I don't know about other developers, but I do care, and try to keep pages small. More and more people are accessing the web on mobile devices, so minimizing the data going back and forth, and round trips to the server, is important to user experience. In the design community, designing with mobile devices in mind is a growing practice.
I assume he was emphasizing that the increase was not in the number of sales (which, at a lower price, may or may not mean an increase in revenue), but the amount of $monetary_unit brought in...
So you're happy with your situation, and that's a good thing. Obviously, you made the right decisions for you.
But what's up with implying that anyone who does differently is stupid? Sure, the single life was fun for a while, but I wouldn't give up my wonderful husband and kids for all the partying in the world. I may be a little more tired going to work after getting up at night with kids, and my house might look like a toy store exploded in it. And instead of going out to bars, we settle for a beer on the couch after the kids go to bed. But at the end of the day when my little guys are happy to see me, and I watch my husband having a blast playing with them, it's all worth it.
We may not have a ton of money for all the things we want, but we're comfortable enough, and we're doing work we enjoy. We're certainly not miserable, and I never feel like I'm missing out.
So, enjoy the life you've chosen, and don't waste any of your time feeling sorry for me.
Just off the top of my head, not saying for sure that this definitely happens, but:
If it's hard to fire an employee once hired, it may be harder to get hired in the first place. An employer will probably need to spend more time and money on checking someone out first, which leaves less for salaries.
There's a difference here though. We're adults, and yes, we should be able to adapt within reason. However, the article specifically refers to second graders. I don't think we should expect the same of seven-year-olds as we do of adults. If I have to work with someone with a strong accent, I can adapt with a little extra effort, and it won't bother me as long as they don't get offended when I occasionally have to ask them to repeat something. But if my young child can't understand his teachers, I'm going to have a problem with that.
This depends on the level of the students.
At university, I had several professors with heavy accents, and it just required a little more effort on my part to listen more closely, and ask for repetitions occasionally, and this was not a problem for me. I would expect university students, as adults, to be capable of doing the same, or in the case that the accent is just too difficult to understand, to say something to the professor.
The article, however, was specifically referring to elementary school children. I would not expect the same of them as I would of university, or even high school students. In the second grade, kids should not have to struggle to understand their teacher. There is a lot for kids to learn in elementary school, and I don't think it benefits them to have to learn to understand accents at the same time.
It's hard to know how much of our logic kids understand, especially when they are young toddlers and don't use many words yet. I try to err on the side of telling my 19 month old son a little more of a rational explanation than I really expect him to understand. This way, I figure, if he doesn't get it, I'm still at least getting in the habit of using logic with him, and on the off chance he does, that's a bonus. Hopefully this is the right way to do things, anyway.
The sense of humor comes in handy, especially when you have to put up with a husband and kids. But actually, 99.9% of the time, they are the best thing in my life. Then there are the moments when you have to laugh when something frustrating happens, because there's no point in getting mad about it. Which is why my son had the temporary nickname of "Mom's fountain of joy", while I was learning to be much faster with diaper changing...
I agree that getting an early start at programming is beneficial, but I don't believe it's necessary.
I expect I'm quite a bit older than you, but when I was growing up, having access to a computer wasn't common. Maybe some of the more wealthy families had one, but not ours. I simply wasn't exposed to computers much in high school. After high school, I spent 6 years in the military, to earn some money to pay for college (even though I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet). While I was in, I got a little more exposure to computers, and became interested. So, when I started college in my mid twenties, my first CS course was my first exposure to programming. There were some students that seemed to have a hard time, but I wasn't one of them. Some people have the thinking skills/talent necessary, even if they never had the exposure to the technology, and once they get that exposure and the opportunity to try, even if they're older, they do well. Even with no prior experience or exposure, I did very well, and finally graduated (Magna Cum Laude, even), and now I'm working as a developer, quite successfully.
Sure, there are people who aren't cut out for CS, generally the ones who struggle in the intro courses. However, just because you didn't get an early start at programming, that doesn't mean that you can't be inclined toward it and excel at it.
AFAIK, they're not actually applying a special tax to people because they're gay. It's putting kind of a fine point on it, but actually, they just give tax breaks to people for being married, and unfortunately, our government doesn't allow same-sex marriage.
IMO, TRWTF is that the govt has any involvement in marriage at all. Only slightly less WTF-y is our tax code...
disclaimer: I'm a Libertarian, so I consider at least 90% of the government to be a huge WTF...
