There's no mention of unit testing anywhere here. Obviously to unit test you must compile. The subject at hand is whether one should frequently compile to catch syntactical issues early.
And then you find that one of those errors requires you to restructure your entire design. You just threw away a few hours of work. If your project is sufficiently modular, compiling takes little time. Do things one feature at a time and it will save you from rewriting alot of code.
I have a very hard time believing that compiler issues can/should force you to change your design. In fact, I can't imagine a situation where this can be.
Compiler errors and warnings are there to enforce language syntax, and are corrected by changing your eroneous / missing language tokens to ones the language expects.
Really, I can't imagine what you're talking about. Are you worrying about some guy writing a class hirearchy in Fortran only to find out from the compiler that he cannot make classes in Fortran?
I dunno. It would have been at +5 if 2 dorks didn't think it was overrated;-) Whether the modifier was going to be Funny or not.... Anyway...
That's right, the last one. Not knowing if my code will work makes coding unfulfilling. Spending days debugging is tedious and stressful.
Well if that works for you, then certainly this is the way you should work. For me, the bigger thrill of programming lays in having an overall idea, top down. The process of implementing the actual functions is something I leave for the very end, and sometimes give to another programmer. I enjoy that part of it a bit less. So for me it's more enjoyable if I could sit down and lay out my classes or modules, figure out what functions I will need, etc. For me, compiling frequently is a distraction from the real task. But that's just me, and you don't have to be like me, and that's OK.
Your code should (with as minimal effort as possible) always be compilable. If you've got a menu that calls 5 modules, write stubs for the modules. Utilise flags. This allows you to compile as you go along.
Actually you're right on that one, I miss-spoke. I usually begin implementing my programs as comments/pseudocode. So while that stuff is indeed compileable, it's not really meaningful to have it compile. Ok, so I will find that missing semicolon now and not later if I compile all the time. But.... It's not an issue for me. If it is for you (and it is) then do it your way.
Actually it's closer to "create 100 errors get 10000 error messages
Well since I only look at the top one, and know better than to shit my pants if there're a lot of errors, it doesn't matter how many errors are returned. I am talking about the number of actual issues you have to fix, not how frightening the compiler output looks.
I bow before your intelligence, for you can write code without debugging it at all and only have "a couple of errors." You must truly be a coding genius. That or you're talking out you're ass. I haven't met anyone who can do what you just described. Not any students and not any teachers.
Hang on a sec, are you talking about syntactic correctness or logical correctness? If you find it shocking that there are only a few compiler issues, then either you're a terrible typist and misspell "printf" frequently, or you have a habbit of not putting semicolons at the end, or your text editor should make a better effort at showing you missmatched parens and braces and such.
If you find it difficult to agree that a program can come out logic-error free right away then, guess what, I agree with you. But frequently compiling doesn't do anything to help you spot those, unless you have logican unit tests to perform along the way. And I totally agree with testing a unit once you have a complete unit to test, but if you're implementing top-down, you won't have anything testable until towards the end. But certainly unit testing is great. Compiling just to see that it compiles, on the other hand, is of no real value (to me) but as I said before, if it makes you happier to find your missing semicolons now rather than later, that's cool.
Also, sometimes I actually shock myself by writing code for an entire day and then having it compile w/o errors the first time!
Either you write simple code or you're a liar and/or a troll. Because the chances of that being true is (IMO) very small.
If you have as much trouble parsing code as you do parsing english, I believe your need for frequent compilation is a real one. In my comment I wrote that I am "shocked" at those "sometimes" when my code actually compiles the first time after a few hours of coding. I think the shocked and sometimes clearly imply that this is a rare occurance and I am poking fun at myself.
So chill out, compile some more, take a sip of coffee, and have fun.
And god help me next time I state my preference for whether the opening curly goes on the same line as the if statement, or by itself on the next one, if you should hold the contrary opinion. Surprisingly that you should hold so much hostility for people who employ other development methodologies than you do.
Dont compile on a regular basis, dont tiptoe your way forward. Youre a professional and professionals take giant steps. Write thousands of lines of code first and leave the compiling for later; it will be far more entertaining and worthwhile to look for compiling errors.
Actually that's uncalled for. Compiling frequently is not good because you should not be thinking about such details as syntax and var name spelling until the very end.
