Oh my god. So being KNOWN makes you a rockstar coder? Boo. Music analogy: Elend, Haggard and In The Woods would beat Rihanna's ass any given day in terms of pure musical skills. You're basically telling me that Rihanna is a better singer just because she looks good and moves like a pornstar in her video clips? Wow.
Sorry, but what you describe is exactly a cowboy coder. A genius (granted) who lacks a certain type of vision, and that is the understanding of the fact that the code he writes is NOT readable by anyone else, unless they make a huge effort that's going to cost them lots of time (and therefore money). Yeah, he saves time NOW, but loses maybe 3x more LATER. Well played! Not.
That happens because you don't manage them properly. Sure, they're a pain to manage, but it's only a pain to those managers who expect people to be named "resources" and managed similarly to merchandise. Truth be told, most managers nowadays are just grocery managers, putting an equal sign between their directs and potatoes. They don't have the skills or the will to throw human variables into the equation. That's the single point of failure. If you can't get a rockstar developer to produce readable code and add comments to it, you don't have proper management skills. Explain your general expectations to them and stick to them, that's step 1.
The whole article could be summarized like this: "We have no fucking clue how to manage rockstar developers". If management or MBAs don't click with devs, the project is ripe for crashing.
...and then he would whine and yell about why an iPad is $1500 instead of $499; about why a HDD is 500 bucks instead of 150 and so on. Many products' low prices come with strings attached: cheap labor force elsewhere make those prices possible. It was always like this. Back in the days, when a coke was 5 cents, that price meant some other people in the US were fucked with super-low wages for that to happen. Then laws were enacted to protect his own countrymen from being screwed, so businesses had to choose between steep price rises and moving parts of their businesses elsewhere. Then technology allowed some other business parts to be moved elsewhere and so on and so forth. It's a hard hit when you're used to comfy work and comfy wages; but remember you're only entitled to a high living standard while it lasts. The world moves on and whining about change won't stop it.
Who's the asshole now? I spent my last 5 years working 5 PM to 2 AM local time so that US-based employees get their reports, info and support during their regular business hours. Not once have I thought about them adjusting to my regular business hours schedule, and that is because I respect other people. If I could make my colleagues, customers and friends happier, why not? Your post shows a mindset. You are used to work comfy hours and change is frowned upon. I understand that. But fucking others so you keep your comfort is douchebaggery.
In theory, yes. Just like, in theory, customers should properly fill the question sets (they are there for a reason), properly explain their issue (in English, please!) and generally follow the "help me help you" mindset. Sadly, just as customers don't care to fill their end of the bargain, helpdesk personnel just chose to skip unintelligible tickets and work the properly filled ones. This caused delay and frustration for customers, sure, but if you, the customer, don't care, the carelessness of support is just a mirror, not the root cause.
I'm a Service Delivery Manager and currently in process of changing development paths (hint: Database Administration). I also read/. daily. All the above have nothing to do with whether an article or a summary is professionally written (or professional enough). Since/. does not only offer deeply technical summaries (in which case I would have agreed with you), there's this need of replacing "Sergei from MariaDB" with "Sergei whatever-his-last-name-is from MariaDB (MySQL fork)", preferably with a direct link to MariaDB website. I'm not saying one can't use Google to find that info, I'm saying one shouldn't have to use Google to find that info. It's Journalism 101. Slashdot is actually one of the better websites posting proper stuff, and I admit i've seen much worse. But why struggle to defend an oversight when it's pointed out? Really, now...
Anonymous, you are actually right. Many times over have I seen/. news which casually referred to stuff without mentioning WHAT the stuff was. Typical technical staff attitude, expecting that the whole world would simply know. This is a general attitude, sadly. Years ago, when I was doing helpdesk work, the least intelligible tickets came from technical staff: "I can't sudo brwnc-u using PLS on TRM, works if I pscp. Fix needed." or "i'm an ASM in PRTC and need a PGP key to FRM ASAP". Seriously? And then they wondered why nobody had a clue what to do with those tickets.
The rule they taught us in high school about avoiding plagiarism would probably serve you perfectly well: do research, look at what lots of others have said (made), then close the books (put away the competitor's products) and write your own.
Pretty much what I am doing with my project. It's common sense, I'd say.
