I didn't sleep well. I'm tired and pissed off. Therefore a great distraction is to start a flame war!
He's a very good kernel engineer
Agreed.
and wrote a very good DVCS
Yes, bad user interfaces and mish-moshes of barely portable shell and C are the hallmarks of a good design. Mercurial is better, and has been chosen by most people/companies that have sat down and tried to make an objective comparison (e.g. Google, Fog Creek). Git is winning out mostly because it's what Linus, the ultimate cool kid, uses, and a lot of geeks still dream of sitting at the cool kids table.
But he's full of shit when it comes to C++. Not a single point of his stands up to any sort of logical scrutiny.
The one thing Linus does better than running the kernel project, is being an opinionated loudmouth. IIRC his hatred of C++ stem from an attempt in the ancient days of the kernel project to use it. At the time g++ seriously sucked. Small wonder it had problems. Or maybe Linus has a fear of objects because he was struck by one as a child, and doesn't like classes because he had to attend them (I said I didn't get much sleep).
I use VHDL (Ada's little brother). It is a better language, if you like extreme-typing.
The typing stuff is a bit overdone, but I still much prefer it to Verilog. I'd rather spend time fighting the compiler than tracing down bugs in simulation that could have been caught earlier.
But your VHDL program is proven (and then aggressively optimised) by the synthesizer (a compiler that produces a netlist to create electronics/FPGA to run your program), it does take a while for the synthesizer to be done.
Synthesis is a step that simply doesn't exist in software. How does the synthesizer "prove" anything though, other than that you have a synthesizeable design?
That is true, but C++ does it in a way that makes programming dangerous.
That's why the D language was developed. It's something like C++, but done correctly with a clean sheet of paper. You can even understand the syntax! C++ programmers can easily learn it.
The question is whether D will ever catch on. It's not, or at least doesn't have the image, of a cool new language. The only chances I see for its success are 1) it'll be used on a lot of FOSS projects, so eventually enough people will want to darg it into their day jobs, and/or 2) some well known company starts using it internally. I'm not a big Facebook fan, but it would be a likely candidate, as Andrei Alexandrescu (C++ author and #2 guy on D) works there.
P.S. I also like Ada. At one time you had to be careful admitting that, but it's ok now because not many people know what you're talking about. It's dying though, and has been for many years. It's probably already a common topic at the Old Programmer's Home. D has a chance in part because it's newer (and more up-to-date).
many of the VMS commands and utilities were written in a mish mash of languages, as if each programmer just chose what they wanted to use
If they chose languages that were better for the task at hand than others, that sounds like a good approach. VAX cross-language compatibility made it practical.
BLISS and Fortran and Macro-32 all in the same program.
Mixing BLISS and Macro-32 is hardly a kluge, but what utility mixed them with Fortran?
There was also a data description language added to the mix to allow sharing data structures across languages.
Another excellent idea, supporting cross-language operation.
Between VMS and Alpha DEC manage to prove the old adage: if you build a better mousetrap, your company will go down the toilet. More recent companies learned from that, and avoid well thought out designs.
I'm not sure exactly how I'd define "core", but "three products that are kind of secondary to the Google experience" definitely isn't it. From what I understand Pittsburgh is an excellent place to get good developers, so it makes me wonder how committed Google is to doing much of anything serious outside of the ever provincial Bay Area. Of course they will continue to complain about being unable to find people, and clamor for more H-1B's.
Sergey, Larry, what's the problem? I heard you got a shiny new jet that you could use to fly to Pittsburgh. It's a lot shorter than across the Pacific. Are you afraid of the snow? Don't worry - there are months when it's warm and sunny, and the locals can clue you in on the appropriate timing. Maybe you'd prefer not to hire anyone who isn't a Stanford grad? I understand - CMU is such an also ran.
I was modded down for that post? Must be some recruiters or immigration lawyers modding today. It's one of those cases where I take a certain pride in being modded down - I know I hit a nerve somewhere.
Perhaps you don't understand that irony is the device most commonly used in sarcasm, and that they're not entirely separate concepts. The distinction is a matter of tone, with sarcasm being very sharp or bitter. Hence the OP is not sarcastic. Despite being a product of the American public schools that are being so sharply criticized here, I learned such advanced literary and rhetorical concepts in an advanced setting call the 8th grade. Now that's sarcasm. See the difference?