For most of the time you're writing code, what you have should not be compileable. Well, doesn't need to be. Since you (hopefully) are doing things top-down, at first you're going to have a lot of empty functions and comments.
Then you're going to fill in code. During coding, why bother compiling? Who cares if you get a 100 compiler errors at the end when you compile once, vs. getting 1 error each time, but having to compile 100 times?
Don't bother. Focus on the higher picture. Implement your vision. Only once you've done that, fix what the compiler is bitching about. Doing the same things along the way can sidetrack you from your higher-level view of the program.
Besides, it's a lot less annoying. Say, you're done coding. All you have to do is go make tiny changes to shut up the errors. Probably won't have to think too hard how to fix them. And then you're DONE!
The other way, you go fix your errors, and you still got mad code to write. And now you're annoyed and distracted so it won't even come out as good.
Also, sometimes I actually shock myself by writing code for an entire day and then having it compile w/o errors the first time! I really don't expect that, and it's a "wow" thing when it happens.
What you mean to say is that the Google -server- farm consists of Linux machines. Who knows (or cares?) what OS google uses for their workstations? I wouln't be surprised if they let their people chose, also.
All the code I write runs on Solaris but I have a Win2k workstation.
I've had do to just this, actually... here's the setup. Don't ask me why certain things were the way they were, certainly you can improve. I inherited some of this. But it worked...
First, we had a bunch of product data in a MS SQL server db. We had a Java (I think) task that nightly dumped XML file (one per product) based on the DB.
Then, we applied an XSLT transformation to each XML to produce the static HTML page for that day (static both to reduce server load and optimize google's searching of it, since Google didn't/doesn't like dynamic content)
Then we wanted to produce a printer catalogue, so rather than printing pages, I made an XSLT that transformed the XML not into HTML but into FOP. FOP is some Java shit from Apache that takes FOP files and spits out a PDF.
Obviously I don't remember details, but it worked.
I had the idea to generate the PDFs not just for the printed catalogues but also as "printable version" for each HTML page. So both PDFs and HTMLs were generated nightly. Yeah it took a while but it was cool.
It also served to improve our pagerank because (1) the PDFs made it look like we've got twice as much content and because (2) google gave higher weightings to PDFs (at the time, anyway)
Remember, those desks/walls/etc belong to your employer. You're paid to use the desks for what youor employer want to them - not store pictures of your wife and girlfriend.
Not a good point. If a company has rules about what you can have on your desk, they can prohibit family photos (as is, my place of employment explicitly allows those)
The place this guy worked at clearly had a policy about installing personal software on the production server.
So you're right, your employer DOES have the right to say what goes on your desk. The fact that they do not doesn't negate their right to say what goes on the computer system.
On one hand what this guy did is clearly wrong - even according to SETI rules - you're warned not to run this shit on computer on which you're not allowed to do so.
SETI uses up a lot of CPU cycles and makes outgoing network connections on its own (well he could have set it up in different ways, I guess) so it's dumb to have it run on a government SERVER without getting explicit permission.
On the other hand - this sort of shit shouldn't get someone fired* - maybe some embarasing talking to followed by an office-wide memo reminding everyone that "in light of recent transgressions, PLEASE BE ADVISED not to do this kind of shit"
*The stories that I've seen do not indicate whether there's been any prior incidents. Perhaps in this workplace, the "don't install shit on the server" policy is so ingrained into the office culture that someone can't be unaware of the severity of the consequences, in which case the firing is in order.
But actually I hink the comments by Tom Hayes are truthful (but unprofessional). Someone who values his SETI workunit count to such an extent as to fuck around at work, isn't brilliant.
Yeah but won't these people notice some non-AOL charge on their credit card bill from some "ISP" and they will still be like "Well I already use AOL, why am I paying these jerks?"
First of all, google are fucking genius. Normally, sites ask you to 'refer a friend' and no one does it. But here, they made everyone all excited about it by making it a rare comodity! People feel like they've been gifted with 6 invites so they want to make sure they take advantage. Meanwhile it just builds up Google's userbase. Crazy how people get sucked into viral marketing (I hope that's a term I just made up) when their perception has been altered thusly.
That being said, I have a few invites and if you want one, write to Karma.Award at... Well you know @ what:)
I believe that a smart kid could have written that. If a child read some review in such a style, she would be able to reproduce the style and apply it to the subject at hand. It's totally believable. I am sure that I was abled to write prose on that level at 12.
