>Of course, I could get laid off tommorrow, you never know, no matter what they tell you.
you're right, what they tell me has little bearing on if you are laid off!:)
seriously, we might feel the hurt as programmers, software engineers, but the people that are really hurt in the downtime are the other workers, office working, HR people, and tech-wise, web page developers. There is a great underlying need for software. But the business crash gives no where for these people to go, and they are not nec. just office help, it can include telecom engineers caught up in the first failed waive of VOIP, or inventory managers that went to work for companies that don't exist, etc. etc.
I used to be very picky, in hiring, choosing people that really wanted to work in the area we were in (games, etc.). You ought to be really sparked by games. Then I came to appreciate proffesionals that just know how to do their job. It's not my worry how they are motivated, if they can do their jobs.
But still, I think the internet boom had an incredibly bad effect of attracting people that were only in it for the money and the idea that they could pull it. I still suspect that you need to have logic geeks for good software engineering, smart-but-not-into-it really doesn't tend to be good enough in a field where we are still trying to figure out the best practices and everything is controversial. You have to care, because there is no way for an automoton to solve the harder problems.
There was a glut of new engineers, many not really interested in software engineering, though maybe they do want to do a good job. But no one knows what entails "just" doing a "good job" is in software engineering, so I think they are at a great disadvantage because they are not into really working out what works by experimentation and perfecting their practices.
One other thing: the half life of technology is an illusion. Logic is the tool. It's timeless. Software engineers are applied logicians, and it's the same logic forming a substrate underneath all technologies.
If build up a learning curve cost, you have to take a salary cut because you are asking your employer to help educate you, it's worth it for all involved, and if you understand logic then you can be sure that when you do learn, it will be with expertise.
However, I know in the real world people that hire don't always know that.
Frankly, I hope people that like software stick with it. But a lot of people who were so-so on it probably do need to vacate the industry.
AOL was the first online service to embrace Windows GUI. This was natural because it evolved froom a Mac company.
It beat Compuserve out. I know this from first hand experience working at TSN, another pre-internet online-service that at one time had the same number of user as AOL (but we were a game service, not general) and I watched AOL skyrocket from shipping it's Windows client when Compuserve thought DOS was a better way to go. When Compuserve came out with WinCIM, it was too late for them. It was the mid nineties and many companies got rewarded/spanked by betting on Windows/NotBettingOnWindows.
They had critical mass first.
Now there is critical mass everywhere.
Which of course means next comes a nuclear explosion...
I think it's a more practical question. The principle of what you say is clear, and I agree. But this isn't about principles. This is about playing fair, which involved the known rules, published as the law of the land. If an industry can't work within itself to achieve a minimum amount of interoperation -- allowing the government and other flexibility in the tools they use and total ownership of thier own data -- then the government will come in an impose defaults and a lot more. If they don't have a principle handy, they will invent one. Simple matter of pragmatics and power.
Interoperation is good for the consumer, one of which is the government which should not risk losing control of the data it encapsulates with software tools. The Government knows this. The companies know this. Ignore at own risk.
Do I support pragmatism over principles? Not really, but I don't see how the world could actually function any other way, principles are too brittle, unprovable, and in the end, often apparently arbitrary.
Just curious: as opposed to self-righteousness, is your attitude a work of self-wrongfulness?
Re:From the department of the Glaringly Obvious
on
Software Architecture
·
· Score: 1
I don't know why you say I take myself too seriously just because I have an opinion. Another knee-jerk rhetorical tactic, maybe? I don't see how it applies to me.
btw, obviously, you did finish.
And I'm still right about what it means if something is "obvious" and that we need more obvious statements about software engineering because our field is very substandard as an engineering practice, with a total inability to make reliable predictions on cost, schedule and functionality.
I just presented the CMM to the director... "isn't this obvious management technique?" he asked, "Yes," I admitted. Still, we struggle, in software, to do and justify the "obvious".
You have oversimplified the situation. It's actually so complicated even the obvious is a source of confusion. As is the fact that there are "obvious" facts in contradiction with on another.
