any program worth his shit should have no trouble picking up objective-c (a far simpler and more powerful language than c++). the language barrier really isn't an issue. it's more an issue of mindshare. there are a lot of things that are better in the computing world by design but get largely ignored due to lack of marketing.
Frankly, this should be any "programmer worth his (or her) shit"'s attitude towards ANY programming language or technology.
No programmer worth his (or her) shit or ANY shit, should EVER learn just "the one hot marketable skill" and then sit on it for the length of a career. A specific skill or language should NEVER EVER be a prerequisite for a job.
A worthwhile programmer should know the sound principles of software engineering, be perhapse well-versed in two or three languages, and be able to adapt by learning a new skill where required.
I know that a response to the parent in this thread is basically preaching to the choir. But it seems that HR folks are really clueless when it comes to hiring programmers these days. In a world where monoculture KILLS, in a heterogeneous world, a multi-platform world, it's absolutely INSANE to look for or hire programmers, not on the basis of versitility, but on the basis of knowing the "latest fashionable buzzword-compliant technology".
This was a problem in the 1990's, and you know, it's really starting to get stale./ticked-off.
Re:There was never anything so consistent, stable.
on
10 Years of OpenStep
·
· Score: 1
Don't forget the attrocity that is OS X - supposedly an evolution of NeXTSTEP, without the best features of the NeXTSTEP GUI. (most beloved feature I miss: tear-off menus - get WITH it Steve. . . )
If a machine is broken, you find what's broken, (as an engineer, not as an ideology-driven politician), and you FIX it. If you truly care about the machine's functionality, you FIX it, you don't throw it out.
Turn an ideologue loose on NASA, and the end result will be an organization DESIGNED to fail, so it's dismantlement can be justified.
NASA is not, nor should it be, an expensive PR firm or penis-length enhancer for the USA. No matter how badly the current Administration wants it to be.
Every US Citizen, and most people in the world today, are FAR better served by a NASA with a more scientific goal.
Now - CORPORATIONS, yeah. That's the ticket. Let's blow away NASA, and turn over it's functions to private corporations. We'll have a space program that is like the Internet Explorer of space programs. They'll run a best-of-breed organization. Like Enron. Their operations will be safe. Like Ford Explorers in space. We'll be the envy of the world.
IIRC, there was a similar issue with flap hinges on the Space Shuttle, upon an inspection, they were found to be installed backwards. Even though the part was designed assymetrically, it was still able to be installed backwards. ..
Make something idiot-proof, and someone will design a better idiot.
A failure is a waste, if it's a repeat of a previous failure. . . if we learned nothing from the previous failure.
Bad engineering processes should have been removed from the satellite/space-probe industry back in the 1950's. What we probably learned from this debacle is that in attempting to streamline the engineering processes with the "Better Cheaper Faster" mantra, we handed it all over to accountants and spreadsheet jockeys - and now THEY'RE the ones re-learning the lessons so expensively learned by failures of the 1950's and 1960's.
It's not a double-edged sword. It's merely a trade-off. Always has been, always will be. If you want the freedom to chew gum, you'd better have the responsibility not to spit it out on the floor. You also are shouldered with the responsibility to violently defend your right to chew gum, if necessary.
How would you like to see something you've worked on for 50+ hours a week for months on end being freely copied around?
I suppose seeing it available and copied around would make me feel a lot better than seeing it available and NOT copied around. If people wouldn't even download a copy for free, I'd be really worried. . .
Re:Why I dislike Halo (and all modern console game
on
Halo 2 Goes Gold
·
· Score: 1
Lure Theory 1: The Lure of paying $150 for a console, instead of upgrading your $2000 desktop machine with a $300 video card and joystick (if you're so inclined, which apparently you're not. I agree with you on this).
Lure Theory 2: Exclusivity of titles - LOTS of people bought an X-Box JUST to play Halo. Just because it wasn't available on any other platform for the first year. Certainly, this is an artificial benefit, constructed by the gaming industry. But this factor exists, nonetheless.
The executive agencies have a responsibility to cut off public funds when they have a very good reason to believe they are being subject to fraud, waste and abuse.
. . . too bad the same standards aren't being applied to contractors in Iraq, for instance. . .
. . . on the other hand, a similar exploit discovered in Open Source software would require the same amount of overhead for repair. Hell, even installing a Microsoft patch will require some overhead.
But this is why people choose closed-source commercial development platforms over open source. So they don't have to spend money on their own developers. So, for Microsoft to suggest that a customer has to spend money on developers to fix a security bug caused by their product - flies in the face of their reasoning why a customer should choose them over an Open Source solution.
