Programming and design are still distinct. When filling in blanks left by designers, you are doing design. When you are shaping what the engine will accommodate, you are also doing design. When you implement the design in code, you are "programming" (in the "ten-cent coding" sense of the word).
I think that in the real world, most "programmers" must be coders and designers, whereas designers need not be coders. That said, a good designer is probably worth more between the two, since the quality of design is what determines the potential quality of the end-product.
Simply that from certain perspectives, you aren't following your own advice. But I see that this is the "right" solution for you.
For others, an off-the-shelf framework is the "right" solution, often because the time it would take to develop your skill set does not represent a good value to them. Skill lock-in gets you one way or another. Time spent developing the skills to custom code and maintain your own site is time most people would rather spend doing/learning something else.
I guess it's a matter of applying one of the most important rules of engineering, "use the right tool for the job", properly.
. ..
Personally, I'm involved in a project of the latter category, a popular webpage operating from a cheap dedicated machine (single core, 1GB of memory, one logical disk, cheap disk controller with limited I/O bandwidth), and it's a nontrivial task to keep it running smooothly.
On the back of the envelope it says something like "tampering with or changing the contents of this envelope may subject you to legal action." Oh yeah, I am so going to get a credit card from people who start off threatening to sue me (and for what?).
That would seem to be a threat aimed at identity thieves, or at least a cue to the recipients that the sender is on the look-out for fraud.
I don't really know for sure though. I don't spend a lot of time parsing legalese printed on the back of junk mail. . .
If you can solve the problem, you can solve the problem. Who cares what tools you use? Whether you do the work with a pencil and paper, use the internet or read the answer off the next student over's test is your own prerogative. What, exactly, are Profs concerned about? That someone is going to cheat their way into some position of authority (or wealth -- hah!) without actually understanding the material? Doesn't seem likely. There are people who want to know a given subject and people who need to know a few things to achieve some other goal. The people who want to know will do it the hard way because they care. The people who just need to know should be allowed to use whatever tools are available. What matters is that they can understand a problem and select the correct tools to solve it.
I have no problem with people self-selecting the degree of intimacy they have with math (or any other subject) and using the most appropriate methods to achieve it. I have every faith that they are also self-selecting how far they can get in that particular field, and am not particularly concerned that people will cheat their way through and expect to be rewarded.
Education should be about learning how to think your own way through problems. It may tweak specialists when you gloss of their field on your way to some other objective. Too bad. I had to take calculus in the dark ages before Wolfram Alpha (before the mainstream internet!) because it was a requirement for all liberal arts degrees. I hate math. I barely passed. It was something to get out of the way. Perhaps with better tools I might have been able to develop some appreciation for it (long shot). But the point is, I passed it and now I couldn't tell you a single thing I learned doing things the "right" way. I could have used that time studying something I cared enough about to actually learn.
If we haven't blown ourselves up or reverted to feudalism complete with castles and dysentery, in a few generations our descendants (maybe not yours or mine, but anyway) will be consulting the internet via their direct-neural interface and snickering at protestations about one portable device that people are carrying anyway doing too much.
Well, it better be a few generations from now, because I don't take guff from wired-up brains floating in jars full of fancy liquids.
That'll probably hit an upper limit on our brainpower, but we always seem willing to try (driving while using phone and more).
Driving while using a phone seems to redline brain power for most people -- to the point that they can't even process the fact that they are impaired. To the point, in fact, that reading and writing on a tiny device while driving seems like reasonable idea.
So much for that.
Quasi-quote from the TV sitcom Becker, "Reality TV is the petri dish where America grows its idiots". That was a crack on the first season of Survivor, and it has been more than vindicated by the way that reality TV has pushed the body of human knowledge and interaction. Web 2.0 is the global petri dish.
Bottom line -- there is only so much information that is valuable to a given human. We (you and I) have limited bandwidth. Web 2.0 simple adds to the cruft that we mush filter in order to find useful info, unless we just settle for whatever is current on Wikipedia.
I don't have a good answer for your concerns about sources of and access to good information, but neither does Blogging or Twitter.
