit from the article:
Does Microsoft's midlife struggle signal that the glory days are over for tech? Not a bit. While industry revenue growth is slowing, there's still plenty of innovating to do. Microsoft just has to figure out a better way of going about it.
No, it means the rest of the tech world will go on innovating, and Microsoft will go on copying, and make money -- not insane shit-tons of money, maybe, but plenty of it -- just like always. They've never innovated anything; they've always made their money by being clever businessmen, not brilliant inventors. Nothing has to change.
I want a genetically engineered virus that permanently removes any memory of the word "virii" from the brains of all human beings. ;)
Crichton and Atwood are both ideological technophobes; using their deliberately nightmarish visions of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know as a guideline to the future of biotech is an insanely bad idea.
The first manned Mercury flight was a suborbital hop, too; eight years later we put men on the Moon.
An intense workout in and itself "makes you weak in the knees, and reduces your overall strength and stamina levels" -- but I don't suppose anyone will argue with the fact that working out often increases your life expectancy overall. I can understand why people would develop the belief that ejaculation weakens a man and robs him of some mysterious life energy, but that belief, based on short-term observation and guesswork and hunches rather than systematic study is, like so many such beliefs, wrong.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is thought that men should try to conserve their semen as much as possible, as it is viewed as their source of vital energy. The more you ejaculate, the more it reduces your life expectancy.
... and beliefs like that are the reason that folk medicine, no matter how effective it may occasionally be, generally fails in comparison to "Western" (actually, just scientific, which is emphatically culture-neutral) medicine. The beliefs may happen to correspond with biological realities, but just as often they contradict them -- as in this case, since we now know that men who ejaculate frequently live longer.
Quibble. I would argue that a patent covers a concept or idea; whereas copyright covers a specific implementation of a concept or idea.
Except that's not how patents on physical inventions work. Patents on almost everything except software cover implementations of ideas, and ideas for physical objects are not patentable at all. Only in software and other non-physical areas (e.g., "business methods" patents, which are even more absurd than software patents) are ideas given such protection. That's one of the major reasons that even people like me, who support IP law in general, think software patents are a horrible idea.