He gets it, but "it" isn't what you think it is
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Linus on GIT and SCM
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· Score: 1
Linus suffers from a common misconception: if something doesn't work the way he wants it to, he assumes that it's no good.
He went into this at the talk (and for a bit afterwards, when the cameras were off): To Linus, it's not that CVS and SVN don't "work the way he wants them to", they're fundamentally flaw in their designs. He's all about the distributed model vs. the centralized repository. In fact, his tech talk was more about the design rationale behind git as it was git itself. He simply thinks that the repository model is the absolutely wrong way to go about SCM.
He liked bitkeeper, and that whole fiasco caused him to look for options. He found none, and decided to implement his own. While he was doing that, he thought he'd throw in a few new ideas that he liked.
So it's not just about them not working right, or nobody liking a certain feature. To him, there simply wasn't anything out there that met his needs, so he wrote something himself. Kinda like, well, Linux.
Anyway, even though I'll not likely ever use git, it was cool to see him. He's certainly got some opinions...
There are Ubuntu images, but there are some things that aren't supported. No build environment, that sort of thing. I don't think KDE is available yet, either. Life's far too short to deal with gnome.:-) I occasionally have to use IE, so probably what I'll wind up doing is installing linux on it and then use an XP VMware image or something.
Anyhow, I found it nice to have the choice (and have root on the box as well).
When I got hired, they said "What kind of desktop and laptop do you want?" I opted for a linux desktop and laptop, though the linux laptop image wasn't ready yet. So I got a Thinkpad with XP. I need to correct that, as it's been a couple years.
They ask this because they realize that people are more productive when they use an OS they are familiar with. Supporting linux isn't that hard, since the OS is everwhere at work (indeed, there are people on the payroll who get paid to hack the linux kernel). Supporting windows is easy as well. Give engineers the choice and you remove one more barrier to quick productivity.
Anyway, the last company I was with gave me a windows box. It wound up having linux on it within a couple weeks. IT carped about it, but I was doing server programming, so we called my workstation a "dev/test box" and it was fine as long as I maintained it and didn't need backups or whatever. Uh, no sweat: everything in $HOME was on a netapp, and apt kept me plenty well steeped in whatever software I needed.
Present your case, tell them what you think you need, as a professional, to do a better job. Or, say "fuck it" and leave a Knoppix CD in the drive of your Windows PC, work off that...
I was soured on the rest of it as well, so much so that I wrote them an email.
The author was (I think) trying to set up Google as young company, with Vint as a senior benefactor, juxtaposing his age with the myth of everyone here being 24 years old. Or something. But I can name 5 people here off the top of my head (myself included) whose experience predates the web, or who worked with/on/over ARPAnet in some way. If I stand up and look around, I'll spot no less than 8 people with grey hair. Not everyone is fresh out of college.
I was just very puzzled as to why they chose that sentence to start off the article. But the rest of the piece turned out to be mostly fluff, so I saw it for what it was in the end.
disclaimer: I'm a contractor - it's a whole other way of making a living.
4 jobs in 16 months? The only way I'd hire the OP is if he used the contractor angle. It's hugely expensive in terms of time and money to hire a new person, and the OP is pissing away previous employers' resources every time he moves so quickly. If I saw his resume and was in charge of screening, I'd probably ditch it. If I had a phone- or in-person interview, it would take a lot to wash the taste of his lack of loyalty away. If he said he was a contractor, then his CV would be better -- but still not 100% great, especially since he's only been working a little over a year.
It takes a little while to come up to speed and get integrated with the project/team. Four months is just on the inside of "starting to really get productive". Even a contractor needs a little time to get acclimated (though much depends on the project). I'd see his resume and wonder if either of us is wasting the other's time with an interview. Is he going to get bored in 4 months? Will he jump at some new offer and leave the rest of his team hanging? Can I put him on a team with long-term goals? Will he finish what he starts?
As far as advice for the OP: Spend some time in each job getting good at something, and then move on. You're so young (career-wise) that you need to develop both skills and working contacts. You want to have phone numbers for a bunch of people who will think "Yeah, I remember so-and-so... He was a good coder, and I liked working with him" when you call them a couple years from now. As it stands, you're simply "that guy who worked here once and then bailed out on everyone".
No, the whitespace enforces legibility when you have a team of 20 people working on the same code. It makes reviews and maintainence go smoothly. The code looks the same. You might have a theoretical issue with it, but in practise it works well and gets working code out the door quickly, which is all that counts, period.
