It's not about "freedom" - I don't mind allowing foreign workers into the U.S. - just let them have the same rights to move from job to job that I have - that is something they don't get as they are the whim of the "sponsor" and have to take whatever is dished out to them... not a FREE labor market...
... of programmers to other types of professions in the H-1B visa program is 15 to 1 in favor of programmers - not that engineers don't face similar circumstances (can't speak for engineers), but when discussing H-1B visa, it is primarly importing foreign programmers is what we are talking about...
True, a savvy and smart programmer will always have a job but does that mean all programmers should put their heads in the sand and accept whatever crumbs are tossed their way... I hate reading this crap - sure there are superstars (like me:)), but we don't live and work in a fishbowl...
I haven't read thru all the comments yet, but just want to relay personal XP with the H-1B visa program - and the fraud being committed by American companies...
First off, it is a bad thing for American workers - regardless of the "lip service" paid that there is a "labor shortage" - yada, yada, yada - it ain't true - fact is, it is about cheap labor - I have nothing against fellow brotherhood of programmers doing the best they can for themselves, but in reality, the majority of these "imported" programmers are merely indentured servants, with no control or power to switch jobs... consequently, the notion of a "free labor market" is turned upside down... and even if you are not affected directly, it has a downward effect on every programmer's wages and rates that they can bill out...
The company I currently contract for (a large charge card processing company... you can figure out which one...) is committed to this form of "outsourcing" (or as one exec chided - it is "out-tasking", not outsourcing) - our facilities in the U.S. resemble New Delhi or Bombay... and it is amazing how the company can be so hypocritical in its flaunting of the law - the H-1B visa workers are, to the letter of the law, only supposed to be used if "there is no American worker to fill the slot..." - well, here is the trick - company A hires company B (which also may be a USA company, but is comprised of 80% H-1B visa programmer staff - see Syntel for a vivid example... meanwhile, there are many talented programmers, allbeit older, that face blatant age discrimination, and either (1) go into another line of work or (2) accept lower wages...
Employers flooded with resumes, but are extremely pickly - only 2% of applicants are granted interviews...
H1-B visa workers are primarily programmers - by a 15-1 ratio, not a lot of engineers, mostly programmers...
Age discrimination is rampant... when you are over 35, a firm would rather hire someone cheaper than to use a "skilled, competent, experienced" programmer that has XP in platform A, language B, language C, but not platform D, language E...
Increasing CS enrollments blow the myth of "shortage" out of the water...
problems with the "prevailing wage"
false claims of high legal fees
Sure, if you are good you will always have work - but it still has an effect on all as the wages/rates fall with the market... I have no objection to importing of talented professionals - but make them citizens - give them the power of a "free labor market" - funny how companies cry for deregulation and free markets but when it comes to labor, it is a different story entirely...
... it almost dissuaded (sp? - is that a word?) me from buying the darn thing, though that would have been a mistake as aside from the online sources listed here in other posts, it is, imho, the best php book out to date...
i think perl is the more "powerful" language in terms of what you are capable of and perl is more cross functional - php really only a web scripting language... then, why do i use php instead of perl?
built in handling of form variables and cookies - yeah i know perl has "canned" routines than can provide for all the same jazz, but perl implemenations of these things always seemed clunky to me...
the database functions, although i realize they are platform specific functions - see above though for difference of "klunkiness"...
seems more of structured language to me (i realize this is mainly a subjective impression, nonetheless...) - easier for me to read...
still, all said - if i was forced to use perl it would not be diesaster - just don't make me use asp or tcl or... haven't tried python yet and have heard it is nice...
... I own both books - the pocket reference is nice but even at time of publishing it was out of date as it does not include many of the PHP 4.0 constructs/functions (i.e., array functions...)... what would have been cool is that if they took the appendix in WROX Professional PHP Programming and made it the "little reference" - as it is more complete and includes ver 4.0 updates...
In regards to the New Riders Web Application Programming - it is a decent read - like the story author here, I just scanned over the chapter (one of the more lengthy ones on "rolling" your own PHP in C...) - some of my disappointments -, though, was the reference to source code for a knowledge repostiory application in one of the chapters - the accompaning CD had a source code directory, but no knowledge repository application like stated in said chapter - I even sent email to publisher via their little feedback box and I got a response that said see the *source* directory... duh! it ain't there Wilbur... another was that, imho, coverage of some essential intermediate-advanced topics was just "glossed" over, and nothing of real substance provided...
still, more content and substance than could be found in any Que or programming for retards book...