I already conceded that I was ridiculing you. Not sure why you are at such pains to reiterate that I think very little of your argument here.
I very clearly compared "argument" and "simple observation" on number of characters. You (and not OP) are arguing that OP was contrasting "argument" and "simple observation" based on some fundamental difference in meaning. If such a distinction exists, OP was obviously not making a simple observation. OP was reading between the lines to draw a conclusion and level an accusation. A simplistic one, if you like, but nonetheless far more than a "simple observation".
So any way you slice it, I made no strawman. "Argument" is not a big word for "simple observation" based on character length. Nor is "argument" hyperbole in this context. "Argument" is not a "grand title" or "big word" for anything to anyone with a 2nd grade education.
The fact that OP missed his or her important appointment to call me names, but hasn't grasped at the semantic straws you are bundling up here suggests that you are just plain wrong anyway.
All that aside, its nice to know that chivalry is not quite dead, at least when it comes to karma whores.
If you are saying that Google's services are not trustworthy, then I really disagree with the contention that their existence is some major boon to online consumers. At best, they are no worse than the rest of the pack. If anything, their ever expanding convenience services are an attractive nuisance.
It makes sense to go after big targets not just because they are easy to hit, but because hitting them has a large effect. How better to spread the word that putting your information on-line, even with a large, well established corporation is not safe, than to have Google admit "Look folks, even our servers are inevitably going to be cracked. Don't put anything in an e-mail that is going to end up in a G-Mail account or anything in a Google Doc that you want to protect from unauthorized use."
Forget about stupid user mistakes (hosting confidential information on Google Docs, for example). ..
Would sending any information you considered private through your G-mail account also be a stupid user mistake?
It sounds like you take it for granted that Google services are not secure. The complaint relates to Google's claim that their services are secure. Is it really a stupid user mistake to take Google at their word? Its only stupid if you are so cynical that you think Google is intentionally misleading you (which may be a wise position).
If someone sells you a lock, and it turns out that every lock they manufacture opens with the same key, are you stupid for believing that a lock maker could be honest and diligent? There is a point when the world-weary-cynic schtick simply enables fraud.
If I want to read more inept ad-hominem, I'll come back and explain why your post makes no sense.
Aw, what the heck.
First, is it really an insult to insinuate that I am in a position of authority at an institution you might be enrolling in? Second, would I represent my own policy as a rumor?
Love Google or hate Google, I think we'd all agree that Google has done more for consumers on the Internet in the last decade than just about any other single company.
Count me out. There don't offer anything to me that I would a) pay for or b) trade my privacy for. As of now they don't even offer anything I use on a regular basis that I could not get elsewhere for free.
What assumptions? I asked you too clarify two points, beyond which I couldn't care less about you or your motivations.
Also, my "argument" -- such a big word for a simple observation -- is not a straw man. I have made no statement regarding the validity of EPIC's claims about Google.
We'll get to why your concern is a strawman in a sec.
But first, the word "argument" does not appear in my earlier post, yet you use it in quotation marks to accuse me of using overly big words. One wonders how the hell "argument", an 8 letter word, is "such a big word for a simple observation", when "simple observation" is composed of more than twice as many letters? Moreover, misattributing an argument to me in order to prop up your own point is yet another strawman.
Now, back to your strawman argument re: EPIC. Your insinuation that they are asking for a handout is phony. They are not asking for "monetary payment" as you accuse them here. They are asking for a donation to a third party, public fund. Impugning their motivations based on a phony accusation is a strawman.
Do you care about privacy? Enough to fork over your own money to watchdog organizations that hold potential privacy breachers accountable?
The "high road of idealism" has nothing to do with it. Nor is encouraging donations to a public fund a handout. Basically your entire concern here is a strawman, albeit one that is may be rooted in your own naivete.
And who will write the Java interpretor for the next generation of processors ?
Whatever the CS curriculum, this person will not just be picked out of the crowed of graduates. It will be someone with the interest and talent to do the job well, and such people are not developed by cramming esoterica down the general student body's throats. Not every doctor knows how to perform brain surgery.