Sure, a subset of sites are going to have a guy who can just open a text editor, edit a few lines, and problem solved.
Other sites, particularly those belonging to large corporations (more typical of ASP.NET deployments, by the way), will require development time, reload of the test environment, test time, possible additional development cycles, possible integration of other fixes they may have had waiting in the wings, but didn't deploy because there wasn't a critical need. Documentation of changes, regression testing, and finally deployment, which may or may not require downtime (ie. 9pm Saturday evening). Under some organizations, even a trivial engineering change has a pretty steep minimum overhead of man-hours of labor. This will push the average up a bit higher. . .
My wife said I could spend no more than $5,000 on a ticket into space. So I guess I'm waiting for the prices to come down. Or maybe some accumulation of air miles on Virgin Atlantic (yeah right).
16 bases in Iraq aren't about "controlling the oil" - because, unless you secure hundreds of miles of pipelines against sabotage (which 16, or even 100 bases woulcn't be able to do), you're not "controlling the oil".
16 bases in Iraq are about continuing to fellate the Likud party.
16 bases in Iraq are about perpetuating fundamentalist Islamic hatred, and conflict, which props up oil prices. (it's about making sure that the oil isn't controlled by anybody).
16 bases in Iraq are about capitulating to bin Laden's demand that American Infidels get out of Saudi Arabia.
2. The US Military is losing control of the Green Zone. It was announced last week that people walking unescorted in the Green Zone should use a "Buddy System".
3. The British Military aren't doing much better in Basrah.
It's the timeshifting, stupid. (no offense - just trying to drive a point).
If I drive to work at 9am, but my favorite radio show is on at 7am, while I'm asleep or otherwise occupied, it would be great to be able to record a radio show, dump it to my iPod, and listen in my car. (and skip the goddamned commercials!).
Or possibly some transparent substance that can shift wavelengths of light, causing a narrowly coherent beam of a pure color to spread slightly to a wider bandwidth. You'd still be able to see through it, but lasers would de-laze upon transmission.
If someone found out that you could manufacture CPUs that are twice as fast by doing it in zero-G, I'm sure Intel would have a space station within the decade. If you could make toothpaste that would get your teeth extra white while giving fresh breath that lasts for twelve hours by doing it in zero-G, P&G would have a space station within the decade.
. . . and if someone found out that you could manufacture viagra that kept you permanently hard, and increased size, stamina and performance by 50%, in zero G, Pfizer would have the Govt. build them a space station within a week. . .
This "Level x" stuff just sounds like a weak attempt by moronic Marketing Dweebs to remove the customer from the technical details of buying a computer. A welcome move for some, but ultimately, it will be a tool to bait-and-switch.
I would also like to point out that it is interesting that all the Enron, etc, crap is pointed at Bush when it all occured during the Clinton administration under the nose of Reno
Don't forget that in the closing months of 2001, it was a top news story, I'm talking about headline news, for weeks and weeks, that 1. Enron was going bankrupt, and 2. They, and their Accounting Firm Arthur Anderson, were shredding documents by the Truckload.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I were a cop, standing outside a drug dealer's house, and heard the toilet flushing, I'd bust in the door right away.
Bush's DOJ sat around for WEEKS with their thumbs up their asses, while evidence was being destroyed.
ABSOLUTELY incompetent.
And today, three years later - only a couple of token scapegoats have been tried, and the kingpin was FINALLY just charged, with the expectation that he'll get it thrown out because there wasn't enough evidence to prove he knew what was going on. That's right. He was *competent* enough to draw a hundred-million dollar salary and perks, but not competent enough to spot rampant corruption in his own organization which ultimately caused the largest bankruptcy in US History.
The end result: millions of American Investors fled the stock market in terror, resulting in the worst bear-market since the Great Depression.
The Executive Branch is responsible for Law Enforcement. They fucked up. Either on purpose, or accidentally. Either case is absolutely unacceptable. Especially right on the heels of the worst Security failure in US History (9/11 right after Bush's monthlong vacation).
Insurance is supposed to protect doctors from malpractise lawsuits. Now many have been forced out of business due to the high cost of insurance premiums...and, Ironically, the doctors who COMMIT the malpractice are NOT beinf forced out of business.
THIS, folks, is the real cause of the problem. Not "evul trial lawyers".
The existence of Malpractice Insurance just makes the juries set the awards all that much higher, in an attempt to enact an effective punishment.
And I am extremely pessimistic about the ability of the small investor to "keep an eye on things". I have invested for many years and follow my stocks closely, but I am often taken by surprize by events.