If opera is the only browser that renders your code correctly, what good is designing for it?
i think that the point is that opera adheres more closely to the W3C CSS and DOM specifications, that it is the common denominator when trying to use it - it is where the other browsers are going to go...
... it's hard to really evaluate a software product after a short time of using it as it seems that this reviewer even spent less time than that...
when i first downloaded opera (ver 3.5x i believe...) i found it klunky and was not used to the their interface... i tried it again at ver 3.62 and gave it the whole 30 days after first printing out the keyboard hotkey reference and briefly perusing it... i haven't looked back since - the only time i use ns or ms ie is when building sites to see how html looks on all 3 comparitively (ns blows...)...
it will never catch on... i pimp it all the time but while ms gives theirs away for free, no matter how spectacular a "alternative" browser is in terms of features, options, reliability, and speed... not many are going to venture to explore that option...
... think about it a second... if you like the navigation/appearence setup of a "web site", wouldn't you like to see that "style" that you are comfortable with "mimic"-ed at other web sites - so that your web surfing and/or information hunting is much more enjoyable and/or more efficient? i know it's not directly pertinent, but i remember reading in designing web usability (i forget exact sp. of author name) about the anecdote of the "shopping sled" story, where customers were totally confused and that "shopping cart" had become the recognized term of the net...
now, if someone "rips" off your web site setup (now i am talking navigational layout, not actual content...), isn't that really a form of praise... just like microsoft can take credit (and receive blame) for all the great advances of computing, you can silently chuckle about the propagation of your brainstormed web page layout design...
i grant you that making an "exact" copy and not giving credit is both unimaginitive and rude, but come one... and i find it hypocritical that someone could rail against Napster and DeCSS and then make statements like these...
the/. format is an excellent, wonderful web layout design template or whatever/however you want to refer to it... and the (1) popularity of the site itself by visitors/posters and (2) amount of "ripoff" copies that are springing up all over are a testament to it... even i am working right now on a php type version, but not copied "exactly", but with added/modified features that i feel are lacking in/., and not coding some of the features that, to me, are not essential... and of course, if someone clicks on the about link (wait a second... didn't someone copy that design "notion" from somebody else? who should i give credit for there?...)... they will read that/. is one of the sites that inspired me to create an awe-arising wonder...
... ship the systems overseas, or contract out to a "usa" based company that the majority of technical staff (80%) is comprised of h-1b visa indians... insidious exploitment by company A that doesn't have to defend it's violation of "not hiring an american available" because company B that is doing the "outsource-ed" work acts as the shield... my current work site resembles Bombay or New Delhi and the edict is to hire only these firms, while skilled veteran programmers are compelled to (a) retire early, (b) adopt a career change in a different line of business, or (c) accept a lower salary... granted, most of my business xp has been as a long time mainframe hack, but it gonna happen soon in the pee cee weenie world too...
look for china to be more than a bit player now that that trade agreement deal passed...
let me say that i have nothing against fellow geeks and geekettes seizing gainful employment/contract opportunities, but when the acts are done (either outsourcing to foreign country, or "temporary" workers brought to usa...)... it affects the market rate for programmer salaries as those individuals either here or abroad often times are placed in the role of indentured servant, and not quite the capitalistic model of a "free" labor market... for more information, facts and detailed research, read Dr. Norman Matloff's Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage... funny how large corporate interests crow about free markets and deregulation when it comes to taxes, property rights, etc... but when it comes to a free "labor" market, a different tune is heard...
i have to admit that i used it several times before i realized that i wouldn't have any recourse (or at least that is that i am told...)... still, it is a lot handier than writing a check or getting a money order, etc...
i wonder what yall feel about "soon to roll out" "private payment" systems - a setup whereby you go to credit/charge card site and get a special limited use (times, duration) account number that is different than your real one... to allow potential shoppers who are wary of using their "real" credit card number - the processing system(s) then have to translate the "bogus" number into a legitimate number for billing purposes...