I would agree that comparing a city to a country is unfair, but that's not what this conversation started off as.
That's exactly what this conversation started off as, which I can say with confidence as I'm the OP. On the subject of reading comprehension, I apparently made the mistake of thinking that most people here could understand a statement that wasn't completely literal. For future reference, the technique I employed is called irony. Just wait until you get to the really advanced stuff like metaphors.
I have thought of vouchers as an idea, but my fear that it would trade failed public schools for failed schools owned by a private corporation.
Why? First, they needn't be owned by for-profit corporations. Traditionally private schools are not. I'd be happy with banning the use of the school vouchers for for-profit schools (if nothing else, the fireworks would be entertaining!). With vouchers you'd have a choice, and schools would have to compete with each other. I'm not a market fundamentalist, or even RW, but I am an empiricist. School vouchers are very popular and successful in an extreme right-wing bastion called Sweden.
Probably the best way is from the ground up... get homeschooling parents to trade off, and form the old "one room schoolhouse" of yore.
What makes you think they aren't? My neighbors are home schooling their daughter. Admittedly she's only in the first grade, but amongst other things kids go to some classes that are taught by various parents. BTW, politically they lean to the left a bit (mom's even a vegetarian!).
But it has the net effect of fundamentally undermining the ability to think critically about things, and evaluate evidence.
I agree, and in the real world that's important. However, it still has little to do with these tests. Reading tests are mostly about comprehension of what was written, not protracted thought or discussion about the material. That's also true of math, at least at that level. It teaches problem solving skills, which are important, but definitely not the same as the ability to think critically about things, and evaluate evidence.
It's interesting to hear from someone who had boots on the ground (I made a comment above about being unaware that Shanghai was a country). As for "while we are at it see how well they do at independent problem solving and creative thinking", what do you think about the "'stuffing the duck" system? I've heard Chinese complain about it. How real is it?
Even though it's cherry picked and results in stressed out kids, I don't want to take anything away from the recognition of Shanghai's educational achievements. Nevertheless I do wonder about the (unfortunately difficult to objectively quantify) question that you raise. AFAIK someone like Richard Feynman didn't stay up until midnight every school day cramming. His mother was neither a "tiger mom" or a helicopter parent. From what I've heard, he still did ok academically. Possibly even some success later. Obviously this is an anecdote, but it make my (and your?) point. Studying hard and maintaining academic standards are one thing, but some of the East Asian countries (or at least some cities in them) seem to go nuts. It sure brings out the best puritanical sanctimony in Americans though.
Much as I agree with you, that only affects the science part of the test (and then only the biology part). It has nothing to do with reading and math. I've never heard a fundamentalist preacher say that calculus is evil.
In America they are teaching kids (and their parents) that the American educational system sucks. This helps keep up the funding for the educational-industrial-congressional complex.
Students in Shanghai performed so well in math that the OECD report compares their scoring to the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling above most OECD countries.
Not sure about math, reading and science, but clearly my geography is bad. I had no idea Shanghai was a country.
But there seem to be a lot of recruiters from SF, Seattle, New York, and pretty much every major city.
What's "pretty much every major city"? SF, Seattle and New York are the three big hotspots. What about Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Portland, Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis, etc.? Before you say "Podunk", let me point out I'm from, and still live, in the NY area. If I want to put on my NY snob act, I'll say every other city in the country is Podunk. But being an American first and a New Yorker a distant second, I'll point out that every city I mentioned, and a lot more, are major cities. It's a big country. Are you going to claim you have knowledge of the job market in all or even most of them, and that it's good?
Self-driving cars aren't "new" either, just better now.
Presumably they're better, but nobody outside of the Google group working on it seems to know how much. I give them credit for working on advanced stuff (Sergey has the world's coolest hobby setup, and I think he made a few bucks too), but what they've published/announced so far is hype and PR, not useful data. 300k miles without an accident means little without knowing the test conditions, especially how often and under what circumstances the autopilot insisted on handing control back to the human.