The problem I have with python (other than the lack of autovivication and CPAN) is that the whitespace can almost be thought of as non-portable metadata. The minute someone tries to paste a python code snippet into an online form, into an email, in a jabber session, etc. you start having problems. Have you ever had to unravel a few hundred lines of twice-quoted, emailed python? It can be a royal pain. Even if you have 20 people working out of the same SCC repository, you have to hope/require that they all use the same editor (or same editor settings). I've seen changes in wordwrapping and confusion over spaces/tabs cause problems.
Because there's nothing which lets you know where the logical blocks should be once the indenting has been fubar'ed, you have to enforce constraints on both use and handling. IMHO, those same use constraints applied to perl gives you a lot in terms of readability, and there are no real handling issues to deal with.
Having said that, I like python a lot. It's easy to learn, fun to program in, and the core gives you a lot of tools. Stuff like slicing strings like arrays is terribly handy as well. And the OO part is very clean and powerful and a joy to use compared to perl's (which I never really liked very much). Anyway, YMMW.
Disclaimer: I first started writing perl back in 1994, as my 3rd language (though it was the first I got paid to write). I write almost exclusively in python now.
Was exactly what I was going to say. I've used XML::Simple a lot, but only for reading in small documents, like config files. It works well for that. But I'd never use it on something that was bigger than, say, 100K. It's too slow and resource intensive. It does, however live up to its name. It's a very simple interface to an XML doc.
One thing I user it for was representing a database in XML. Once I had the DB layout in a datastructure, it was one line to print it out. Of course, this was before I knew about DBIx::XML_RDB...
They put these little pages (which are easily readable in like 60 seconds) above the urinals. It gives you something to glance at while taking a leak, much like those advertisement posters or newpaper holders you see above urinals in bars and restaurants.
I'm not sure why everyone is getting so worked up about it. I think it's a clever idea, and I look forward to new issues. Besides, I almost always learn something!
The troubling part is that they're using a program which is inherently unmaintainable. Without the source, or a vendor, they can't really rely on anything. They can't fix bugs, get improvements, etc. I realize that the cop wants to become a vendor, but that's not quite the same thing. What if it's found that his program issues tickets to the wrong person in some cases? Who's liable? Sounds like he wants to be. Is he bonded or insured?
The police force should have never accepted the program without accompanying source code, or (worst case) some sort of license.
Google gives engineers amenities like laundry and dental and meals primarily because it frees the engineer from having to worry about dry cleaning or letting the dog out. Instead of "Gosh, I have to run this errand and that errand today", they can occupy themselves with doing cool stuff. We don't have to worry about getting to the barber on time, because they're right downstairs. I need something dry cleaned, I drop it off, and then it gets delivered to my cube. I don't have to think about any of that nonsense, and so can do more with my time.
As far as working hours, I put in 40-50 hours per week, and that is as much as I'm expected to do. I've worked longer than that on occasion, but it was special circumstances. Sometimes I get in the groove and stay until 9pm or whatever, but that's my choice. I *want* to do that. And you know what? I don't have to worry about missing dinnner. I have no problem putting in whatever time is needed to get my job done -- and that's all you have to do. Nobody expects you to work yourself to the point of burnout.
I also have no trouble walking the dog. I live 5 miles from work, and there's a park right behind me. My neighborhood is probably 85% families, and there is a near-constant flow of pedestrians. The wife and I are walking distance to a grocery store, a nice pub, some restaurants, etc. It's a little sleepy for some types, but it suits us more than living in the big city. There are four gas stations within 2 miles of my house. Housing prices are not all that much more than they were in San Diego. Sure, it's way more than like in Nebraska or someplace, but then again so are the wages. There are also a lot more job prospects out here if I ever decide to move on and find something new.
Have you been to silicon valley? Do you know anyone who works at Google? Because it sure sounds like you really have no idea what you're talking about.
And if the law is changed (again) and this is made illegal (again?), how will we know the scores aren't being used for some other purpose? How will we know the databases have been purged? Says the gov't: "Ok, ok... our bad. We won't do it anymore, honest!" How exactly will we know they've stopped? All manner of rights can be swept under the table when it's "potential terrorists" who are involved. And what politician will vote against something that is ostensibly in place to prevent harm to the citizens of the US? One small bomb goes off and it's political murder for everyone in the "Nay" column on that vote.
I think some sort of new check and balance needs to be put in place against the executive branch. We're supposed to have the Congress and the Supreme Court to protect us from potential abuses, but they haven't obviously served us very well in the past 6 years...