This is so true. I think companies that require these certifications do it for two reasons. Either they get some kind of special status for having employees with the certifications (e.g. "Microsoft Partner"), or they're too lazy to truly evaluate how well employees are keeping current, and the piece of paper is a shortcut for this.
I think that a company that truly cares about the employees' skills more than a piece of paper could find better ways to evaluate. The certification just means that you can remember a lot of information and regurgitate it, not that you have a deep understanding of it, or the creativity to use it to solve problems in the best way.
As someone who has never actually run a business, I humbly suggest that companies who want to encourage their employees to keep current start setting aside a certain amount of time each week for developers to take turns presenting something new they've learned to the rest of the team. Each developer would only have to prepare something once a month or so (give or take, depending on team size), and most people, I expect, wouldn't have a problem with spending a few hours to a day of their personal time studying/researching for something like this, especially if they get to choose the topics themselves. Plus, from the effort of one individual, and an hour of listening to the presenter and discussing, the whole team learns something new each week.
Almost every year about this time I post some sort of rant about how wasteful it is that we don't even have a free, official online tax-filing website. It would save filers tons of time, it would save the IRS tons of money. But the tax preparers don't care about that (after all, $1 of intentional government inefficiency is 25 cents of income for them) and somehow, though I can't figure out how, this tiny special interest has the power to dictate government policy.
It's not exactly "official", as you have to go to a third party, but you can file online free. I worked as a tax preparer one year, and from my experience, the reason most clients chose $tax_service instead of doing it themselves (paper or online) wasn't because they couldn't, but because $tax_service offered refund anticipation loans. Which means they get a check for several thousand, less a couple hundred in fees, the next day, rather than waiting a week or more for direct deposit of the full refund.
I doubt that computers or game consoles have anything to do with it. I could read by 4 without any of that stuff. My parents both read a lot, and read to me. When I wanted to read too, they helped me learn.
Slashdot Mirror
(Barrel / cask / keg / drum / etc is the large cylindrical container for storing beverages, chemicals or, historically, certain foods)
You forgot about monkeys!
I don't know about other developers, but I do care, and try to keep pages small. More and more people are accessing the web on mobile devices, so minimizing the data going back and forth, and round trips to the server, is important to user experience. In the design community, designing with mobile devices in mind is a growing practice.
... getting all indigent...
I don't think that word means what you think it means...
So, windows 8 will inspire a new WORST FONT EVER?
What if he lives in a tiny apartment, where he really doesn't have space for all these multiple bins?
I assume he was emphasizing that the increase was not in the number of sales (which, at a lower price, may or may not mean an increase in revenue), but the amount of $monetary_unit brought in...
Poor Mr. Buffet, too bad he doesn't have the option of paying extra taxes...
.
.
.
Oh, wait... http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm
.
.
.
Someone should tell him about this, he'll be so relieved...
wow...
So you're happy with your situation, and that's a good thing. Obviously, you made the right decisions for you.
But what's up with implying that anyone who does differently is stupid? Sure, the single life was fun for a while, but I wouldn't give up my wonderful husband and kids for all the partying in the world. I may be a little more tired going to work after getting up at night with kids, and my house might look like a toy store exploded in it. And instead of going out to bars, we settle for a beer on the couch after the kids go to bed. But at the end of the day when my little guys are happy to see me, and I watch my husband having a blast playing with them, it's all worth it.
We may not have a ton of money for all the things we want, but we're comfortable enough, and we're doing work we enjoy. We're certainly not miserable, and I never feel like I'm missing out.
So, enjoy the life you've chosen, and don't waste any of your time feeling sorry for me.
What a strange set of circumstances...
Just off the top of my head, not saying for sure that this definitely happens, but: If it's hard to fire an employee once hired, it may be harder to get hired in the first place. An employer will probably need to spend more time and money on checking someone out first, which leaves less for salaries.
this^^
There's a difference here though. We're adults, and yes, we should be able to adapt within reason. However, the article specifically refers to second graders. I don't think we should expect the same of seven-year-olds as we do of adults. If I have to work with someone with a strong accent, I can adapt with a little extra effort, and it won't bother me as long as they don't get offended when I occasionally have to ask them to repeat something. But if my young child can't understand his teachers, I'm going to have a problem with that.
This depends on the level of the students. At university, I had several professors with heavy accents, and it just required a little more effort on my part to listen more closely, and ask for repetitions occasionally, and this was not a problem for me. I would expect university students, as adults, to be capable of doing the same, or in the case that the accent is just too difficult to understand, to say something to the professor. The article, however, was specifically referring to elementary school children. I would not expect the same of them as I would of university, or even high school students. In the second grade, kids should not have to struggle to understand their teacher. There is a lot for kids to learn in elementary school, and I don't think it benefits them to have to learn to understand accents at the same time.
