There are religious people in the left and the right just ast their are atheists in the left and the right. Don't confuse conservatism with religion. Conservatives want less government regulation regardless of religious affiliation. Those that want less sex education and less teaching of evolution do so based on religious beliefs, not whether or not they are conservative or liberal.
Just because someone claims to be a liberal doesn't mean that he or she is 'enlightened'. If he or she preaches tolerance and diversity, yet turns around and cusses out christians and conservatives because they have a different opinion, then said liberal is a poser. 'Do what I say and not what I do' just doesn't work, because he or she's example speaks much louder than words.
Just because someone claims to be a conservative doesn't automatically mean he or she is going out shooting up minorities or raping the landscape.
During the time the Nazis were in power, you had to be a member of the Nazi party just to have a job, so technically every working german at the time was a Nazi. So it makes it confusing to disentangle the real Nazis who did all the horrible things and the ones that just said they were 'Nazi' just to keep a job.
1. The piece of paper from an ABET accredited school is going to matter more than from a non-accredited school (abet.org, i think).
2. While the quality of online courses varies, so does the classroom experience.
3. After you have a couple of years of work experience under your belt, that will matter much more than a piece of paper. Your work experience, any additional activities you are engaged in, like an open source project or a java user group or something, and the type/quality of the online course will say more about the quality of your work and the kind of employee you are more than a piece of paper. I have met very competent people that had paper and that didn't have paper, and I have met people with paper that were very incompetent. The paper is more for an HR hoop to jump through and to aid hiring managers that don't know much about the position they are hiring for.
4. The paper (degree) is a minimum requirement for the HR departments of many larger companies. So it is good to have one from a reputable college (ABET, again). And the better companies offer tuition assistance. Its the smaller companies that are more likely to give you a chance if you don't have the paper but have demonstrable skills.
5. If you are interested in an online course and your boss won't pay or would give you problems for it,: Take it anyway, pay for it yourself, and don't tell him.
An advantage of a tablet is less weight than carrying around textbooks. Web access is great for submitting assignments and getting help.
The next generation ought to be releasing the elearning courses under some kind of creative commons like license to some variation of wikipedia so that all students and teachers can find the best lessons that explain a particular topic. Then you wouldn't be as limited by a local crappy teacher if you could find the best of the best in a national repository.
Just like there is differing quality of teachers, there is differing quality in textbooks and elearning courses. If we had a best of the best repository (with user ratings), then we wouldn't have to waste as much time plowing through a crappy lesson. I know in looking at technical books there are few genuinely useful gems and a lot of mediocre to crappy one that do no more than repeat the basics and each other. Thats one reason I went exclusively to safari books-online so after I have read a crappy book I have only wasted some time, not $60. I wish there were more electronic libraries.
overseas outsourcing contracts would be more difficult to enforce and there would be less accountability. What is their motivation to produce quality, maintainable code if they get paid anyway and don't have to maintain it? Especially when there are plenty of other willing victims and customer service isn't a concern?
And how easy would it be to sue them to enforce a contract even if it was explicit in programming methodologies?
We all benefit from technological progress and low low prices.
Companies need to compete as well as make money. If they couldn't find cheaper labor overseas for certain functions then they would be motivated to automate. Thus the manufacturing jobs would go away regardless. If the companies don't reduce costs, and their competition does, then they won't be able to compete and surprise! the company closes down and all the employees get laid off.
Automation has been increasing since henry ford's assembly line and should be considered a fact of life.
Keep skills fresh and be ready to learn new ones should be our motto.
I think a lot of big companies won't look at you if you don't have a degree. It is a typical HR checkoff item and the dev manager may not even see your resume.
Throughout the earth's geologic history it has been must colder than now at times and much warmer and had more oxygen and less oxygen and life went on.
Climate doesn't happen in a few years. Just because you anecdotally had an extra hot day or an extra cold day means absolutely squat. If you look at historical and gelogic records you will find we aren't suddenly turning into a worldwide sulfur pit. for example, an ice free north pole happened about 80 years ago.
How much manmade greenhouse gases are actually contributing to global warming is debatable. Each side brings on their own so-called experts and their own so-called scientific evidence to support their contention. And climategate didn't help.
What will probably happen if/when the seas rise is that the major cities will follow the dutch example and the rest will move or be moved to higher ground. To handle the floods and droughts we could build an interstate aqueduct system from rivers in areas that typically flood to rivers in areas that typically dry out and use pumps the size of the ones they used in the great salt lake. Or we will do some other engineering kind of solution. Life will go on, regardless, and we will adapt to the climate if we cannot adapt the climate to us.