What we need, I'm not sure. But we need something.
On the lower right hand side of that page is a link titled Sign up for Gmail. I'd bet -- and this is just a wild guess -- that you'd use that to subscribe to the service. Though I could be wrong. All manner of danger and obfuscation could live behind that link -- you probably won't even find a real official service or anything! But I wouldn't click it if I were you. I, too, share your fear and hatred of "some piece of beta software", no matter how well it works.
I said the same thing to Laurence when the topic came up. He made a face and told me that he didn't prefer UW's acronym, since the name doesn't really need one.
When it was first developed, it was simply called "pine", kind of as an homage to elm. Laurence had several backronyms floating around in his head, because people kept asking what "pine" stood for. So he usually told them the one he preferred, which was the one about how the word pine was a neologism. He did just make the word up, after all, and I think he liked the connotation with slightly deranged people.
Years later, UW came up with the news and email thing as the "official" acronym. But it's not what it realy stood for originally when the program was first developed.
As Pine is not free software, time to move on to mutt or its next-gen friend, mutt-ng. No need to use a bloated GUI app to read mail.
I don't care if pine is free or not. It's served me for many, many years. I use it daily, and it works well. It's not a gui app, either, though I'm not sure you were implying that it was.
As for what "pine" means, here is the truth: "Pine Is Not Enough".
That is false, and not terribly amusing. I had the great fortune to work for a number of years with one of pine's original developers. Over lunch one day, he told me that 'pine' isn't an acronym at all. But, he said, if it were to be made into a backronym, it was generally agreed that it should stand for "Pine Is a Neologist's Elm".
You all can figure out what 'pico' doesn't stand for.
The giant living room in SiN was probably the best MP map I've ever seen. All of them in that game were pretty good, in fact. Rocket jumping on a giant couch was a unique experience, however.
Re:Dunno about MS, but that's not true about Googl
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Microsoft or Google?
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So between your semi-lucid rant about me only having 3 weeks vacation a year and pasting in Scott Adams' financial advice, I'm not sure you really read everything that was said previously.
And anyway, how do you think I'll get all that financial security Adams was talking about if I just suddenly up and decide to "live life to the fullest"? I get 3 weeks a year. MS give about the same I think. I used part of my time to go on a specific tour to certain places in Europe. It was well-planned and I liked that.
Wait... what the hell was your point again?
-B
Re:Dunno about MS, but that's not true about Googl
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Microsoft or Google?
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· Score: 2, Informative
That sounds a bit ominous to me. I've worked at a company with a similar policy before, and what translated into was, "the project is due in 2 weeks, we don't care how much you work as long as it's done by then". This, inevitably, translates into, "I have to work 24/7 or I fail".
I haven't seen any of that here, to be honest. I've been on the working end of such dictates before, and I'm pretty sensitive to such things nowadays. For sure the folks here are pretty well motivated and dedicated, but there's also a level of autonomy (at the individual engineer level) which would probably cause to the engineer being worked to death to call shenanigans. It would probably boil down to the engineer saying something like "That's not a reasonable request which doesn't fit into the task list you and I ahve already worked out and agreed on, so please refigure your dates and get back to me".
But the thing you need to realize is that more likely than not, the person saying "this is due in two weeks" has not only decided on that date after talking with all his coders, but he's also probably spending half his day coding as well.
I guess what I'm saying is that the process by which statements like "this is due in two weeks" are generated doesn't really exist here. There are deadlines and such, but they are derived less obtusely than that. Things tend to go from the individual coder on up.
I understand that at Google the motivation to work comes from you, not from the management (at least, not directly), but if that still translates into the same work hours, then maybe life at MS is better.
I can't say how it compares to MS, never having worked there. But you can work a normal 40 hour week (using the free shuttles that take you all over the bay area are good for keeping you on track, as it "forces" you to leave at 5:40 or whatever) or as many hours as you want. Also, a lot of people work from home (one manager always seems to send mail shortly after 10pm; probably she's done with dinner, kids are in bed, she's checking up on work email for the morning).
But I can say that the "life" here is pretty good. I'm sure MS is very nice, but I couldn't imagine better perks, or a better company to work for. The level of caring for and understanding of the employees continues to be very refreshing.
Basically, how many engineers at Google really do keep regular hours all the time ? I'd like to know the answer, just to satisfy my curiosity.
