The RIM BlackBerry platform has the same issue, probably to an even worse extent... Upgrading usually depends on the carrier and the user both being involved in the process. The carrier takes forever to offer an update, and the user often doesn't even bother to install it.
Right now, in the wild, we've got at least: 4.2, 4.3, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 5.0
Now anything running 4.2 or 4.3 can probably be upgraded to 4.5, and the carriers should have it out there, assuming the users bother to do so.
And likewise, anything running 4.6 or 4.7 can probably be upgraded to 5.0, but the carriers aren't all offering that yet.
If you buy a new device, you get the latest and greatest, of course. If you have a slightly older device, offering upgrades is really low on the carriers' priority list.
Apple did something rather interesting with the iPhone. They went to AT&T and said: "we'll give you an exclusive deal, but *we* dictate the platform". Both RIM and Google still want to work with the carriers, instead of giving them the finger and controlling their own platform end-to-end.
Don't get me started... On a past project at work, I was responsible for software that merely acted as a bit of UI control glue between a display app and a whole bunch of back-end code sourcing the data.
Whenever the display app failed to show the correct information, guess what all the bug reports got written against:-)
I practically got in fights with our testers all the time over this crap. Eventually I wound up writing and/or showing them various diagnostic tools that could be used to isolate the real problem. Did that help? Not enough, unfortunately.
I agree with you completely on this notion of a person having multiple identities. I often run into other people who I wish would get the message.
At best, we need two identities. Basically, a work identity and a personal identity. (Of course in reality its quite common to have multiple work identities depending on your specific situation, but they're rarely all actually necessary.)
One thing that makes no sense to me, however, is all the people out there who use their work identity *as* their personal identity. Often these people may be the same types who "don't use a computer at home" and thus do all their computing at work. Or maybe they simply don't understand that its actually a good idea to keep them separate. Probably the only thing that'll knock them in-line is a surprise hostile layoff. (which may not be likely everywhere, but you always have to expect it as a possibility)
Incredible... I still haven't figured out how to code when female distractions are present. Even when we're both bored and sitting in front of computers, I get distracted a little too often to do anything that requires real focus. (Which is why my F/OSS is sorely suffering, and I have to go out of my way to make the time to keep up with it.)
(Of course when I do go on real vacation, I go on vacation, and don't spend the time coding. That's what the photography hobby is for, hehe...)
Shame so many more popular languages these days compile way too fast for that excuse to work. (or don't require compilation at all)
Of course we make up for that by building overly complex multi-language systems that somehow manage to make the build process actually take a long time through all the ancillary activities surrounding the actual chunks of compilation.
Or in my current case, while the above is true for a clean source tree, it isn't in my day-to-day setting. Instead, the app takes so long to start up, that I'm waiting on that bit instead. (at least until I finally get an upgraded desktop here)
Certainly at work here. Then again I'm 2 hours ahead of you, and like getting to work early so I can escape before rush hour. (and I hate long dragging afternoons)
That reminds me of once when I worked on a day that the rest of the office was completely empty. I don't think I was able to keep myself there past 7 hours total.
Of course when I spend the day in some coffee shop working on my own projects, I find myself to be much more focused and productive. Probably because it feels a lot more like "getting something done" and less like "putting in my hours against a charge number."
I also find the Two-Hour Rule to be an interesting (and probably valid) observation.
My father is a Doctor, so I'm not even sure what it would have been like growing up any other way. It basically meant that we could easily "ask a doctor" for something trivial, and not actually have to go see one unless it actually was serious enough. Kinda got spoiled that way, and also helped to avoid unnecessary treatment.
Some day when I have kids, I really do wonder how I would react given a lack of at-home medical advice.
Seriously, SPICE stands for "Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis" and is a circuit simulator.
(If this was a couple years ago, I'd rant that UML stands for "Unified Modeling Language" (not User-Mode-Linux), or that X stands for "X Window System" (Not MacOS 10))
.NET is far superior for Windows desktop application development. Big surprise there;-)
Also, for what its worth, C# is a far more advanced language now than Java. Probably because they care more about moving things forward than actively supporting people who want to pretend new versions don't exist for eons. (*cough* people who still only support Java 1.4 *cough*)
That being said, Java is still a far more versatile and community-oriented platform than.NET, in no small part to the "official VM/SDK" being available for more than one platform.