Americans have really low expectations for children. Do you expect a 12 year old to write "oh oh! I make POO POO!!!!!"? I don't think a British person would be too shocked to know that a kid wrote something like that.
Sorry but I disagree. I don't -like- RMS much, but he IS well known and to find out that he has died would mean something to me. The other people that died, I did not know. It sucks that they died but it's no different from thousands of other people that die daily. But RMS is different because he is known to people and he has a relatively large impact on the world.
At the very least, he had made the text editor I use. Which makes him more relevant to my life than those other people.
I think the idea in the article is to point out how closely the world came to losing RMS. For what it's worth, it would have been relevant. As is, it's about as significant as air force one crashing when the president isn't on board. Worth note because it IS air force one, but also certainly worth noting that the president was not on.
First of all, I think the problem is with you. Here you are asking us for feedback on pair-programming, but you barely tell us what problems you encountered. Do you just sit with your pair and say "all this shit is fucked up?" You should probably tell us the specifics of the issues, at the very least for our education, and maybe someone can address them more specifically.
Anyway, just kidding. Didn't mean to attack you personally, just consider what I said.
I find sitting and developing with someone very useful, especially if this person is new-ish and I want to bring them up to speed. Basically I watch them do their thing and comment on what they're doing, especially if it could be done better. This is certainly very effective at keeping them from putting in silly errors, because I spot those right away. But the real advantage is that from short sessions like this I can ascertain the person's grasp of the task. If I can see that he's basically looking at the right things and going about it the right way, I feel OK with going back to my desk and doing my stuff. If the guy makes a lot of errors and is generally approaching things the wrong way, good thing I am there to keep him from getting too deep.
I would guess that mandating 2 programmers per computer at all times is too much, but there certainly are times when doing this for short periods of time is extremely productive.
And of course salaries can go up if there are less people to employ. A given amount of money divided less ways is more per person.
That's dumb. If you have 3 people working and you lay one off to cut costs, why would you divide the money you save between the other two?
Basically, like anything, salary is based on supply and demand. If there's plenty of unemployed, qualified people eager to work for cheap, why would you give a raise to your current people? You know they're happy with what they have, and if they're not and will actually leave you, you can find a replacement.
Like any finite resource, labor prices (salaries) go up only when supply tightens.
I really do not understand why we Americans have let ourselves be brainwashed into SweatShopAmerica
I'll tell you why. I've reached this conclusion recently. It may not be a unique point of view, but for what it's worth (which may not be much) I came up with it myself, not just parroting some other point of view.
Anyway, let's accept for starters that when people work more/harder, they accomplish more. Some will debate this by arguing the "work smarter not harder" paradigm, but I would claim that all things being equal, those who work harder and longer (and uncut?) accomplish more.
Well, herein lies the difference between much of Europe and the US, in terms of mentality. As a group, the Europeans are generally content with remaining where they are. If you work 36 hours a week and have a month of vacation, you're saying "yeah we'll take it easy. Do a little work here and there, but mainly we'll just focus on everyone working less so that more people will have to be employed and each one stresses less."
In America, the culture ends up basically saying "everyone should/will work as much as he can." Sometimes this seems silly, especially when there's relatively high unemployment, but basically it says that as a group, we put pressure on ourselves to crank out as much as possible.
To me that means we're still a young country, unwilling to rest on our accomplishments. We still want to work work work and do more than anyone else. And this is a good sign to me.
Think of it this way. Would you rather work for a big slow established firm where everyone worked 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch, or would you rather work in a hungry new upstart where people were working tons more hours because the company was about to roll out a kick-ass product that is going to bring the old established firms to their knees?
Maybe it's my youth speaking (and hell, I thrive on pressure, anyway), but I'll take the new upstart over the stuffy old company any time.
Even though there will be more hours to put in.
The fact that American culture is still closer to that of a young upstart than a stuffy old company makes me happy to live in this country. Given that we're the most dominant country in the world and we still believe in working hard and doing more, making more, bodes well.
The 36 hours a week and a month vacation stuff sounds pretty complacent from a social point of view.
I'll take my 3 weeks vacation and a more dynamic attitude, personally.
The people you should ask these questions are the manufacturers of your DVD platers and/or of the DVD disk. They're the ones who know the equipment and could possibly offer a fix or replacement.
