That kind of thinking will and has gotten many a manager into hot water. Interns are not production engineers for a reason, i.e. they lack experience and the *MUCH* needed "80/20 rule" judgment to keep them from rat-hole-ing and sinking the project. Likewise, it's a bad thing for the intern because then they get roped into production schedules and don't necessarily get to come up to speed or learn the way things work because they're running in the full break neck pace with the developers. Don't get me wrong, On the Job training is good, but when you're trying to also go to school, one or the other will give way.
Your point is valid, but you'll notice that I never said anything about interns working on production systems within a release cycle. There are plenty of ways that interns can be useful to the team they are attached to (and I'm not talking about getting coffee) while still getting an opportunity to learn the ropes along the way. There are always going to be non-critical systems that need maintenance and tasks that need to be done that actual developers don't have the bandwidth to take care of.
Woah here buddy. To earn anyone's time to even talk to you, you need humility. YES, I understand that you need money to live. But check the attitude at the door. You're in their house, learning from their engineers on time they are PAYING those said engineers to talk to you.
First of all, I agree that humility is necessary. You're also 100% correct that people need money to live, and as far as I'm concerned that will override humility every single time. Ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? It is awfully hard to focus on learning anything or being productive or useful when you have to worry about paying the rent and eating. As for the cost of the engineers taking the time to talk to an intern, the cost associated with that is still going to be less than if the engineer had to simply do the work themselves. Would the company rather have the engineer log hours at their bill rate to get a task done, or would they rather have an engineer spending a half hour or so explaining things to the (much) less expensive intern who can then get the task done themselves?
Why do they take in interns? Because they're hoping to develop you and have you return the favor when you look for a job, i.e. they've trained and molded you into what they want you to be, at a cheap rate, so that you take a position with them when you graduate.
What you seem to be basically saying here is that interns are an investment with the ROI being that the intern will be hired-on afterwards. Well, like any other investment what you put into that investment will be what you get out of it. If a company doesn't want to ante up and actually pay their interns enough to live on they're probably going to get what they pay for. This is true for the intern as well; the time and effort they put into the relationship will affect whether or not the company will decide to hire them on.
I once had the decision put to me about two interns, one was a senior with the experience we were looking for, but had a lackluster attitude about working on our stuff, and the other was a freshman with a "I will learn anything" attitude. Guess who I pushed for? The freshman, mostly because I knew that I can most always overcome the lack of knowledge, but I can never overcome the attitude problem.
I just got out of a paid internship, and those precise words ("I will learn anything") are what got me the job, and it was a job, make no mistake. As an intern I was given quite a bit of responsibility, from admining the intranet for half of North America for a major European auto maker to maintaining their collection of custom applications, to working with internal clients on a daily basis. This was a full-time position, and th
I see a lot of posts above that basically state that internships are more about what you can learn than they are about how much you get paid. I agree with this to a certain extent, but I gotta say that getting paid is an absolute must for me. I realize that companies are under no obligation to take on interns (much less paid interns), especially with the way the economy is, but on the other hand interns can be a cheap source of labor, and if companies are willing to pay your interns a decent amount (that is, below what an actual developer makes but well above minimum wage) then everyone involved can benefit, especially if the internship turns into a full-time position.
That said I find the idea of a non-paying internship to be ridiculous. My time is just as valuable as anyone else's and if a company doesn't respect me enough to pay me for the time I spend working for them then I wouldn't have anything to do with them. It is simply condescending to argue that a company is providing hands-on experience so they don't need to provide monetary compensation as well. It is to the company's (and the industry's) benefit that they hire interns and actually pay them a wage as it provides an incentive and a means for new entrants to earn the experience that companies demand entry-level worker to have.
I'd also like to point out that it is much more common now for students to be "non-traditional," meaning that they don't live on campus, work their way through college at full or part-time jobs and are either starting families or already have them. I'm one of these students (my daughter is two months old as of Monday), and the idea of taking a non-paid position (even with hands-on experience) is simply unthinkable. Companies should understand how the student population is evolving and should take these facts into account when considering whether or not to pay their interns.