... hmm, upon closer inspection, it seems that the story is still there - http://www.dailyradar.com/news/g ame_news_4601.html... me thinks that excite.com removed the item from popping up in the search... no conspiracy here after all... tsk
... not yet anyway... for big volume processing, mainframes still are the bread and butter of large companies... although clueless executives want to move it all onto the network/smaller boxes, we ain't there yet... at least in terms of reliability and recoverability and basic number crunching too...
i work for a large charge card company and am responsible for a system that processes any charge made by a u.s. cardmember and/or u.s. merchant/establishmenht... we have 6 tera-bytes of storage (most just plain ol DASD) and run 5-6 K batch JCL jobs a day that are dynamically generated "on the fly" - each "file" consists of millions of records (200-1500 byte records - up to a set of 9 for a simple transaction...)...
mainframes arn't dead yet... even GUI front ends that you would never suspect are hitting big iron DASD...
no matter what the topic... the most relevant links come up first, unlike the other search engines...
plus, when your home access is a 28k modem, the lightning fast response time makes it a no-brainer...
net media, tv media, radio media, etc ...
on
The New Mediascape
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it hasn't been that long since internet sources could serve as a primary source of news... since about 1996 i reckon since prior to that i won't count reuters headlines spammed across newsgroups or [choke], or prodigy headlines on a low-res graphics screen back in the early 90s...
anyway, i just got a recent realization on the impact of net news and my news source impact - i drove to lake tahoe recently and left the laptop, cell phone, pager, etc... behind... stayed a week in a little cabin and the only media contact i had was a [gasp] am radio tuned to one of the local talk stations - abc news headlines, limbaugh, liddy, dean edell, clark howard, bruce williams, jim bohannon... what a landscape of frequency wasteland!
well, i never watch tv much anymore, though there is a radio show or two i will tune in while i am hacking away at code during a normal work week, so most of my news is received from net sources like/. or wired or newspapers online etc... consequently, the contrast was alarming...
no coverage of net issues on traditional media - the DeCss case decision went down without a mention - i found out about it 2 days later in a passing reference by Clark Howard in a rant against Napster, though he did think the "free speech" assault in the DeCSs case was alarming... otherwise, the only net references are corporate shills hawking some paid for advertisement for a site for consumers to flock to...
no in-depth coverage - yeah i know radio headlines are not meant for in-depth coverage but even programs like the jim bohannon show (which used to be the larry king show - for you younger/. patrons... before he became the CNN prime time mantlepiece...) consisted of very shallow coverage on the conventions... his show basically is a a marketing ad for authors and an extended PR sound bite(s) for politicians...
extreme "right wing" bias - i don't buy any of this crap about a "liberal" bias in the press... granted, most reporters may lean to the left (but that simply follows voter demographics on annual income - if you examine the big cheese network mouthpieces - i.e. Donaldson, Walters, Brokaw etc... most of them are right-leaning...), publishers and station owners are *not*... just look at the composition of a normal day on am talk radio - liddy, dr laura, rush limbaugh - no wonder facism has a stronghold on the heartland of america... voices critical of corporate interests rarely last long, even if they enjoy popular support...
the funniest moments were actually listening to limbaugh (now, mind you, i didn't spend my vacation listening to radio but driving around, touring the countryside and just kicking it in the cabin in the morning and later in the evening...)... when he blamed president clinton for the wildfires burning in the western usa... not a clinton fan myself but it is hilarious to still hear him blaming the democrats for all of the evil in the world today...
i fear that the news consumer is in a far worse predicament than even in the 70s - i remember when the ny times had over 1200 reporters working for them all over the world... now even their news service(s) are reduced to regurgitating some official line spit out from a spineless beauracrat...
it doesn't take a spine to walk upright around here - some arizona legislator
sega dc thoughts from sega dc owner ...
on
Sega Dreamcast: $0
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... yeah i have a sega saturn and a sega genesis (the last "real" winner they had though i didn't fall for the equally ill-fated 32x and cd products...)... i swore i would never buy a sega product ever again after the saturn debacle... but then again, i don't buy sony products either as every single sony item i have ever bought broke within a year (though the 5th walkman i bought a little over a year ago is still working... hmm...)...
anyway, i'm not sure if this manuever by them is too little too late... they needed to have the online gaming up at christmas, not this fall sometime which translates into winter or maybe early next year... there is big market for those gamers who while quite adept at video games are real clueless about PC setup and plus the cost of putting together a high end gaming setup...