I'd say not keeping regular hours is by far the exception rather than the rule. We have some guys on weird schedules who come in at noon and work until 11pm or whatever. The hours are intentionally very flexible so they can do that. However, the parking lot starts emptying at about the usual time, and fills up in the morning like you'd expect at any other company. The notion of several thousand people putting in 18 hour days, day and day out, is a complete myth. Some people put in long hours, but it's neither required nor expected.
Though like I said earlier, if you come in on a weekend, you will see people coding. But they're also probably just getting some work done until their laundry is finished.:-)
-B
Re:Dunno about MS, but that's not true about Googl
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Microsoft or Google?
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· Score: 2, Informative
It doesn't matter how much you make right now, I guarantee that I make the same as or more than you.
That's fine. Corporate salaries aren't a zero-sum game. And I'm happy you have a job you like that pays well. But I don't really do what I do for the money. As long as my family's needs are met (with a little extra for toys and savings), then I'm happy. I do my job because I find the work interesting and rewarding, and I find working with smart people to be enjoyable. Hence, I like where I work.
there is *always* work that "needs to be done". If that is going to be your excuse, why do you ever go home? When you are done with one project isn't there *always* something else you *could* be working on? "needs to be done" is a BAD excuse, because it does NOT *need* to be done. Unless you will actually save lives by working those extra four hours, then that work can, in fact, wait for tomorrow.
Oh, be serious. You're grossly overstating my point and undersimplifying the issue. While it's true that the bulk of my work load (and therefore my hours) is self-determined, the reality is that I also have coworkers. I work with them on one or more teams, and together we accomplish smaller tasks which contibute to the success of the overall project. And it's also true that sometimes dates are set which have to be met. I do what needs to be done in order to succeed. If I have to work over a weekend once in a while, put in a few long nights, then I do.
What I meant originally was that my managers don't pile on extra work or set unreasonable deadlines and expect 80 hour weeks. That isn't to say that I haven't worked an 80 hour week or two recently, because I have. I did so by choice, because I didn't want to risk letting my team down (and I was trying some new things). But that's the exception to the rule, by far. Normally, I'd say I put in between 40-50 hours. Sometimes I get an itch that needs scratching adn wind up doing some work from home at night or whatever. But I do that because I like what I do, not because I'm a wage slave struggling under the bootheel of The Man.
If you are one of those people who "lives to work", has no ambitions of settling down or starting a family, isn't risk-averse, and likes Arnold Schwarzenegger and the laid-back stoner-headed culture of California, then pick Google.
I most certainly work to live, already have a family, not fond of risk at this stage in life, don't care for Arnie, and don't smoke pot. I also work for Google. I like doing cool work at a fast-paced, innovative company (which also happens to have plenty of revenue, profit and stability). I like having lattitude in picking the work I get to do and when/where I get to do it. I like the flat mgmt structure, and the fact that my opnions/thoughts get heard by those in charge. The perks are also very nice, as is the weather and the bay area in general.
Could your opinion/advice be any more non-objective? If you have no idea what it's like there, don't bother offering your bias as fact.
-B
Dunno about MS, but that's not true about Google
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Microsoft or Google?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If you work at Google, then work will be your life. At Google you'll end up being at work all the time, but you'll enjoy it, and you get really good free food.
You can most definitely have a life outside work at Google. Yes, work can be demanding -- but that's what makes it fun (especially if you like to be challenged). But "work will be your life"? Not by a long shot. That's a complete myth.
Yeah, you definitely see people in the office late at night and on weekends. I've put in my fair share of long weeks, worked a couple weekends straight, etc. But that was because the work needed to be done, not because someone was behind me cracking the whip, or it would look bad if I wasn't there or whatever.
If you need to put in some extra time, then you can. If you want to work a normal week, then you can. It's all results-based, not time based. A lot of the younger folks, or those new to the area, tend to work longer hours. But us oldish guys with families and stuff? We work as much as we need to.
It was worse at my last job, a place that is known for being very laid-back. When I left after four years, I found I had only taken like 9 days vacation. I used to keep a cot and sleeping bag in my office. Not anymore. Last month, I took 17 days off to travel to various countries in Europe. I'm working all next week at a remote engineering office, just because I can (and I want to see my sister). They really encourage you to take your vacation time. I've traveled more in the past two years then the ten previous.
