It's not a matter of policy makers not being "equipped" to do their jobs effectively. It's a matter of policy becoming corrupted by money.
By equipped I don't mean they need to wear a different hat. I mean they lack the experiences and education to understand science, ethics, or sociology. We have people selecting our leaders, and those leaders are making uninformed decisions. We need better people, either that's different people or the current people need to improve a hell of a lot.
I propose that everyone we elect have some meaningful life experiences. Examples include, but limited to: * Spent 3 months in a state prison. (might not be so quick to throw people away if you know where they end up) * Tour of duty in a war zone. (maybe this goes away if we stop having so many wars) * Field assistant for a oceanic research vessel. (an understanding of science might rub off on a person) * Spent 6 months in a vermin invested housing project. (my friend is currently in this, and they actually send in pest control once he's complained for weeks)
We have a corporate kleptocracy which dictates policy...
Cynically hyperbole. If you have some proof we can file charges against these people.
no social programs (no wasteful spending on health, education, training, housing, etc.)
If that was what voters consistently wanted why would they elect representatives who are openly against these things? No, we have a populace that doesn't agree to or understand the goal of maximizing happiness for the most number of people. Goal shouldn't be to create maximum happiness for 1% of the people, then "work hard" to be the top 1%. That math doesn't even remotely work, most people can't be above average, that's counter to what average means.
In theory these higher level languages are a work multiplier. It takes fewer programmers to finish larger projects. Theoretically to have the same productivity we will need fewer programmers in the future. What isn't clear is if more software will need to be produced, or if the current levels of production will be sufficient in the future. If we remain the same, then we can expect the number of jobs for programmers to decrease.
Computers will code themselves before your kids have a chance to finish college. Hopefully it works out OK for you all, because coders like me will be retired and too burned out to fix the AI once we unleash it onto the world.
I just want the predictions of astronomical mechanics to be accurate to about a day over a longer period than that clock. That's reasonable, I'm not asking for infinite precision.
The Gregorian calendar will start getting out of sync with the tropical year by at least a day after 7700 years.
Despite its average accurate over long periods we should dump the Gregorian calender. The periodic correction tends to make the days for solstice swing wildly between extremes.
Also September, October, November and December are archaically named and do not appear at the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months. (or we should go back to using March as the first month of the year. but I'm not suggesting some oddball 50/51 day "winter" season like in the old Roman calendar)
For centuries the intellectual elite have railed against the ignorant masses. But I wonder how many Slashdotters that believe they are part of the elite are really only marginally above average?
QB64 is an excellent product, and I've used it in the past to port old GW-BASIC code. But it is not distributed by Microsoft with every computer. Which I think is a valuable piece that gets people used to the idea of programing their own computer.
I also recommend Lazarus IDE if you want to to flex your Delphi/TurboPascal muscles. I think Pascal is a bit easier than C to pick up the basics, and that particular IDE is easier than most of the free ones for C. Sure Visual Studio Express is more powerful and free, but that level of complexity is not really what I was aiming at and kinda why we have fewer people picking up programming as a hobby.
And if he does actually deliver working code, which is a big if, what's to stop him from turning around and selling it again to your competitors or going into business for himself.
Sure. so what. it happens. You charge him with a crime. He gets deported. And you play some accounting games to help offset the loss of trade secrets. If your company depends solely on a project you would have gave to a junior developer then you probably don't deserve to exist as a company.
The Indians and the Chinese don't give a flying fuck about US laws
Most embezzlement is done by US citizens that are senior staff.
No. Please can we get away from the idea that a degree will solve everything - they don't.
Enriches people's live. Provides them new skills to adapt to a changing world. Access to new industry connections. I can go on.
I've worked with degree holders who couldnt string a sentence together - the fact that they had a degree didn't mean they could actually survive in the real world, it just showed that they could survive the academic world.
I've met with people without degrees that had no prospects except liver failure. Lots of different kind of people in the world. Your counter example doesn't speak of trends or effects on the whole of society.
Here on Slashdot, if you browse at above 1 or 2 then you generally get fairly decent literacy - decent spelling, good use of paragraphs and layout, sentences that are well developed.
Most posts on Slashdot are not written for the purposes of formal submission to an esteemed journal. They are just people casually bullshitting about bullshit.
So no, we don't need degrees - IMHO most people wouldn't be able to achieve one because they don't have the basic literacy and numeracy skills they need in the first place, so that's what we need to pivot to.
The day we say people shouldn't learn, grow and educate ourselves is the day we should roll over and die as a species. I totally understand that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. But if the opportunity presents itself for someone to learn and the only barrier is time and a little money, why the fuck not?
As an aside, give out a chunk of money and a large proportion of the British public simply won't use it to improve themselves, or pay off debts or anything similar.
Sadly true. Most people take free money and do something irresponsible with it. But on the other hand it is not up to you or me to say how a person should go about improving themselves or if they should even bother improving themselves. We not here to lord over those we deem inferior. Giving away money might sound like a nanny state to you, but deciding for other people what they are and are not capable of is worse.
