AnandTech is talking like they've had access to both consoles and have tested extensively when it's all hearsay. You don't say things like "Although both manufacturers royally screwed up their CPUs..." on hearsay. It is extremely unlikely that MS and Sony would both be stupid enough to "royally screw up" on something so important to them. They also imply that IBM is stupid (or evil?) for selling MS and Sony on their inferior product. I find it extremely unlikely that one person over at Anandtech is smarter than Sony, MS, and IBM.
Also, as the article stated, the platforms were designed for extensively multi-threaded games, but no one is writing games that way. So... why are they surprised that it's (supposedly) slow? If I put the bread on top of the toaster it takes a lot longer than if I put it in the slots. That doesn't make my toaster slow, though, it makes me an idiot.
The Thinkpad's that do this are advertised as "WiFi Upgradeable" or something like that. They're not advertised as having an extra mini-PCI slot. You can go to the IBM website and order a compliant "upgrade", but if you try to stick any old mini-PCI card in the machine it might not boot. Yes, it's a pain in the rear (I speak from personal experience), but IBM Thinkpads have a good reputation and one of the ways of keeping that intact is to ensure that the hardware that goes inside is also of high quality.
It seems to me that the problem isn't with XML, it's with what people are using it for. I read some complaints here from people saying "I tried to use XML for BLAH and it was too slow." However, if they'd thought about it, BLAH would have been better served by some binary format in the first place. The article also discusses the fact that mobile devices need something less cumbersome for transferring pictures/media. Why are they using XML for that at all? One of the benefits of XML is that it's human readable, but in those applications you don't need that benefit, so don't use XML. Instead of coming up with a binary XML standard, come up with a generic binary standard that does exactly what you want. Too many people have been given the hammer of XML and now everything looks like a nail.
I've been involved with projects that used ClearCase and it worked fine. It takes more effort to set up and maintain than some other tools, but it's also very powerful.
Also, ClearCase LT != Rational. Just because you had a bad experience with one of their tools doesn't mean they all suck. I've used RAD (Rational Application Developer, based on Eclipse3) and it's a really nice IDE. In my opinion it's the Visual Studio of the Java/J2EE world, and maybe better. Some of Rational's products are more polished and user friendly than others.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Oracle had little interest in PeopleSoft's products and more interest in removing a competitor. PeopleSoft and IBM are tight (PeopleSoft's products can be deployed on WebSphere, I believe) and purchasing PeopleSoft (and stopping development on their products) would not only remove a competitor, it would also be detrimental to IBM. That's why PeopleSoft created the poison pill, they feared that Oracle would buy them and then stop supporting their customers and instead foist their own solutions on them. If you've already got PeopleSoft + WebSphere, it's not so difficult to go with DB2 over Oracle, but if you have Oracle already, you'll buy their DB too.
I agree with the parent poster. I also think that there is another benefit to the non-graphical installer + good documentation: education. After installing Gentoo on my workstation using a stage 1 tarball I had a much better idea of what was going on in my system and how to configure/tweak various things. The documentation is very well written (not flawless mind you) and I would argue that your average linux user will be much more informed about how to work with his system after installing Gentoo. I've also used SLES and RHEL, and while the install was very straightforward, I had no idea how to configure the system other than to try and find an item in the menu tree that seemed relevant to what I wanted to do.
Re:Plenty of differences
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"Java the language is inextricably tied to the JVM - C# is just another option for developing for.NET."
Personally, I'd rather be tied to a JVM than an OS. There are JVMs for AIX, Linux, Windows, Mac, HP-UX, and others. Last I checked Windows was only available for IA32/64. Sure there's mono, but that's not yet a realistic option for enterprise development.
Yes, but fortunately (or unfortunately?) penises aren't growing at the rate that mailboxes are. Size is good up to a point, but a 1Tb penis would make it hard to walk. It would have to be on a dedicated server, so to speak.
I agree with your middle paragraph completely and in the light of day I do feel like I was a bit of a jerk last night, my apologies.