I don't have a problem with the game of scrabble, and I can imagine playing it on a rainy afternoon if you're somewhere in the boonies, but what I DO have a problem with the scrabble culture!
First of all, these people set up dates to play scrabble and then they meet up. In other words, they're commited to playing scrabble on, say, Sunday at 3pm, even though it's finally not a rainy weekend and the boyfriend wants to go to the beach and chill out, but no, she has to go play scrabble because she has a scrabble appointment.
This is unhealthy. Like I said, nothing wrong with a game of scrabble on a rainy afternoon but when the weather is nice the last thing you should be doing is sitting on your ass with fucking letter tiles.
Second, it destroys your brain. These people see a bunch of letter barf and see some random word in it. A normal person sees AHIVDLWVDIJBE and these sickos go wow I can spell "INTERCONTINETAL" with that. Quintuple letter score. You're not supposed to think like that. You're supposed to see AHIVDLWVDIJBE and say "you know what FUCK THIS I am going to the beach"
Okay I guess I am a bit bitter because I am dating the international scrabble champ or whateverthefuck and it's cutting into my beach time.
For one thing I find ad-banners (even non-popups) annoying because if I could afford whatever they're advertising I'd probably have paid for the product/site subscription in the first place.
That's nonsense. It's like saying "What's the point of having billboards along the freeway: if I could afford whatever they're advertising, I'd be flying to work in a private jet and not seeing these things."
The other thing is that too many sites farm out their advertising space to someone else. This means that if I'm trying to read a site in a hurry the local content is delayed whilst they wait for some third-party server having a bad day to deliver its crap to my browser.
That's a problem with advert media, not with the concept of adverisement-sponsored content.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no mention of unit testing anywhere here. Obviously to unit test you must compile. The subject at hand is whether one should frequently compile to catch syntactical issues early.
And then you find that one of those errors requires you to restructure your entire design. You just threw away a few hours of work. If your project is sufficiently modular, compiling takes little time. Do things one feature at a time and it will save you from rewriting alot of code.
I have a very hard time believing that compiler issues can/should force you to change your design. In fact, I can't imagine a situation where this can be.
Compiler errors and warnings are there to enforce language syntax, and are corrected by changing your eroneous / missing language tokens to ones the language expects.
Really, I can't imagine what you're talking about. Are you worrying about some guy writing a class hirearchy in Fortran only to find out from the compiler that he cannot make classes in Fortran?
Why am I not seeing +4 Funny?
;-) Whether the modifier was going to be Funny or not.... Anyway...
I dunno. It would have been at +5 if 2 dorks didn't think it was overrated
That's right, the last one. Not knowing if my code will work makes coding unfulfilling. Spending days debugging is tedious and stressful.
Well if that works for you, then certainly this is the way you should work. For me, the bigger thrill of programming lays in having an overall idea, top down. The process of implementing the actual functions is something I leave for the very end, and sometimes give to another programmer. I enjoy that part of it a bit less. So for me it's more enjoyable if I could sit down and lay out my classes or modules, figure out what functions I will need, etc. For me, compiling frequently is a distraction from the real task. But that's just me, and you don't have to be like me, and that's OK.
Your code should (with as minimal effort as possible) always be compilable. If you've got a menu that calls 5 modules, write stubs for the modules. Utilise flags. This allows you to compile as you go along.
Actually you're right on that one, I miss-spoke. I usually begin implementing my programs as comments/pseudocode. So while that stuff is indeed compileable, it's not really meaningful to have it compile. Ok, so I will find that missing semicolon now and not later if I compile all the time. But.... It's not an issue for me. If it is for you (and it is) then do it your way.
Actually it's closer to "create 100 errors get 10000 error messages
Well since I only look at the top one, and know better than to shit my pants if there're a lot of errors, it doesn't matter how many errors are returned. I am talking about the number of actual issues you have to fix, not how frightening the compiler output looks.
I bow before your intelligence, for you can write code without debugging it at all and only have "a couple of errors." You must truly be a coding genius. That or you're talking out you're ass. I haven't met anyone who can do what you just described. Not any students and not any teachers.
Hang on a sec, are you talking about syntactic correctness or logical correctness? If you find it shocking that there are only a few compiler issues, then either you're a terrible typist and misspell "printf" frequently, or you have a habbit of not putting semicolons at the end, or your text editor should make a better effort at showing you missmatched parens and braces and such.