Sure, check out Blissology, The Science of Bliss. She actually has a lot more than just soap, but the soap is very good. I'm lucky in that she sends my wife and I samples of new products every now and then;-)
I agree, tutoring is definitely harder than it looks at first glance. I tutored CS for a short period and I plan to teach in the long run. I think the hardest thing for me was finding my method; obviously you can't just give them the answer or they wouldn't learn anything. Personally I tended towards the Socratic method, but as you say you have to use the method that the students find the easiest to learn with, and if someone can't communicate well then tutoring is not for them.
Tutoring is one of the most rewarding (and frustrating) experiences I've ever had. It is a great feeling to see that you're getting through to someone, you watch the light come on for them and they start to really "get it." The flipside of this is when someone comes in day after day and you can tell they are just going through the motions, or they expect you to "learn it for them," or even worse they think you are there to do their homework for them. Still, even with the occasional bad apple I think tutoring can be a great experience overall, and a good part-time gig.
Actually this is a very good suggestion. A friend of mine recently opened her own soap business and she is making money hand over fist. She mostly sells soap at trade shows, fairs, etc, but I helped her set up her e-commerce site and business is really picking up for her. Soap is relatively easy to make, and creating large batches of it at a time can lead to great economies of scale. You could do worse as far as side-businesses go.
but I call total bullshit. How do you correlate "working on a computer" with "mental effort"? Absolute rubbish.
Ok, I'm fairly certain that you're just trolling here, but I'll bite.
First, I'm guessing that you probably don't work in IT. I do, and I can attest that when I'm sitting in front of the computer at work I'm not just doing nothing (95% of the time, the other 5% is spent here or checking my mail or RSS feeds), I'm busy working on whatever problem is at hand. Despite what you might believe, writing code is HARD. It definitely falls under the category of "mentally taxing." It's not like sitting in front of the idiot box and just soaking in whatever crap happens to be on at the time. Even when it looks like I'm just sitting there staring at the screen in a zombie-like state I'm actually turning the problem over in my head, trying to determine the best way to solve it.
As far as eating as something to do when one is "sitting one's ass" is concerned I personally don't eat just to pass the time. I would go so far as to say that this is true for most people. I eat when I'm hungry, and work (mental or physical) makes me hungry. Also I tend to think better after a reasonable meal (I avoid pasta, rice, or anything carb-heavy or I'll just want to sleep), and I've learned to recognize when my brain is not performing as well as it should due to hunger. Most of the time by the end of the day I'm close to mental exhaustion and my wife will be the first to tell you that I'm not fit for conversation until after dinner.
The bottom line here is that anyone who equates working at a computer all day and watching TV has obviously never had to do it for a living.
By far, however, the absolute worst way to spend money on computer parts is to go to a big, corporate, well-lit box store where the guys have little name tags and same-color shirts. Ugh! --I mean, that's fine for laptops and big screens and such, but for hard drives and mother boards and video cards and bags of little screws? What a waste of an experience! I'd rather use an abacus than build a computer from parts obtained in a damned box store. Not to mention that it's nearly always a LOT more expensive that way. Nobody can beat them on price for big items which they order by the shipping palate, but for smaller parts. . , there's simply too many to choose from, so they stream-line their stock and charge you up the wazoo for them. And anyway box stores, you know, have no soul.
Have you ever been to Microcenter? They're the only box store I'll buy parts from because their prices are reasonable and their return policies aren't barbaric. I'd never buy a pre-built system from them because their prices (for the pre-built systems, mind) are outrageous but they do have an excellent selection of parts (and books, and networking accessories), including slightly used hard drives and RAM. The staff is usually very knowledgeable (in comparison to say, Best Buy *shudders*) and they seem to actually enjoy working there. They also sell flash drives cheap as dirt. As for having no soul, hey even the little guy is in it for the money, or they'd do it for free. It's just business, you know?
The Microcenter I go to has a hole-in-the-wall parts place literally right next door, which is convenient because I'll usually go there if I can't find something at Microcenter, or I have a suspicious that the price is too high. The hole-in-the-wall place doesn't always have what I'm looking for and a lot of the time their stock is a mishmash of used and outdated parts, but it is fun to go bargain hunting there every now and then. Their pre-built systems are usually cheaper too, and they don't come laden with all kinds of crapware. I'm always surprised that the place manages to stay in business but they've apparently found a way to make a buck.
Don't get me wrong, it's obvious that you enjoy the experience of parts shopping, and I can completely relate to that. I think both the hole-in-the-wall parts shops and (some of) the big box places have their benefits and detriments, and a lot of it is personal preference.