With regards to interview methods, I'm afraid I don't have any fantastic insight. Like you said, puzzles are one way to judge someones ability to think creatively, but I think a good interview would involve more than just puzzle solving. In addition I would probably ask a candidate to implement a basic data structure and optimize it for usage X. That would give me an idea of how well they can express in code what they learned in school, and optimizing it for a given usage would tell me if they can adapt what they know to new situations. Following this I might review their code with them to see if they can accept advice and are comfortable bouncing ideas around with others. I'm afraid I don't have any experience interviewing people, but the above approach is what I'd probably try if I had to.
If you have thoughts or comments, I'd be glad to hear them.
But having a PhD does give you a better chance of understanding and solving the problem
How does having a PhD give you a better chance of understanding and solving a problem? What is it about the process of getting your PhD that gives you this better chance? I would argue that there is a set of people who would be better at understanding and solving a problem and that some of them go on to get their PhDs, some of them don't. If someone has a PhD, they are probably more likely to be a member of this set, but nothing in the process of getting the PhD gave them this ability, it merely proved that they had it and could apply it to something no one else had yet (assuming you went to a good school and wrote a good thesis). Or perhaps that's what you were saying and I just misunderstood.
I should clarify. I have nothing against brain teasers and puzzles. After my on-site interviews I'd come back to campus and discuss the various questions with my roommates/enginerd friends. My favorite one is one from HP, though I'm sure it's not 'their' question:
You have eight balls that are the same in all regards with the exception of one, which is heavier. Given a balance, what is the fewest number of times you can use it to find the heaviest ball? You can place more than one ball on each side of the balance.
[The first answer is usually three, because the CS mind approaches it like a binary search, just halve the balls you weigh each time (4/side, 2/side, 1/side. But that's not the best answer.]
My rant, which was unfortunately not very succinct, was really against this mentality that seems to focus only on solving puzzles and fitting some idea of what the interviewer thinks is a geek/cool/techie/mensa personality ("This space is intentionally blank. Please fill it with something that improves upon emptiness.") It seems to me that the culture at Google (and Microsoft and Amazon to some extent) is a one dimensional elitism. I would much rather work at a company where the people are very smart, but they also work hard and aren't stuck on themselves (and I do work at such a place). As fzammett wrote in his response: "Theory has to meet experience and proven ability, it can't exist in a vacumn." And I agree with him completely. I'm sick of feeling like I have to prove my worth by (only) solving puzzles. I agree that they are a valid way to judge thought process and creative ability (which are valuable), but I think that they fall far short of completely evaluating a candidate. You did make the good point that this could just be one way Google filters their applicants, and since they get so many that's understandable.
Now to answer your rhetorical questions:
"Do you honestly think figuring out how to retrieve highly relevant web pages from the whole net based on one or two silly little keywords, in fractions of a second no less, is something you just sit down and program?"
No, of course not. I also don't think that proving you can rotate a dodecahedron in your head means you're any more likely to be able to do it than I am.
"Do you even think it's something you can beat the current top players at by simply engineering it with current methods?"
No, I'll have to engineer it better than others have by understanding and elmininating weakness and trying new approaches (in other words, research).
I apologize if I'm being argumentative, but I'm pissed because I've spent 80 hours this past week reimplementing a bunch of crappy code that others spent 12 months working on.
Honestly, I was happy when I got a job after college where I could do real work (design/architect & implement) and quit jumping through stupid hoops to prove how smart I was. I've answered my fair share of brain teasers, pattern recognition, cute/stupid questions. This is crap that pisses me off. I'm sure google wants smart people, but they're going to overlook all the people who just get shit done when it needs to be done (and do it well) because they're going for the people who are creative. I'll take someone slightly less smarter with a good work ethic who realizes that work is more than just answering stupid riddles.
And yes, I may be slightly jealous that I don't work at Google, but honestly this type of thing really turns me off. I guess I'm not what they're looking for then.
Re:he just has a jet engine laying around
on
Jet-Powered Wheelchair
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Mostly people who are really into flying remote controlled (RC) airplanes and have a lot of money. Check out this site: http://www.bairdtech.com/bmt/ for an example of what you can get.