OK, but is there a threshold? Like, you can say "it's a good idea, let's implement it too" at most what, 5 times? 10? 100 times? A smartphone is a very complex device where hundreds of tiny bits of stuff interact with each other. I'm not taking any sides, Apple and Samsung are equally distant to me and I couldn't care less who is right and who wins. I'm just trying to figure out whether looking at a competitor product and implementing similar functionality is damnable by itself as long as it doesn't break a registered patent. I'm interested in this debate solely because I'm working on a project (browser based MMO) that's partially similar to an established product already on the marked. Damn, even some item names are similar (there's just one way to name a "Death Star", for example). Therefore, in a not-so-distant future I might find myself on the receiving end of a legal shotgun because I had played a competitor's game in the past, thought the general idea was good and developed another MMO (from scratch) using roughly the same idea but with lots of modifications. Needless to say that all components are being created from scratch, but that might just not be enough.
It's only normal to look at someone else's product and say "hey, that's a good idea, let's implement that too!". Question is, were there PATENTS that covered this and that and was there a patent infringement in such cases? Moving a "Loading..." text from top right to middle of the screen doesn't, for example, look like "patent infringement", and if it IS a patent covering that, well then my personal opinion is that patents have really gone too far.
Your statement is the reason why Linux is yet to be successful to mainstream customers. As long as distro producers hold on to that sort of statements, they will never penetrate Windows market share. Lose the elitism and assuming "you know better" and open your mind to what Joe Sixpack wants: you'll be successful then.
Yes, I'm sure Gentoo users would rant about not being able to play whatever games would be available for Linux. Point is, some distros are aimed for desktop use and some are not. Aim for the top-5 Desktop distros an you have covered enough of an userbase.
No, it hasn't. I just checked your statement by starting FX on my home PC. After upgrading, it yelled about 4 plugins not being compatible and disabled them. Oh well.
All they need to do is test the product against the 5 distros or so that comprise 90% of Linux Desktop usage. Much like for Windows. My gut feeling is that not many post-2010 Windows games work under Windows 98, for example.
I would. Step 1 is make a large size of games available for Linux (and make them easy to install; no CLI shit!). Sure, there's a risk, but if you're not taking chances, then why bother do anything?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh my god. So being KNOWN makes you a rockstar coder? Boo.
Music analogy: Elend, Haggard and In The Woods would beat Rihanna's ass any given day in terms of pure musical skills. You're basically telling me that Rihanna is a better singer just because she looks good and moves like a pornstar in her video clips? Wow.
Sorry, but what you describe is exactly a cowboy coder. A genius (granted) who lacks a certain type of vision, and that is the understanding of the fact that the code he writes is NOT readable by anyone else, unless they make a huge effort that's going to cost them lots of time (and therefore money). Yeah, he saves time NOW, but loses maybe 3x more LATER. Well played! Not.
That happens because you don't manage them properly. Sure, they're a pain to manage, but it's only a pain to those managers who expect people to be named "resources" and managed similarly to merchandise.
Truth be told, most managers nowadays are just grocery managers, putting an equal sign between their directs and potatoes. They don't have the skills or the will to throw human variables into the equation. That's the single point of failure.
If you can't get a rockstar developer to produce readable code and add comments to it, you don't have proper management skills. Explain your general expectations to them and stick to them, that's step 1.
Truth hurts, eh?
The whole article could be summarized like this: "We have no fucking clue how to manage rockstar developers".
If management or MBAs don't click with devs, the project is ripe for crashing.
Quick, seize that name!
oh wait... http://backslashdot.org/
Bah, just use a Scow!
http://community.lacunaexpanse.com/wiki/scow
I've seen people doing so from both sides, the grass ain't greener on either side. In IN, the US shift is called "the graveyard shift" and it's bad.
...and then he would whine and yell about why an iPad is $1500 instead of $499; about why a HDD is 500 bucks instead of 150 and so on. Many products' low prices come with strings attached: cheap labor force elsewhere make those prices possible. It was always like this. Back in the days, when a coke was 5 cents, that price meant some other people in the US were fucked with super-low wages for that to happen. Then laws were enacted to protect his own countrymen from being screwed, so businesses had to choose between steep price rises and moving parts of their businesses elsewhere. Then technology allowed some other business parts to be moved elsewhere and so on and so forth.
It's a hard hit when you're used to comfy work and comfy wages; but remember you're only entitled to a high living standard while it lasts. The world moves on and whining about change won't stop it.
Who's the asshole now?
I spent my last 5 years working 5 PM to 2 AM local time so that US-based employees get their reports, info and support during their regular business hours. Not once have I thought about them adjusting to my regular business hours schedule, and that is because I respect other people. If I could make my colleagues, customers and friends happier, why not?
Your post shows a mindset. You are used to work comfy hours and change is frowned upon. I understand that. But fucking others so you keep your comfort is douchebaggery.