If you find it difficult to agree that a program can come out logic-error free right away then, guess what, I agree with you. But frequently compiling doesn't do anything to help you spot those, unless you have logican unit tests to perform along the way. And I totally agree with testing a unit once you have a complete unit to test, but if you're implementing top-down, you won't have anything testable until towards the end. But certainly unit testing is great. Compiling just to see that it compiles, on the other hand, is of no real value (to me) but as I said before, if it makes you happier to find your missing semicolons now rather than later, that's cool.
Also, sometimes I actually shock myself by writing code for an entire day and then having it compile w/o errors the first time!
Either you write simple code or you're a liar and/or a troll. Because the chances of that being true is (IMO) very small.
If you have as much trouble parsing code as you do parsing english, I believe your need for frequent compilation is a real one. In my comment I wrote that I am "shocked" at those "sometimes" when my code actually compiles the first time after a few hours of coding. I think the shocked and sometimes clearly imply that this is a rare occurance and I am poking fun at myself.
So chill out, compile some more, take a sip of coffee, and have fun.
And god help me next time I state my preference for whether the opening curly goes on the same line as the if statement, or by itself on the next one, if you should hold the contrary opinion. Surprisingly that you should hold so much hostility for people who employ other development methodologies than you do.
Dont compile on a regular basis, dont tiptoe your way forward. Youre a professional and professionals take giant steps. Write thousands of lines of code first and leave the compiling for later; it will be far more entertaining and worthwhile to look for compiling errors.
Actually that's uncalled for. Compiling frequently is not good because you should not be thinking about such details as syntax and var name spelling until the very end.
For most of the time you're writing code, what you have should not be compileable. Well, doesn't need to be. Since you (hopefully) are doing things top-down, at first you're going to have a lot of empty functions and comments.
Then you're going to fill in code. During coding, why bother compiling? Who cares if you get a 100 compiler errors at the end when you compile once, vs. getting 1 error each time, but having to compile 100 times?
Don't bother. Focus on the higher picture. Implement your vision. Only once you've done that, fix what the compiler is bitching about. Doing the same things along the way can sidetrack you from your higher-level view of the program.
Besides, it's a lot less annoying. Say, you're done coding. All you have to do is go make tiny changes to shut up the errors. Probably won't have to think too hard how to fix them. And then you're DONE!
The other way, you go fix your errors, and you still got mad code to write. And now you're annoyed and distracted so it won't even come out as good.
Also, sometimes I actually shock myself by writing code for an entire day and then having it compile w/o errors the first time! I really don't expect that, and it's a "wow" thing when it happens.
What you mean to say is that the Google -server- farm consists of Linux machines. Who knows (or cares?) what OS google uses for their workstations? I wouln't be surprised if they let their people chose, also.
All the code I write runs on Solaris but I have a Win2k workstation.
No one has been shocked by this except for you.
-E
I am totally going to participate, win, and mention my achievement on a resume. When the employers ask who ran the contest, I'll say this guy
I've had do to just this, actually... here's the setup. Don't ask me why certain things were the way they were, certainly you can improve. I inherited some of this. But it worked...
First, we had a bunch of product data in a MS SQL server db. We had a Java (I think) task that nightly dumped XML file (one per product) based on the DB.
Then, we applied an XSLT transformation to each XML to produce the static HTML page for that day (static both to reduce server load and optimize google's searching of it, since Google didn't/doesn't like dynamic content)
Then we wanted to produce a printer catalogue, so rather than printing pages, I made an XSLT that transformed the XML not into HTML but into FOP. FOP is some Java shit from Apache that takes FOP files and spits out a PDF.
Obviously I don't remember details, but it worked.
I had the idea to generate the PDFs not just for the printed catalogues but also as "printable version" for each HTML page. So both PDFs and HTMLs were generated nightly. Yeah it took a while but it was cool.
It also served to improve our pagerank because (1) the PDFs made it look like we've got twice as much content and because (2) google gave higher weightings to PDFs (at the time, anyway)
And, it was easy.
Well this is the first time I saw a post modded up so high because it's subject line is correct.
But, which part of what happened do you object to them most?
Cooperation between American and European law enforcement?
Or the giving back of the hardware?