Its really not about confusing specialists or generalists within a specific field. Its about confusing whole tiers and lumping them together.
Or in other words, its not about confusing a "cardiac surgeon" with a "neurosurgeon" or even an "internist". Its about taking a "medical doctor," a "nurse," an "orderly," and a "medical receptionist" and referring to all of them as "the medical people" with zero distinction.
And I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that power management works really well with whatever OS the computer was intended to run, and is alright-to-crappy with any other OS.
My MacBook Pro runs decently in OSX, and drains quickly in WinXP. My HP Compaq laptop runs really long in Vista, though its still alright in Linux. (haven't done a comparison, though... But Linux still whines when battery #1 is almost dead, even if I have battery #2 available, installed, and at 100%)
The crux of the problem is that Linux is *rarely* the "intended OS" for any of these platforms, so the hardware manufacturer never invests any effort to make sure Linux power management drivers work correctly on them.
I know its what Apple calls it. Its just that most people often refer to "Boot Camp" as if it were some special technology or software you can run Windows in/under, and never just refer to running Windows on a Mac as "dual-booting".
Running Windows XP dual-boot on a MacBook Pro (what you people call "boot camp") also drains the battery a lot faster than OSX. I'm pretty sure Apple didn't put much effort into making sure all the hardware drivers worked anywhere near as well under Windows as they do in OSX. (additionally, I've seen display driver quirks and more iffy trackpad operation)
That's just because Nikon hasn't figured out how to do that. If you look at some of the samples that DPReview has with recent Canon DSLRs with cranked up sensitivity, it's surprisingly good.
Of course Nikon has figured out how to do it. The parent was talking about P&S cameras, which have tiny sensors, and are always crappy at high ISOs. Look at the recent Nikon DSLRs, and they're also pretty good. Actually, I think the current king of high-ISO performance is the Nikon D3 and D700 (both full-frame sensors), but Canon's full-frame DSLRs are also probably pretty good.
I personally loathe the whole "years of experience" metric. Beyond a point, I think its the most useless crock HR drones have pushed on us. Why? A moron could plod along and accumulate "X years of experience in Y" and only be marginally useful. Meanwhile, a smart person could gain an equivalent proficiency in Y in maybe a few months.
This is why the *only* way to actually get experience in anything other than what you already know is to work for the sort of company that can move you between projects, without having to re-hire you.
Once you have some real work experience, I agree that GPA shouldn't matter. But when someone is fresh out of school, it is one of the few things an employer has to go on. (well, people like us can pepper it with side-projects, but it isn't true for "normal" people)
(Its hard to get the full sense of a person from just an interview. Interviews are, by their very nature, stressful and high-pressure situations for the applicant. You know, the sort of place where a top-bullshiter can rise to the top, but someone with real ability might not show it so well.)
When I graduated (2003'ish), we hadn't yet recovered from the dot.com bubble bursting. I knew people with actually useful academic credentials that took longer than 3 months to get a job. Since the media keeps telling me we're now in a recession, somehow it seems like this idiot's expectations are WAY out of whack. The only way someone like that would get hired so quickly would be in a boom with a serious shortage of people.
Actually, the opposite of "Microsoft" would be "Astrohard" (or perhaps "Macrohard", but that has less ring to it)
Though I'm pretty sure its just a portmanteau for "Microcomputer Software". Of course even the term "microcomputer" is really no longer relevant, since (unless you look at some obscure IBM product lines) we have massively scaled out server systems that are (software-wise) closer to microcomputers than minis or mainframes.
Slashdot Mirror
The RIM BlackBerry platform has the same issue, probably to an even worse extent... Upgrading usually depends on the carrier and the user both being involved in the process. The carrier takes forever to offer an update, and the user often doesn't even bother to install it.
Right now, in the wild, we've got at least: 4.2, 4.3, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 5.0
Now anything running 4.2 or 4.3 can probably be upgraded to 4.5, and the carriers should have it out there, assuming the users bother to do so.