Oops, forgot my main point. One of the most annoying and counterproductive things about Silicon Valley is its provincialism. They seem to be unaware of any part of the US outside of the Bay Area. Ironically, this is the exact opposite of the SV image of being cosmopolitan (or even "globalized", whatever the hell that means). It's also at odds with the way people talk about having broken down communication barriers. Do they think the only places the Internet is connected are the Bay Area and India? There are lots of smaller tech hubs in the US (e.g. Pittsburgh) where you can get top people much easier and cheaper than in SV. Why do these geniuses seem to ignore that?
I know some of the big companies, like Google, have facilities all over, but how much do they actually use them for "core development"? In the case of Google I honestly don't know, and any solid information would be appreciated.
Funny, that's not my experience up here in the north east.
Ditto, and I'm also in the Northeast (Long Island). The one bright spot I'm familiar with is NYC (Manhattan really, and maybe a few parts of Brooklyn). My brother was out of work for a long time and found a pretty good job there (mostly high level security work - funny how people who move billions of dollars around are touchy about that). The commute sucks, but it beats unemployment.
Routinely offering developers $250K a year, plus benefits, plus a nice office...
I'd like that too, but these days I'll settle for less prejudice against me. Given that high of a potential price, and assuming they couldn't get the H-1B quota raised to 1M/yr, a more realistic outcome would be, as you said, "convince them to consider hiring somebody other than the person they're typically after".
Unless there are affirmative action rules in place, this mythical person they're after is probably also male, white or Asian or Indian racial background
I suspect that many of the job interviewers aren't even aware of that bias (though some are, and sometimes flaunt it, despite there being an EEOC). Often it's just "this is what we've seen in the past, so I guess it's what we're looking for now". It's a common, sometimes understandable, and not always bad thing for people to prefer things they're comfortable and familiar with. Arguably it's a useful heuristic in some situations. However, with an issue like employment, you have to be aware of your prejudices and fight them, not just because the alternative is illegal or at least unethical, but because it's bad business. What kind of idiot leaves money on the table?
Slashdot Mirror
but in order for java to be cross platform
Java is portable in the same sense that you'd be portable if you traveled with your own hotel.
parent is obviously trolling...
Or parodying.
Wait, upon rereading, I don't think that GP is actually being sarcastic. Can someone with a better online sarcasm detector please jump in here?
Either you have a dry sense of humor, or this is Slashdot.
The joy of a least common denominator.
I didn't sleep well. I'm tired and pissed off. Therefore a great distraction is to start a flame war!
He's a very good kernel engineer
Agreed.
and wrote a very good DVCS
Yes, bad user interfaces and mish-moshes of barely portable shell and C are the hallmarks of a good design. Mercurial is better, and has been chosen by most people/companies that have sat down and tried to make an objective comparison (e.g. Google, Fog Creek). Git is winning out mostly because it's what Linus, the ultimate cool kid, uses, and a lot of geeks still dream of sitting at the cool kids table.
But he's full of shit when it comes to C++. Not a single point of his stands up to any sort of logical scrutiny.
The one thing Linus does better than running the kernel project, is being an opinionated loudmouth. IIRC his hatred of C++ stem from an attempt in the ancient days of the kernel project to use it. At the time g++ seriously sucked. Small wonder it had problems. Or maybe Linus has a fear of objects because he was struck by one as a child, and doesn't like classes because he had to attend them (I said I didn't get much sleep).
I use VHDL (Ada's little brother). It is a better language, if you like extreme-typing.
The typing stuff is a bit overdone, but I still much prefer it to Verilog. I'd rather spend time fighting the compiler than tracing down bugs in simulation that could have been caught earlier.
But your VHDL program is proven (and then aggressively optimised) by the synthesizer (a compiler that produces a netlist to create electronics/FPGA to run your program), it does take a while for the synthesizer to be done.
Synthesis is a step that simply doesn't exist in software. How does the synthesizer "prove" anything though, other than that you have a synthesizeable design?
That is true, but C++ does it in a way that makes programming dangerous.
That's why the D language was developed. It's something like C++, but done correctly with a clean sheet of paper. You can even understand the syntax! C++ programmers can easily learn it.
The question is whether D will ever catch on. It's not, or at least doesn't have the image, of a cool new language. The only chances I see for its success are 1) it'll be used on a lot of FOSS projects, so eventually enough people will want to darg it into their day jobs, and/or 2) some well known company starts using it internally. I'm not a big Facebook fan, but it would be a likely candidate, as Andrei Alexandrescu (C++ author and #2 guy on D) works there.