In theory, yes. Just like, in theory, customers should properly fill the question sets (they are there for a reason), properly explain their issue (in English, please!) and generally follow the "help me help you" mindset. Sadly, just as customers don't care to fill their end of the bargain, helpdesk personnel just chose to skip unintelligible tickets and work the properly filled ones. This caused delay and frustration for customers, sure, but if you, the customer, don't care, the carelessness of support is just a mirror, not the root cause.
I'm a Service Delivery Manager and currently in process of changing development paths (hint: Database Administration). I also read /. daily. /. does not only offer deeply technical summaries (in which case I would have agreed with you), there's this need of replacing "Sergei from MariaDB" with "Sergei whatever-his-last-name-is from MariaDB (MySQL fork)", preferably with a direct link to MariaDB website.
All the above have nothing to do with whether an article or a summary is professionally written (or professional enough). Since
I'm not saying one can't use Google to find that info, I'm saying one shouldn't have to use Google to find that info. It's Journalism 101. Slashdot is actually one of the better websites posting proper stuff, and I admit i've seen much worse. But why struggle to defend an oversight when it's pointed out? Really, now...
Can't wait for another fork called EmanuelleDB.
Seriously, WHO names these DBs?
Anonymous, you are actually right. Many times over have I seen /. news which casually referred to stuff without mentioning WHAT the stuff was. Typical technical staff attitude, expecting that the whole world would simply know.
This is a general attitude, sadly. Years ago, when I was doing helpdesk work, the least intelligible tickets came from technical staff: "I can't sudo brwnc-u using PLS on TRM, works if I pscp. Fix needed." or "i'm an ASM in PRTC and need a PGP key to FRM ASAP". Seriously?
And then they wondered why nobody had a clue what to do with those tickets.
Well I got just three words for him: World of Tanks.
Time remaining indicator stuck at "10 seconds" for 5 minutes while MS Installer does God-Knows-What. Suspension of disbelief my ass...
The rule they taught us in high school about avoiding plagiarism would probably serve you perfectly well: do research, look at what lots of others have said (made), then close the books (put away the competitor's products) and write your own.
Pretty much what I am doing with my project. It's common sense, I'd say.
OK, but is there a threshold? Like, you can say "it's a good idea, let's implement it too" at most what, 5 times? 10? 100 times? A smartphone is a very complex device where hundreds of tiny bits of stuff interact with each other. I'm not taking any sides, Apple and Samsung are equally distant to me and I couldn't care less who is right and who wins. I'm just trying to figure out whether looking at a competitor product and implementing similar functionality is damnable by itself as long as it doesn't break a registered patent.
I'm interested in this debate solely because I'm working on a project (browser based MMO) that's partially similar to an established product already on the marked. Damn, even some item names are similar (there's just one way to name a "Death Star", for example). Therefore, in a not-so-distant future I might find myself on the receiving end of a legal shotgun because I had played a competitor's game in the past, thought the general idea was good and developed another MMO (from scratch) using roughly the same idea but with lots of modifications. Needless to say that all components are being created from scratch, but that might just not be enough.
It's only normal to look at someone else's product and say "hey, that's a good idea, let's implement that too!". Question is, were there PATENTS that covered this and that and was there a patent infringement in such cases? Moving a "Loading..." text from top right to middle of the screen doesn't, for example, look like "patent infringement", and if it IS a patent covering that, well then my personal opinion is that patents have really gone too far.
If everyone would care for 100 others, in an ideal spread, you would end up having 99 others who would care for you.
Your statement is the reason why Linux is yet to be successful to mainstream customers. As long as distro producers hold on to that sort of statements, they will never penetrate Windows market share.
Lose the elitism and assuming "you know better" and open your mind to what Joe Sixpack wants: you'll be successful then.
Yes, I'm sure Gentoo users would rant about not being able to play whatever games would be available for Linux. Point is, some distros are aimed for desktop use and some are not. Aim for the top-5 Desktop distros an you have covered enough of an userbase.
Firefox fixed that problem ages ago.
No, it hasn't. I just checked your statement by starting FX on my home PC. After upgrading, it yelled about 4 plugins not being compatible and disabled them. Oh well.
All they need to do is test the product against the 5 distros or so that comprise 90% of Linux Desktop usage. Much like for Windows. My gut feeling is that not many post-2010 Windows games work under Windows 98, for example.
I would. Step 1 is make a large size of games available for Linux (and make them easy to install; no CLI shit!). Sure, there's a risk, but if you're not taking chances, then why bother do anything?