I have no idea what the work is like at MS, but at Google, engineers are expected to be able to budget their own time, and set their own goals. Yeah, your manager will go over your goals with you, and if you've bitten off too much you guys will probably talk about it, but they'll let you reach if you want to. They also let you set realistic expectations for yourself, sort of a "I know I can get all X done, but I'm also going to try and get Y and maybe Z finished, too" kind of thing. But the hours you put in come from those goals you've set. Things can come up that mean you have to put in extra time or whatever, but there's absolutely no slave driving there. You basically set your own hours since you're the one that has to get the work done.
As far as the perks and food and such, well, I've been there a while now, and I'm continuously amazed at how well they treat their engineers (and other employees). They just opened a juice and smoothy bar for crying out loud. Last Wednesday, we had a Hawaiian Luau for lunch, complete with a roasted pig in the ground and everything.
Actually, the thing that appeals to me most is that the structure there is flat enough that if you have a cool idea, it can bubble up to the senior mgmt level very quickly. You can also check out everyone else's work, and if you see something you like, you can contribute. I was searching for a library the other day and got off on a rabbit trail that had me a couple hours later checking in a few hundred line changelist to this guy's part-time project. I may end up helping on a more formal basis. Did I get in trouble for goofing off? Far from it. Pitching in like that is rewarded (and rewarding). I'll work a few extra hours for that kind of satisfaction.
...would I give AOL my credit card information. I don't want to be marketed at, and I believe that having my private info stolen/sold/released/shared would be a near certainty should AOL have access to any of it. I mean, that's even if I did want DRM-hobbled music for a "compatible player" I don't (and likely never will) own.
I think I'll stream from home, thanks. Because when I get back home from work I won't have to worry about whether or not music I own can play on my audiotron, any of my linux boxes, my ipod, etc. And, as an added bonus, not only will my credit card info will remain (at least a little) more secure, I will also have less junk mail piled up on my doorstep when I get there.
Nice try, but unless it's offering plain old MP3s that I can play when, where and how I want, the service is completely useless to me.
But whenever our perl guy writes something it looks more like
($l=join("",))=~s/.*\n/index($`,$&)>=$[||print$&/g e;
and if he has to touch it again a month later it's a dangerous thing.
Fire your perl guy -- he's clearly a menace. And after you fire him, tell him to stop reading perlmonks.org. After a while, he'll start doing things like using foreach() instead of map() when it makes the script clearer. And as an added bonus, he won't waste time trying to find the bug he caused from overwriting $_ with a regex or whatever.
There's no reason not to write maintainable code, perl included. That you get the choice with perl is a design goal of the language, and it's a good thing in general. But why neophytes always try to put the newest, cleverest toy they discovered into every script they write is beyond me...
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He went into this at the talk (and for a bit afterwards, when the cameras were off): To Linus, it's not that CVS and SVN don't "work the way he wants them to", they're fundamentally flaw in their designs. He's all about the distributed model vs. the centralized repository. In fact, his tech talk was more about the design rationale behind git as it was git itself. He simply thinks that the repository model is the absolutely wrong way to go about SCM.
He liked bitkeeper, and that whole fiasco caused him to look for options. He found none, and decided to implement his own. While he was doing that, he thought he'd throw in a few new ideas that he liked.
So it's not just about them not working right, or nobody liking a certain feature. To him, there simply wasn't anything out there that met his needs, so he wrote something himself. Kinda like, well, Linux.
Anyway, even though I'll not likely ever use git, it was cool to see him. He's certainly got some opinions...
-B
Anyhow, I found it nice to have the choice (and have root on the box as well).
-B
They ask this because they realize that people are more productive when they use an OS they are familiar with. Supporting linux isn't that hard, since the OS is everwhere at work (indeed, there are people on the payroll who get paid to hack the linux kernel). Supporting windows is easy as well. Give engineers the choice and you remove one more barrier to quick productivity.
Anyway, the last company I was with gave me a windows box. It wound up having linux on it within a couple weeks. IT carped about it, but I was doing server programming, so we called my workstation a "dev/test box" and it was fine as long as I maintained it and didn't need backups or whatever. Uh, no sweat: everything in $HOME was on a netapp, and apt kept me plenty well steeped in whatever software I needed.
Present your case, tell them what you think you need, as a professional, to do a better job. Or, say "fuck it" and leave a Knoppix CD in the drive of your Windows PC, work off that...
-B
The author was (I think) trying to set up Google as young company, with Vint as a senior benefactor, juxtaposing his age with the myth of everyone here being 24 years old. Or something. But I can name 5 people here off the top of my head (myself included) whose experience predates the web, or who worked with/on/over ARPAnet in some way. If I stand up and look around, I'll spot no less than 8 people with grey hair. Not everyone is fresh out of college.