Knowledge is power, yes. But there are many things to know. Returning to the doctor analogy, it is much more efficient to divide the field into specialties than it is to train every doctor to perform every task. There is simply too much to know to be an expert in everything. At best, one should know the limits of their expertise so they can hand the problem off to someone qualified when appropriate.
Software development has expanded into domains where it makes no sense to know C. Some people should never need it and if they do it is a good cue to stop developing figure out what went wrong because their project is seriously off track. As such, the opportunity cost of spending time learning C vs. learning something applicable is simply not justified.
But again, what do you care. You know C. A friend of mine's father made a nice career out of knowledge of an obscure branch of EE. Obscure because it was rarely applicable. Nice career because when it was, it demanded top dollar.
These grads will need C and Assembly approximately never. People who buy software do not use computers at a "basic level" any more, so there is little point in designing software at this level. Current software development will always be created on abstractions of knowledge that was considered core to the previous generation. That's how progress works.
I'm not sure why this bothers folks such as yourself, especially since you seem to have realized the opportunity it presents to you now and the comparatively small number of specialists who will follow in your footsteps. However, the occasional flubs notwithstanding, there are plenty more problems being solved by phony engineers with flimsy languages. If you think that the people with the problems would rather pay 3x the price or wait 10x as long for some curmudgeon to do it the "right" way, you are mistaken.
Now, obviously if they are incompetent at implementing what they are supposed to know, that is a problem. But is isn't a not-knowing-C problem, its a not-knowing-VBA-etc. problem.
McDonalds. To save money, they are no longer purchasing specialized cash registers with individual buttons per item. Going forward, a new generation of tech-savvy employees will have to "program" the register to display the order price.
Slashdot Mirror
Programming and design are still distinct. When filling in blanks left by designers, you are doing design. When you are shaping what the engine will accommodate, you are also doing design. When you implement the design in code, you are "programming" (in the "ten-cent coding" sense of the word).
I think that in the real world, most "programmers" must be coders and designers, whereas designers need not be coders. That said, a good designer is probably worth more between the two, since the quality of design is what determines the potential quality of the end-product.
Simply that from certain perspectives, you aren't following your own advice. But I see that this is the "right" solution for you.
For others, an off-the-shelf framework is the "right" solution, often because the time it would take to develop your skill set does not represent a good value to them. Skill lock-in gets you one way or another. Time spent developing the skills to custom code and maintain your own site is time most people would rather spend doing/learning something else.
I guess it's a matter of applying one of the most important rules of engineering, "use the right tool for the job", properly.
. . .
Personally, I'm involved in a project of the latter category, a popular webpage operating from a cheap dedicated machine (single core, 1GB of memory, one logical disk, cheap disk controller with limited I/O bandwidth), and it's a nontrivial task to keep it running smooothly.
. . .
Common sense is futile.
On the back of the envelope it says something like "tampering with or changing the contents of this envelope may subject you to legal action." Oh yeah, I am so going to get a credit card from people who start off threatening to sue me (and for what?).
That would seem to be a threat aimed at identity thieves, or at least a cue to the recipients that the sender is on the look-out for fraud.
I don't really know for sure though. I don't spend a lot of time parsing legalese printed on the back of junk mail. . .
If you can solve the problem, you can solve the problem. Who cares what tools you use? Whether you do the work with a pencil and paper, use the internet or read the answer off the next student over's test is your own prerogative. What, exactly, are Profs concerned about? That someone is going to cheat their way into some position of authority (or wealth -- hah!) without actually understanding the material? Doesn't seem likely. There are people who want to know a given subject and people who need to know a few things to achieve some other goal. The people who want to know will do it the hard way because they care. The people who just need to know should be allowed to use whatever tools are available. What matters is that they can understand a problem and select the correct tools to solve it.
I have no problem with people self-selecting the degree of intimacy they have with math (or any other subject) and using the most appropriate methods to achieve it. I have every faith that they are also self-selecting how far they can get in that particular field, and am not particularly concerned that people will cheat their way through and expect to be rewarded.