the internet access they provide works - and you don't need them as a provider - i hooked it up to freei.net - so i can surf on the tv for free though it is an exercise in primitivity (heh, that ain't a word...)... most of the time you can only see a fraction of the page on the tv screen and i don't have a keyboard so typing urls in is a pain - then, add that fact to the fact that you need to store the bookmarks on a memory cartridge that plugs in to one of the controllers... even with a keyboard i can't imagine smooth surfing...
but like i said, they missed the boat - though the games i have purchased are very good, it would be cool to play online and the ease (or perceived ease) of setting up and getting on would be a boon for many gamers - i.e. no worry about machine differences, sound cards, 3d cards, etc... just log in and play... but the success of these gaming consoles is not predicated on the power of the box, but the quantity and quality of the games... probally quantity being more important... (witness the sony playstation success...)
anyway, i wish it would work for sega, but i don't see it happening... sega will end up being sony's bitch just like ms ate up netscape... l8
first off, i hope that the new "netscape" browser is better than the current offering, as the current offering really sucks IMHO - not only does it suck but i have to code around it for quite some time as folks are going to be using these versions for some time to come... incomplete support of css/table html formatting, goofy interpretation of slightly irregular html, etc... the ms ie latest reendition (though it pains o so much...) is vastly superior but i find opera browser to be kick ass over both of them - dl it, give it a try, but before you start using do a ctrl-b to print the keyboard hotkey command ref and get used to web cruising with the keyboard... i can't go back to ie now, though there are some sites (usually those dependent on ms features or java plugins) i have to load ns or ms for... though i still haven't loaded the java plugin... also, opera handles the ecma standard "javascript" but gets confused about some of the ms specific dialects...
regarding pbs, i still think there is a place for it - much quality programming - nova, frontline, specials... for the right wing radicals who think it is lefty liberal deal, i have to dispute that as it seems that public tv has had to become more responsive to needs of corporate sponsors (kind of contradicts the whole "public" in public tv...)... but still, nevertheless, public tv and npr serve a big gap - here in phoenix, radio is a crowded wasteland of lots of nothing but npr is a steady beacon - always something to listen to with no commercials... l8
I have to agree that this "shortage" is an artificial one. And yes, foreign workers figure into to the equation heavily...
As a real life example, I am a mainframe programmer still hacking away on the big iron (IBM - MVS)... I have some projects on the side but the bread and butter is still the mainframe stuff...
Now, the move has been on for some time (not just at the company I currently consult at, but others too that I have worked in the past and other sites here local that fellow employees/consultants are/have been employed at) to "resource" out all support and development programming work to India - it is CHEAPER, CHEAPER by a factor of 50% or more (well, probally not in real terms after all the intangibles are taken into account but cheaper in the bean counter executive perspective...)... the wish is to have nothing but business analysts in the employ of the company but outsource the rest to Indians either here imported or on site in India along with company DP employees stationed there also...
The company (a large charge card company for which whose system I support processes millions of card charges a day...) pledges that employee jobs are "safe", but they still admit that employees may have to "retrain" into more business oriented jobs...
I have nothing against individuals who study and work hard in technical pursuits and apply their craft competently... but as mentioned in other posts, the "company" holds the reins of the H1B worker pretty tightly - it does not make for a "free" market of supply and demand...
The other thing is that we are shutting out thousands of potential programmers who could enter into a test/training program that selects the "brightest" and prepares them for entry-level jobs... instead, these jobs are farmed out overseas to foreigners who market themselves as "experienced" when the entire basis of their experience is solely education... education alone may be insufficient then add in the communications factor...
Another big impact is the downward effect upon salaries and rates for computer programmers... the influx of a "captive" labor force pushes the rates down - this in turn, leads to the fact that our best and brightest (US, Canada) now elect to be lawyers and MBAs as opposed to engineers and computer programmers - supply and demand indeed - programmers in the 60s and 70s made princely wages, rates that make the present wage and salary marks appear as paltry...
My firm has many programmers "on the bench" - while, at the same time, the marketing and recruiting people are being queried multiple times a day to sponsor an "H1B" Visa canidate that can be placed immediately at a local business site - why is that? Granted, the mainframe world differs from the PC world, but again I think it would be even easier to find native Americans that can do the pee cee weenie stuff...