And communism (China) has a thought of the future and their government won't sacrifice their people and descendants 'for the greater good'??
If we want to fix greenhouse gas levels in the atmo, we need to get China, India, and Brazil on board also. We, as a country, cannot cut our emissions enough to compensate for them not cutting emissions without absolutely destroying ourselves.
It has already been argued that people tend to vote locally, not nationally, and typically against anything that increases their taxes because there are more selfish, greedy people than altruistic people. For example, if we had direct democracy are educational system would be poorer, we would not have a national infrastructure of transportation (like freeways) or internet, and so forth.
One argument is that if people were sufficiently informed, they would make informed decisions--but as has already been pointed out--people are selfish and lack vision.
Another argument is that when it comes to defense and security matters, direct democracy would leave us wide open to exploitation and conquest. If every citizen knew all of our defense strategies and secrets then so will our enemies, while we would not know theirs. We would not remain free for long. There are other countries in the world not as altruistic as we are who would exploit our good nature even more and likely come here, carve up our country, and rape our resources.
A representative republic like we have is the best government that us mere finite humans can come up with. we elect representatives that can see a bigger picture than the rest of us and will hopefully work to forward an agenda that does the most good for the most people. idealistic and not without flaws in actual execution when dealing with corruptible humans. The republic is better than a monarchy or a dictatorship as the power is spread around and the corruption of one individual is generally balanced by the corruption of another with opposing interests. Generally workable with the most freedom for the represented public. Not perfect and probably never will be, but certainly better than the alternatives.
Again, I must say that utopian ideals are fine as long as they take into account human nature and the fact that every system interacts with every other system and no single idea can be test in isolation. The best ideas judged worthy of trial should have the results analyzed and compared with the results of other trials so that the best ones are identified and retained.
Sounds a lot like a Nova program I saw some time ago. It titled 'Ghost in your genes'. It talked about how epigenetics control how your genes are expressed and they had noticed some inherited traits based on whether the ancestors were poor, starving, folk or not.
Why do people assume that the christians are the ones always behind these kind of fascist actions? If you go to far LEFT or RIGHT you find fascist extremists.
In the US it isn't the conservatives or christians behind all the PC fascism and 'spread the wealth' crap, it is the liberals. Censorship in the form that you can't say anything negative about minorities or LGBT. Communism in the way they wan't to tax you to death so the greedy poor can have food and shelter without lifting a finger to work (not all poor are greedy, just 'occupiers' and the like). Fascism in the way they say you can't have fat or salt or have incandescent bulbs.
'Saving the planet' is crap when you mandate CFLs with toxic mercury powder or electric cars with toxic metal batteries or biofuels that drive up worldwide food prices and are worst CO2 emitters than petroleum.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mind my taxes going to help the truly needy. I think we should try to do better by our environment, but what's the point in breaking our economy when other big polluters, like China and India and Brazil, aren't doing the same? Or do we need a fascist world government to force them? and OBTW when you give anyone too much power to do one thing, they will likely abuse that power whether they lean right or left. If you want economin communism of fascist environmentalism, don't be surprised if the empowered individuals use that power to regulate other aspects of your life and destroy all your freedoms. Can't have guns because of the lead. Can't have fat or salt because of the expense to the health care system. an so on and so forth
The dude can hire whomever he wants.
I agree with his point that cookie cutter coders are useless and I can understand his desire to only hire people who can really code.
But there are things I don't believe he has considered.
>>1. Real kitchens may have better food and better cooks than MacDonalds, but MacDonalds serves a lot more customers. For a startup or small company to grow, at some point they will have to choose a framework or write their own to handle all the customer requests and needs. If they develop their own framework, then it will be niche and likely only used internally. I don't see where being familiar with a niche framework would be a resume enhancer.
>>2. Real programmers aren't stuck when frameworks don't have the controls or functions quite what they want--they just write new functions or controls or whatever they need. Real programmers know how to program and so aren't stuck on a particular language or framework.
>>3. Since Expensify has dumped on.NET and also Java, I don't see that any experience from them would be a resume enhancer. The world is ruled by.NET and Java. My own priorities are to keep up the with the world rulers to keep my job opportunities optimized. This is why I don't spend much time on niche languages or frameworks. I haven't spent any time on Ruby or Drupal or Coldfusion because they are niche. In the course of work and school I have learned Perl and Python and like them, but they are also niche. I have seen what happens to organizations that get stuck on niche products and stay insular in their development processes--they don't prosper and eventually get outcompeted. And then the niche programmers have a tough time finding new employment.
