Most Americans spend more on their cars than their homes
I can't see how that would be possible unless you're talking about people with $100,000 cars and studio apartments, or people with moderst homes, multiple SUVs, and 50-mile commutes.
No, that would be suburban spawl, something which is somewhat unrelated to the interstate system (although some of the areas where sprawl occurs do happen to be along interstates).
The interstate system was designed for military transportation. Trains work for that in some instances, but not as well as a series of large well-designed highways.
I think that's what they're trying to do, and for one of them even a "consultant" gig would be better than what he's currently doing. Don't assume consulting is a shoe-in.
surely 18 years in a single organization is going to brainwash you to some limited extent.
I suspect that depends to a large extent on the nature of the organization in question.
Some organizations are homogeneous, and have a single overriding "culture" throughout, while others use a wide variety of platforms and have a correspondingly wide variety of cultures sprinkled throughout the company (some of them *quite* different from others within the company).
Some systems *only* have printf equivalents available. It's nice to learn that method of debugging because it's the lowest common denominator -- not all environments have IDEs and debuggers available.
I would think printf statements might be problematic when trying to debug timing window issues or certain types of reentrancy errors (where changing the size of the executable or altering/extending code execution paths could impact the problem itself), but those tend to be fairly uncommon situations.
This is absolutely true, at least for the most part. However, it becomes false when you find yourself out of work; at that point experience with specific languages/platforms/tools and business methods become absolutely critical and general CompSci experience/concepts tend to mean very little (in terms of getting an interview, anyway).
Some additional comments. Yes, I now realize (after the fact) that you are the same person that I responded to originally, so I guess you might have a clue about the topic at hand.:-)
Your original comment may have been referring to the entire effort, including testing, getting permission, etc., in which case I will gladly sit corrected because you'd be absolutely right. That isn't the way I read it initially at all.
FWIW, though, I've changed a number of low-level things including the display/paging code for an entire system (roughly 400 programs used that sucker to generate all of their displays) and the core error-reporting programs for that same system (over 1000 different transaction programs impacted -- just about anything which generated a SYSERR and had its own VALTAB), and I know what you mean by seemingly small changes having a big impact.
The first set of changes had no hard deadline, so I ran it on our dedicated test/QA/training system for six months before releasing it to production and ran it through some fairly rigorous testing on my own, and yet it took just 20 minutes or so for one unforeseen transaction (an exception case I'd never heard of and so didn't test for) to uncover a flaw in my logic. Literally 20 minutes. I was on the support rotation at the time (which is why I had the program load done that day), so it was easy for me to ID the cause and roll things back, but that was a very good lesson learned. You can't take anything for granted, and no matter how hard you try there will be SOME element of the system which doesn't follow what you thought were the standards.:-)
So yeah, I have a good feel for what you're talking about.
*Sigh*. Please try to pay attention. You're talking about the complexity level of implementation details other than the actual code changes involved.
The OP I was responding to claimed that code change complexity was prohibitive in large projects. My claim is that testing and other factors are by far the greatest effort.
That depends almost completely on how well designed the large project is.
If the large project was designed and implemented as a modular system, the regression testing will still be involved, but the actual coding might not be that much work.
An OO environment isn't needed for that, either; any well-designed system written in a procedural language will also be modular and have a large reusable component library of *some* type, at least if its developers had any real-world experience with large projects.
Eleven (11) layers of management is ridiculous for ANY company. When I worked at Unisys we had four (two layers of management at our facility and two more in Blue Bell), and when I worked at NWA we had five:
(1) Peons ("individual contributors") like me (i.e., not a manager). (2) Managers (3) Directors (4) Managing Directors (5) VP (6) CEO
I think. There might've been a layer between 5 and 6. But that'd be six layers of management at most, and at the operational level where we worked there were really only two layers that mattered except when it came to strategic planning/funding.
Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Cockroaches in general wouldn't care, I suspect. Humans in some locales might care a lot. Without more information, any answer is pure speculation.
(2) If the world cools down, is it bad?
Again, perhaps. From whose point of view are you asking?
(3) Are the natural cycles pushing us toward warmer or cooler conditions?
Probably.