This is probably a stupid question, but what are animated gifs used for besides online ads? It seems to me that the animated gif is now an endangered animal found only in annoying online ads, or annoying web-pages that were put together by someone with a rudimentary knowledge of HTML and a free CD of clip-art (or images that they stole from another unattractive site). I would not be sad to see animated gifs (or apngs) disappear entirely. If someone can post a good use of apgns/gifs for which a better solution does not exist, I will humbly retract my opinion and we can all consider this to be have been, indeed, a stupid question.
Heck, I could probably get some places to drop MS for Java on server side development based on that cost differential alone.
Having used Eclipse, MyEclipse, and VS, I agree with your views for the most part. However, with the recent release of the J2EE tools for Eclipse through the Web Tools Platform project I think that MyEclipse may take a hit. Go here to get started with the IBM contribution (basically the useful parts of WSAD) or here for the Lomboz contribution (not as good IMHO).
IBM recentlyannounced *nix servers based on Power5, which makes me wonder if some of the resource going towards G5s got diverted to P5s. They're certainly not the same chip, but the similar foundation probably means they're produced in the same plant.
I believe it's called Lotus Notes, but people don't seem to like it very much.
I may be wrong, but I think that Notes is just an interface to a DB that is hosted remotely. It's very powerful, but I think that the user interface hinders it some.
A fair number of people have pointed out that the article lacks any quotes from the scientists who have been there and investigated, choosing only to quote locals who believe the cause is supernatural.
Interestingly enough, this follows close on the heels of the Slashdot story reporting "Coffee is a 'Health Drink'" which was based off another Italian's... opinions? conjectures? Link.
So what is it with these Italians? They don't like to cite scientists in publications? I mean, not that I care; since I started drinking espresso regularly my attention span has shrunk to the point at which I can only concentrate on the headlines anyway.
With regard to ESR: I've seen him speak and I'm not nearly as impressed with ESR as ESR is impressed with ESR.
With regard to Open Source Java: IBM doesn't want to own Java. IBM DOES want to be able to compete with Microsoft, which it can't very well do while Sun effectively stifles things (via JCP and other ways). The answer to this is Open Source Java.
Currently, in order to evolve at a mariginally reasonable rate (in the J2EE space), competitors such as IBM and BEA have to get together outside of the JCP and come up with a standard they agree on. Once this is done they can introduce it through the JCP and try and get the others to support it. If Sun doesn't like it, they can use their controlling power to stop it or mire it indefinitely. Not effective. If this happens, the fact that the two largest J2EE vendors support the initiative makes it a pseudo-standard, which isn't as good as being a part of J2EE, but is better than not having feature X, Y, or Z that Microsoft has.
I have tried each and every release of Eclipse and found it to be an excellent IDE. Eclipse 2.0 was good, and it has only improved with version 3 Milestones 4, 5, and 6. Did you sample the new UI changes in M6? Some like it and some hate it. What's considered intuitive isn't necessarily something that can be objectively measured. The first time I tried out Eclipse I loved it. Sure, it has it's quirks (everything is a project of some sort...) but I think it's vastly superior to anything else I've tried. I switched over to Eclipse from Slickedit. I haven't had the opportunity to try out IntelliJ, although I have heard good things about it.
Now about SWT... can you honestly say it's worse than writing Visual C++ UI code? Other than the two drawbacks you mentioned (explicit object freeing, incosistent LAF) how is it worse than Swing? What about the benefits? SWT is much faster than a GUI written in all Swing because it's a wrapper for native widgets. But the SWT and Swing folks have never seen eye-to-eye and I don't expect you and I will either.
Quote: "Personally I don't think Sun or IBM are particularly good at writing software and should stick to their Hardware and Consulting (IBM) core competancies."
I resent that. All the people I work with are really freaking smart and darn good coders, too.
I interviewed with the NSA for a co-op when I was in college. It went great and I wanted to work for them, but I failed the polygraph. Not once, but twice. That would be fine if I was actually lying, but I told them all the bad things I had EVER done and I still couldn't pass. It said I was lying when I answered that I hadn't been involved in espionage, taken drugs, or committed major crimes. That was my first experience of what a confessional must be like. They called me back and offered to fly me out again to try and pass the polygraph, but I passed. That experience made me lose all confidence in the supposedly all-powerful polygraph test. It's a farce and it's about as effective as reading tea-leaves.