Since I was in the whole "dotcom daytrading" phenom back in the 1990's, I have become keenly aware of one thing: Insider trading is not just common. It's RAMPANT. In the company where I worked, I witnessed events - with my Yahoo Ticker up on the screen, constant stock price updates, and I'd see spikes lead news reports on our company by DAYS. Things that ONLY our officers might have known - and not easily inferred things like quarterly reports or layoffs, or mergers. News like, losing a major account, or things of that nature, the stock would start to move on the news LONG before the knowledge of the event started to filter among the employees, who were bound by SEC regs to NOT trade during the blackout period. It was blindingly obvious to anyone paying attention that large stakeholders were getting information, and acting on it. It was rampant, and from speaking with friends throughout the industry, it was widespread.
Adding to the problem is the arbitrariness of law suit damages that are now being awarded. They often have no relation to the actual damage done.
In many ways, the astronomical punitive damage awards we hear so much about in the news are retaliatory in nature. It is an expression of the frustration jurors are made to feel, by the prosecution in these trials, that because these companies screw people over with such impunity on a regular basis, and get away with it, that it's only right to slap them with a ridiculously heavy award, as an example, when the Justice crows come home to roost.
I think that such awards would drop dramatically, if justice against corporate malfeasance and white collar criminality were done more frequently. The barriers to such "small awards" suits would have to drop significantly. Right now - it's basically impossible for a middle-class person wronged by a large corporation to sue, without the backing of a large law firm willing to do the suing for a large cut of a massive award. One of the barriers is the raft of "tort-reform" type laws on the books designed to supposedly prevent "frivolous" lawsuits (and these laws still don't really work). The other barrier is that effective lawyers are really in high demand, and their services are simply far beyond the reach of mere mortals in this world. Part of the effectiveness is lawyers who are simply well-educated, and just plain that good at what they do. Another part of it is sheer intimidation of their cult-of-personality, for guys like Shapiro. Another part of it is cronyism.
Slashdot Mirror
any program worth his shit should have no trouble picking up objective-c (a far simpler and more powerful language than c++). the language barrier really isn't an issue. it's more an issue of mindshare. there are a lot of things that are better in the computing world by design but get largely ignored due to lack of marketing.
/ticked-off.
Frankly, this should be any "programmer worth his (or her) shit"'s attitude towards ANY programming language or technology.
No programmer worth his (or her) shit or ANY shit, should EVER learn just "the one hot marketable skill" and then sit on it for the length of a career.
A specific skill or language should NEVER EVER be a prerequisite for a job.
A worthwhile programmer should know the sound principles of software engineering, be perhapse well-versed in two or three languages, and be able to adapt by learning a new skill where required.
I know that a response to the parent in this thread is basically preaching to the choir. But it seems that HR folks are really clueless when it comes to hiring programmers these days. In a world where monoculture KILLS, in a heterogeneous world, a multi-platform world, it's absolutely INSANE to look for or hire programmers, not on the basis of versitility, but on the basis of knowing the "latest fashionable buzzword-compliant technology".
This was a problem in the 1990's, and you know, it's really starting to get stale.
Don't forget the attrocity that is OS X - supposedly an evolution of NeXTSTEP, without the best features of the NeXTSTEP GUI. (most beloved feature I miss: tear-off menus - get WITH it Steve. . . )
If a machine is broken, you find what's broken, (as an engineer, not as an ideology-driven politician), and you FIX it. If you truly care about the machine's functionality, you FIX it, you don't throw it out.
Turn an ideologue loose on NASA, and the end result will be an organization DESIGNED to fail, so it's dismantlement can be justified.
NASA is not, nor should it be, an expensive PR firm or penis-length enhancer for the USA. No matter how badly the current Administration wants it to be.
Every US Citizen, and most people in the world today, are FAR better served by a NASA with a more scientific goal.
Now - CORPORATIONS, yeah. That's the ticket. Let's blow away NASA, and turn over it's functions to private corporations. We'll have a space program that is like the Internet Explorer of space programs. They'll run a best-of-breed organization. Like Enron. Their operations will be safe. Like Ford Explorers in space. We'll be the envy of the world.
IIRC, there was a similar issue with flap hinges on the Space Shuttle, upon an inspection, they were found to be installed backwards. Even though the part was designed assymetrically, it was still able to be installed backwards. . .
Make something idiot-proof, and someone will design a better idiot.
A failure is a waste, if it's a repeat of a previous failure. . . if we learned nothing from the previous failure.
