"any free testing is better than none"----I don't think so. Automated code scanning tools generally have a high false positive rate, and each possible bug must be examined thoroughly to identify what the issue is. Sometimes the change required to make the tool shut up will not have an impact on the behavior of the application, but now you have to test all the code paths because you changed the code.
Free testing is great ONLY if the time spent investigating each problem is less than the time it would take conventional code defect work to get to the same level of quality.
Ended with...what? No more laser pointer? Ambulance? No more old man?
I'm always amazed when seemingly irrational people can "get" that they need to stop their behavior---which implies a pretty good understanding of cause and effect.
"...that integrate into the existing workspace." That assumes that you can get there from here. The modern office is designed for sitting for hours on end. The human body is not.
What do you do when the "basic skills" that people already know are the problem?
Enhancing the existing workspace sounds like a prescription for a bunch of incremental tweaks that cumulatively cost a lot but don't really do anything.
*Everyone* who uses an IDE is a script kiddie, and *everyone* who uses Word is semi-literate.
What about all the people who make retarded blanket statements that won't stand up to a moment's scrutiny? On slashdot, no less? What would you call them? "Most" of them are trolls...
This kind of tripe is marked by breathless Chicken-Little descriptions of semi-anonymous "sources" who say things that are vaguely unsettling. A dead giveaway is the passive and imprecise language in the summary: "There's a movement..." There is? Define "movement". Some other key phrases are "everyone knows," "some say," etc. Another clue is that there are (surprise) two sides of the argument, and there are quotes from people you have never heard of supporting both. That takes care of the "conflict" ingredient in the hack journalist recipe book.
Google Paul Graham's take on "the suit is back" for how PR firms exploit the media's appetite for this crap.
Is corporate employment like Dilbert? Probably about the same amount as your job is like Beetle Bailey. In other words, maybe a little bit, and sometimes too much like it.
Your question shows an understandable hesitation about going into an unknown world. The main thing you need to realize is that your first move into that world will a) educate you about that world, b) set you up for your next move. Choosing an employer is not the same as choosing a branch of the military. You will no doubt be working somewhere else within 5 years (possibly much less), and when you make that move you will have all the answers you need.
To the question "should I leave?"---sounds like you have the answer. To the question---"where should I go?" I'd say "make the best decision you can but recognize it is a tactical decision, not a strategic one."
I went through the same transition in moving from academia to the corporate IT world and I would never go back. Your options are far more open, and far more diverse, than in the military---though at the same time, the burden of discovering and defining those options is far more on your shoulders.
No, I have no idea! And apparently you are not aware of the satirical technique of stating the *opposite* of what one really thinks, creating a humorous juxtaposition. "Dog food"? My comedic talents are wasted on you ignoramuses!
Every real-world entity seems to require an internet analog. However, we have heretofore been missing out on an internet analog to Andy Rooney. You know, from "60 Minutes," with the bushy eyebrows and whiny kvetching about "why is it that..." and "didja ever wonder why..."
Dvorak is not wrong that the modern world would look alien to someone from a long time ago---it's just a truism, so trite as to be banal. This kind of comparison, when done well, can put much-needed perspective on current developments. When done poorly it just sounds like an old man at the park.
Yes, it's very cool. AJAX prepopulates all data required for all possible actions on the page, saving round trips to the server. The fact that the user will only perform one of those N actions, and all the other data is thrown away, is a minor detail.
Those AJAX-bashers don't seem to understand that web servers don't scale horizontally, whereas database servers can be scaled by throwing more cheap boxes in the data center. And we live in a strange world where delivering a single huge page is faster than several small ones. Luckily AJAX gives us something other than an hourglass to watch while it loads. Like an ad! Or maybe a "loading" status bar, implemented in some kinda DHTML/CSS/XML/dog food, natch!
Sure, but that's a different problem. When the two apps are started by the same user (Outlook and Explorer, for instance) then the target app can't tell the difference, can it? I use DropMyRights on all my internet-facing apps---not a real solution but it helps.
What everyone seems to miss is that the fundamental flaw, which the blog author alludes to, is Microsoft's desire to allow applications to masquerade as the user and send messages via the Windows message pump (via SendMessage() etc).