Slashdot Mirror
AnandTech is talking like they've had access to both consoles and have tested extensively when it's all hearsay. You don't say things like "Although both manufacturers royally screwed up their CPUs..." on hearsay. It is extremely unlikely that MS and Sony would both be stupid enough to "royally screw up" on something so important to them. They also imply that IBM is stupid (or evil?) for selling MS and Sony on their inferior product. I find it extremely unlikely that one person over at Anandtech is smarter than Sony, MS, and IBM.
Also, as the article stated, the platforms were designed for extensively multi-threaded games, but no one is writing games that way. So... why are they surprised that it's (supposedly) slow? If I put the bread on top of the toaster it takes a lot longer than if I put it in the slots. That doesn't make my toaster slow, though, it makes me an idiot.
The Thinkpad's that do this are advertised as "WiFi Upgradeable" or something like that. They're not advertised as having an extra mini-PCI slot. You can go to the IBM website and order a compliant "upgrade", but if you try to stick any old mini-PCI card in the machine it might not boot. Yes, it's a pain in the rear (I speak from personal experience), but IBM Thinkpads have a good reputation and one of the ways of keeping that intact is to ensure that the hardware that goes inside is also of high quality.
It seems to me that the problem isn't with XML, it's with what people are using it for. I read some complaints here from people saying "I tried to use XML for BLAH and it was too slow." However, if they'd thought about it, BLAH would have been better served by some binary format in the first place. The article also discusses the fact that mobile devices need something less cumbersome for transferring pictures/media. Why are they using XML for that at all? One of the benefits of XML is that it's human readable, but in those applications you don't need that benefit, so don't use XML. Instead of coming up with a binary XML standard, come up with a generic binary standard that does exactly what you want. Too many people have been given the hammer of XML and now everything looks like a nail.
I've been involved with projects that used ClearCase and it worked fine. It takes more effort to set up and maintain than some other tools, but it's also very powerful.
Also, ClearCase LT != Rational. Just because you had a bad experience with one of their tools doesn't mean they all suck. I've used RAD (Rational Application Developer, based on Eclipse3) and it's a really nice IDE. In my opinion it's the Visual Studio of the Java/J2EE world, and maybe better. Some of Rational's products are more polished and user friendly than others.
I believe, though I cannot prove it, that Duke Nukem will someday be released.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Oracle had little interest in PeopleSoft's products and more interest in removing a competitor. PeopleSoft and IBM are tight (PeopleSoft's products can be deployed on WebSphere, I believe) and purchasing PeopleSoft (and stopping development on their products) would not only remove a competitor, it would also be detrimental to IBM. That's why PeopleSoft created the poison pill, they feared that Oracle would buy them and then stop supporting their customers and instead foist their own solutions on them. If you've already got PeopleSoft + WebSphere, it's not so difficult to go with DB2 over Oracle, but if you have Oracle already, you'll buy their DB too.
I agree with the parent poster. I also think that there is another benefit to the non-graphical installer + good documentation: education. After installing Gentoo on my workstation using a stage 1 tarball I had a much better idea of what was going on in my system and how to configure/tweak various things. The documentation is very well written (not flawless mind you) and I would argue that your average linux user will be much more informed about how to work with his system after installing Gentoo. I've also used SLES and RHEL, and while the install was very straightforward, I had no idea how to configure the system other than to try and find an item in the menu tree that seemed relevant to what I wanted to do.
"Java the language is inextricably tied to the JVM - C# is just another option for developing for .NET."
Personally, I'd rather be tied to a JVM than an OS. There are JVMs for AIX, Linux, Windows, Mac, HP-UX, and others. Last I checked Windows was only available for IA32/64. Sure there's mono, but that's not yet a realistic option for enterprise development.
Yes, but fortunately (or unfortunately?) penises aren't growing at the rate that mailboxes are. Size is good up to a point, but a 1Tb penis would make it hard to walk. It would have to be on a dedicated server, so to speak.