Humans are a lot better than computers at connecting the dots. While having vast electronic libraries at our fingertips reduces the tedium of searching for information, you still need humans to summarize info and synthesize new info by connecting the dots. In a law firm, you still needs humans to develop strategies from available case histories. In science and technology, often two or more seemingly unrelated bits of info come together to form a new theory or invention. A couple of examples are the orign of microwaves and post-it notes, two inventions we can't imagine doing without. Or the method of tracking stealth aircraft by their disturbance of the signal field generated by a network of cellphone towers. on and on and on.
It would take something much more powerful than Watson for a machine intelligence able to connect the dots in a general range of subject rather than just one extremely specialized task. No doubt that will happen, but not anytime soon.
I think going to an abet accredited school, whether for profit or not, is your best choice.
While it is true that after a couple of years experience it will depend on the person, some of the big companies will not even talk to you if you don't have a degree and even fewer if you don't have a degree from an abet accredited school. Check abet.org to see if your school is on their list.
Palpatine maneuvered himself into the Chancellorship through some shady dealings. Once he got himself declared Emperor, he dissolved the elected senate and had the Jedi's killed. (all in episodes 1-3). This is more the pattern of an evil conquer.
Where the civilians on the death stars innocent or not? In Nazi Germany, the only recognized political party was the Nazi party. If you wanted a job, you had to be a member of the Nazi party. At which point were members of the Nazi political party willing or unwilling participant's in the Nazi conquest of Europe?
The unfortunate fact of war is that civilians, innocent or otherwise, willing accomplices to the regime or not, in the path of that war, are going to get killed. The nobler militaries will avoid unnecessary civilian casualties (at least at first), but history shows that the less noble military will exploit that and use civilians as human shields. In the end, if the battle is difficult, the nobleness does not last, as history shows. The Allies firebombed Hamburg and Dresden in World War II in an effort to break the will of the German people to wage war. The US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an effort to break the will of the Japanese people to wage war. Not noble, but needed to bring and end to the war and in the long run prevent even greater numbers of civilian casualties? That's the raging debate. Could the Rebels have defeated the Death Stars without blowing them up and killing all the civilians? Not realistically. Let's not gloss over the fact that Alderaan was destroyed by the first Death Star. Let's not gloss over the fact that in WWII the Japanese and the Germans were the aggressors. Let's not gloss over the fact the Germans routinely targeted civilians and also killed a lot jews, or that the Japanese tested bioweapons on Chinese territory they conquered. They were bad governments and needed to be stopped. The Empire in Star Wars needed to be stopped.
Whether by science or magic, when you impose your own ideas on other people and force them to live the way you want, not the way they want, that is evil. In this morally relativistic world, evil is still evil when you commit acts where you harm others or deny them their free expression. In the telling or retelling of tales of Middle Earth, the evil is committed by whichever side is the aggressor. I haven't read the retelling, but in the original telling, the armies of Mordor were going about conquering and Gandalf and friends were defending their lives, their homes, and their freedoms.
This is on a bit of a tangent, but I think Microsoft steals ideas from people they interview for jobs. When I graduated and interviewed with MS, my interviewer asked me what my chief complaints about Windows were and/or what I would suggest they could do to improve it. I suggested they could load windows on a flash based drive to speed up access and reliability. Lo and behold, a year later, I hear announcements about solid state drives. I don't know whether or not the drive makers were already working on this or if MS made a suggestion; I am probably full of crap for thinking that MS took my idea and passed it onto the drivemakers, but it did make me think about sharing ideas with a company interviewing me. Sure I wanted to impress them, but it strikes me as a great way for them to troll for ideas, patentable or not. And MS has proven themselves shady enough to pull something like this.
While google and reference websites are helpful, it is also useful to have access to good programming books.
I have really enjoyed Safari Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com).
In the 2 1/2 years I have been working as a programmer I have had to deal with perl, css, html, javascript, xml, mysql, vb/vba, asp.net, c#, transact-sql, java/jsf/jsp/j2ee, iis, tomcat, ant, apache, eclipse, and visual studio. It isn't practical for me to spend hundreds of dollars for a library of books, so I find the Safari site to be very useful. It's $20 a month for 10 books at a time or $50 a month unlimited access to books from O'Reilly, Microsoft, Pearson, etc.