As to the argument that the foreign worker is paid more - maybe that is true in some cases but the general case does not bear that out... take a look at the hardcopy ComputerWorld and look at the careers section - look away from the flashy ads touting all of the big pimps and look at the hordes of little print lines asking for Masters degree, experience, all for 25K a year! Those are there to meet the requirement that the "job cannot be filled by an American".
This topic touches a button with me... again, let me state that it is not the foreign worker that I am opposed against but the notion of a restricted labor market - it is funny that big business is all for free market capitalism when it comes to laws and legislation that favor them economically but would like to restrict markets on the other hand concerning labor...
Slashdot Mirror
It's not about "freedom" - I don't mind allowing foreign workers into the U.S. - just let them have the same rights to move from job to job that I have - that is something they don't get as they are the whim of the "sponsor" and have to take whatever is dished out to them ... not a FREE labor market ...
... of programmers to other types of professions in the H-1B visa program is 15 to 1 in favor of programmers - not that engineers don't face similar circumstances (can't speak for engineers), but when discussing H-1B visa, it is primarly importing foreign programmers is what we are talking about ...
True, a savvy and smart programmer will always have a job but does that mean all programmers should put their heads in the sand and accept whatever crumbs are tossed their way ... I hate reading this crap - sure there are superstars (like me :)), but we don't live and work in a fishbowl ...
I haven't read thru all the comments yet, but just want to relay personal XP with the H-1B visa program - and the fraud being committed by American companies ...
First off, it is a bad thing for American workers - regardless of the "lip service" paid that there is a "labor shortage" - yada, yada, yada - it ain't true - fact is, it is about cheap labor - I have nothing against fellow brotherhood of programmers doing the best they can for themselves, but in reality, the majority of these "imported" programmers are merely indentured servants, with no control or power to switch jobs ... consequently, the notion of a "free labor market" is turned upside down ... and even if you are not affected directly, it has a downward effect on every programmer's wages and rates that they can bill out ...
The company I currently contract for (a large charge card processing company ... you can figure out which one ...) is committed to this form of "outsourcing" (or as one exec chided - it is "out-tasking", not outsourcing) - our facilities in the U.S. resemble New Delhi or Bombay ... and it is amazing how the company can be so hypocritical in its flaunting of the law - the H-1B visa workers are, to the letter of the law, only supposed to be used if "there is no American worker to fill the slot ..." - well, here is the trick - company A hires company B (which also may be a USA company, but is comprised of 80% H-1B visa programmer staff - see Syntel for a vivid example ... meanwhile, there are many talented programmers, allbeit older, that face blatant age discrimination, and either (1) go into another line of work or (2) accept lower wages ...
I urge everyone to give a read to someone who has investigated and analyzed this matter into detail - Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Labor Shortage by Dr. Matloff ...
Some points to ponder ...
Sure, if you are good you will always have work - but it still has an effect on all as the wages/rates fall with the market ... I have no objection to importing of talented professionals - but make them citizens - give them the power of a "free labor market" - funny how companies cry for deregulation and free markets but when it comes to labor, it is a different story entirely ...
... it almost dissuaded (sp? - is that a word?) me from buying the darn thing, though that would have been a mistake as aside from the online sources listed here in other posts, it is, imho, the best php book out to date ...
i think perl is the more "powerful" language in terms of what you are capable of and perl is more cross functional - php really only a web scripting language ... then, why do i use php instead of perl?
still, all said - if i was forced to use perl it would not be diesaster - just don't make me use asp or tcl or ... haven't tried python yet and have heard it is nice ...
... I own both books - the pocket reference is nice but even at time of publishing it was out of date as it does not include many of the PHP 4.0 constructs/functions (i.e., array functions ...) ... what would have been cool is that if they took the appendix in WROX Professional PHP Programming and made it the "little reference" - as it is more complete and includes ver 4.0 updates ...
In regards to the New Riders Web Application Programming - it is a decent read - like the story author here, I just scanned over the chapter (one of the more lengthy ones on "rolling" your own PHP in C ...) - some of my disappointments -, though, was the reference to source code for a knowledge repostiory application in one of the chapters - the accompaning CD had a source code directory, but no knowledge repository application like stated in said chapter - I even sent email to publisher via their little feedback box and I got a response that said see the *source* directory ... duh! it ain't there Wilbur ... another was that, imho, coverage of some essential intermediate-advanced topics was just "glossed" over, and nothing of real substance provided ...
still, more content and substance than could be found in any Que or programming for retards book ...