Present the opportunity, and be satisfied if even a small percentage make use of the opportunity. The system right now is you get the opportunity because you were born into the right family under the right circumstances. That's elitism.
Then you will have college grads flipping burgers.
If I can hire college grads for 10% less than I do now, because increased supply. Would I not use this additional capacity to improve the output of my business?
Your analogy is nice, but do we have a famine? Is our storage anything other than artificial?
Mine definitely doesn't know if they want a NCG (new college grad) or a senior engineer. They interview people for almost any level. Inters go through a intern program for their interviews because they are temporary.
None of that crap is "tech". e-commerce? Taxi rides? That isn't tech. And AI isn't real, so just stop.
Yea no shit. It's like saying you publish literature when you print vacuum cleaner advertisements. Then having an industry award ceremony about all the great copy your business has printed for other businesses.
Any company that does that will get fewer and lower quality applicants.
High quality applications are primarily internal referrals. Linkedin is used to fill out reqs in a department.
Also lots of excellent and hard working technical people are bad at negotiating. It's not unusual to have a few of the best people on staff being paid average or even below average.
frustrating to developing with NPM,always downloading some knucklehead's newest contribution to an already good enough to begin development codebase
That's the NodeJS community for you. Half the people are developing some whizbang new framework, yet have no real applications of their own under their belt. Total amateur hour.
I wonder if anyone will catch on that developing software that is semi-connected is not much more difficult than 24/7 connected cloud software, yet way more robust. Being able to operate my business while systems are temporarily offline, yet quickly sync them back on when connectivity is reestablished just makes good sense. Businesses that plan only for ideal conditions, like having perfect Internet access, are not robust businesses.
I think something like QBasic should have been bundled with Windows and installed by default not unlike other basic utilities like Calculator (calc.exe) and Notepad. Installing it after the fact is not ideal but acceptable too. There were a lot of quick and dirty bits of work that people could throw together in a few lines of BASIC back in the day. Kind of the point of a computer is to have it do tedious repetitive work with only a few instructions.
But don't forget, every PC, tablet, and phone has a JavaScript environment installed.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a matter of policy makers not being "equipped" to do their jobs effectively.
It's a matter of policy becoming corrupted by money.
By equipped I don't mean they need to wear a different hat. I mean they lack the experiences and education to understand science, ethics, or sociology. We have people selecting our leaders, and those leaders are making uninformed decisions. We need better people, either that's different people or the current people need to improve a hell of a lot.
I propose that everyone we elect have some meaningful life experiences. Examples include, but limited to:
* Spent 3 months in a state prison. (might not be so quick to throw people away if you know where they end up)
* Tour of duty in a war zone. (maybe this goes away if we stop having so many wars)
* Field assistant for a oceanic research vessel. (an understanding of science might rub off on a person)
* Spent 6 months in a vermin invested housing project. (my friend is currently in this, and they actually send in pest control once he's complained for weeks)
We have a corporate kleptocracy which dictates policy...
Cynically hyperbole. If you have some proof we can file charges against these people.
no social programs (no wasteful spending on health, education, training, housing, etc.)
If that was what voters consistently wanted why would they elect representatives who are openly against these things? No, we have a populace that doesn't agree to or understand the goal of maximizing happiness for the most number of people. Goal shouldn't be to create maximum happiness for 1% of the people, then "work hard" to be the top 1%. That math doesn't even remotely work, most people can't be above average, that's counter to what average means.
The root of our problems is that policy makers are not equipped to do their jobs effectively.
So what? CEOs have collectively made every combination of predictions.
In theory these higher level languages are a work multiplier. It takes fewer programmers to finish larger projects. Theoretically to have the same productivity we will need fewer programmers in the future. What isn't clear is if more software will need to be produced, or if the current levels of production will be sufficient in the future. If we remain the same, then we can expect the number of jobs for programmers to decrease.
Computers will code themselves before your kids have a chance to finish college.
Hopefully it works out OK for you all, because coders like me will be retired and too burned out to fix the AI once we unleash it onto the world.
I just want the predictions of astronomical mechanics to be accurate to about a day over a longer period than that clock. That's reasonable, I'm not asking for infinite precision.
The Gregorian calendar will start getting out of sync with the tropical year by at least a day after 7700 years.
Despite its average accurate over long periods we should dump the Gregorian calender. The periodic correction tends to make the days for solstice swing wildly between extremes.
Also September, October, November and December are archaically named and do not appear at the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months. (or we should go back to using March as the first month of the year. but I'm not suggesting some oddball 50/51 day "winter" season like in the old Roman calendar)
Ha! As if people who commit crimes plan on getting caught.
For centuries the intellectual elite have railed against the ignorant masses. But I wonder how many Slashdotters that believe they are part of the elite are really only marginally above average?
Bind can earn our respect by performing exceptionally.
The name is fine, it's no weirder than Google or Yahoo as far as names go.
And what sort of guarantees that are domestically sourced worker won't causes as many problems?
other words you can use instead, if it makes you feel more comfortable: middle class, wage-earner, or blue collar.
