I'm not at all a clairvoyant cynic, but let's just look at simple psychology: people are stupid in large groups.
The economy is not a stand-alone entity. Much of it is controlled by the sentiment of the working people and companies.
By this mechanism, the economy is likely to over-react on this sentiment. In good times this results in a booming economy (with resulting popping of the bubble) and in bad times we all talk each other into recession.
Because the sentiment is now quite negative, it is a self-fulfilling prophesy that the economy will turn sharply downward. People aren't buying because they save it for the (perceived, at least) bad times ahead. This leads to job loss at companies. This leads to unemployment. This leads to worse sentiment. This leads to people buying even less. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Better times will come, but not before we've gone through a pretty rough patch.
Do you know why the management of engineers seems stupid even if those managers might be fairly capable? It's because the level above them is the real problem.
Lower management might contain a few ex-engineers that actually do have a clue. The levels above that generally consist of business types that wouldn't know a hammer from a saw if their lives depended on it. However, those guys make the targets, the rules and the policy. And lower management has to carry them out, without question. They are spat on from above and spat on from below, they really can't win.
Don't blame lower management, blame the real culprits: MBA types.
You list a fairly impressive number of conditions. What about those that do have a family and/or mortgage? And no amount of work history will tie you over when there simply are no jobs at all.
And those days will come, and soon. No jobs. Not even flipping burgers, not for the older engineers. Much better to get a stupid malleable kid for that, as it limits the amount of talk-back to the no-stripe franchise manager.
Yes, we were (and still are) largely dependent on transport. These days it's containers from Rotterdam to the rest of Europe. In them days it was spices (and everything else that wasn't nailed down) from the colonies and slaves from Africa to the States.
As for worst colonizers, I'm not sure that is quite right regarding to violence. The Spanish and the English where brutal, but the Dutch always tried to keep trade flowing. Damaging the merchandise (slaves directly, or crop harvest indirectly) was bad for business.
The Dutch were masters in using the local rulers to keep the population under control, however. Better to have the head of state (or tribe, whatever) on their side than to replace him with a Dutch ruler that could count on severe opposition. Again, that would be bad for business.
Now, the current government of The Netherlands are a bunch of religious nutjobs that are actively turning back the clock about fifty years. Not to worry, next election they will get their asses handed to them, big time.
And severe paranoia, as well. Once I been up and about for just over 70 hours and that is _not_ healthy. Slept for 17 hours after that. Never going to that again, it was living hell.
I've been working 4x9 (no work on Friday) for the last ten years. Wouldn't have it any other way.
You can do the chores (groceries, whatnot) on Friday, while it isn't packed solid in the shopping mall. During the 'proper' weekend you then get to chill out and do only the fun stuff.
Next job (looking for one, at the mo') might be 4x8, as that would leave me with better hours to commute (not as much traffic congestion).
Even on a trivial program it generates several gigabytes of intermediate files. I have tried to compile a normal project once, and when it wasn't done yet after about four days I've stopped this madness.
And see what it got you: the steaming turd called Vista. Nice jorb.
Re:Man pages are not a quality control technique!
on
FreeBSD 7.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
Are you refering to the word "crap" in my post? Other than that, I really can't see what would be offending. Well, just mentally replace that word with "things" and reread.
Re:Man pages are not a quality control technique!
on
FreeBSD 7.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
Sure, HTML can display all sorts of crap, and a zebra has striped sides, but both these facts don't have anything to do with the online documentation of unix(-like) systems.
If you would like to document the system in HTML (WordStar 2, whatever) that's fine. The world needs more documentation, so please do so.
But keep man pages what they are ment to be: roff.
This discussion also flares up about the X windowing system. Everybody has ideas to make it better, to replace it and to obsolete it. Except that X isn't broken and works very well. In fact, I really think that if you set out to replace X (or man) completely, you will end up with exactly the same product.
Re:Man pages are not a quality control technique!
on
FreeBSD 7.1 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You want clickable man pages? Take a look at man.freebsd.org and choose the HTML output format.
What was that quote again?
Those who don't know UNIX are doomed to reinvent it -- badly...:-)
Yes, it certainly is different. I've come from a BSD background and consistently looked in the wrong places when I adminned a few Linux servers last year.
The whole rc.d thingamajig is quite different too, that was a whole barrel of fun...:-)
If your point was that GNU doesn't always know what it is doing, well, we all know that, don't we?:)
Still, those smelly hippies brought us some very nice software. On the other hand, it's the birthplace of emacs, so it's not all roses and moonlight...
Re:Man pages are not a quality control technique!
on
FreeBSD 7.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
And in ten years it will still be a dumb suggestion. The nice thing about man-pages is that you can format them however you want: ascii text only, typeset documents or whatever.
If I want to grep the documentation, HTML will be in my way.
Man pages are a solved problem. It works, and it works well. No change needed nor wanted.
Re:Man pages are not a quality control technique!
on
FreeBSD 7.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
You do know that manpages are not really ASCII only? That is only how the 'man' command makes them look.
With the same source files you can get beautiful typeset documents. In fact, that is how the manuals of old where made.
If you are referring to the old maxim that adding more developers won't speed up the project but actually delay it, I would like you to reflect on the fact that removing too many developers won't get the project done either.
There are too few developers working on Perl 6, adding a few would actually speed it up. There is a lot of work to be done, and people are spread too thin.
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I'm not at all a clairvoyant cynic, but let's just look at simple psychology: people are stupid in large groups.
The economy is not a stand-alone entity. Much of it is controlled by the sentiment of the working people and companies.
By this mechanism, the economy is likely to over-react on this sentiment. In good times this results in a booming economy (with resulting popping of the bubble) and in bad times we all talk each other into recession.