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There are religious people in the left and the right just ast their are atheists in the left and the right. Don't confuse conservatism with religion. Conservatives want less government regulation regardless of religious affiliation. Those that want less sex education and less teaching of evolution do so based on religious beliefs, not whether or not they are conservative or liberal. Just because someone claims to be a liberal doesn't mean that he or she is 'enlightened'. If he or she preaches tolerance and diversity, yet turns around and cusses out christians and conservatives because they have a different opinion, then said liberal is a poser. 'Do what I say and not what I do' just doesn't work, because he or she's example speaks much louder than words. Just because someone claims to be a conservative doesn't automatically mean he or she is going out shooting up minorities or raping the landscape.
During the time the Nazis were in power, you had to be a member of the Nazi party just to have a job, so technically every working german at the time was a Nazi. So it makes it confusing to disentangle the real Nazis who did all the horrible things and the ones that just said they were 'Nazi' just to keep a job.
Metrics like this are arrived at by MBAs that haven't a clue as to how real work gets done.
1. The piece of paper from an ABET accredited school is going to matter more than from a non-accredited school (abet.org, i think). 2. While the quality of online courses varies, so does the classroom experience. 3. After you have a couple of years of work experience under your belt, that will matter much more than a piece of paper. Your work experience, any additional activities you are engaged in, like an open source project or a java user group or something, and the type/quality of the online course will say more about the quality of your work and the kind of employee you are more than a piece of paper. I have met very competent people that had paper and that didn't have paper, and I have met people with paper that were very incompetent. The paper is more for an HR hoop to jump through and to aid hiring managers that don't know much about the position they are hiring for. 4. The paper (degree) is a minimum requirement for the HR departments of many larger companies. So it is good to have one from a reputable college (ABET, again). And the better companies offer tuition assistance. Its the smaller companies that are more likely to give you a chance if you don't have the paper but have demonstrable skills. 5. If you are interested in an online course and your boss won't pay or would give you problems for it,: Take it anyway, pay for it yourself, and don't tell him.
An advantage of a tablet is less weight than carrying around textbooks. Web access is great for submitting assignments and getting help. The next generation ought to be releasing the elearning courses under some kind of creative commons like license to some variation of wikipedia so that all students and teachers can find the best lessons that explain a particular topic. Then you wouldn't be as limited by a local crappy teacher if you could find the best of the best in a national repository. Just like there is differing quality of teachers, there is differing quality in textbooks and elearning courses. If we had a best of the best repository (with user ratings), then we wouldn't have to waste as much time plowing through a crappy lesson. I know in looking at technical books there are few genuinely useful gems and a lot of mediocre to crappy one that do no more than repeat the basics and each other. Thats one reason I went exclusively to safari books-online so after I have read a crappy book I have only wasted some time, not $60. I wish there were more electronic libraries.
People with or without guns kill people
overseas outsourcing contracts would be more difficult to enforce and there would be less accountability. What is their motivation to produce quality, maintainable code if they get paid anyway and don't have to maintain it? Especially when there are plenty of other willing victims and customer service isn't a concern? And how easy would it be to sue them to enforce a contract even if it was explicit in programming methodologies?
We all benefit from technological progress and low low prices. Companies need to compete as well as make money. If they couldn't find cheaper labor overseas for certain functions then they would be motivated to automate. Thus the manufacturing jobs would go away regardless. If the companies don't reduce costs, and their competition does, then they won't be able to compete and surprise! the company closes down and all the employees get laid off. Automation has been increasing since henry ford's assembly line and should be considered a fact of life. Keep skills fresh and be ready to learn new ones should be our motto.
I think a lot of big companies won't look at you if you don't have a degree. It is a typical HR checkoff item and the dev manager may not even see your resume.
Throughout the earth's geologic history it has been must colder than now at times and much warmer and had more oxygen and less oxygen and life went on. Climate doesn't happen in a few years. Just because you anecdotally had an extra hot day or an extra cold day means absolutely squat. If you look at historical and gelogic records you will find we aren't suddenly turning into a worldwide sulfur pit. for example, an ice free north pole happened about 80 years ago. How much manmade greenhouse gases are actually contributing to global warming is debatable. Each side brings on their own so-called experts and their own so-called scientific evidence to support their contention. And climategate didn't help. What will probably happen if/when the seas rise is that the major cities will follow the dutch example and the rest will move or be moved to higher ground. To handle the floods and droughts we could build an interstate aqueduct system from rivers in areas that typically flood to rivers in areas that typically dry out and use pumps the size of the ones they used in the great salt lake. Or we will do some other engineering kind of solution. Life will go on, regardless, and we will adapt to the climate if we cannot adapt the climate to us.