Your post also reminded me that I've been meaning to pick up another hard drive, I might have to make a trip today:-D
Those who cannot be bought, can be silenced via threats, which come in many forms, many of them 100% legal in today's environment.
True enough, but being bought and being silenced are quite different. Contrary to what a lot of people fear we are not living in a completely corrupted system, and there is often the opportunity for legal recourse. While not perfect the system does work.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by threats which are legal. Examples? Speaking hypothetically, if you are aware of illegal dealings (such as what occurred in Enron) and your manager threatens you to keep mum that's known as blackmail, which as I'm sure you are aware is illegal in most civilized parts of the world.
Ill tell you what he was thinking. He has a job, hes making a paycheck, hes living by that paycheck.
That doesn't excuse unethical behavior. We all have to make a living and the vast majority of us understand that there are consequences for our actions, even if those actions were taken to protect ourselves financially.
When Enron and all those companies started collapse in 2001/2002, the people that helped cooked the books knew what they were doing. But they kept their mouths shut cause they were getting paid to.
Yes, and we saw how well that worked out for the lot of them.
Point is, put a bag of money in front of someone and watch their ethics and morals go out the door.
As I said above, I think most people will choose to act ethically. IMHO I don't believe that "everyone has their price," but I could just be naive.
Re:My opinion of what Java APIs are worth learning
on
Java, Where To Start?
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· Score: 1
* Collections
* Reflection
* IO
* Servlets & JSPs then Struts, Tiles, Spring, etc
* JDBC, then Hibernate
* Axis (web services) and Apache HTTPClient
Collections and Reflection before I/O? Seriously? Servlets and JSPs before the JDBC? Wow. I/O is a core activity for any programming language and should be taught (or learned) as early as possible (meaning after the absolute basics). It's hard to do anything without any data, and unless your applications are completely trivial (in which case you're probably not learning anything anyway) you'll have to know how to get data into and of various data sources. The JDBC should be taught after I/O and preferably after advanced OO concepts so students learn to abstract out DB calls as early as possible. Struts and JSPs won't do you much good unless you know how to make calls to the database first. As for Tiles, Spring, etc, these should be saved to the very end when they'll actually be useful.
Here is my version of your list:
I/O
Collections
JDBC
Reflection
Servlets, JSPs, Struts, etc
Axis
In terms of interfaces, I wouldn't bother with Swing or AWT really, until you need them. SWT ain't too bad (Eclipse uses it, and it's cross platform enough - Windows, Linux, Mac, Pocket PC,...). Maybe you could be fancy and learn Fenggui instead! Then you could learn JOGL and write 3D games and the like.
Granted that Swing and (especially) AWT are falling out of fashion they are still worth learning because they are still core to Java. Even if you never use them it is good to be able to say you are familiar with them. I haven't heard one or the other that SWT is all that popular, or if it is living up to its promise of being more flexible than Swing.
Oh, and learn how to do Java on the command line first, use ANT to build and compile and deploy, then try Eclipse or NetBeans as an IDE. This way you'll avoid all the niceties that the IDE gives you that inhibits your initial learning.
I agree with you completely here, and honestly I wish I had learned the command line first. Now I'm doing it the hard way (e.g. backwards). The little experience I have with Ant has shown me how tremendously useful it is, and I wish I had learned it first.
I wouldn't bother with half of the enterprise wank, like Enterprise Beans and all that.
I don't know if I would go that far. It seems that most Java-related job postings out there are asking for these skills, and it would be worth their time to learn them.
I like the "Head First" series overall, but honestly I can't stand them for actually learning new languages. Their style IS fun and works very well for abstract/complicated subjects (such as in their books on design patterns and servlets and JSP) because they break down the subject matter and present it in a way that is easy to consume. As far as learning languages go though I think they do entirely too much hand-holding and they gloss over a lot of important details.
If you're learning Java for the first time I suggest Big Java. It presents the subject matter very well, and is comprehensive enough to be used as a desk reference later on, after you become familiar with the language and its tools.
Ok, you're missing my point, which is that Eclipse and Tomcat have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You don't need to "switch" from one to the other because they are used for entirely different purposes. Yes, they're both tools, but it doesn't make any sense to tell the parent that you switched because one is used to write code and the other is used to serve applications. It makes you sound like you don't know what you are talking about, and will only confuse new developers.