Because the sentiment is now quite negative, it is a self-fulfilling prophesy that the economy will turn sharply downward. People aren't buying because they save it for the (perceived, at least) bad times ahead. This leads to job loss at companies. This leads to unemployment. This leads to worse sentiment. This leads to people buying even less. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Better times will come, but not before we've gone through a pretty rough patch.
Do you know why the management of engineers seems stupid even if those managers might be fairly capable? It's because the level above them is the real problem.
Lower management might contain a few ex-engineers that actually do have a clue. The levels above that generally consist of business types that wouldn't know a hammer from a saw if their lives depended on it. However, those guys make the targets, the rules and the policy. And lower management has to carry them out, without question. They are spat on from above and spat on from below, they really can't win.
Don't blame lower management, blame the real culprits: MBA types.
You list a fairly impressive number of conditions. What about those that do have a family and/or mortgage? And no amount of work history will tie you over when there simply are no jobs at all.
And those days will come, and soon. No jobs. Not even flipping burgers, not for the older engineers. Much better to get a stupid malleable kid for that, as it limits the amount of talk-back to the no-stripe franchise manager.
We've sold you New York, for a ridonculous low price, for one thing.
Yes, we were (and still are) largely dependent on transport. These days it's containers from Rotterdam to the rest of Europe. In them days it was spices (and everything else that wasn't nailed down) from the colonies and slaves from Africa to the States.
As for worst colonizers, I'm not sure that is quite right regarding to violence. The Spanish and the English where brutal, but the Dutch always tried to keep trade flowing. Damaging the merchandise (slaves directly, or crop harvest indirectly) was bad for business.
The Dutch were masters in using the local rulers to keep the population under control, however. Better to have the head of state (or tribe, whatever) on their side than to replace him with a Dutch ruler that could count on severe opposition. Again, that would be bad for business.
Now, the current government of The Netherlands are a bunch of religious nutjobs that are actively turning back the clock about fifty years. Not to worry, next election they will get their asses handed to them, big time.
Repeat. See if they keep up with you. My guess would be no.
Ah, so you're the one...
lack of sleep will case hallucinations.
And severe paranoia, as well. Once I been up and about for just over 70 hours and that is _not_ healthy. Slept for 17 hours after that. Never going to that again, it was living hell.
I routinely drink way more coffee than that, and not those watery american brews either.
I have yet to start hallucinating from it. Me thinks the reporter is fibbing...
Well, that's not entirely true...
:-)
If you take a high enough dose you will experience things you never would or could imagine possible.
Low doses, yes, that goes like you say. But where's the fun in that?
I've been working 4x9 (no work on Friday) for the last ten years. Wouldn't have it any other way.
You can do the chores (groceries, whatnot) on Friday, while it isn't packed solid in the shopping mall. During the 'proper' weekend you then get to chill out and do only the fun stuff.
Next job (looking for one, at the mo') might be 4x8, as that would leave me with better hours to commute (not as much traffic congestion).
I'm guessing you haven't actually tried perlcc?
Even on a trivial program it generates several gigabytes of intermediate files. I have tried to compile a normal project once, and when it wasn't done yet after about four days I've stopped this madness.
Perl lacks one thing only: a compiler.
Having to install a metric boatload of modules and runtime on the clients system everytime you deploy an application gets old fast.
And see what it got you: the steaming turd called Vista. Nice jorb.
Are you refering to the word "crap" in my post? Other than that, I really can't see what would be offending. Well, just mentally replace that word with "things" and reread.
Sure, HTML can display all sorts of crap, and a zebra has striped sides, but both these facts don't have anything to do with the online documentation of unix(-like) systems.
If you would like to document the system in HTML (WordStar 2, whatever) that's fine. The world needs more documentation, so please do so.
But keep man pages what they are ment to be: roff.
This discussion also flares up about the X windowing system. Everybody has ideas to make it better, to replace it and to obsolete it. Except that X isn't broken and works very well. In fact, I really think that if you set out to replace X (or man) completely, you will end up with exactly the same product.
You want clickable man pages? Take a look at man.freebsd.org and choose the HTML output format.
... :-)
What was that quote again?
Those who don't know UNIX are doomed to reinvent it -- badly
Yes, it certainly is different. I've come from a BSD background and consistently looked in the wrong places when I adminned a few Linux servers last year.
:-)
The whole rc.d thingamajig is quite different too, that was a whole barrel of fun...
If your point was that GNU doesn't always know what it is doing, well, we all know that, don't we? :)
Still, those smelly hippies brought us some very nice software. On the other hand, it's the birthplace of emacs, so it's not all roses and moonlight...
And in ten years it will still be a dumb suggestion. The nice thing about man-pages is that you can format them however you want: ascii text only, typeset documents or whatever.
If I want to grep the documentation, HTML will be in my way.
Man pages are a solved problem. It works, and it works well. No change needed nor wanted.
You do know that manpages are not really ASCII only? That is only how the 'man' command makes them look.
With the same source files you can get beautiful typeset documents. In fact, that is how the manuals of old where made.
Check out the different formats, even HTML is included.
I highly recommend the documentary "The Midas Formula", it's about thinking risk can be modelled. It didn't work out that well.
See the BBC website
It's certainly available on your favourite tracker.
Seems that 2024 - 2009 = 25, which apparently is the same as 95 - 70. Whodathunkit?
If you are referring to the old maxim that adding more developers won't speed up the project but actually delay it, I would like you to reflect on the fact that removing too many developers won't get the project done either.
There are too few developers working on Perl 6, adding a few would actually speed it up. There is a lot of work to be done, and people are spread too thin.
I take it you have volunteered to help finish P6?