If opera is the only browser that renders your code correctly, what good is designing for it?
i think that the point is that opera adheres more closely to the W3C CSS and DOM specifications, that it is the common denominator when trying to use it - it is where the other browsers are going to go ...
... it's hard to really evaluate a software product after a short time of using it as it seems that this reviewer even spent less time than that ...
when i first downloaded opera (ver 3.5x i believe ...) i found it klunky and was not used to the their interface ... i tried it again at ver 3.62 and gave it the whole 30 days after first printing out the keyboard hotkey reference and briefly perusing it ... i haven't looked back since - the only time i use ns or ms ie is when building sites to see how html looks on all 3 comparitively (ns blows ...) ...
it will never catch on ... i pimp it all the time but while ms gives theirs away for free, no matter how spectacular a "alternative" browser is in terms of features, options, reliability, and speed ... not many are going to venture to explore that option ...
l8
... for many readers here ...
now, if someone "rips" off your web site setup (now i am talking navigational layout, not actual content ...), isn't that really a form of praise ... just like microsoft can take credit (and receive blame) for all the great advances of computing, you can silently chuckle about the propagation of your brainstormed web page layout design ...
i grant you that making an "exact" copy and not giving credit is both unimaginitive and rude, but come one ... and i find it hypocritical that someone could rail against Napster and DeCSS and then make statements like these ...
the /. format is an excellent, wonderful web layout design template or whatever/however you want to refer to it ... and the (1) popularity of the site itself by visitors/posters and (2) amount of "ripoff" copies that are springing up all over are a testament to it ... even i am working right now on a php type version, but not copied "exactly", but with added/modified features that i feel are lacking in /., and not coding some of the features that, to me, are not essential ... and of course, if someone clicks on the about link (wait a second ... didn't someone copy that design "notion" from somebody else? who should i give credit for there? ...) ... they will read that /. is one of the sites that inspired me to create an awe-arising wonder ...
late
... ship the systems overseas, or contract out to a "usa" based company that the majority of technical staff (80%) is comprised of h-1b visa indians ... insidious exploitment by company A that doesn't have to defend it's violation of "not hiring an american available" because company B that is doing the "outsource-ed" work acts as the shield ... my current work site resembles Bombay or New Delhi and the edict is to hire only these firms, while skilled veteran programmers are compelled to (a) retire early, (b) adopt a career change in a different line of business, or (c) accept a lower salary ... granted, most of my business xp has been as a long time mainframe hack, but it gonna happen soon in the pee cee weenie world too ...
look for china to be more than a bit player now that that trade agreement deal passed ...
let me say that i have nothing against fellow geeks and geekettes seizing gainful employment/contract opportunities, but when the acts are done (either outsourcing to foreign country, or "temporary" workers brought to usa ...) ... it affects the market rate for programmer salaries as those individuals either here or abroad often times are placed in the role of indentured servant, and not quite the capitalistic model of a "free" labor market ... for more information, facts and detailed research, read Dr. Norman Matloff's Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage ... funny how large corporate interests crow about free markets and deregulation when it comes to taxes, property rights, etc ... but when it comes to a free "labor" market, a different tune is heard ...
i have to admit that i used it several times before i realized that i wouldn't have any recourse (or at least that is that i am told ...) ... still, it is a lot handier than writing a check or getting a money order, etc ...
i wonder what yall feel about "soon to roll out" "private payment" systems - a setup whereby you go to credit/charge card site and get a special limited use (times, duration) account number that is different than your real one ... to allow potential shoppers who are wary of using their "real" credit card number - the processing system(s) then have to translate the "bogus" number into a legitimate number for billing purposes ...
... not yet anyway ... for big volume processing, mainframes still are the bread and butter of large companies ... although clueless executives want to move it all onto the network/smaller boxes, we ain't there yet ... at least in terms of reliability and recoverability and basic number crunching too ...
i work for a large charge card company and am responsible for a system that processes any charge made by a u.s. cardmember and/or u.s. merchant/establishmenht ... we have 6 tera-bytes of storage (most just plain ol DASD) and run 5-6 K batch JCL jobs a day that are dynamically generated "on the fly" - each "file" consists of millions of records (200-1500 byte records - up to a set of 9 for a simple transaction ...) ...
mainframes arn't dead yet ... even GUI front ends that you would never suspect are hitting big iron DASD ...
no matter what the topic ... the most relevant links come up first, unlike the other search engines ...