I started with Eclipse (as I use it for LAMP development) and switched to Tomcat
Ummm, what? Eclipse is an IDE, Tomcat is a container for web servers. Tomcat and Apache can be used with Eclipse with a nice little plugin for testing.
Agreed. I'm just saying this is going to be a wake-up call to a lot of people who didn't see any financial penalty for being lax with their security. I think situations like this will become more frequent in the next few years, especially when 802.11n becomes more popular and wireless connections are just as fast as wired.
Not it wasn't before, but that sounds like a much stronger argument now for the average user to secure their wireless network. Just wait until Joe User calls up their now bandwidth-capping ISP to find out how in the world they went over their limit.
Joe User: But I only ever got online to check my email!
Unsympathetic CSR: Do you happen to have a wireless router? Did you bother to secure it?
JU: Well yes, but I've never had a problem before and I couldn't be bothered to figure out how to secure it.
UCSR: Welp, looks like someone has been leeching off of you big time. Have fun with all of our overage charges!
The FBI thinks there are 200,000 terrorists here!!?? Arent we in Iraq to keep from having them here. If there were 200,000 terrorists here there would be bombings every day.
That number almost certainly does not represent how many terrorists the FBI believes to be here. It is far more likely that the NSLs were issued during the course of investigations to determine if the subject has any terrorist connections, and I would bet only a (extremely) tiny fraction of them actually did.
A number like 200,000 suggests to me that there is something other than terrorism of interest... like screwing political opponents of the Bush regime.
No arguments here. Your statement would be less believable if it wasn't for the fact that there is evidence of wiretapping abuse for political purposes.
Yet, if you test 100% of the meat, you'd effectively stop any chance of mad cow disease making its way to market.
You're assuming that the test procedure is 100% accurate, which is nearly impossible, especially considering the method the company wants to use. As someone else pointed out there is also the possibility of false positives, which could have dramatic effects on beef exports.
By the way, if you were to take 300,000,000 Americans, 0.17% ends up being 510,000 people.
I'm sorry but did you read the parent post at all? 0.17% is what they stated as the margin for error, not the percentage of cattle OR people that may be infected. It simply says that there is a possibility that the test results could be wrong.
Yes, you forgot to include an outraged knee-jerk response like everyone else (who probably didn't bother to read TFA) in this conversation:-P. Seriously though, I'm surprised no one else thought this through. If proper test procedures are in place and a sufficiently large sample is taken there is no good reason for 100% coverage except to try to gain marketing leverage. If everyone was forced to perform 100% test coverage we would definitely see an increase in the cost of beef with little to no gain regarding food safety.
Even by textbook standards $200 is pretty expensive. I just sold back my inferential statistics book, bought it for $100 and got about $60 back (pretty good deal considering the meager amounts I've gotten back before). I feel his pain about not being able to use an old edition, but I have found that talking to the prof. helps, and they're usually willing to allow an older edition as long as the problem sets are close to identical. Most (if not all) professors are well aware of textbook prices and the fact that very little changes between editions, and if they're not writing textbooks themselves they're usually sympathetic to the student's plight. I've also had profs. flat out tell me they don't use the textbook that is assigned for the class, and they only listed one because it was required by the higher-ups.
In this case though it sounds like the prof. might be kind of anal of what edition they're using.... Are you sure he didn't write it himself?;-)
Didn't you hear? They redefined news reporting as sock-puppetry and regurgitated talking points. So yes, FOX news is absolutely a pinnacle of news reporting.
Ah, good idea! Actually the MOSS wiki has this functionality; the "Workflow" feature allows you to do exactly that. I said the MOSS wiki is crippled (and I still stand by that), but that is one of the nice things about it. That would definitely open up the possibility of allowing all users to edit with an approval process in place.
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Your point is valid, but you'll notice that I never said anything about interns working on production systems within a release cycle. There are plenty of ways that interns can be useful to the team they are attached to (and I'm not talking about getting coffee) while still getting an opportunity to learn the ropes along the way. There are always going to be non-critical systems that need maintenance and tasks that need to be done that actual developers don't have the bandwidth to take care of.