Education should be about learning how to think your own way through problems. It may tweak specialists when you gloss of their field on your way to some other objective. Too bad. I had to take calculus in the dark ages before Wolfram Alpha (before the mainstream internet!) because it was a requirement for all liberal arts degrees. I hate math. I barely passed. It was something to get out of the way. Perhaps with better tools I might have been able to develop some appreciation for it (long shot). But the point is, I passed it and now I couldn't tell you a single thing I learned doing things the "right" way. I could have used that time studying something I cared enough about to actually learn.
Thank you.
Specifying "digital" rights sounds like a sure way to find them nullified by semantical loopholes.
If we haven't blown ourselves up or reverted to feudalism complete with castles and dysentery, in a few generations our descendants (maybe not yours or mine, but anyway) will be consulting the internet via their direct-neural interface and snickering at protestations about one portable device that people are carrying anyway doing too much.
Well, it better be a few generations from now, because I don't take guff from wired-up brains floating in jars full of fancy liquids.
That'll probably hit an upper limit on our brainpower, but we always seem willing to try (driving while using phone and more).
Driving while using a phone seems to redline brain power for most people -- to the point that they can't even process the fact that they are impaired. To the point, in fact, that reading and writing on a tiny device while driving seems like reasonable idea.
So much for that.
Quasi-quote from the TV sitcom Becker, "Reality TV is the petri dish where America grows its idiots". That was a crack on the first season of Survivor, and it has been more than vindicated by the way that reality TV has pushed the body of human knowledge and interaction. Web 2.0 is the global petri dish.
Bottom line -- there is only so much information that is valuable to a given human. We (you and I) have limited bandwidth. Web 2.0 simple adds to the cruft that we mush filter in order to find useful info, unless we just settle for whatever is current on Wikipedia.
I don't have a good answer for your concerns about sources of and access to good information, but neither does Blogging or Twitter.
I already conceded that I was ridiculing you. Not sure why you are at such pains to reiterate that I think very little of your argument here.
I very clearly compared "argument" and "simple observation" on number of characters. You (and not OP) are arguing that OP was contrasting "argument" and "simple observation" based on some fundamental difference in meaning. If such a distinction exists, OP was obviously not making a simple observation. OP was reading between the lines to draw a conclusion and level an accusation. A simplistic one, if you like, but nonetheless far more than a "simple observation".
So any way you slice it, I made no strawman. "Argument" is not a big word for "simple observation" based on character length. Nor is "argument" hyperbole in this context. "Argument" is not a "grand title" or "big word" for anything to anyone with a 2nd grade education.
The fact that OP missed his or her important appointment to call me names, but hasn't grasped at the semantic straws you are bundling up here suggests that you are just plain wrong anyway.
All that aside, its nice to know that chivalry is not quite dead, at least when it comes to karma whores.
If you are saying that Google's services are not trustworthy, then I really disagree with the contention that their existence is some major boon to online consumers. At best, they are no worse than the rest of the pack. If anything, their ever expanding convenience services are an attractive nuisance.
It makes sense to go after big targets not just because they are easy to hit, but because hitting them has a large effect. How better to spread the word that putting your information on-line, even with a large, well established corporation is not safe, than to have Google admit "Look folks, even our servers are inevitably going to be cracked. Don't put anything in an e-mail that is going to end up in a G-Mail account or anything in a Google Doc that you want to protect from unauthorized use."
Wow, you two are a couple of douchenozzles.
You must be what they call a "bird of a feather", Mr. Light-A-Single-Candle.
Is "argument" a big word by any standard!? Since you continue to defend the point, my appeal to ridicule clearly isn't false.
A point which your weak critical thinking nazism has yet to address.
Paging Godwin. . .please report to a white courtesy telephone. . .
Over your head != Non-squitur
By eating your own dog food?
Forget about stupid user mistakes (hosting confidential information on Google Docs, for example). . .
Would sending any information you considered private through your G-mail account also be a stupid user mistake?
It sounds like you take it for granted that Google services are not secure. The complaint relates to Google's claim that their services are secure. Is it really a stupid user mistake to take Google at their word? Its only stupid if you are so cynical that you think Google is intentionally misleading you (which may be a wise position).