You might want to crack open a book like Orwell's 1984, just to double check if we are moving towards tyranny. (ex: Prolefeed)
Maybe we should punish the heads of corporations for minor civil violations like they seem to want to the proletariat.
QB64 is an excellent product, and I've used it in the past to port old GW-BASIC code.
But it is not distributed by Microsoft with every computer. Which I think is a valuable piece that gets people used to the idea of programing their own computer.
I also recommend Lazarus IDE if you want to to flex your Delphi/TurboPascal muscles. I think Pascal is a bit easier than C to pick up the basics, and that particular IDE is easier than most of the free ones for C. Sure Visual Studio Express is more powerful and free, but that level of complexity is not really what I was aiming at and kinda why we have fewer people picking up programming as a hobby.
And if he does actually deliver working code, which is a big if, what's to stop him from turning around and selling it again to your competitors or going into business for himself.
Sure. so what. it happens. You charge him with a crime. He gets deported. And you play some accounting games to help offset the loss of trade secrets. If your company depends solely on a project you would have gave to a junior developer then you probably don't deserve to exist as a company.
The Indians and the Chinese don't give a flying fuck about US laws
Most embezzlement is done by US citizens that are senior staff.
No. Please can we get away from the idea that a degree will solve everything - they don't.
Enriches people's live. Provides them new skills to adapt to a changing world. Access to new industry connections. I can go on.
I've worked with degree holders who couldnt string a sentence together - the fact that they had a degree didn't mean they could actually survive in the real world, it just showed that they could survive the academic world.
I've met with people without degrees that had no prospects except liver failure. Lots of different kind of people in the world.
Your counter example doesn't speak of trends or effects on the whole of society.
Here on Slashdot, if you browse at above 1 or 2 then you generally get fairly decent literacy - decent spelling, good use of paragraphs and layout, sentences that are well developed.
Most posts on Slashdot are not written for the purposes of formal submission to an esteemed journal. They are just people casually bullshitting about bullshit.
So no, we don't need degrees - IMHO most people wouldn't be able to achieve one because they don't have the basic literacy and numeracy skills they need in the first place, so that's what we need to pivot to.
The day we say people shouldn't learn, grow and educate ourselves is the day we should roll over and die as a species. I totally understand that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. But if the opportunity presents itself for someone to learn and the only barrier is time and a little money, why the fuck not?
As an aside, give out a chunk of money and a large proportion of the British public simply won't use it to improve themselves, or pay off debts or anything similar.
Sadly true. Most people take free money and do something irresponsible with it. But on the other hand it is not up to you or me to say how a person should go about improving themselves or if they should even bother improving themselves. We not here to lord over those we deem inferior. Giving away money might sound like a nanny state to you, but deciding for other people what they are and are not capable of is worse.
Present the opportunity, and be satisfied if even a small percentage make use of the opportunity. The system right now is you get the opportunity because you were born into the right family under the right circumstances. That's elitism.
Then you will have college grads flipping burgers.
If I can hire college grads for 10% less than I do now, because increased supply. Would I not use this additional capacity to improve the output of my business?
Your analogy is nice, but do we have a famine? Is our storage anything other than artificial?
When I can hire an experienced foreign worker for the same amount?
12 year old Chevy... runs like shit, but that's to be expected.
Because if it's just a one time payout, it seems inadequate. It's not going to support someone long enough to get a 2 or 4 year degree for example.
Mine definitely doesn't know if they want a NCG (new college grad) or a senior engineer. They interview people for almost any level. Inters go through a intern program for their interviews because they are temporary.
None of that crap is "tech". e-commerce? Taxi rides? That isn't tech. And AI isn't real, so just stop.
Yea no shit. It's like saying you publish literature when you print vacuum cleaner advertisements. Then having an industry award ceremony about all the great copy your business has printed for other businesses.
Any company that does that will get fewer and lower quality applicants.
High quality applications are primarily internal referrals. Linkedin is used to fill out reqs in a department.
Also lots of excellent and hard working technical people are bad at negotiating. It's not unusual to have a few of the best people on staff being paid average or even below average.
frustrating to developing with NPM,always downloading some knucklehead's newest contribution to an already good enough to begin development codebase
That's the NodeJS community for you. Half the people are developing some whizbang new framework, yet have no real applications of their own under their belt. Total amateur hour.
I wonder if anyone will catch on that developing software that is semi-connected is not much more difficult than 24/7 connected cloud software, yet way more robust. Being able to operate my business while systems are temporarily offline, yet quickly sync them back on when connectivity is reestablished just makes good sense. Businesses that plan only for ideal conditions, like having perfect Internet access, are not robust businesses.
I think something like QBasic should have been bundled with Windows and installed by default not unlike other basic utilities like Calculator (calc.exe) and Notepad. Installing it after the fact is not ideal but acceptable too. There were a lot of quick and dirty bits of work that people could throw together in a few lines of BASIC back in the day. Kind of the point of a computer is to have it do tedious repetitive work with only a few instructions.
But don't forget, every PC, tablet, and phone has a JavaScript environment installed.