Bad engineering processes should have been removed from the satellite/space-probe industry back in the 1950's. What we probably learned from this debacle is that in attempting to streamline the engineering processes with the "Better Cheaper Faster" mantra, we handed it all over to accountants and spreadsheet jockeys - and now THEY'RE the ones re-learning the lessons so expensively learned by failures of the 1950's and 1960's.
It's not a double-edged sword.
It's merely a trade-off. Always has been, always will be. If you want the freedom to chew gum, you'd better have the responsibility not to spit it out on the floor. You also are shouldered with the responsibility to violently defend your right to chew gum, if necessary.
How would you like to see something you've worked on for 50+ hours a week for months on end being freely copied around?
I suppose seeing it available and copied around would make me feel a lot better than seeing it available and NOT copied around. If people wouldn't even download a copy for free, I'd be really worried. . .
Lure Theory 1:
The Lure of paying $150 for a console, instead of upgrading your $2000 desktop machine with a $300 video card and joystick (if you're so inclined, which apparently you're not. I agree with you on this).
Lure Theory 2:
Exclusivity of titles - LOTS of people bought an X-Box JUST to play Halo. Just because it wasn't available on any other platform for the first year. Certainly, this is an artificial benefit, constructed by the gaming industry. But this factor exists, nonetheless.
The executive agencies have a responsibility to cut off public funds when they have a very good reason to believe they are being subject to fraud, waste and abuse.
. . . too bad the same standards aren't being applied to contractors in Iraq, for instance. . .
. . . on the other hand, a similar exploit discovered in Open Source software would require the same amount of overhead for repair. Hell, even installing a Microsoft patch will require some overhead.
But this is why people choose closed-source commercial development platforms over open source. So they don't have to spend money on their own developers. So, for Microsoft to suggest that a customer has to spend money on developers to fix a security bug caused by their product - flies in the face of their reasoning why a customer should choose them over an Open Source solution.
8.7 Million hours of lost productivity!
That's rather optimistic.
Sure, a subset of sites are going to have a guy who can just open a text editor, edit a few lines, and problem solved.
Other sites, particularly those belonging to large corporations (more typical of ASP.NET deployments, by the way), will require development time, reload of the test environment, test time, possible additional development cycles, possible integration of other fixes they may have had waiting in the wings, but didn't deploy because there wasn't a critical need. Documentation of changes, regression testing, and finally deployment, which may or may not require downtime (ie. 9pm Saturday evening). Under some organizations, even a trivial engineering change has a pretty steep minimum overhead of man-hours of labor. This will push the average up a bit higher. . .
My wife said I could spend no more than $5,000 on a ticket into space. So I guess I'm waiting for the prices to come down. Or maybe some accumulation of air miles on Virgin Atlantic (yeah right).
16 bases in Iraq aren't about "controlling the oil" - because, unless you secure hundreds of miles of pipelines against sabotage (which 16, or even 100 bases woulcn't be able to do), you're not "controlling the oil".
16 bases in Iraq are about continuing to fellate the Likud party.
16 bases in Iraq are about perpetuating fundamentalist Islamic hatred, and conflict, which props up oil prices. (it's about making sure that the oil isn't controlled by anybody).
16 bases in Iraq are about capitulating to bin Laden's demand that American Infidels get out of Saudi Arabia.
Corrections:
2. The US Military is losing control of the Green Zone. It was announced last week that people walking unescorted in the Green Zone should use a "Buddy System".
3. The British Military aren't doing much better in Basrah.
It's the timeshifting, stupid. (no offense - just trying to drive a point).
If I drive to work at 9am, but my favorite radio show is on at 7am, while I'm asleep or otherwise occupied, it would be great to be able to record a radio show, dump it to my iPod, and listen in my car. (and skip the goddamned commercials!).
Or possibly some transparent substance that can shift wavelengths of light, causing a narrowly coherent beam of a pure color to spread slightly to a wider bandwidth. You'd still be able to see through it, but lasers would de-laze upon transmission.
The high winds were anticipated as typical conditions of the Mojave
considering the windmill farm less than 10 miles from the airport, I'd say that's an understatement.
can anyone do that?
class MilitantExtremistReligiousFundamentalists extends Republican
COOL! That was fun!
How 'bout sniffing a wireless LAN outside of a hotel room where a pr0n photoshoot is going on? Publish the pics before the publisher does. . .
If someone found out that you could manufacture CPUs that are twice as fast by doing it in zero-G, I'm sure Intel would have a space station within the decade. If you could make toothpaste that would get your teeth extra white while giving fresh breath that lasts for twelve hours by doing it in zero-G, P&G would have a space station within the decade.