I have analysed this a lot, not because I take myself so seriously, but because it has a direct impact on my work... which I guess I do take fairly seriously.
Re:From the department of the Glaringly Obvious
on
Software Architecture
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
the syllogism is also obvious, but had to be stated at one time.
software is logic. It's abstract.
"Obvious" is a synonym of "true".
It's so obvious we are a half century behind on integrating this obviousness in our software engnineering "standards".
Go to a disorganized software team. Try to formalize these "obvious" ideas to actually benefit the process, and you will experience people resisting the obvious -- which they will try to say is "because it's obvious".
The thing about going through the "obvious" is that subtle truths arrise, and some obvious things turn out to be false (obviously heavy things fall faster than lighter things... we waited hundreds of years to find Aristotle was wrong in this because the attidutes was, it's obvious, why check?)
Please, write down everything that is obvious... I want to read it.
Doesn't it seem a bit unwise of them? They didn't really know who was right or wrong and just believed what was told to them. The Witch Trials proceeded similarly with the whole community behind the innocent victims (bewitched little girls).
I think that is a very interesting direction. It might not be what the mass market wants. But it's what the "real" role players need (they probably are a sizeable group still far smaller than what one would call "mainstream"). I've worked on MMORPGs and recently interviewed with a MMORPG startup. When discussing these issues, they were not very interested in creating tools for human GMs. There are two problems that keep producers from wanting to do this. (1) they are afraid if their system is based on human GM/DMs that it will be too expensive to hire GMs... online players consume your creative content really really quickly, and knowledge of a puzzle solution travels very quickly... and (2) the solution is to rely on player GMs, and they are afraid of that type of game, that they will lose control. Game makers want to be the GM, basically, not a tool producer. They want to control content, and labor issues and control issues mean they need the Holy Grail of an AI that is as compelling a GM as a human. This may be possible, but certainly is (at least) decades away.
I am no longer working in computer games... but my current pet project is in this direction.
Another thought: it is also contrary to what people in the games industry think of as a game. These tools are more like "pretending aids" and "toys". The industry and many gamers are stuck in the idea that a game has points, it's a challenge that involves achieving levels, that it's about conflict and overcoming or succumbing. Real RPGs (of the table top variety) are more about exploration, with the leveling and whatnot providing the sense of realism, helping to place the player in the world.
I know you have been flamed for all of this so let me start with a flame-disclaimer... ---- there it is.
Don't you think the fact that it turns out to have this grossly Win32API design leak shows exactly how Microsoft works in the real world? You have expressed how impress you are with the.Net framework and design, but I have found that MS's designs and high level descriptions are always much better than what they really do when you look closely, and this dependency is a case in point.
Doesn't this one thing, in and of itself, show how the.Net system is not what it's claimed to be? That MS will have a lot more dependencies than you realize... in short, that they are not going to play fair.
Maybe there are still good reasons for your company to pursue.Net compatible products (I think it's a fine thing to try), but it may be harder than you think, and in the end, can you claim to have made a great system, or will the advantage "only" be compatibility with Microsoft. To be clear, I think the latter is a good enough reason, but not nec. in line with your earlier claims regarding.Net.
yes, and anyone around in the 80's will remember this MS very well. The odd thing is that they don't offer anything in linux.. that's ODD, MS would "normally" (before their "we are now oldIBM" days) have tried it out because it was there.
I suspect they will try this when it seems inevitable, and the only question is: will it be to late by then?
Slashdot Mirror
>Of course, I could get laid off tommorrow, you never know, no matter what they tell you.
:)
you're right, what they tell me has little bearing on if you are laid off!
seriously, we might feel the hurt as programmers, software engineers, but the people that are really hurt in the downtime are the other workers, office working, HR people, and tech-wise, web page developers. There is a great underlying need for software. But the business crash gives no where for these people to go, and they are not nec. just office help, it can include telecom engineers caught up in the first failed waive of VOIP, or inventory managers that went to work for companies that don't exist, etc. etc.