I was just very puzzled as to why they chose that sentence to start off the article. But the rest of the piece turned out to be mostly fluff, so I saw it for what it was in the end.
-B
4 jobs in 16 months? The only way I'd hire the OP is if he used the contractor angle. It's hugely expensive in terms of time and money to hire a new person, and the OP is pissing away previous employers' resources every time he moves so quickly. If I saw his resume and was in charge of screening, I'd probably ditch it. If I had a phone- or in-person interview, it would take a lot to wash the taste of his lack of loyalty away. If he said he was a contractor, then his CV would be better -- but still not 100% great, especially since he's only been working a little over a year.
It takes a little while to come up to speed and get integrated with the project/team. Four months is just on the inside of "starting to really get productive". Even a contractor needs a little time to get acclimated (though much depends on the project). I'd see his resume and wonder if either of us is wasting the other's time with an interview. Is he going to get bored in 4 months? Will he jump at some new offer and leave the rest of his team hanging? Can I put him on a team with long-term goals? Will he finish what he starts?
As far as advice for the OP: Spend some time in each job getting good at something, and then move on. You're so young (career-wise) that you need to develop both skills and working contacts. You want to have phone numbers for a bunch of people who will think "Yeah, I remember so-and-so... He was a good coder, and I liked working with him" when you call them a couple years from now. As it stands, you're simply "that guy who worked here once and then bailed out on everyone".
-B
The problem I have with python (other than the lack of autovivication and CPAN) is that the whitespace can almost be thought of as non-portable metadata. The minute someone tries to paste a python code snippet into an online form, into an email, in a jabber session, etc. you start having problems. Have you ever had to unravel a few hundred lines of twice-quoted, emailed python? It can be a royal pain. Even if you have 20 people working out of the same SCC repository, you have to hope/require that they all use the same editor (or same editor settings). I've seen changes in wordwrapping and confusion over spaces/tabs cause problems.
Because there's nothing which lets you know where the logical blocks should be once the indenting has been fubar'ed, you have to enforce constraints on both use and handling. IMHO, those same use constraints applied to perl gives you a lot in terms of readability, and there are no real handling issues to deal with.
Having said that, I like python a lot. It's easy to learn, fun to program in, and the core gives you a lot of tools. Stuff like slicing strings like arrays is terribly handy as well. And the OO part is very clean and powerful and a joy to use compared to perl's (which I never really liked very much). Anyway, YMMW.
Disclaimer: I first started writing perl back in 1994, as my 3rd language (though it was the first I got paid to write). I write almost exclusively in python now.
-B
One thing I user it for was representing a database in XML. Once I had the DB layout in a datastructure, it was one line to print it out. Of course, this was before I knew about DBIx::XML_RDB...
-B
I'm not sure why everyone is getting so worked up about it. I think it's a clever idea, and I look forward to new issues. Besides, I almost always learn something!
-B
-B
The police force should have never accepted the program without accompanying source code, or (worst case) some sort of license.
-B
As far as working hours, I put in 40-50 hours per week, and that is as much as I'm expected to do. I've worked longer than that on occasion, but it was special circumstances. Sometimes I get in the groove and stay until 9pm or whatever, but that's my choice. I *want* to do that. And you know what? I don't have to worry about missing dinnner. I have no problem putting in whatever time is needed to get my job done -- and that's all you have to do. Nobody expects you to work yourself to the point of burnout.
I also have no trouble walking the dog. I live 5 miles from work, and there's a park right behind me. My neighborhood is probably 85% families, and there is a near-constant flow of pedestrians. The wife and I are walking distance to a grocery store, a nice pub, some restaurants, etc. It's a little sleepy for some types, but it suits us more than living in the big city. There are four gas stations within 2 miles of my house. Housing prices are not all that much more than they were in San Diego. Sure, it's way more than like in Nebraska or someplace, but then again so are the wages. There are also a lot more job prospects out here if I ever decide to move on and find something new.
Have you been to silicon valley? Do you know anyone who works at Google? Because it sure sounds like you really have no idea what you're talking about.
-B
I kid because I love. :-)
-B
I think some sort of new check and balance needs to be put in place against the executive branch. We're supposed to have the Congress and the Supreme Court to protect us from potential abuses, but they haven't obviously served us very well in the past 6 years...
What we need, I'm not sure. But we need something.