I agree with your middle paragraph completely and in the light of day I do feel like I was a bit of a jerk last night, my apologies.
With regards to interview methods, I'm afraid I don't have any fantastic insight. Like you said, puzzles are one way to judge someones ability to think creatively, but I think a good interview would involve more than just puzzle solving. In addition I would probably ask a candidate to implement a basic data structure and optimize it for usage X. That would give me an idea of how well they can express in code what they learned in school, and optimizing it for a given usage would tell me if they can adapt what they know to new situations. Following this I might review their code with them to see if they can accept advice and are comfortable bouncing ideas around with others. I'm afraid I don't have any experience interviewing people, but the above approach is what I'd probably try if I had to.
If you have thoughts or comments, I'd be glad to hear them.
But having a PhD does give you a better chance of understanding and solving the problem
How does having a PhD give you a better chance of understanding and solving a problem? What is it about the process of getting your PhD that gives you this better chance? I would argue that there is a set of people who would be better at understanding and solving a problem and that some of them go on to get their PhDs, some of them don't. If someone has a PhD, they are probably more likely to be a member of this set, but nothing in the process of getting the PhD gave them this ability, it merely proved that they had it and could apply it to something no one else had yet (assuming you went to a good school and wrote a good thesis). Or perhaps that's what you were saying and I just misunderstood.
[The first answer is usually three, because the CS mind approaches it like a binary search, just halve the balls you weigh each time (4/side, 2/side, 1/side. But that's not the best answer.]
My rant, which was unfortunately not very succinct, was really against this mentality that seems to focus only on solving puzzles and fitting some idea of what the interviewer thinks is a geek/cool/techie/mensa personality ("This space is intentionally blank. Please fill it with something that improves upon emptiness.") It seems to me that the culture at Google (and Microsoft and Amazon to some extent) is a one dimensional elitism. I would much rather work at a company where the people are very smart, but they also work hard and aren't stuck on themselves (and I do work at such a place). As fzammett wrote in his response: "Theory has to meet experience and proven ability, it can't exist in a vacumn." And I agree with him completely. I'm sick of feeling like I have to prove my worth by (only) solving puzzles. I agree that they are a valid way to judge thought process and creative ability (which are valuable), but I think that they fall far short of completely evaluating a candidate. You did make the good point that this could just be one way Google filters their applicants, and since they get so many that's understandable.
Now to answer your rhetorical questions:
"Do you honestly think figuring out how to retrieve highly relevant web pages from the whole net based on one or two silly little keywords, in fractions of a second no less, is something you just sit down and program?"
No, of course not. I also don't think that proving you can rotate a dodecahedron in your head means you're any more likely to be able to do it than I am.
"Do you even think it's something you can beat the current top players at by simply engineering it with current methods?"
No, I'll have to engineer it better than others have by understanding and elmininating weakness and trying new approaches (in other words, research).
I apologize if I'm being argumentative, but I'm pissed because I've spent 80 hours this past week reimplementing a bunch of crappy code that others spent 12 months working on.
Honestly, I was happy when I got a job after college where I could do real work (design/architect & implement) and quit jumping through stupid hoops to prove how smart I was. I've answered my fair share of brain teasers, pattern recognition, cute/stupid questions. This is crap that pisses me off. I'm sure google wants smart people, but they're going to overlook all the people who just get shit done when it needs to be done (and do it well) because they're going for the people who are creative. I'll take someone slightly less smarter with a good work ethic who realizes that work is more than just answering stupid riddles.
And yes, I may be slightly jealous that I don't work at Google, but honestly this type of thing really turns me off. I guess I'm not what they're looking for then.
Mostly people who are really into flying remote controlled (RC) airplanes and have a lot of money. Check out this site: http://www.bairdtech.com/bmt/ for an example of what you can get.