The real flaw is that MS is maintaining a design decision that was made back in the days of Win3.1: there shall be one method for structured message passing (the message pump) which will cover user input, application IPC, system notifications, clipboard copying, window redraw requests, etc. This message pump is built into the core threading model for the OS (many other windowing systems have this too, it isn't just Windows).
Since there is only one front door, user input uses the same facility as everything else, and it becomes impossible to tell if the user pressed the "A" key or if an application sent a KEYPRESS message.
One solution is to have OS-enforced segregation between these types of input, and force multiple input channels. The mouse and keyboard (and other legitimate devices) get to use the "user input" channel, and other apps get to use a different channel.
But Microsoft doesn't want to do this because they want to enable Bob-style guided interactions with applications, where the target application can be automated/scripted without its knowledge. Changing this also has huge backward-compatibility issues---basically anything built for pre-Vista windows must be modified and rebuilt.
So MS is talking security, but this is a case where market footprint and backward compatibility are fighting with security---and ease of use is caught in the crossfire. A first for MS.
Happens to me too every once in a while. My theory is that they are hardened accumulations of that gunk on the back of your tongue---you know, the same crap that gives you bad breath. Get a tongue scraper and be prepared to gag.
Re:If they do, it will all depend upon the license
on
Will Sun Open Source Java?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Interesting...I've had the opposite experience. I spent time in the MS camp where there are a wealth of 'VB for dummies" books but everything beyond that comes from Microsoft itself, and you better have a MSDN subscription. With Java it seems there are tons of free online resources for specific questions, and there are also some very good books like "Thinking in Java" (perhaps a bit dated now) that get the beginner to the point of understanding all the basics, without being condescending the way, for instance, MSDN so often is.
Then again, given the languages you list Java may not be useful for what you do. If it might be, though, I'd give it another try...
Fine with me. I hate driving. It sucks. A great car on a great road can be fun, sure, but I never get to do that. I just bump over potholes while staring at the rear bumper of the car in front of me, doing the same twitch reflex actions over and over.
Absolutely----I used feel that religion could be benign and that fundamentalists wack jobs would be irrational with or without it. Now I'm much more suspicious of anyone who claims religious motivations, even if they are doing clearly good things (such as Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity efforts). It's not that I think the "nice" religious folks are in fact evil; it's that tolerance for them is the nose under the tent for the bigots, and more and more it seems the zealots are doing exactly what their religion tells them to,
I don't want my principled tolerance to be exploited.
From Wikipedia: "Evolution consists of two basic types of processes: those that introduce new genetic variation into a population, and those that affect the frequencies of existing variation. 'Variation proposes and selection disposes.' "
There's no reason for the rate of mutation and variance to decline. But the only way for one of those mutations to become dominant is for it to have a significant effect on survivability and reproduction. Aside from birth defects and genetic susceptibility to disease, modern standards of living mean there are few variations in human genetic makeup that affect reproduction rates. Variations in economic conditions seem to have a more profound effect than genes.
One could argue physical beauty should come to dominate, but in case you haven't noticed, ugly people seem to have lots of ugly kids.
That may be because you are listening at higher levels than you would without headphones. There are two things that might drive you in that direction: 1. Fletcher-Munson curve - music sounds better loud, assuming no distortion 2. Isolation - headphones block out external sounds, allowing the ear to pick up details. The louder it is, the better the isolation, so the better the sound.
Watch your hearing very carefully. Once you lose it, it ain't coming back. Pete Townshend has attributed his hearing loss not to loud amps but to coming home after concerts, drunk, and playing through headphones all night while his wife and kids were sleeping.
I didn't mean to be snotty, that's just what I've seen. And I take your point that there is a wide middle ground between the two extremes I described.
Would I take a job where the primary tasks had to do with legacy systems and the skills that I gained wouldn't help my resume at all? No. Well, maybe if they paid me enough and I had some kind of plan (2 years and out). Or maybe if it was the only opportunity in a small town where I really wanted to stay.
But right now I wouldn't; other people might make a different call, but if their resume looks bad at the end of their tenure, they shouldn't be surprised.
Slashdot Mirror
"any free testing is better than none"----I don't think so. Automated code scanning tools generally have a high false positive rate, and each possible bug must be examined thoroughly to identify what the issue is. Sometimes the change required to make the tool shut up will not have an impact on the behavior of the application, but now you have to test all the code paths because you changed the code.
Free testing is great ONLY if the time spent investigating each problem is less than the time it would take conventional code defect work to get to the same level of quality.