First of all, I agree that humility is necessary. You're also 100% correct that people need money to live, and as far as I'm concerned that will override humility every single time. Ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? It is awfully hard to focus on learning anything or being productive or useful when you have to worry about paying the rent and eating. As for the cost of the engineers taking the time to talk to an intern, the cost associated with that is still going to be less than if the engineer had to simply do the work themselves. Would the company rather have the engineer log hours at their bill rate to get a task done, or would they rather have an engineer spending a half hour or so explaining things to the (much) less expensive intern who can then get the task done themselves?
What you seem to be basically saying here is that interns are an investment with the ROI being that the intern will be hired-on afterwards. Well, like any other investment what you put into that investment will be what you get out of it. If a company doesn't want to ante up and actually pay their interns enough to live on they're probably going to get what they pay for. This is true for the intern as well; the time and effort they put into the relationship will affect whether or not the company will decide to hire them on.
I just got out of a paid internship, and those precise words ("I will learn anything") are what got me the job, and it was a job, make no mistake. As an intern I was given quite a bit of responsibility, from admining the intranet for half of North America for a major European auto maker to maintaining their collection of custom applications, to working with internal clients on a daily basis. This was a full-time position, and th
I see a lot of posts above that basically state that internships are more about what you can learn than they are about how much you get paid. I agree with this to a certain extent, but I gotta say that getting paid is an absolute must for me. I realize that companies are under no obligation to take on interns (much less paid interns), especially with the way the economy is, but on the other hand interns can be a cheap source of labor, and if companies are willing to pay your interns a decent amount (that is, below what an actual developer makes but well above minimum wage) then everyone involved can benefit, especially if the internship turns into a full-time position.
That said I find the idea of a non-paying internship to be ridiculous. My time is just as valuable as anyone else's and if a company doesn't respect me enough to pay me for the time I spend working for them then I wouldn't have anything to do with them. It is simply condescending to argue that a company is providing hands-on experience so they don't need to provide monetary compensation as well. It is to the company's (and the industry's) benefit that they hire interns and actually pay them a wage as it provides an incentive and a means for new entrants to earn the experience that companies demand entry-level worker to have.
I'd also like to point out that it is much more common now for students to be "non-traditional," meaning that they don't live on campus, work their way through college at full or part-time jobs and are either starting families or already have them. I'm one of these students (my daughter is two months old as of Monday), and the idea of taking a non-paid position (even with hands-on experience) is simply unthinkable. Companies should understand how the student population is evolving and should take these facts into account when considering whether or not to pay their interns.
that consumers and fair use get the short end of the stick at these hearings?
Sure, check out Blissology, The Science of Bliss. She actually has a lot more than just soap, but the soap is very good. I'm lucky in that she sends my wife and I samples of new products every now and then ;-)
I agree, tutoring is definitely harder than it looks at first glance. I tutored CS for a short period and I plan to teach in the long run. I think the hardest thing for me was finding my method; obviously you can't just give them the answer or they wouldn't learn anything. Personally I tended towards the Socratic method, but as you say you have to use the method that the students find the easiest to learn with, and if someone can't communicate well then tutoring is not for them.
Tutoring is one of the most rewarding (and frustrating) experiences I've ever had. It is a great feeling to see that you're getting through to someone, you watch the light come on for them and they start to really "get it." The flipside of this is when someone comes in day after day and you can tell they are just going through the motions, or they expect you to "learn it for them," or even worse they think you are there to do their homework for them. Still, even with the occasional bad apple I think tutoring can be a great experience overall, and a good part-time gig.
Actually this is a very good suggestion. A friend of mine recently opened her own soap business and she is making money hand over fist. She mostly sells soap at trade shows, fairs, etc, but I helped her set up her e-commerce site and business is really picking up for her. Soap is relatively easy to make, and creating large batches of it at a time can lead to great economies of scale. You could do worse as far as side-businesses go.
Oh yeah, I know "IT" is a pretty broad term. Honestly I had just woken up and, you know, I hadn't eaten yet ;-)
Ok, I'm fairly certain that you're just trolling here, but I'll bite.