I used to be very picky, in hiring, choosing people that really wanted to work in the area we were in (games, etc.). You ought to be really sparked by games. Then I came to appreciate proffesionals that just know how to do their job. It's not my worry how they are motivated, if they can do their jobs.
But still, I think the internet boom had an incredibly bad effect of attracting people that were only in it for the money and the idea that they could pull it. I still suspect that you need to have logic geeks for good software engineering, smart-but-not-into-it really doesn't tend to be good enough in a field where we are still trying to figure out the best practices and everything is controversial. You have to care, because there is no way for an automoton to solve the harder problems.
There was a glut of new engineers, many not really interested in software engineering, though maybe they do want to do a good job. But no one knows what entails "just" doing a "good job" is in software engineering, so I think they are at a great disadvantage because they are not into really working out what works by experimentation and perfecting their practices.
One other thing: the half life of technology is an illusion. Logic is the tool. It's timeless. Software engineers are applied logicians, and it's the same logic forming a substrate underneath all technologies.
If build up a learning curve cost, you have to take a salary cut because you are asking your employer to help educate you, it's worth it for all involved, and if you understand logic then you can be sure that when you do learn, it will be with expertise.
However, I know in the real world people that hire don't always know that.
Frankly, I hope people that like software stick with it. But a lot of people who were so-so on it probably do need to vacate the industry.
I don't get the problem with HTML email... why is this such a problem?
why do you think the desire to have absolute style control comes from?
I think it would take two to four times that, assuming it makes it that far.
... usually in the form of a biggish box.
Oh-- it displays things in 3D?! Was that in the article?
yes, compuserve did kill itself. It was a premium kind of service, they never got over that and liked charging a lot.
And of course, my comment was a simplification, no doubt we could come up with a lot of contributing factors...
...and in Soviet Russia, 10 years ago realizes you!
I'm not sure what you are getting at.
btw, by "pre-interent" I mean, "prior to the commercialization of the internet".
AOL was the first online service to embrace Windows GUI. This was natural because it evolved froom a Mac company.
It beat Compuserve out. I know this from first hand experience working at TSN, another pre-internet online-service that at one time had the same number of user as AOL (but we were a game service, not general) and I watched AOL skyrocket from shipping it's Windows client when Compuserve thought DOS was a better way to go. When Compuserve came out with WinCIM, it was too late for them. It was the mid nineties and many companies got rewarded/spanked by betting on Windows/NotBettingOnWindows.
They had critical mass first.
Now there is critical mass everywhere.
Which of course means next comes a nuclear explosion...
or wait, did we already have one?
but then, neither are the Doom screenshots the kind of result you want on a PS3 or XBox2 game.
I think it's a more practical question. The principle of what you say is clear, and I agree. But this isn't about principles. This is about playing fair, which involved the known rules, published as the law of the land. If an industry can't work within itself to achieve a minimum amount of interoperation -- allowing the government and other flexibility in the tools they use and total ownership of thier own data -- then the government will come in an impose defaults and a lot more. If they don't have a principle handy, they will invent one. Simple matter of pragmatics and power.
Interoperation is good for the consumer, one of which is the government which should not risk losing control of the data it encapsulates with software tools. The Government knows this. The companies know this. Ignore at own risk.
Do I support pragmatism over principles? Not really, but I don't see how the world could actually function any other way, principles are too brittle, unprovable, and in the end, often apparently arbitrary.
Just curious: as opposed to self-righteousness, is your attitude a work of self-wrongfulness?
I don't know why you say I take myself too seriously just because I have an opinion. Another knee-jerk rhetorical tactic, maybe? I don't see how it applies to me.
btw, obviously, you did finish.
And I'm still right about what it means if something is "obvious" and that we need more obvious statements about software engineering because our field is very substandard as an engineering practice, with a total inability to make reliable predictions on cost, schedule and functionality.
I just presented the CMM to the director... "isn't this obvious management technique?" he asked, "Yes," I admitted. Still, we struggle, in software, to do and justify the "obvious".
You have oversimplified the situation. It's actually so complicated even the obvious is a source of confusion. As is the fact that there are "obvious" facts in contradiction with on another.