P.S. I also like Ada. At one time you had to be careful admitting that, but it's ok now because not many people know what you're talking about. It's dying though, and has been for many years. It's probably already a common topic at the Old Programmer's Home. D has a chance in part because it's newer (and more up-to-date).
many of the VMS commands and utilities were written in a mish mash of languages, as if each programmer just chose what they wanted to use
If they chose languages that were better for the task at hand than others, that sounds like a good approach. VAX cross-language compatibility made it practical.
BLISS and Fortran and Macro-32 all in the same program.
Mixing BLISS and Macro-32 is hardly a kluge, but what utility mixed them with Fortran?
There was also a data description language added to the mix to allow sharing data structures across languages.
Another excellent idea, supporting cross-language operation.
Between VMS and Alpha DEC manage to prove the old adage: if you build a better mousetrap, your company will go down the toilet. More recent companies learned from that, and avoid well thought out designs.
I'm not sure exactly how I'd define "core", but "three products that are kind of secondary to the Google experience" definitely isn't it. From what I understand Pittsburgh is an excellent place to get good developers, so it makes me wonder how committed Google is to doing much of anything serious outside of the ever provincial Bay Area. Of course they will continue to complain about being unable to find people, and clamor for more H-1B's.
Sergey, Larry, what's the problem? I heard you got a shiny new jet that you could use to fly to Pittsburgh. It's a lot shorter than across the Pacific. Are you afraid of the snow? Don't worry - there are months when it's warm and sunny, and the locals can clue you in on the appropriate timing. Maybe you'd prefer not to hire anyone who isn't a Stanford grad? I understand - CMU is such an also ran.
I was modded down for that post? Must be some recruiters or immigration lawyers modding today. It's one of those cases where I take a certain pride in being modded down - I know I hit a nerve somewhere.
Perhaps you meant sarcasm
Perhaps you don't understand that irony is the device most commonly used in sarcasm, and that they're not entirely separate concepts. The distinction is a matter of tone, with sarcasm being very sharp or bitter. Hence the OP is not sarcastic. Despite being a product of the American public schools that are being so sharply criticized here, I learned such advanced literary and rhetorical concepts in an advanced setting call the 8th grade. Now that's sarcasm. See the difference?
You should put a warning on a comment like that. A sufficiently high level of cognitive dissonance has been known to make heads explode.
I would agree that comparing a city to a country is unfair, but that's not what this conversation started off as.
That's exactly what this conversation started off as, which I can say with confidence as I'm the OP. On the subject of reading comprehension, I apparently made the mistake of thinking that most people here could understand a statement that wasn't completely literal. For future reference, the technique I employed is called irony. Just wait until you get to the really advanced stuff like metaphors.
Good thing you didn't make any inferences about what "I had no idea Shanghai was a country" means on a non-literal level.
I have thought of vouchers as an idea, but my fear that it would trade failed public schools for failed schools owned by a private corporation.
Why? First, they needn't be owned by for-profit corporations. Traditionally private schools are not. I'd be happy with banning the use of the school vouchers for for-profit schools (if nothing else, the fireworks would be entertaining!). With vouchers you'd have a choice, and schools would have to compete with each other. I'm not a market fundamentalist, or even RW, but I am an empiricist. School vouchers are very popular and successful in an extreme right-wing bastion called Sweden.
Probably the best way is from the ground up... get homeschooling parents to trade off, and form the old "one room schoolhouse" of yore.
What makes you think they aren't? My neighbors are home schooling their daughter. Admittedly she's only in the first grade, but amongst other things kids go to some classes that are taught by various parents. BTW, politically they lean to the left a bit (mom's even a vegetarian!).
But it has the net effect of fundamentally undermining the ability to think critically about things, and evaluate evidence.
I agree, and in the real world that's important. However, it still has little to do with these tests. Reading tests are mostly about comprehension of what was written, not protracted thought or discussion about the material. That's also true of math, at least at that level. It teaches problem solving skills, which are important, but definitely not the same as the ability to think critically about things, and evaluate evidence.
It's interesting to hear from someone who had boots on the ground (I made a comment above about being unaware that Shanghai was a country). As for "while we are at it see how well they do at independent problem solving and creative thinking", what do you think about the "'stuffing the duck" system? I've heard Chinese complain about it. How real is it?