"Account Authority Digital Signature"---one letter off, but close enough for me.
Ended with...what? No more laser pointer? Ambulance? No more old man?
I'm always amazed when seemingly irrational people can "get" that they need to stop their behavior---which implies a pretty good understanding of cause and effect.
Money = input
Action (or inaction) in congressional committees, hidden from public view = output
Votes on the record = optional output, only if hidden action can't accomplish desired result
Speech on the record = optional side-effect of input, with (I would bet) only moderate correlation
"...that integrate into the existing workspace." That assumes that you can get there from here. The modern office is designed for sitting for hours on end. The human body is not.
What do you do when the "basic skills" that people already know are the problem?
Enhancing the existing workspace sounds like a prescription for a bunch of incremental tweaks that cumulatively cost a lot but don't really do anything.
*Everyone* who uses an IDE is a script kiddie, and *everyone* who uses Word is semi-literate.
What about all the people who make retarded blanket statements that won't stand up to a moment's scrutiny? On slashdot, no less? What would you call them? "Most" of them are trolls...
This kind of tripe is marked by breathless Chicken-Little descriptions of semi-anonymous "sources" who say things that are vaguely unsettling. A dead giveaway is the passive and imprecise language in the summary: "There's a movement..." There is? Define "movement". Some other key phrases are "everyone knows," "some say," etc. Another clue is that there are (surprise) two sides of the argument, and there are quotes from people you have never heard of supporting both. That takes care of the "conflict" ingredient in the hack journalist recipe book.
Google Paul Graham's take on "the suit is back" for how PR firms exploit the media's appetite for this crap.
Is corporate employment like Dilbert? Probably about the same amount as your job is like Beetle Bailey. In other words, maybe a little bit, and sometimes too much like it.
Your question shows an understandable hesitation about going into an unknown world. The main thing you need to realize is that your first move into that world will a) educate you about that world, b) set you up for your next move. Choosing an employer is not the same as choosing a branch of the military. You will no doubt be working somewhere else within 5 years (possibly much less), and when you make that move you will have all the answers you need.
To the question "should I leave?"---sounds like you have the answer. To the question---"where should I go?" I'd say "make the best decision you can but recognize it is a tactical decision, not a strategic one."
I went through the same transition in moving from academia to the corporate IT world and I would never go back. Your options are far more open, and far more diverse, than in the military---though at the same time, the burden of discovering and defining those options is far more on your shoulders.
Good luck
We call them "sheepees."
It's funny how what I said was pretty much the inverse of what is correct, huh?
No, I have no idea! And apparently you are not aware of the satirical technique of stating the *opposite* of what one really thinks, creating a humorous juxtaposition. "Dog food"? My comedic talents are wasted on you ignoramuses!
Every real-world entity seems to require an internet analog. However, we have heretofore been missing out on an internet analog to Andy Rooney. You know, from "60 Minutes," with the bushy eyebrows and whiny kvetching about "why is it that..." and "didja ever wonder why..."
Dvorak is not wrong that the modern world would look alien to someone from a long time ago---it's just a truism, so trite as to be banal. This kind of comparison, when done well, can put much-needed perspective on current developments. When done poorly it just sounds like an old man at the park.
Yes, it's very cool. AJAX prepopulates all data required for all possible actions on the page, saving round trips to the server. The fact that the user will only perform one of those N actions, and all the other data is thrown away, is a minor detail.
Those AJAX-bashers don't seem to understand that web servers don't scale horizontally, whereas database servers can be scaled by throwing more cheap boxes in the data center. And we live in a strange world where delivering a single huge page is faster than several small ones. Luckily AJAX gives us something other than an hourglass to watch while it loads. Like an ad! Or maybe a "loading" status bar, implemented in some kinda DHTML/CSS/XML/dog food, natch!
Sure, but that's a different problem. When the two apps are started by the same user (Outlook and Explorer, for instance) then the target app can't tell the difference, can it? I use DropMyRights on all my internet-facing apps---not a real solution but it helps.
What everyone seems to miss is that the fundamental flaw, which the blog author alludes to, is Microsoft's desire to allow applications to masquerade as the user and send messages via the Windows message pump (via SendMessage() etc).