And communism (China) has a thought of the future and their government won't sacrifice their people and descendants 'for the greater good'?? If we want to fix greenhouse gas levels in the atmo, we need to get China, India, and Brazil on board also. We, as a country, cannot cut our emissions enough to compensate for them not cutting emissions without absolutely destroying ourselves.
It has already been argued that people tend to vote locally, not nationally, and typically against anything that increases their taxes because there are more selfish, greedy people than altruistic people. For example, if we had direct democracy are educational system would be poorer, we would not have a national infrastructure of transportation (like freeways) or internet, and so forth. One argument is that if people were sufficiently informed, they would make informed decisions--but as has already been pointed out--people are selfish and lack vision. Another argument is that when it comes to defense and security matters, direct democracy would leave us wide open to exploitation and conquest. If every citizen knew all of our defense strategies and secrets then so will our enemies, while we would not know theirs. We would not remain free for long. There are other countries in the world not as altruistic as we are who would exploit our good nature even more and likely come here, carve up our country, and rape our resources. A representative republic like we have is the best government that us mere finite humans can come up with. we elect representatives that can see a bigger picture than the rest of us and will hopefully work to forward an agenda that does the most good for the most people. idealistic and not without flaws in actual execution when dealing with corruptible humans. The republic is better than a monarchy or a dictatorship as the power is spread around and the corruption of one individual is generally balanced by the corruption of another with opposing interests. Generally workable with the most freedom for the represented public. Not perfect and probably never will be, but certainly better than the alternatives. Again, I must say that utopian ideals are fine as long as they take into account human nature and the fact that every system interacts with every other system and no single idea can be test in isolation. The best ideas judged worthy of trial should have the results analyzed and compared with the results of other trials so that the best ones are identified and retained.
Sounds a lot like a Nova program I saw some time ago. It titled 'Ghost in your genes'. It talked about how epigenetics control how your genes are expressed and they had noticed some inherited traits based on whether the ancestors were poor, starving, folk or not.
Why do people assume that the christians are the ones always behind these kind of fascist actions? If you go to far LEFT or RIGHT you find fascist extremists. In the US it isn't the conservatives or christians behind all the PC fascism and 'spread the wealth' crap, it is the liberals. Censorship in the form that you can't say anything negative about minorities or LGBT. Communism in the way they wan't to tax you to death so the greedy poor can have food and shelter without lifting a finger to work (not all poor are greedy, just 'occupiers' and the like). Fascism in the way they say you can't have fat or salt or have incandescent bulbs. 'Saving the planet' is crap when you mandate CFLs with toxic mercury powder or electric cars with toxic metal batteries or biofuels that drive up worldwide food prices and are worst CO2 emitters than petroleum. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind my taxes going to help the truly needy. I think we should try to do better by our environment, but what's the point in breaking our economy when other big polluters, like China and India and Brazil, aren't doing the same? Or do we need a fascist world government to force them? and OBTW when you give anyone too much power to do one thing, they will likely abuse that power whether they lean right or left. If you want economin communism of fascist environmentalism, don't be surprised if the empowered individuals use that power to regulate other aspects of your life and destroy all your freedoms. Can't have guns because of the lead. Can't have fat or salt because of the expense to the health care system. an so on and so forth
So how long before the keyboard and screen start curling up and not laying flat anymore? And I guess you won't be able to put it on your lap anymore.
The dude can hire whomever he wants. I agree with his point that cookie cutter coders are useless and I can understand his desire to only hire people who can really code. But there are things I don't believe he has considered. >>1. Real kitchens may have better food and better cooks than MacDonalds, but MacDonalds serves a lot more customers. For a startup or small company to grow, at some point they will have to choose a framework or write their own to handle all the customer requests and needs. If they develop their own framework, then it will be niche and likely only used internally. I don't see where being familiar with a niche framework would be a resume enhancer. >>2. Real programmers aren't stuck when frameworks don't have the controls or functions quite what they want--they just write new functions or controls or whatever they need. Real programmers know how to program and so aren't stuck on a particular language or framework. >>3. Since Expensify has dumped on .NET and also Java, I don't see that any experience from them would be a resume enhancer. The world is ruled by .NET and Java. My own priorities are to keep up the with the world rulers to keep my job opportunities optimized. This is why I don't spend much time on niche languages or frameworks. I haven't spent any time on Ruby or Drupal or Coldfusion because they are niche. In the course of work and school I have learned Perl and Python and like them, but they are also niche. I have seen what happens to organizations that get stuck on niche products and stay insular in their development processes--they don't prosper and eventually get outcompeted. And then the niche programmers have a tough time finding new employment.