If someone sells you a lock, and it turns out that every lock they manufacture opens with the same key, are you stupid for believing that a lock maker could be honest and diligent? There is a point when the world-weary-cynic schtick simply enables fraud.
Its incredibly weak to assert a "true intention" when all you have is a "likely" alternative.
I think the problem is that you don't understand the meaning of "for". Of course, if you actually think that "argument" is a big word. . .
If I want to read more inept ad-hominem, I'll come back and explain why your post makes no sense.
Aw, what the heck.
First, is it really an insult to insinuate that I am in a position of authority at an institution you might be enrolling in?
Second, would I represent my own policy as a rumor?
And finally, what are you still doing here?
Don't let me keep you. I hear that Devry University is a stickler about tardiness.
Please get off my leg.
Because you need one to stand on?
Wow.
Love Google or hate Google, I think we'd all agree that Google has done more for consumers on the Internet in the last decade than just about any other single company.
Count me out. There don't offer anything to me that I would a) pay for or b) trade my privacy for. As of now they don't even offer anything I use on a regular basis that I could not get elsewhere for free.
What assumptions? I asked you too clarify two points, beyond which I couldn't care less about you or your motivations.
Also, my "argument" -- such a big word for a simple observation -- is not a straw man. I have made no statement regarding the validity of EPIC's claims about Google.
We'll get to why your concern is a strawman in a sec.
But first, the word "argument" does not appear in my earlier post, yet you use it in quotation marks to accuse me of using overly big words. One wonders how the hell "argument", an 8 letter word, is "such a big word for a simple observation", when "simple observation" is composed of more than twice as many letters? Moreover, misattributing an argument to me in order to prop up your own point is yet another strawman.
Now, back to your strawman argument re: EPIC. Your insinuation that they are asking for a handout is phony. They are not asking for "monetary payment" as you accuse them here. They are asking for a donation to a third party, public fund. Impugning their motivations based on a phony accusation is a strawman.
Do you care about privacy? Enough to fork over your own money to watchdog organizations that hold potential privacy breachers accountable?
The "high road of idealism" has nothing to do with it. Nor is encouraging donations to a public fund a handout. Basically your entire concern here is a strawman, albeit one that is may be rooted in your own naivete.
And who will write the Java interpretor for the next generation of processors ?
Whatever the CS curriculum, this person will not just be picked out of the crowed of graduates. It will be someone with the interest and talent to do the job well, and such people are not developed by cramming esoterica down the general student body's throats. Not every doctor knows how to perform brain surgery.
Knowledge is power, yes. But there are many things to know. Returning to the doctor analogy, it is much more efficient to divide the field into specialties than it is to train every doctor to perform every task. There is simply too much to know to be an expert in everything. At best, one should know the limits of their expertise so they can hand the problem off to someone qualified when appropriate.
Software development has expanded into domains where it makes no sense to know C. Some people should never need it and if they do it is a good cue to stop developing figure out what went wrong because their project is seriously off track. As such, the opportunity cost of spending time learning C vs. learning something applicable is simply not justified.
But again, what do you care. You know C. A friend of mine's father made a nice career out of knowledge of an obscure branch of EE. Obscure because it was rarely applicable. Nice career because when it was, it demanded top dollar.
These grads will need C and Assembly approximately never. People who buy software do not use computers at a "basic level" any more, so there is little point in designing software at this level. Current software development will always be created on abstractions of knowledge that was considered core to the previous generation. That's how progress works.
I'm not sure why this bothers folks such as yourself, especially since you seem to have realized the opportunity it presents to you now and the comparatively small number of specialists who will follow in your footsteps. However, the occasional flubs notwithstanding, there are plenty more problems being solved by phony engineers with flimsy languages. If you think that the people with the problems would rather pay 3x the price or wait 10x as long for some curmudgeon to do it the "right" way, you are mistaken.
Now, obviously if they are incompetent at implementing what they are supposed to know, that is a problem. But is isn't a not-knowing-C problem, its a not-knowing-VBA-etc. problem.
WTF? Really? Where?
McDonalds. To save money, they are no longer purchasing specialized cash registers with individual buttons per item. Going forward, a new generation of tech-savvy employees will have to "program" the register to display the order price.