And likewise, anything running 4.6 or 4.7 can probably be upgraded to 5.0, but the carriers aren't all offering that yet.
If you buy a new device, you get the latest and greatest, of course. If you have a slightly older device, offering upgrades is really low on the carriers' priority list.
Apple did something rather interesting with the iPhone. They went to AT&T and said: "we'll give you an exclusive deal, but *we* dictate the platform". Both RIM and Google still want to work with the carriers, instead of giving them the finger and controlling their own platform end-to-end.
It does, if you ever bother to sign into your old ICQ account and leave it on for a day or two.
Don't get me started... On a past project at work, I was responsible for software that merely acted as a bit of UI control glue between a display app and a whole bunch of back-end code sourcing the data.
Whenever the display app failed to show the correct information, guess what all the bug reports got written against :-)
I practically got in fights with our testers all the time over this crap. Eventually I wound up writing and/or showing them various diagnostic tools that could be used to isolate the real problem. Did that help? Not enough, unfortunately.
I agree with you completely on this notion of a person having multiple identities. I often run into other people who I wish would get the message.
At best, we need two identities. Basically, a work identity and a personal identity. (Of course in reality its quite common to have multiple work identities depending on your specific situation, but they're rarely all actually necessary.)
One thing that makes no sense to me, however, is all the people out there who use their work identity *as* their personal identity. Often these people may be the same types who "don't use a computer at home" and thus do all their computing at work. Or maybe they simply don't understand that its actually a good idea to keep them separate. Probably the only thing that'll knock them in-line is a surprise hostile layoff. (which may not be likely everywhere, but you always have to expect it as a possibility)
Incredible... I still haven't figured out how to code when female distractions are present. Even when we're both bored and sitting in front of computers, I get distracted a little too often to do anything that requires real focus. (Which is why my F/OSS is sorely suffering, and I have to go out of my way to make the time to keep up with it.)
(Of course when I do go on real vacation, I go on vacation, and don't spend the time coding. That's what the photography hobby is for, hehe...)
Shame so many more popular languages these days compile way too fast for that excuse to work. (or don't require compilation at all)
Of course we make up for that by building overly complex multi-language systems that somehow manage to make the build process actually take a long time through all the ancillary activities surrounding the actual chunks of compilation.
Or in my current case, while the above is true for a clean source tree, it isn't in my day-to-day setting. Instead, the app takes so long to start up, that I'm waiting on that bit instead. (at least until I finally get an upgraded desktop here)
Certainly at work here. Then again I'm 2 hours ahead of you, and like getting to work early so I can escape before rush hour. (and I hate long dragging afternoons)
That reminds me of once when I worked on a day that the rest of the office was completely empty. I don't think I was able to keep myself there past 7 hours total.
Of course when I spend the day in some coffee shop working on my own projects, I find myself to be much more focused and productive. Probably because it feels a lot more like "getting something done" and less like "putting in my hours against a charge number."
I also find the Two-Hour Rule to be an interesting (and probably valid) observation.
My father is a Doctor, so I'm not even sure what it would have been like growing up any other way. It basically meant that we could easily "ask a doctor" for something trivial, and not actually have to go see one unless it actually was serious enough. Kinda got spoiled that way, and also helped to avoid unnecessary treatment.
Some day when I have kids, I really do wonder how I would react given a lack of at-home medical advice.
Seriously, SPICE stands for "Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis" and is a circuit simulator.
(If this was a couple years ago, I'd rant that UML stands for "Unified Modeling Language" (not User-Mode-Linux), or that X stands for "X Window System" (Not MacOS 10))
.NET is far superior for Windows desktop application development. Big surprise there ;-)
Also, for what its worth, C# is a far more advanced language now than Java. Probably because they care more about moving things forward than actively supporting people who want to pretend new versions don't exist for eons. (*cough* people who still only support Java 1.4 *cough*)
That being said, Java is still a far more versatile and community-oriented platform than .NET, in no small part to the "official VM/SDK" being available for more than one platform.
Its really not about confusing specialists or generalists within a specific field. Its about confusing whole tiers and lumping them together.