(4) If the natural cycles push us toward cooling (I've heard that we're due for an Ice Age any century now), is human-caused global warming still bad? Or does it just keep the planet a better climate for longer?
I'm sorry, but I'm a little bit unclear about this "good"/"bad" thing.
(5) If we're not really sure where the climate is going overall, is it better to err on the side of "too hot" or "too cold".
Come over here and ask anyone with an English degree or an English minor and they'll tell you how much they despise things like this.
One doesn't have to have an English degree in order to dislike incorrect or lazy English usage. It isn't difficult to use proper English, or something approximating proper English, even in casual conversation.
I think too many Brits watch cowboy movies. Most folks in the US grow up in an environment which is quite different from that stereotype. Just ask anyone from the east or west coasts, or the midwest, or any large metro area.:-)
...when it comes to standards compliance, I'm not sure you can hold out "professional web designers" as some sort of ultimate authority on anything.
Besides, the web is about CONTENT, not PRESENTATION. To me, as an end-user, it's far more important that a site is easy to use and navigate with the browser I happen to be using, and I couldn't care less about the kind of flashy customizable interfaces that most "pro" designers are spending much of their time with.
Concentrate on the cake, not the frosting. The latter is nice, and perhaps for commercial sites it sells, but a crappy underpinning is gonna drive away more customers than your pretty frosting brings in!
A house that's only one year's gross income? Heck, in the Minneapolis area even our little 1450 square foot 2-bedroom townhouse was worth $149k back in 2000 when we bought it, and probably $225k now.
I don't think you could even buy a house within 50 miles of the Twin Cities for a typical programmer's wage in the area (roughly 60-70k).
It's nice that you were able to do it, though. Cool, actually. Once the housing costs are taken care of, most of the big expenses are gone.:-)
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I can't see how that would be possible unless you're talking about people with $100,000 cars and studio apartments, or people with moderst homes, multiple SUVs, and 50-mile commutes.
Housing in general is a much larger expenditure.
No, that would be suburban spawl, something which is somewhat unrelated to the interstate system (although some of the areas where sprawl occurs do happen to be along interstates).
The interstate system was designed for military transportation. Trains work for that in some instances, but not as well as a series of large well-designed highways.
It's news because he was apparently attached to the coat-tails of Ballmer...
Sounds like you're playing with a mature system. Most of the easy ones are gone. :-)
I think that's what they're trying to do, and for one of them even a "consultant" gig would be better than what he's currently doing. Don't assume consulting is a shoe-in.
I suspect that depends to a large extent on the nature of the organization in question.
Some organizations are homogeneous, and have a single overriding "culture" throughout, while others use a wide variety of platforms and have a correspondingly wide variety of cultures sprinkled throughout the company (some of them *quite* different from others within the company).
If he's a manager or team lead, some level of separation is to be expected in most organizations.
I've known some frustrated out-of-work non-Americans as well. Any advice for them?
I remember Sandy Reed. 'Nuff said.
Some systems *only* have printf equivalents available. It's nice to learn that method of debugging because it's the lowest common denominator -- not all environments have IDEs and debuggers available.
I would think printf statements might be problematic when trying to debug timing window issues or certain types of reentrancy errors (where changing the size of the executable or altering/extending code execution paths could impact the problem itself), but those tend to be fairly uncommon situations.
This is absolutely true, at least for the most part. However, it becomes false when you find yourself out of work; at that point experience with specific languages/platforms/tools and business methods become absolutely critical and general CompSci experience/concepts tend to mean very little (in terms of getting an interview, anyway).
The previous reply has been superseded by my second reply. Nothing to see here! :-)
:-(
(I also apologize for the tone of the previous response -- I hadn't yet figured out that you *were* the OP).
Some additional comments. Yes, I now realize (after the fact) that you are the same person that I responded to originally, so I guess you might have a clue about the topic at hand. :-)
:-)
Your original comment may have been referring to the entire effort, including testing, getting permission, etc., in which case I will gladly sit corrected because you'd be absolutely right. That isn't the way I read it initially at all.