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When it was first developed, it was simply called "pine", kind of as an homage to elm. Laurence had several backronyms floating around in his head, because people kept asking what "pine" stood for. So he usually told them the one he preferred, which was the one about how the word pine was a neologism. He did just make the word up, after all, and I think he liked the connotation with slightly deranged people.
Years later, UW came up with the news and email thing as the "official" acronym. But it's not what it realy stood for originally when the program was first developed.
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I don't care if pine is free or not. It's served me for many, many years. I use it daily, and it works well. It's not a gui app, either, though I'm not sure you were implying that it was.
As for what "pine" means, here is the truth: "Pine Is Not Enough".
That is false, and not terribly amusing. I had the great fortune to work for a number of years with one of pine's original developers. Over lunch one day, he told me that 'pine' isn't an acronym at all. But, he said, if it were to be made into a backronym, it was generally agreed that it should stand for "Pine Is a Neologist's Elm".
You all can figure out what 'pico' doesn't stand for.
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And anyway, how do you think I'll get all that financial security Adams was talking about if I just suddenly up and decide to "live life to the fullest"? I get 3 weeks a year. MS give about the same I think. I used part of my time to go on a specific tour to certain places in Europe. It was well-planned and I liked that.
Wait... what the hell was your point again?
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I haven't seen any of that here, to be honest. I've been on the working end of such dictates before, and I'm pretty sensitive to such things nowadays. For sure the folks here are pretty well motivated and dedicated, but there's also a level of autonomy (at the individual engineer level) which would probably cause to the engineer being worked to death to call shenanigans. It would probably boil down to the engineer saying something like "That's not a reasonable request which doesn't fit into the task list you and I ahve already worked out and agreed on, so please refigure your dates and get back to me".
But the thing you need to realize is that more likely than not, the person saying "this is due in two weeks" has not only decided on that date after talking with all his coders, but he's also probably spending half his day coding as well.
I guess what I'm saying is that the process by which statements like "this is due in two weeks" are generated doesn't really exist here. There are deadlines and such, but they are derived less obtusely than that. Things tend to go from the individual coder on up.
I understand that at Google the motivation to work comes from you, not from the management (at least, not directly), but if that still translates into the same work hours, then maybe life at MS is better.
I can't say how it compares to MS, never having worked there. But you can work a normal 40 hour week (using the free shuttles that take you all over the bay area are good for keeping you on track, as it "forces" you to leave at 5:40 or whatever) or as many hours as you want. Also, a lot of people work from home (one manager always seems to send mail shortly after 10pm; probably she's done with dinner, kids are in bed, she's checking up on work email for the morning).
But I can say that the "life" here is pretty good. I'm sure MS is very nice, but I couldn't imagine better perks, or a better company to work for. The level of caring for and understanding of the employees continues to be very refreshing.
Basically, how many engineers at Google really do keep regular hours all the time ? I'd like to know the answer, just to satisfy my curiosity.
I'd say not keeping regular hours is by far the exception rather than the rule. We have some guys on weird schedules who come in at noon and work until 11pm or whatever. The hours are intentionally very flexible so they can do that. However, the parking lot starts emptying at about the usual time, and fills up in the morning like you'd expect at any other company. The notion of several thousand people putting in 18 hour days, day and day out, is a complete myth. Some people put in long hours, but it's neither required nor expected.
Though like I said earlier, if you come in on a weekend, you will see people coding. But they're also probably just getting some work done until their laundry is finished. :-)
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That's fine. Corporate salaries aren't a zero-sum game. And I'm happy you have a job you like that pays well. But I don't really do what I do for the money. As long as my family's needs are met (with a little extra for toys and savings), then I'm happy. I do my job because I find the work interesting and rewarding, and I find working with smart people to be enjoyable. Hence, I like where I work.
there is *always* work that "needs to be done". If that is going to be your excuse, why do you ever go home? When you are done with one project isn't there *always* something else you *could* be working on? "needs to be done" is a BAD excuse, because it does NOT *need* to be done. Unless you will actually save lives by working those extra four hours, then that work can, in fact, wait for tomorrow.
Oh, be serious. You're grossly overstating my point and undersimplifying the issue. While it's true that the bulk of my work load (and therefore my hours) is self-determined, the reality is that I also have coworkers. I work with them on one or more teams, and together we accomplish smaller tasks which contibute to the success of the overall project. And it's also true that sometimes dates are set which have to be met. I do what needs to be done in order to succeed. If I have to work over a weekend once in a while, put in a few long nights, then I do.