First, I'm guessing that you probably don't work in IT. I do, and I can attest that when I'm sitting in front of the computer at work I'm not just doing nothing (95% of the time, the other 5% is spent here or checking my mail or RSS feeds), I'm busy working on whatever problem is at hand. Despite what you might believe, writing code is HARD. It definitely falls under the category of "mentally taxing." It's not like sitting in front of the idiot box and just soaking in whatever crap happens to be on at the time. Even when it looks like I'm just sitting there staring at the screen in a zombie-like state I'm actually turning the problem over in my head, trying to determine the best way to solve it.
As far as eating as something to do when one is "sitting one's ass" is concerned I personally don't eat just to pass the time. I would go so far as to say that this is true for most people. I eat when I'm hungry, and work (mental or physical) makes me hungry. Also I tend to think better after a reasonable meal (I avoid pasta, rice, or anything carb-heavy or I'll just want to sleep), and I've learned to recognize when my brain is not performing as well as it should due to hunger. Most of the time by the end of the day I'm close to mental exhaustion and my wife will be the first to tell you that I'm not fit for conversation until after dinner.
The bottom line here is that anyone who equates working at a computer all day and watching TV has obviously never had to do it for a living.
Have you ever been to Microcenter? They're the only box store I'll buy parts from because their prices are reasonable and their return policies aren't barbaric. I'd never buy a pre-built system from them because their prices (for the pre-built systems, mind) are outrageous but they do have an excellent selection of parts (and books, and networking accessories), including slightly used hard drives and RAM. The staff is usually very knowledgeable (in comparison to say, Best Buy *shudders*) and they seem to actually enjoy working there. They also sell flash drives cheap as dirt. As for having no soul, hey even the little guy is in it for the money, or they'd do it for free. It's just business, you know?
The Microcenter I go to has a hole-in-the-wall parts place literally right next door, which is convenient because I'll usually go there if I can't find something at Microcenter, or I have a suspicious that the price is too high. The hole-in-the-wall place doesn't always have what I'm looking for and a lot of the time their stock is a mishmash of used and outdated parts, but it is fun to go bargain hunting there every now and then. Their pre-built systems are usually cheaper too, and they don't come laden with all kinds of crapware. I'm always surprised that the place manages to stay in business but they've apparently found a way to make a buck.
Don't get me wrong, it's obvious that you enjoy the experience of parts shopping, and I can completely relate to that. I think both the hole-in-the-wall parts shops and (some of) the big box places have their benefits and detriments, and a lot of it is personal preference.
Your post also reminded me that I've been meaning to pick up another hard drive, I might have to make a trip today :-D
True enough, but being bought and being silenced are quite different. Contrary to what a lot of people fear we are not living in a completely corrupted system, and there is often the opportunity for legal recourse. While not perfect the system does work.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by threats which are legal. Examples? Speaking hypothetically, if you are aware of illegal dealings (such as what occurred in Enron) and your manager threatens you to keep mum that's known as blackmail, which as I'm sure you are aware is illegal in most civilized parts of the world.
but I have a number of auctions to check on in Ironforge and a bunch of mining to do. That Jewelcrafting skill won't level on its own you know!
That doesn't excuse unethical behavior. We all have to make a living and the vast majority of us understand that there are consequences for our actions, even if those actions were taken to protect ourselves financially.
Yes, and we saw how well that worked out for the lot of them.
As I said above, I think most people will choose to act ethically. IMHO I don't believe that "everyone has their price," but I could just be naive.
Collections and Reflection before I/O? Seriously? Servlets and JSPs before the JDBC? Wow. I/O is a core activity for any programming language and should be taught (or learned) as early as possible (meaning after the absolute basics). It's hard to do anything without any data, and unless your applications are completely trivial (in which case you're probably not learning anything anyway) you'll have to know how to get data into and of various data sources. The JDBC should be taught after I/O and preferably after advanced OO concepts so students learn to abstract out DB calls as early as possible. Struts and JSPs won't do you much good unless you know how to make calls to the database first. As for Tiles, Spring, etc, these should be saved to the very end when they'll actually be useful.
Here is my version of your list:
Granted that Swing and (especially) AWT are falling out of fashion they are still worth learning because they are still core to Java. Even if you never use them it is good to be able to say you are familiar with them. I haven't heard one or the other that SWT is all that popular, or if it is living up to its promise of being more flexible than Swing.
I agree with you completely here, and honestly I wish I had learned the command line first. Now I'm doing it the hard way (e.g. backwards). The little experience I have with Ant has shown me how tremendously useful it is, and I wish I had learned it first.