What outrages you so?
Remember, those desks/walls/etc belong to your employer. You're paid to use the desks for what youor employer want to them - not store pictures of your wife and girlfriend.
Not a good point. If a company has rules about what you can have on your desk, they can prohibit family photos (as is, my place of employment explicitly allows those)
The place this guy worked at clearly had a policy about installing personal software on the production server.
So you're right, your employer DOES have the right to say what goes on your desk. The fact that they do not doesn't negate their right to say what goes on the computer system.
Umm, the busy signal?
Well, mixed feelings...
On one hand what this guy did is clearly wrong - even according to SETI rules - you're warned not to run this shit on computer on which you're not allowed to do so.
SETI uses up a lot of CPU cycles and makes outgoing network connections on its own (well he could have set it up in different ways, I guess) so it's dumb to have it run on a government SERVER without getting explicit permission.
On the other hand - this sort of shit shouldn't get someone fired* - maybe some embarasing talking to followed by an office-wide memo reminding everyone that "in light of recent transgressions, PLEASE BE ADVISED not to do this kind of shit"
*The stories that I've seen do not indicate whether there's been any prior incidents. Perhaps in this workplace, the "don't install shit on the server" policy is so ingrained into the office culture that someone can't be unaware of the severity of the consequences, in which case the firing is in order.
But actually I hink the comments by Tom Hayes are truthful (but unprofessional). Someone who values his SETI workunit count to such an extent as to fuck around at work, isn't brilliant.
Yeah but won't these people notice some non-AOL charge on their credit card bill from some "ISP" and they will still be like "Well I already use AOL, why am I paying these jerks?"
Alright, two things.
:)
First of all, google are fucking genius. Normally, sites ask you to 'refer a friend' and no one does it. But here, they made everyone all excited about it by making it a rare comodity! People feel like they've been gifted with 6 invites so they want to make sure they take advantage. Meanwhile it just builds up Google's userbase. Crazy how people get sucked into viral marketing (I hope that's a term I just made up) when their perception has been altered thusly.
That being said, I have a few invites and if you want one, write to Karma.Award at... Well you know @ what
I believe that a smart kid could have written that. If a child read some review in such a style, she would be able to reproduce the style and apply it to the subject at hand. It's totally believable. I am sure that I was abled to write prose on that level at 12.
Americans have really low expectations for children. Do you expect a 12 year old to write "oh oh! I make POO POO!!!!!"? I don't think a British person would be too shocked to know that a kid wrote something like that.
Sorry but I disagree. I don't -like- RMS much, but he IS well known and to find out that he has died would mean something to me. The other people that died, I did not know. It sucks that they died but it's no different from thousands of other people that die daily. But RMS is different because he is known to people and he has a relatively large impact on the world.
At the very least, he had made the text editor I use. Which makes him more relevant to my life than those other people.
I think the idea in the article is to point out how closely the world came to losing RMS. For what it's worth, it would have been relevant. As is, it's about as significant as air force one crashing when the president isn't on board. Worth note because it IS air force one, but also certainly worth noting that the president was not on.
First of all, I think the problem is with you. Here you are asking us for feedback on pair-programming, but you barely tell us what problems you encountered. Do you just sit with your pair and say "all this shit is fucked up?" You should probably tell us the specifics of the issues, at the very least for our education, and maybe someone can address them more specifically.
Anyway, just kidding. Didn't mean to attack you personally, just consider what I said.
I find sitting and developing with someone very useful, especially if this person is new-ish and I want to bring them up to speed. Basically I watch them do their thing and comment on what they're doing, especially if it could be done better. This is certainly very effective at keeping them from putting in silly errors, because I spot those right away. But the real advantage is that from short sessions like this I can ascertain the person's grasp of the task. If I can see that he's basically looking at the right things and going about it the right way, I feel OK with going back to my desk and doing my stuff. If the guy makes a lot of errors and is generally approaching things the wrong way, good thing I am there to keep him from getting too deep.
I would guess that mandating 2 programmers per computer at all times is too much, but there certainly are times when doing this for short periods of time is extremely productive.
And of course salaries can go up if there are less people to employ. A given amount of money divided less ways is more per person.
That's dumb. If you have 3 people working and you lay one off to cut costs, why would you divide the money you save between the other two?