FWIW, though, I've changed a number of low-level things including the display/paging code for an entire system (roughly 400 programs used that sucker to generate all of their displays) and the core error-reporting programs for that same system (over 1000 different transaction programs impacted -- just about anything which generated a SYSERR and had its own VALTAB), and I know what you mean by seemingly small changes having a big impact.
The first set of changes had no hard deadline, so I ran it on our dedicated test/QA/training system for six months before releasing it to production and ran it through some fairly rigorous testing on my own, and yet it took just 20 minutes or so for one unforeseen transaction (an exception case I'd never heard of and so didn't test for) to uncover a flaw in my logic. Literally 20 minutes. I was on the support rotation at the time (which is why I had the program load done that day), so it was easy for me to ID the cause and roll things back, but that was a very good lesson learned. You can't take anything for granted, and no matter how hard you try there will be SOME element of the system which doesn't follow what you thought were the standards.
So yeah, I have a good feel for what you're talking about.
*Sigh*. Please try to pay attention. You're talking about the complexity level of implementation details other than the actual code changes involved.
The OP I was responding to claimed that code change complexity was prohibitive in large projects. My claim is that testing and other factors are by far the greatest effort.
I suspect we're in violent agreement here...
It was intended as a humorous response to a set of overgeneralized/imprecise questions, you twit.
That depends almost completely on how well designed the large project is.
If the large project was designed and implemented as a modular system, the regression testing will still be involved, but the actual coding might not be that much work.
An OO environment isn't needed for that, either; any well-designed system written in a procedural language will also be modular and have a large reusable component library of *some* type, at least if its developers had any real-world experience with large projects.
Eleven (11) layers of management is ridiculous for ANY company. When I worked at Unisys we had four (two layers of management at our facility and two more in Blue Bell), and when I worked at NWA we had five:
(1) Peons ("individual contributors") like me (i.e., not a manager).
(2) Managers
(3) Directors
(4) Managing Directors
(5) VP
(6) CEO
I think. There might've been a layer between 5 and 6. But that'd be six layers of management at most, and at the operational level where we worked there were really only two layers that mattered except when it came to strategic planning/funding.
Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Cockroaches in general wouldn't care, I suspect. Humans in some locales might care a lot. Without more information, any answer is pure speculation.
Again, perhaps. From whose point of view are you asking?
Probably.
I'm sorry, but I'm a little bit unclear about this "good"/"bad" thing.
It is probably better not to "err" at all. :-)
One doesn't have to have an English degree in order to dislike incorrect or lazy English usage. It isn't difficult to use proper English, or something approximating proper English, even in casual conversation.
I think too many Brits watch cowboy movies. Most folks in the US grow up in an environment which is quite different from that stereotype. Just ask anyone from the east or west coasts, or the midwest, or any large metro area. :-)
I suspect some of the folks here in Atlanta would take exception to that term. :-)
(Given what General Sherman did to this state, I can't say I blame them)
Feh. Real men use idkfa and idpispopd. :-)
...when it comes to standards compliance, I'm not sure you can hold out "professional web designers" as some sort of ultimate authority on anything.
Besides, the web is about CONTENT, not PRESENTATION. To me, as an end-user, it's far more important that a site is easy to use and navigate with the browser I happen to be using, and I couldn't care less about the kind of flashy customizable interfaces that most "pro" designers are spending much of their time with.
Concentrate on the cake, not the frosting. The latter is nice, and perhaps for commercial sites it sells, but a crappy underpinning is gonna drive away more customers than your pretty frosting brings in!
I finally managed to get Solaris 2.6 and 2.7 to boot from my second physical SCSI drive, though. Thank goodness for System Commander! :-)
A house that's only one year's gross income? Heck, in the Minneapolis area even our little 1450 square foot 2-bedroom townhouse was worth $149k back in 2000 when we bought it, and probably $225k now.
:-)
I don't think you could even buy a house within 50 miles of the Twin Cities for a typical programmer's wage in the area (roughly 60-70k).
It's nice that you were able to do it, though. Cool, actually. Once the housing costs are taken care of, most of the big expenses are gone.
I'l take any one of 'em on ... in 30-below weather. I know *my* Accord'll start and run well in those conditions, but will their wonderful machines? :-)