What I meant originally was that my managers don't pile on extra work or set unreasonable deadlines and expect 80 hour weeks. That isn't to say that I haven't worked an 80 hour week or two recently, because I have. I did so by choice, because I didn't want to risk letting my team down (and I was trying some new things). But that's the exception to the rule, by far. Normally, I'd say I put in between 40-50 hours. Sometimes I get an itch that needs scratching adn wind up doing some work from home at night or whatever. But I do that because I like what I do, not because I'm a wage slave struggling under the bootheel of The Man.
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I most certainly work to live, already have a family, not fond of risk at this stage in life, don't care for Arnie, and don't smoke pot. I also work for Google. I like doing cool work at a fast-paced, innovative company (which also happens to have plenty of revenue, profit and stability). I like having lattitude in picking the work I get to do and when/where I get to do it. I like the flat mgmt structure, and the fact that my opnions/thoughts get heard by those in charge. The perks are also very nice, as is the weather and the bay area in general.
Could your opinion/advice be any more non-objective? If you have no idea what it's like there, don't bother offering your bias as fact.
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You can most definitely have a life outside work at Google. Yes, work can be demanding -- but that's what makes it fun (especially if you like to be challenged). But "work will be your life"? Not by a long shot. That's a complete myth.
Yeah, you definitely see people in the office late at night and on weekends. I've put in my fair share of long weeks, worked a couple weekends straight, etc. But that was because the work needed to be done, not because someone was behind me cracking the whip, or it would look bad if I wasn't there or whatever.
If you need to put in some extra time, then you can. If you want to work a normal week, then you can. It's all results-based, not time based. A lot of the younger folks, or those new to the area, tend to work longer hours. But us oldish guys with families and stuff? We work as much as we need to.
It was worse at my last job, a place that is known for being very laid-back. When I left after four years, I found I had only taken like 9 days vacation. I used to keep a cot and sleeping bag in my office. Not anymore. Last month, I took 17 days off to travel to various countries in Europe. I'm working all next week at a remote engineering office, just because I can (and I want to see my sister). They really encourage you to take your vacation time. I've traveled more in the past two years then the ten previous.
I have no idea what the work is like at MS, but at Google, engineers are expected to be able to budget their own time, and set their own goals. Yeah, your manager will go over your goals with you, and if you've bitten off too much you guys will probably talk about it, but they'll let you reach if you want to. They also let you set realistic expectations for yourself, sort of a "I know I can get all X done, but I'm also going to try and get Y and maybe Z finished, too" kind of thing. But the hours you put in come from those goals you've set. Things can come up that mean you have to put in extra time or whatever, but there's absolutely no slave driving there. You basically set your own hours since you're the one that has to get the work done.
As far as the perks and food and such, well, I've been there a while now, and I'm continuously amazed at how well they treat their engineers (and other employees). They just opened a juice and smoothy bar for crying out loud. Last Wednesday, we had a Hawaiian Luau for lunch, complete with a roasted pig in the ground and everything.
Actually, the thing that appeals to me most is that the structure there is flat enough that if you have a cool idea, it can bubble up to the senior mgmt level very quickly. You can also check out everyone else's work, and if you see something you like, you can contribute. I was searching for a library the other day and got off on a rabbit trail that had me a couple hours later checking in a few hundred line changelist to this guy's part-time project. I may end up helping on a more formal basis. Did I get in trouble for goofing off? Far from it. Pitching in like that is rewarded (and rewarding). I'll work a few extra hours for that kind of satisfaction.
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I think I'll stream from home, thanks. Because when I get back home from work I won't have to worry about whether or not music I own can play on my audiotron, any of my linux boxes, my ipod, etc. And, as an added bonus, not only will my credit card info will remain (at least a little) more secure, I will also have less junk mail piled up on my doorstep when I get there.
Nice try, but unless it's offering plain old MP3s that I can play when, where and how I want, the service is completely useless to me.
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Fire your perl guy -- he's clearly a menace. And after you fire him, tell him to stop reading perlmonks.org. After a while, he'll start doing things like using foreach() instead of map() when it makes the script clearer. And as an added bonus, he won't waste time trying to find the bug he caused from overwriting $_ with a regex or whatever.
There's no reason not to write maintainable code, perl included. That you get the choice with perl is a design goal of the language, and it's a good thing in general. But why neophytes always try to put the newest, cleverest toy they discovered into every script they write is beyond me...
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