Even though it's cherry picked and results in stressed out kids, I don't want to take anything away from the recognition of Shanghai's educational achievements. Nevertheless I do wonder about the (unfortunately difficult to objectively quantify) question that you raise. AFAIK someone like Richard Feynman didn't stay up until midnight every school day cramming. His mother was neither a "tiger mom" or a helicopter parent. From what I've heard, he still did ok academically. Possibly even some success later. Obviously this is an anecdote, but it make my (and your?) point. Studying hard and maintaining academic standards are one thing, but some of the East Asian countries (or at least some cities in them) seem to go nuts. It sure brings out the best puritanical sanctimony in Americans though.
Much as I agree with you, that only affects the science part of the test (and then only the biology part). It has nothing to do with reading and math. I've never heard a fundamentalist preacher say that calculus is evil.
In Asia, they are teaching kids Math.
In America they are teaching kids (and their parents) that the American educational system sucks. This helps keep up the funding for the educational-industrial-congressional complex.
Students in Shanghai performed so well in math that the OECD report compares their scoring to the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling above most OECD countries.
Not sure about math, reading and science, but clearly my geography is bad. I had no idea Shanghai was a country.
I started "real" programming on the Fat Mac 512
Rotten kids. I started programming when Macs were still edible.
But there seem to be a lot of recruiters from SF, Seattle, New York, and pretty much every major city.
What's "pretty much every major city"? SF, Seattle and New York are the three big hotspots. What about Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Portland, Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis, etc.? Before you say "Podunk", let me point out I'm from, and still live, in the NY area. If I want to put on my NY snob act, I'll say every other city in the country is Podunk. But being an American first and a New Yorker a distant second, I'll point out that every city I mentioned, and a lot more, are major cities. It's a big country. Are you going to claim you have knowledge of the job market in all or even most of them, and that it's good?
Self-driving cars aren't "new" either, just better now.
Presumably they're better, but nobody outside of the Google group working on it seems to know how much. I give them credit for working on advanced stuff (Sergey has the world's coolest hobby setup, and I think he made a few bucks too), but what they've published/announced so far is hype and PR, not useful data. 300k miles without an accident means little without knowing the test conditions, especially how often and under what circumstances the autopilot insisted on handing control back to the human.
Oops, forgot my main point. One of the most annoying and counterproductive things about Silicon Valley is its provincialism. They seem to be unaware of any part of the US outside of the Bay Area. Ironically, this is the exact opposite of the SV image of being cosmopolitan (or even "globalized", whatever the hell that means). It's also at odds with the way people talk about having broken down communication barriers. Do they think the only places the Internet is connected are the Bay Area and India? There are lots of smaller tech hubs in the US (e.g. Pittsburgh) where you can get top people much easier and cheaper than in SV. Why do these geniuses seem to ignore that?
I know some of the big companies, like Google, have facilities all over, but how much do they actually use them for "core development"? In the case of Google I honestly don't know, and any solid information would be appreciated.
Funny, that's not my experience up here in the north east.
Ditto, and I'm also in the Northeast (Long Island). The one bright spot I'm familiar with is NYC (Manhattan really, and maybe a few parts of Brooklyn). My brother was out of work for a long time and found a pretty good job there (mostly high level security work - funny how people who move billions of dollars around are touchy about that). The commute sucks, but it beats unemployment.
Routinely offering developers $250K a year, plus benefits, plus a nice office ...
I'd like that too, but these days I'll settle for less prejudice against me. Given that high of a potential price, and assuming they couldn't get the H-1B quota raised to 1M/yr, a more realistic outcome would be, as you said, "convince them to consider hiring somebody other than the person they're typically after".
Unless there are affirmative action rules in place, this mythical person they're after is probably also male, white or Asian or Indian racial background
I suspect that many of the job interviewers aren't even aware of that bias (though some are, and sometimes flaunt it, despite there being an EEOC). Often it's just "this is what we've seen in the past, so I guess it's what we're looking for now". It's a common, sometimes understandable, and not always bad thing for people to prefer things they're comfortable and familiar with. Arguably it's a useful heuristic in some situations. However, with an issue like employment, you have to be aware of your prejudices and fight them, not just because the alternative is illegal or at least unethical, but because it's bad business. What kind of idiot leaves money on the table?