Humans are a lot better than computers at connecting the dots. While having vast electronic libraries at our fingertips reduces the tedium of searching for information, you still need humans to summarize info and synthesize new info by connecting the dots. In a law firm, you still needs humans to develop strategies from available case histories. In science and technology, often two or more seemingly unrelated bits of info come together to form a new theory or invention. A couple of examples are the orign of microwaves and post-it notes, two inventions we can't imagine doing without. Or the method of tracking stealth aircraft by their disturbance of the signal field generated by a network of cellphone towers. on and on and on. It would take something much more powerful than Watson for a machine intelligence able to connect the dots in a general range of subject rather than just one extremely specialized task. No doubt that will happen, but not anytime soon.
I think going to an abet accredited school, whether for profit or not, is your best choice. While it is true that after a couple of years experience it will depend on the person, some of the big companies will not even talk to you if you don't have a degree and even fewer if you don't have a degree from an abet accredited school. Check abet.org to see if your school is on their list.
Palpatine maneuvered himself into the Chancellorship through some shady dealings. Once he got himself declared Emperor, he dissolved the elected senate and had the Jedi's killed. (all in episodes 1-3). This is more the pattern of an evil conquer. Where the civilians on the death stars innocent or not? In Nazi Germany, the only recognized political party was the Nazi party. If you wanted a job, you had to be a member of the Nazi party. At which point were members of the Nazi political party willing or unwilling participant's in the Nazi conquest of Europe? The unfortunate fact of war is that civilians, innocent or otherwise, willing accomplices to the regime or not, in the path of that war, are going to get killed. The nobler militaries will avoid unnecessary civilian casualties (at least at first), but history shows that the less noble military will exploit that and use civilians as human shields. In the end, if the battle is difficult, the nobleness does not last, as history shows. The Allies firebombed Hamburg and Dresden in World War II in an effort to break the will of the German people to wage war. The US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an effort to break the will of the Japanese people to wage war. Not noble, but needed to bring and end to the war and in the long run prevent even greater numbers of civilian casualties? That's the raging debate. Could the Rebels have defeated the Death Stars without blowing them up and killing all the civilians? Not realistically. Let's not gloss over the fact that Alderaan was destroyed by the first Death Star. Let's not gloss over the fact that in WWII the Japanese and the Germans were the aggressors. Let's not gloss over the fact the Germans routinely targeted civilians and also killed a lot jews, or that the Japanese tested bioweapons on Chinese territory they conquered. They were bad governments and needed to be stopped. The Empire in Star Wars needed to be stopped.
Whether by science or magic, when you impose your own ideas on other people and force them to live the way you want, not the way they want, that is evil. In this morally relativistic world, evil is still evil when you commit acts where you harm others or deny them their free expression. In the telling or retelling of tales of Middle Earth, the evil is committed by whichever side is the aggressor. I haven't read the retelling, but in the original telling, the armies of Mordor were going about conquering and Gandalf and friends were defending their lives, their homes, and their freedoms.
This is on a bit of a tangent, but I think Microsoft steals ideas from people they interview for jobs. When I graduated and interviewed with MS, my interviewer asked me what my chief complaints about Windows were and/or what I would suggest they could do to improve it. I suggested they could load windows on a flash based drive to speed up access and reliability. Lo and behold, a year later, I hear announcements about solid state drives. I don't know whether or not the drive makers were already working on this or if MS made a suggestion; I am probably full of crap for thinking that MS took my idea and passed it onto the drivemakers, but it did make me think about sharing ideas with a company interviewing me. Sure I wanted to impress them, but it strikes me as a great way for them to troll for ideas, patentable or not. And MS has proven themselves shady enough to pull something like this.
While google and reference websites are helpful, it is also useful to have access to good programming books. I have really enjoyed Safari Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com). In the 2 1/2 years I have been working as a programmer I have had to deal with perl, css, html, javascript, xml, mysql, vb/vba, asp.net, c#, transact-sql, java/jsf/jsp/j2ee, iis, tomcat, ant, apache, eclipse, and visual studio. It isn't practical for me to spend hundreds of dollars for a library of books, so I find the Safari site to be very useful. It's $20 a month for 10 books at a time or $50 a month unlimited access to books from O'Reilly, Microsoft, Pearson, etc.