I have analysed this a lot, not because I take myself so seriously, but because it has a direct impact on my work... which I guess I do take fairly seriously.
the syllogism is also obvious, but had to be stated at one time.
software is logic. It's abstract.
"Obvious" is a synonym of "true".
It's so obvious we are a half century behind on integrating this obviousness in our software engnineering "standards".
Go to a disorganized software team. Try to formalize these "obvious" ideas to actually benefit the process, and you will experience people resisting the obvious -- which they will try to say is "because it's obvious".
The thing about going through the "obvious" is that subtle truths arrise, and some obvious things turn out to be false (obviously heavy things fall faster than lighter things... we waited hundreds of years to find Aristotle was wrong in this because the attidutes was, it's obvious, why check?)
Please, write down everything that is obvious... I want to read it.
the irony being, of course, that the white van was a red herring.
sig comment:
Excellent! I agree fully.
> 7. vi and unix (well, religion, and holy wars in general)
and then eventually, after tens of thousands of years of progress, finally, emacs.
Because any editor can wash laundry, but only the best will fold and sort too.
I had to, a strange supernatural force compelled me.
then it's ALL caps.
Doesn't it seem a bit unwise of them? They didn't really know who was right or wrong and just believed what was told to them. The Witch Trials proceeded similarly with the whole community behind the innocent victims (bewitched little girls).
But oh, the group was wrong. Imagine that.
really? I think the message is "It's all well and good until you lynch the wrong man."
"Madness in the individual is the exception, in groups, the rule."- a wise philologist once said.
I think that is a very interesting direction. It might not be what the mass market wants. But it's what the "real" role players need (they probably are a sizeable group still far smaller than what one would call "mainstream"). I've worked on MMORPGs and recently interviewed with a MMORPG startup. When discussing these issues, they were not very interested in creating tools for human GMs. There are two problems that keep producers from wanting to do this. (1) they are afraid if their system is based on human GM/DMs that it will be too expensive to hire GMs... online players consume your creative content really really quickly, and knowledge of a puzzle solution travels very quickly... and (2) the solution is to rely on player GMs, and they are afraid of that type of game, that they will lose control. Game makers want to be the GM, basically, not a tool producer. They want to control content, and labor issues and control issues mean they need the Holy Grail of an AI that is as compelling a GM as a human. This may be possible, but certainly is (at least) decades away.
I am no longer working in computer games... but my current pet project is in this direction.
Another thought: it is also contrary to what people in the games industry think of as a game. These tools are more like "pretending aids" and "toys". The industry and many gamers are stuck in the idea that a game has points, it's a challenge that involves achieving levels, that it's about conflict and overcoming or succumbing. Real RPGs (of the table top variety) are more about exploration, with the leveling and whatnot providing the sense of realism, helping to place the player in the world.
yes, and further, MMORPGs pale in comparison to the experience of a tabletop game... the holy grail - a system as compelling as that of a good DM...
I know you have been flamed for all of this so let me start with a flame-disclaimer... ---- there it is.
.Net framework and design, but I have found that MS's designs and high level descriptions are always much better than what they really do when you look closely, and this dependency is a case in point.
.Net system is not what it's claimed to be? That MS will have a lot more dependencies than you realize... in short, that they are not going to play fair.
.Net compatible products (I think it's a fine thing to try), but it may be harder than you think, and in the end, can you claim to have made a great system, or will the advantage "only" be compatibility with Microsoft. To be clear, I think the latter is a good enough reason, but not nec. in line with your earlier claims regarding .Net.
Don't you think the fact that it turns out to have this grossly Win32API design leak shows exactly how Microsoft works in the real world? You have expressed how impress you are with the
Doesn't this one thing, in and of itself, show how the
Maybe there are still good reasons for your company to pursue
yes, and anyone around in the 80's will remember this MS very well. The odd thing is that they don't offer anything in linux.. that's ODD, MS would "normally" (before their "we are now oldIBM" days) have tried it out because it was there.
I suspect they will try this when it seems inevitable, and the only question is: will it be to late by then?