I've been an employee at Homeboyz for just over a year. I'm a Computer Science undergrad fortunate enough to be paid to write open source software at Homeboyz.
Some posts have said things to the effect of "teaching people to use FrontPage to make web pages isn't going to help them get a job in this economy, and they take jobs away from skilled developers like me!"
We don't use any wysiwyg editors, and I've spent hours cleaning up Dreamweaver-generated HTML provided by local professional design firms when clients decided to stick with their old graphic agency.
To assume that people can only handle a point-and-click editor because of their background very narrow minded.
There are several "tracks" that trainees can pursue:
A frontend track covering more HTML, Photoshop, Flash, etc.
A backend track covering object oriented PHP, relational database theory, XML, CVS for version control, UML, Javadoc comments, the Linux/FreeBSD systems, etc.
Everyone is encouraged to reach their own potential - so not every trainee is going to learn all these technologies, but they will be exposed to an enviroment where people are willing to give them a chance to learn and believe in them.
We use Metabase for database abstraction and a complete PHP persistence layer wherein classes are mapped to multiple persistence mechanisms (different DB's, LDAP...) in an XML file. In many projects, we use a templating engine to achieve strict three-tier architecture instead of embedded PHP tags.
I've been continually impressed with the commitment to exploration of new technologies here, as well as the commitment to good architecture and coding as a craft.
We've been more into PHP because of it's easier learning curve, but are doing a project right now in Java as a test. Java development is a better skillset right now for job placement.
I experimented with a sort-of similar setup last summer: A voice-controlled power mac 6100 in the trunk running macos with apple's speech recognition software and a 2gb disk of mp3's. 10BT Ethernet to load new MP3's into the trunk from my desktop over a long cable. Note that the choice of hardware/software was dictated by finding the box in the trash and not being able to find a MkLinux speech rec package at the time.
It was pretty slick! Conversation did NOT change songs, because of the prefix "Car..." But when music was playing, the voice recognition was unusable, and I felt like a moron for not anticipating that obvious problem. I ended up with a numeric keypad next to the driver's seat to pause it and speak commands.
Personally, I wouldn't pay $600 for a system like this when people throw away hardware good enough for this every day. And a 2gb disk is easy to find for free, and while it won't hold 140hrs, it will hold quite a few albums. I think the market for a box like this will be compromised by the fact that geeks who'd be into it will be tempted to build it themselves out of junk.
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I've been an employee at Homeboyz for just over a year. I'm a Computer Science undergrad fortunate enough to be paid to write open source software at Homeboyz.
Some posts have said things to the effect of "teaching people to use FrontPage to make web pages isn't going to help them get a job in this economy, and they take jobs away from skilled developers like me!"
We don't use any wysiwyg editors, and I've spent hours cleaning up Dreamweaver-generated HTML provided by local professional design firms when clients decided to stick with their old graphic agency.
To assume that people can only handle a point-and-click editor because of their background very narrow minded.
There are several "tracks" that trainees can pursue:
A frontend track covering more HTML, Photoshop, Flash, etc.
A backend track covering object oriented PHP, relational database theory, XML, CVS for version control, UML, Javadoc comments, the Linux/FreeBSD systems, etc.
Everyone is encouraged to reach their own potential - so not every trainee is going to learn all these technologies, but they will be exposed to an enviroment where people are willing to give them a chance to learn and believe in them.
We use Metabase for database abstraction and a complete PHP persistence layer wherein classes are mapped to multiple persistence mechanisms (different DB's, LDAP...) in an XML file. In many projects, we use a templating engine to achieve strict three-tier architecture instead of embedded PHP tags.
I've been continually impressed with the commitment to exploration of new technologies here, as well as the commitment to good architecture and coding as a craft.
We've been more into PHP because of it's easier learning curve, but are doing a project right now in Java as a test. Java development is a better skillset right now for job placement.
-Justin Knoll
It was pretty slick! Conversation did NOT change songs, because of the prefix "Car..." But when music was playing, the voice recognition was unusable, and I felt like a moron for not anticipating that obvious problem. I ended up with a numeric keypad next to the driver's seat to pause it and speak commands.
Personally, I wouldn't pay $600 for a system like this when people throw away hardware good enough for this every day. And a 2gb disk is easy to find for free, and while it won't hold 140hrs, it will hold quite a few albums. I think the market for a box like this will be compromised by the fact that geeks who'd be into it will be tempted to build it themselves out of junk.