Or in other words, its not about confusing a "cardiac surgeon" with a "neurosurgeon" or even an "internist". Its about taking a "medical doctor," a "nurse," an "orderly," and a "medical receptionist" and referring to all of them as "the medical people" with zero distinction.
And if you go back a little earlier, you have one of the most definitive pieces of crapware of all time...
Packard Bell Navigator
Run 3rd party apps in the background?
Let 3rd party apps integrate with the core software?
Let developers distribute apps to real devices without needing Apple's blessing?
(while not always as nice looking, other platforms don't have these limitations)
And I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that power management works really well with whatever OS the computer was intended to run, and is alright-to-crappy with any other OS.
My MacBook Pro runs decently in OSX, and drains quickly in WinXP.
My HP Compaq laptop runs really long in Vista, though its still alright in Linux. (haven't done a comparison, though... But Linux still whines when battery #1 is almost dead, even if I have battery #2 available, installed, and at 100%)
The crux of the problem is that Linux is *rarely* the "intended OS" for any of these platforms, so the hardware manufacturer never invests any effort to make sure Linux power management drivers work correctly on them.
We do drive on the right side of the road! Actually, most of Europe does too! (Just not the UK, which you are probably thinking of.)
I'll give you the comment about beer, as a general statement. However we can still make decent beer as long as its not one of our major brands.
I know its what Apple calls it. Its just that most people often refer to "Boot Camp" as if it were some special technology or software you can run Windows in/under, and never just refer to running Windows on a Mac as "dual-booting".
Running Windows XP dual-boot on a MacBook Pro (what you people call "boot camp") also drains the battery a lot faster than OSX. I'm pretty sure Apple didn't put much effort into making sure all the hardware drivers worked anywhere near as well under Windows as they do in OSX. (additionally, I've seen display driver quirks and more iffy trackpad operation)
That's just because Nikon hasn't figured out how to do that. If you look at some of the samples that DPReview has with recent Canon DSLRs with cranked up sensitivity, it's surprisingly good.
Of course Nikon has figured out how to do it. The parent was talking about P&S cameras, which have tiny sensors, and are always crappy at high ISOs. Look at the recent Nikon DSLRs, and they're also pretty good. Actually, I think the current king of high-ISO performance is the Nikon D3 and D700 (both full-frame sensors), but Canon's full-frame DSLRs are also probably pretty good.
I personally loathe the whole "years of experience" metric. Beyond a point, I think its the most useless crock HR drones have pushed on us. Why? A moron could plod along and accumulate "X years of experience in Y" and only be marginally useful. Meanwhile, a smart person could gain an equivalent proficiency in Y in maybe a few months.
This is why the *only* way to actually get experience in anything other than what you already know is to work for the sort of company that can move you between projects, without having to re-hire you.
Once you have some real work experience, I agree that GPA shouldn't matter. But when someone is fresh out of school, it is one of the few things an employer has to go on. (well, people like us can pepper it with side-projects, but it isn't true for "normal" people)
(Its hard to get the full sense of a person from just an interview. Interviews are, by their very nature, stressful and high-pressure situations for the applicant. You know, the sort of place where a top-bullshiter can rise to the top, but someone with real ability might not show it so well.)
When I graduated (2003'ish), we hadn't yet recovered from the dot.com bubble bursting. I knew people with actually useful academic credentials that took longer than 3 months to get a job. Since the media keeps telling me we're now in a recession, somehow it seems like this idiot's expectations are WAY out of whack. The only way someone like that would get hired so quickly would be in a boom with a serious shortage of people.
And not even the CEO can figure out how!
Actually, the opposite of "Microsoft" would be "Astrohard" (or perhaps "Macrohard", but that has less ring to it)
Though I'm pretty sure its just a portmanteau for "Microcomputer Software". Of course even the term "microcomputer" is really no longer relevant, since (unless you look at some obscure IBM product lines) we have massively scaled out server systems that are (software-wise) closer to microcomputers than minis or mainframes.
Which reminds me that IBM also did a rather strange product-line renaming:
S/390 --> z-series
AS/400 --> i-series
RS/6000 --> p-series
x86 crap --> x-series