This is probably a stupid question, but what are animated gifs used for besides online ads? It seems to me that the animated gif is now an endangered animal found only in annoying online ads, or annoying web-pages that were put together by someone with a rudimentary knowledge of HTML and a free CD of clip-art (or images that they stole from another unattractive site). I would not be sad to see animated gifs (or apngs) disappear entirely. If someone can post a good use of apgns/gifs for which a better solution does not exist, I will humbly retract my opinion and we can all consider this to be have been, indeed, a stupid question.
...that you can't go negative, so don't worry about it.
IBM recently announced *nix servers based on Power5, which makes me wonder if some of the resource going towards G5s got diverted to P5s. They're certainly not the same chip, but the similar foundation probably means they're produced in the same plant.
I believe it's called Lotus Notes, but people don't seem to like it very much.
I may be wrong, but I think that Notes is just an interface to a DB that is hosted remotely. It's very powerful, but I think that the user interface hinders it some.
A medium with the longevity of paper and the price of computer hardware. I bet they tought long and hard on how to get the best of both worlds.
A fair number of people have pointed out that the article lacks any quotes from the scientists who have been there and investigated, choosing only to quote locals who believe the cause is supernatural.
.
Interestingly enough, this follows close on the heels of the Slashdot story reporting "Coffee is a 'Health Drink'" which was based off another Italian's... opinions? conjectures? Link
So what is it with these Italians? They don't like to cite scientists in publications? I mean, not that I care; since I started drinking espresso regularly my attention span has shrunk to the point at which I can only concentrate on the headlines anyway.
Ah, I'm not really serious, so don't be offended.
With regard to ESR: I've seen him speak and I'm not nearly as impressed with ESR as ESR is impressed with ESR.
With regard to Open Source Java: IBM doesn't want to own Java. IBM DOES want to be able to compete with Microsoft, which it can't very well do while Sun effectively stifles things (via JCP and other ways). The answer to this is Open Source Java.
Currently, in order to evolve at a mariginally reasonable rate (in the J2EE space), competitors such as IBM and BEA have to get together outside of the JCP and come up with a standard they agree on. Once this is done they can introduce it through the JCP and try and get the others to support it. If Sun doesn't like it, they can use their controlling power to stop it or mire it indefinitely. Not effective. If this happens, the fact that the two largest J2EE vendors support the initiative makes it a pseudo-standard, which isn't as good as being a part of J2EE, but is better than not having feature X, Y, or Z that Microsoft has.
I have tried each and every release of Eclipse and found it to be an excellent IDE. Eclipse 2.0 was good, and it has only improved with version 3 Milestones 4, 5, and 6. Did you sample the new UI changes in M6? Some like it and some hate it. What's considered intuitive isn't necessarily something that can be objectively measured. The first time I tried out Eclipse I loved it. Sure, it has it's quirks (everything is a project of some sort...) but I think it's vastly superior to anything else I've tried. I switched over to Eclipse from Slickedit. I haven't had the opportunity to try out IntelliJ, although I have heard good things about it.
Now about SWT... can you honestly say it's worse than writing Visual C++ UI code? Other than the two drawbacks you mentioned (explicit object freeing, incosistent LAF) how is it worse than Swing? What about the benefits? SWT is much faster than a GUI written in all Swing because it's a wrapper for native widgets. But the SWT and Swing folks have never seen eye-to-eye and I don't expect you and I will either.
Quote: "Personally I don't think Sun or IBM are particularly good at writing software and should stick to their Hardware and Consulting (IBM) core competancies."
I resent that. All the people I work with are really freaking smart and darn good coders, too.
>They called me back and offered to fly me out again to try and pass the polygraph, but I passed.
Sorry, not clear: I passed up the opportunity to fly out there.
I interviewed with the NSA for a co-op when I was in college. It went great and I wanted to work for them, but I failed the polygraph. Not once, but twice. That would be fine if I was actually lying, but I told them all the bad things I had EVER done and I still couldn't pass. It said I was lying when I answered that I hadn't been involved in espionage, taken drugs, or committed major crimes. That was my first experience of what a confessional must be like. They called me back and offered to fly me out again to try and pass the polygraph, but I passed. That experience made me lose all confidence in the supposedly all-powerful polygraph test. It's a farce and it's about as effective as reading tea-leaves.