I don't know if I would go that far. It seems that most Java-related job postings out there are asking for these skills, and it would be worth their time to learn them.
I like the "Head First" series overall, but honestly I can't stand them for actually learning new languages. Their style IS fun and works very well for abstract/complicated subjects (such as in their books on design patterns and servlets and JSP) because they break down the subject matter and present it in a way that is easy to consume. As far as learning languages go though I think they do entirely too much hand-holding and they gloss over a lot of important details.
If you're learning Java for the first time I suggest Big Java. It presents the subject matter very well, and is comprehensive enough to be used as a desk reference later on, after you become familiar with the language and its tools.
Ok, you're missing my point, which is that Eclipse and Tomcat have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You don't need to "switch" from one to the other because they are used for entirely different purposes. Yes, they're both tools, but it doesn't make any sense to tell the parent that you switched because one is used to write code and the other is used to serve applications. It makes you sound like you don't know what you are talking about, and will only confuse new developers.
Ummm, what? Eclipse is an IDE, Tomcat is a container for web servers. Tomcat and Apache can be used with Eclipse with a nice little plugin for testing.
Agreed. I'm just saying this is going to be a wake-up call to a lot of people who didn't see any financial penalty for being lax with their security. I think situations like this will become more frequent in the next few years, especially when 802.11n becomes more popular and wireless connections are just as fast as wired.
Not it wasn't before, but that sounds like a much stronger argument now for the average user to secure their wireless network. Just wait until Joe User calls up their now bandwidth-capping ISP to find out how in the world they went over their limit.
Joe User: But I only ever got online to check my email!
Unsympathetic CSR: Do you happen to have a wireless router? Did you bother to secure it?
JU: Well yes, but I've never had a problem before and I couldn't be bothered to figure out how to secure it.
UCSR: Welp, looks like someone has been leeching off of you big time. Have fun with all of our overage charges!
That number almost certainly does not represent how many terrorists the FBI believes to be here. It is far more likely that the NSLs were issued during the course of investigations to determine if the subject has any terrorist connections, and I would bet only a (extremely) tiny fraction of them actually did.
No arguments here. Your statement would be less believable if it wasn't for the fact that there is evidence of wiretapping abuse for political purposes.
You're assuming that the test procedure is 100% accurate, which is nearly impossible, especially considering the method the company wants to use. As someone else pointed out there is also the possibility of false positives, which could have dramatic effects on beef exports.
I'm sorry but did you read the parent post at all? 0.17% is what they stated as the margin for error, not the percentage of cattle OR people that may be infected. It simply says that there is a possibility that the test results could be wrong.
Yes, you forgot to include an outraged knee-jerk response like everyone else (who probably didn't bother to read TFA) in this conversation :-P. Seriously though, I'm surprised no one else thought this through. If proper test procedures are in place and a sufficiently large sample is taken there is no good reason for 100% coverage except to try to gain marketing leverage. If everyone was forced to perform 100% test coverage we would definitely see an increase in the cost of beef with little to no gain regarding food safety.
I can start commenting/modding search results as "+5 Informative" or "-1 Off-topic!"
Even by textbook standards $200 is pretty expensive. I just sold back my inferential statistics book, bought it for $100 and got about $60 back (pretty good deal considering the meager amounts I've gotten back before). I feel his pain about not being able to use an old edition, but I have found that talking to the prof. helps, and they're usually willing to allow an older edition as long as the problem sets are close to identical. Most (if not all) professors are well aware of textbook prices and the fact that very little changes between editions, and if they're not writing textbooks themselves they're usually sympathetic to the student's plight. I've also had profs. flat out tell me they don't use the textbook that is assigned for the class, and they only listed one because it was required by the higher-ups.
In this case though it sounds like the prof. might be kind of anal of what edition they're using.... Are you sure he didn't write it himself? ;-)
Didn't you hear? They redefined news reporting as sock-puppetry and regurgitated talking points. So yes, FOX news is absolutely a pinnacle of news reporting.
Ah, good idea! Actually the MOSS wiki has this functionality; the "Workflow" feature allows you to do exactly that. I said the MOSS wiki is crippled (and I still stand by that), but that is one of the nice things about it. That would definitely open up the possibility of allowing all users to edit with an approval process in place.