. . . and if someone found out that you could manufacture viagra that kept you permanently hard, and increased size, stamina and performance by 50%, in zero G, Pfizer would have the Govt. build them a space station within a week. . .
Check Apple's web-store.
Good. Better. Best.
But Apple lets the user customize.
This "Level x" stuff just sounds like a weak attempt by moronic Marketing Dweebs to remove the customer from the technical details of buying a computer. A welcome move for some, but ultimately, it will be a tool to bait-and-switch.
I would also like to point out that it is interesting that all the Enron, etc, crap is pointed at Bush when it all occured during the Clinton administration under the nose of Reno
Don't forget that in the closing months of 2001, it was a top news story, I'm talking about headline news, for weeks and weeks, that 1. Enron was going bankrupt, and 2. They, and their Accounting Firm Arthur Anderson, were shredding documents by the Truckload.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I were a cop, standing outside a drug dealer's house, and heard the toilet flushing, I'd bust in the door right away.
Bush's DOJ sat around for WEEKS with their thumbs up their asses, while evidence was being destroyed.
ABSOLUTELY incompetent.
And today, three years later - only a couple of token scapegoats have been tried, and the kingpin was FINALLY just charged, with the expectation that he'll get it thrown out because there wasn't enough evidence to prove he knew what was going on. That's right. He was *competent* enough to draw a hundred-million dollar salary and perks, but not competent enough to spot rampant corruption in his own organization which ultimately caused the largest bankruptcy in US History.
The end result: millions of American Investors fled the stock market in terror, resulting in the worst bear-market since the Great Depression.
The Executive Branch is responsible for Law Enforcement. They fucked up. Either on purpose, or accidentally. Either case is absolutely unacceptable. Especially right on the heels of the worst Security failure in US History (9/11 right after Bush's monthlong vacation).
It will be in international waters, off of South America (I want to say Peru?).
I think there's an island full of Dinosaurs in that area that wouldn't like this idea. . .
Insurance is supposed to protect doctors from malpractise lawsuits. Now many have been forced out of business due to the high cost of insurance premiums .. .and, Ironically, the doctors who COMMIT the malpractice are NOT beinf forced out of business.
THIS, folks, is the real cause of the problem. Not "evul trial lawyers".
The existence of Malpractice Insurance just makes the juries set the awards all that much higher, in an attempt to enact an effective punishment.
And I am extremely pessimistic about the ability of the small investor to "keep an eye on things". I have invested for many years and follow my stocks closely, but I am often taken by surprize by events.
Since I was in the whole "dotcom daytrading" phenom back in the 1990's, I have become keenly aware of one thing: Insider trading is not just common. It's RAMPANT. In the company where I worked, I witnessed events - with my Yahoo Ticker up on the screen, constant stock price updates, and I'd see spikes lead news reports on our company by DAYS. Things that ONLY our officers might have known - and not easily inferred things like quarterly reports or layoffs, or mergers. News like, losing a major account, or things of that nature, the stock would start to move on the news LONG before the knowledge of the event started to filter among the employees, who were bound by SEC regs to NOT trade during the blackout period. It was blindingly obvious to anyone paying attention that large stakeholders were getting information, and acting on it. It was rampant, and from speaking with friends throughout the industry, it was widespread.
The 1996 Private Securities
Adding to the problem is the arbitrariness of law suit damages that are now being awarded. They often have no relation to the actual damage done.
In many ways, the astronomical punitive damage awards we hear so much about in the news are retaliatory in nature. It is an expression of the frustration jurors are made to feel, by the prosecution in these trials, that because these companies screw people over with such impunity on a regular basis, and get away with it, that it's only right to slap them with a ridiculously heavy award, as an example, when the Justice crows come home to roost.
I think that such awards would drop dramatically, if justice against corporate malfeasance and white collar criminality were done more frequently. The barriers to such "small awards" suits would have to drop significantly. Right now - it's basically impossible for a middle-class person wronged by a large corporation to sue, without the backing of a large law firm willing to do the suing for a large cut of a massive award. One of the barriers is the raft of "tort-reform" type laws on the books designed to supposedly prevent "frivolous" lawsuits (and these laws still don't really work). The other barrier is that effective lawyers are really in high demand, and their services are simply far beyond the reach of mere mortals in this world.
Part of the effectiveness is lawyers who are simply well-educated, and just plain that good at what they do. Another part of it is sheer intimidation of their cult-of-personality, for guys like Shapiro. Another part of it is cronyism.