It's hard to know how much of our logic kids understand, especially when they are young toddlers and don't use many words yet. I try to err on the side of telling my 19 month old son a little more of a rational explanation than I really expect him to understand. This way, I figure, if he doesn't get it, I'm still at least getting in the habit of using logic with him, and on the off chance he does, that's a bonus. Hopefully this is the right way to do things, anyway.
Different people have different priorities, and find happiness in different things. This doesn't make any of them wrong or bad.
The sense of humor comes in handy, especially when you have to put up with a husband and kids. But actually, 99.9% of the time, they are the best thing in my life. Then there are the moments when you have to laugh when something frustrating happens, because there's no point in getting mad about it. Which is why my son had the temporary nickname of "Mom's fountain of joy", while I was learning to be much faster with diaper changing...
So what are you trying to say, (pregnant) wives have no sense of humor?
I agree that getting an early start at programming is beneficial, but I don't believe it's necessary. I expect I'm quite a bit older than you, but when I was growing up, having access to a computer wasn't common. Maybe some of the more wealthy families had one, but not ours. I simply wasn't exposed to computers much in high school. After high school, I spent 6 years in the military, to earn some money to pay for college (even though I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet). While I was in, I got a little more exposure to computers, and became interested. So, when I started college in my mid twenties, my first CS course was my first exposure to programming. There were some students that seemed to have a hard time, but I wasn't one of them. Some people have the thinking skills/talent necessary, even if they never had the exposure to the technology, and once they get that exposure and the opportunity to try, even if they're older, they do well. Even with no prior experience or exposure, I did very well, and finally graduated (Magna Cum Laude, even), and now I'm working as a developer, quite successfully. Sure, there are people who aren't cut out for CS, generally the ones who struggle in the intro courses. However, just because you didn't get an early start at programming, that doesn't mean that you can't be inclined toward it and excel at it.
Warning: the linked page is in Comic Sans. The goggles, they do nothing!!!
AFAIK, they're not actually applying a special tax to people because they're gay. It's putting kind of a fine point on it, but actually, they just give tax breaks to people for being married, and unfortunately, our government doesn't allow same-sex marriage. IMO, TRWTF is that the govt has any involvement in marriage at all. Only slightly less WTF-y is our tax code...
disclaimer: I'm a Libertarian, so I consider at least 90% of the government to be a huge WTF...
This is so true. I think companies that require these certifications do it for two reasons. Either they get some kind of special status for having employees with the certifications (e.g. "Microsoft Partner"), or they're too lazy to truly evaluate how well employees are keeping current, and the piece of paper is a shortcut for this. I think that a company that truly cares about the employees' skills more than a piece of paper could find better ways to evaluate. The certification just means that you can remember a lot of information and regurgitate it, not that you have a deep understanding of it, or the creativity to use it to solve problems in the best way. As someone who has never actually run a business, I humbly suggest that companies who want to encourage their employees to keep current start setting aside a certain amount of time each week for developers to take turns presenting something new they've learned to the rest of the team. Each developer would only have to prepare something once a month or so (give or take, depending on team size), and most people, I expect, wouldn't have a problem with spending a few hours to a day of their personal time studying/researching for something like this, especially if they get to choose the topics themselves. Plus, from the effort of one individual, and an hour of listening to the presenter and discussing, the whole team learns something new each week.
And if you have a Talkie Toaster (patent applied for)
Almost every year about this time I post some sort of rant about how wasteful it is that we don't even have a free, official online tax-filing website. It would save filers tons of time, it would save the IRS tons of money. But the tax preparers don't care about that (after all, $1 of intentional government inefficiency is 25 cents of income for them) and somehow, though I can't figure out how, this tiny special interest has the power to dictate government policy.
It's not exactly "official", as you have to go to a third party, but you can file online free. I worked as a tax preparer one year, and from my experience, the reason most clients chose $tax_service instead of doing it themselves (paper or online) wasn't because they couldn't, but because $tax_service offered refund anticipation loans. Which means they get a check for several thousand, less a couple hundred in fees, the next day, rather than waiting a week or more for direct deposit of the full refund.
proper spelling is a sign of a writer's respect for the reader off his work.
+1 Ironic...
proper spelling is a sign of a writer's respect for the reader of his work.
FIFY
I doubt that computers or game consoles have anything to do with it. I could read by 4 without any of that stuff. My parents both read a lot, and read to me. When I wanted to read too, they helped me learn.