The real flaw is that MS is maintaining a design decision that was made back in the days of Win3.1: there shall be one method for structured message passing (the message pump) which will cover user input, application IPC, system notifications, clipboard copying, window redraw requests, etc. This message pump is built into the core threading model for the OS (many other windowing systems have this too, it isn't just Windows).
Since there is only one front door, user input uses the same facility as everything else, and it becomes impossible to tell if the user pressed the "A" key or if an application sent a KEYPRESS message.
One solution is to have OS-enforced segregation between these types of input, and force multiple input channels. The mouse and keyboard (and other legitimate devices) get to use the "user input" channel, and other apps get to use a different channel.
But Microsoft doesn't want to do this because they want to enable Bob-style guided interactions with applications, where the target application can be automated/scripted without its knowledge. Changing this also has huge backward-compatibility issues---basically anything built for pre-Vista windows must be modified and rebuilt.
So MS is talking security, but this is a case where market footprint and backward compatibility are fighting with security---and ease of use is caught in the crossfire. A first for MS.
Happens to me too every once in a while. My theory is that they are hardened accumulations of that gunk on the back of your tongue---you know, the same crap that gives you bad breath. Get a tongue scraper and be prepared to gag.
Interesting...I've had the opposite experience. I spent time in the MS camp where there are a wealth of 'VB for dummies" books but everything beyond that comes from Microsoft itself, and you better have a MSDN subscription. With Java it seems there are tons of free online resources for specific questions, and there are also some very good books like "Thinking in Java" (perhaps a bit dated now) that get the beginner to the point of understanding all the basics, without being condescending the way, for instance, MSDN so often is.
Then again, given the languages you list Java may not be useful for what you do. If it might be, though, I'd give it another try...
"Cons: We don't get to drive anymore."
Fine with me. I hate driving. It sucks. A great car on a great road can be fun, sure, but I never get to do that. I just bump over potholes while staring at the rear bumper of the car in front of me, doing the same twitch reflex actions over and over.
I'd rather use that time for something else.
XMLSpy isn't as good as XMLSpy used to be about 2 years ago...I don't know what they did to that poor app, but it's half as useful to me now.
wha??? 70% was a B? 89% was a B for me!! wow.
And to think that less than half would give you a non-failing grade...what's the point? Just give everyone a happy face for effort.
Absolutely----I used feel that religion could be benign and that fundamentalists wack jobs would be irrational with or without it. Now I'm much more suspicious of anyone who claims religious motivations, even if they are doing clearly good things (such as Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity efforts). It's not that I think the "nice" religious folks are in fact evil; it's that tolerance for them is the nose under the tent for the bigots, and more and more it seems the zealots are doing exactly what their religion tells them to,
I don't want my principled tolerance to be exploited.
From Wikipedia: "Evolution consists of two basic types of processes: those that introduce new genetic variation into a population, and those that affect the frequencies of existing variation. 'Variation proposes and selection disposes.' "
There's no reason for the rate of mutation and variance to decline. But the only way for one of those mutations to become dominant is for it to have a significant effect on survivability and reproduction. Aside from birth defects and genetic susceptibility to disease, modern standards of living mean there are few variations in human genetic makeup that affect reproduction rates. Variations in economic conditions seem to have a more profound effect than genes.
One could argue physical beauty should come to dominate, but in case you haven't noticed, ugly people seem to have lots of ugly kids.
That may be because you are listening at higher levels than you would without headphones. There are two things that might drive you in that direction:
1. Fletcher-Munson curve - music sounds better loud, assuming no distortion
2. Isolation - headphones block out external sounds, allowing the ear to pick up details. The louder it is, the better the isolation, so the better the sound.
Watch your hearing very carefully. Once you lose it, it ain't coming back. Pete Townshend has attributed his hearing loss not to loud amps but to coming home after concerts, drunk, and playing through headphones all night while his wife and kids were sleeping.
Yes, but he was the emporer of China.
I didn't mean to be snotty, that's just what I've seen. And I take your point that there is a wide middle ground between the two extremes I described.
Would I take a job where the primary tasks had to do with legacy systems and the skills that I gained wouldn't help my resume at all? No. Well, maybe if they paid me enough and I had some kind of plan (2 years and out). Or maybe if it was the only opportunity in a small town where I really wanted to stay.
But right now I wouldn't; other people might make a different call, but if their resume looks bad at the end of their tenure, they shouldn't be surprised.