...
plus, when your home access is a 28k modem, the lightning fast response time makes it a no-brainer
it hasn't been that long since internet sources could serve as a primary source of news ... since about 1996 i reckon since prior to that i won't count reuters headlines spammed across newsgroups or [choke], or prodigy headlines on a low-res graphics screen back in the early 90s ...
anyway, i just got a recent realization on the impact of net news and my news source impact - i drove to lake tahoe recently and left the laptop, cell phone, pager, etc ... behind ... stayed a week in a little cabin and the only media contact i had was a [gasp] am radio tuned to one of the local talk stations - abc news headlines, limbaugh, liddy, dean edell, clark howard, bruce williams, jim bohannon ... what a landscape of frequency wasteland!
well, i never watch tv much anymore, though there is a radio show or two i will tune in while i am hacking away at code during a normal work week, so most of my news is received from net sources like /. or wired or newspapers online etc ... consequently, the contrast was alarming ...
- no coverage of net issues on traditional media - the DeCss case decision went down without a mention - i found out about it 2 days later in a passing reference by Clark Howard in a rant against Napster, though he did think the "free speech" assault in the DeCSs case was alarming
... otherwise, the only net references are corporate shills hawking some paid for advertisement for a site for consumers to flock to ...
- no in-depth coverage - yeah i know radio headlines are not meant for in-depth coverage but even programs like the jim bohannon show (which used to be the larry king show - for you younger
/. patrons ... before he became the CNN prime time mantlepiece ...) consisted of very shallow coverage on the conventions ... his show basically is a a marketing ad for authors and an extended PR sound bite(s) for politicians ...
- extreme "right wing" bias - i don't buy any of this crap about a "liberal" bias in the press
... granted, most reporters may lean to the left (but that simply follows voter demographics on annual income - if you examine the big cheese network mouthpieces - i.e. Donaldson, Walters, Brokaw etc ... most of them are right-leaning ...), publishers and station owners are *not* ... just look at the composition of a normal day on am talk radio - liddy, dr laura, rush limbaugh - no wonder facism has a stronghold on the heartland of america ... voices critical of corporate interests rarely last long, even if they enjoy popular support ...
- the funniest moments were actually listening to limbaugh (now, mind you, i didn't spend my vacation listening to radio but driving around, touring the countryside and just kicking it in the cabin in the morning and later in the evening
...) ... when he blamed president clinton for the wildfires burning in the western usa ... not a clinton fan myself but it is hilarious to still hear him blaming the democrats for all of the evil in the world today ...
- i fear that the news consumer is in a far worse predicament than even in the 70s - i remember when the ny times had over 1200 reporters working for them all over the world
... now even their news service(s) are reduced to regurgitating some official line spit out from a spineless beauracrat ...
it doesn't take a spine to walk upright around here - some arizona legislator... yeah i have a sega saturn and a sega genesis (the last "real" winner they had though i didn't fall for the equally ill-fated 32x and cd products ...) ... i swore i would never buy a sega product ever again after the saturn debacle ... but then again, i don't buy sony products either as every single sony item i have ever bought broke within a year (though the 5th walkman i bought a little over a year ago is still working ... hmm ...) ...
anyway, i'm not sure if this manuever by them is too little too late ... they needed to have the online gaming up at christmas, not this fall sometime which translates into winter or maybe early next year ... there is big market for those gamers who while quite adept at video games are real clueless about PC setup and plus the cost of putting together a high end gaming setup ...
the internet access they provide works - and you don't need them as a provider - i hooked it up to freei.net - so i can surf on the tv for free though it is an exercise in primitivity (heh, that ain't a word ...) ... most of the time you can only see a fraction of the page on the tv screen and i don't have a keyboard so typing urls in is a pain - then, add that fact to the fact that you need to store the bookmarks on a memory cartridge that plugs in to one of the controllers ... even with a keyboard i can't imagine smooth surfing ...
but like i said, they missed the boat - though the games i have purchased are very good, it would be cool to play online and the ease (or perceived ease) of setting up and getting on would be a boon for many gamers - i.e. no worry about machine differences, sound cards, 3d cards, etc ... just log in and play ... but the success of these gaming consoles is not predicated on the power of the box, but the quantity and quality of the games ... probally quantity being more important ... (witness the sony playstation success ...)