Basically, like anything, salary is based on supply and demand. If there's plenty of unemployed, qualified people eager to work for cheap, why would you give a raise to your current people? You know they're happy with what they have, and if they're not and will actually leave you, you can find a replacement.
Like any finite resource, labor prices (salaries) go up only when supply tightens.
Did you expect the link to go to a gallery of 1500 six-megapixel pics the guy tool?
I really do not understand why we Americans have let ourselves be brainwashed into SweatShopAmerica
I'll tell you why. I've reached this conclusion recently. It may not be a unique point of view, but for what it's worth (which may not be much) I came up with it myself, not just parroting some other point of view.
Anyway, let's accept for starters that when people work more/harder, they accomplish more. Some will debate this by arguing the "work smarter not harder" paradigm, but I would claim that all things being equal, those who work harder and longer (and uncut?) accomplish more.
Well, herein lies the difference between much of Europe and the US, in terms of mentality. As a group, the Europeans are generally content with remaining where they are. If you work 36 hours a week and have a month of vacation, you're saying "yeah we'll take it easy. Do a little work here and there, but mainly we'll just focus on everyone working less so that more people will have to be employed and each one stresses less."
In America, the culture ends up basically saying "everyone should/will work as much as he can." Sometimes this seems silly, especially when there's relatively high unemployment, but basically it says that as a group, we put pressure on ourselves to crank out as much as possible.
To me that means we're still a young country, unwilling to rest on our accomplishments. We still want to work work work and do more than anyone else. And this is a good sign to me.
Think of it this way. Would you rather work for a big slow established firm where everyone worked 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch, or would you rather work in a hungry new upstart where people were working tons more hours because the company was about to roll out a kick-ass product that is going to bring the old established firms to their knees?
Maybe it's my youth speaking (and hell, I thrive on pressure, anyway), but I'll take the new upstart over the stuffy old company any time.
Even though there will be more hours to put in.
The fact that American culture is still closer to that of a young upstart than a stuffy old company makes me happy to live in this country. Given that we're the most dominant country in the world and we still believe in working hard and doing more, making more, bodes well.
The 36 hours a week and a month vacation stuff sounds pretty complacent from a social point of view.
I'll take my 3 weeks vacation and a more dynamic attitude, personally.
Lie about what? "I played this DVD now my player is fucked" is a typical customer support issue. They want him to be happy, right?
The people you should ask these questions are the manufacturers of your DVD platers and/or of the DVD disk. They're the ones who know the equipment and could possibly offer a fix or replacement.
Why would you ask Slashdot?
the mainstream electronic sit-in on the 29th.
I found that one particularly funny.
It can even do it transparently (hidden) for better security.
Security through obscurity!?
I don't have a problem with the game of scrabble, and I can imagine playing it on a rainy afternoon if you're somewhere in the boonies, but what I DO have a problem with the scrabble culture!
First of all, these people set up dates to play scrabble and then they meet up. In other words, they're commited to playing scrabble on, say, Sunday at 3pm, even though it's finally not a rainy weekend and the boyfriend wants to go to the beach and chill out, but no, she has to go play scrabble because she has a scrabble appointment.
This is unhealthy. Like I said, nothing wrong with a game of scrabble on a rainy afternoon but when the weather is nice the last thing you should be doing is sitting on your ass with fucking letter tiles.
Second, it destroys your brain. These people see a bunch of letter barf and see some random word in it. A normal person sees AHIVDLWVDIJBE and these sickos go wow I can spell "INTERCONTINETAL" with that. Quintuple letter score. You're not supposed to think like that. You're supposed to see AHIVDLWVDIJBE and say "you know what FUCK THIS I am going to the beach"
Okay I guess I am a bit bitter because I am dating the international scrabble champ or whateverthefuck and it's cutting into my beach time.
For one thing I find ad-banners (even non-popups) annoying because if I could afford whatever they're advertising I'd probably have paid for the product/site subscription in the first place.
That's nonsense. It's like saying "What's the point of having billboards along the freeway: if I could afford whatever they're advertising, I'd be flying to work in a private jet and not seeing these things."
The other thing is that too many sites farm out their advertising space to someone else. This means that if I'm trying to read a site in a hurry the local content is delayed whilst they wait for some third-party server having a bad day to deliver its crap to my browser.
That's a problem with advert media, not with the concept of adverisement-sponsored content.
-C