anyway, i wish it would work for sega, but i don't see it happening ... sega will end up being sony's bitch just like ms ate up netscape ... l8
first off, i hope that the new "netscape" browser is better than the current offering, as the current offering really sucks IMHO - not only does it suck but i have to code around it for quite some time as folks are going to be using these versions for some time to come ... incomplete support of css/table html formatting, goofy interpretation of slightly irregular html, etc ... the ms ie latest reendition (though it pains o so much ...) is vastly superior but i find opera browser to be kick ass over both of them - dl it, give it a try, but before you start using do a ctrl-b to print the keyboard hotkey command ref and get used to web cruising with the keyboard ... i can't go back to ie now, though there are some sites (usually those dependent on ms features or java plugins) i have to load ns or ms for ... though i still haven't loaded the java plugin ... also, opera handles the ecma standard "javascript" but gets confused about some of the ms specific dialects ...
regarding pbs, i still think there is a place for it - much quality programming - nova, frontline, specials ... for the right wing radicals who think it is lefty liberal deal, i have to dispute that as it seems that public tv has had to become more responsive to needs of corporate sponsors (kind of contradicts the whole "public" in public tv ...) ... but still, nevertheless, public tv and npr serve a big gap - here in phoenix, radio is a crowded wasteland of lots of nothing but npr is a steady beacon - always something to listen to with no commercials ... l8
I have to agree that this "shortage" is an artificial one. And yes, foreign workers figure into to the equation heavily ...
As a real life example, I am a mainframe programmer still hacking away on the big iron (IBM - MVS) ... I have some projects on the side but the bread and butter is still the mainframe stuff ...
Now, the move has been on for some time (not just at the company I currently consult at, but others too that I have worked in the past and other sites here local that fellow employees/consultants are/have been employed at) to "resource" out all support and development programming work to India - it is CHEAPER, CHEAPER by a factor of 50% or more (well, probally not in real terms after all the intangibles are taken into account but cheaper in the bean counter executive perspective ...) ... the wish is to have nothing but business analysts in the employ of the company but outsource the rest to Indians either here imported or on site in India along with company DP employees stationed there also ...
The company (a large charge card company for which whose system I support processes millions of card charges a day ...) pledges that employee jobs are "safe", but they still admit that employees may have to "retrain" into more business oriented jobs ...
I have nothing against individuals who study and work hard in technical pursuits and apply their craft competently ... but as mentioned in other posts, the "company" holds the reins of the H1B worker pretty tightly - it does not make for a "free" market of supply and demand ...
The other thing is that we are shutting out thousands of potential programmers who could enter into a test/training program that selects the "brightest" and prepares them for entry-level jobs ... instead, these jobs are farmed out overseas to foreigners who market themselves as "experienced" when the entire basis of their experience is solely education ... education alone may be insufficient then add in the communications factor ...
Another big impact is the downward effect upon salaries and rates for computer programmers ... the influx of a "captive" labor force pushes the rates down - this in turn, leads to the fact that our best and brightest (US, Canada) now elect to be lawyers and MBAs as opposed to engineers and computer programmers - supply and demand indeed - programmers in the 60s and 70s made princely wages, rates that make the present wage and salary marks appear as paltry ...
My firm has many programmers "on the bench" - while, at the same time, the marketing and recruiting people are being queried multiple times a day to sponsor an "H1B" Visa canidate that can be placed immediately at a local business site - why is that? Granted, the mainframe world differs from the PC world, but again I think it would be even easier to find native Americans that can do the pee cee weenie stuff ...
As to the argument that the foreign worker is paid more - maybe that is true in some cases but the general case does not bear that out ... take a look at the hardcopy ComputerWorld and look at the careers section - look away from the flashy ads touting all of the big pimps and look at the hordes of little print lines asking for Masters degree, experience, all for 25K a year! Those are there to meet the requirement that the "job cannot be filled by an American".
This topic touches a button with me ... again, let me state that it is not the foreign worker that I am opposed against but the notion of a restricted labor market - it is funny that big business is all for free market capitalism when it comes to laws and legislation that favor them economically but would like to restrict markets on the other hand concerning labor ...
My 2 lines of code ...