An unlocked door does NOT imply a "big honking sign that says 'enter'". If you walk in my house uninvited, whether I leave the door wide-ass open or not, you are still risking my blowing your head off.
I wouldn't trust a programmer who does no programming for himself on his own time, just as I wouldn't trust an auto mechanic who has never popped the hood of his own car.
But see, this is your own prejudice coming through. I'm a pretty damn good programmer, but I don't do that much programming for fun, because I have a life. I've been doing it long enough that my other hobbies (including my family) are just plain more interesting. Now, I should say that early in life I used to do a LOT more programming for fun, but there are just other things in life.
And yes, I would trust an auto mechanic who gets enough grease at work that they don't feel like fixing their own car. That issue is orthoginal to whether they are competent or even great mechanics.
If someone in an interview said that they never contributes to open source project because they dont get any fast cash that way, it would not give me a good impression.
I think your zealotry is overriding your good sense here. Let's look at some slightly different questions along the same lines. Are they still reasonable?
1) Do you vote Democrat? (because we know Republicans are selfish non-team players)
2) Are you close to your family? (because we know if someone isn't close to their family, then they probably can't form relationships with anyone else, like employees)
3) Do you and your wife argue a lot? (because if he can't get along with his wife, how is he going to get along with other people?)
And dare I say it...
4) Are you black? (because we know black people are lazy)
You're going to think some of these are extreme and/or irrelevent, but I think if you think it through you'll see that you're applying a standard that is irrelevent to what you're trying to screen for, just like all of these cases.
If you are keeping your eyes open, then either your desire is just money, or something else it wrong. My guess is the former.
I'm astounded by this attitude. Are you seriously suggesting that there is something wrong if your employees keep their eyes open? Are you seriously suggesting that if an employee is happy working for you, then there is no possibility of a better job coming along that might be more in line with what they ultimately want to do?
Personally, I don't feel this need to hold employees in bondage and take it as some personal insult if they happen to find another job that is better for them. I don't know; maybe I'm just weird but I'm happy for people personally when they are able to find something better. Sure, it's a pain in the ass to replace people and often I wish they would stay, but I just don't feel this greedy need to hold onto every employee at all costs, and think "that ungrateful, disloyal bastard!" if they happen to find something better.
To be honest, it sounds like you (whether you think you do or not) look at employees as chattel who shouldn't dare to think their might be something better than what you offer. Maybe you should expand your outlook a bit and think that maybe employees are human beings with their own disires and ambition, and your job offering may not match what they ultimately want.
Then it is obvious that you would be taking off as soon as the next person waves money in your face. Therefore you were not worth all of the effort anyway.
So, in other words, you want to find people that you can pay less than market value, and will be so entrenched that they won't leave even if better offers come along?
Yeah, that sounds like a great place to work.
How about paying your employees what they're worth and then you don't have to worry about others coming along and waving money? Either that, or make the environment good enough so that money isn't a lure. In other words, if you have to depend on the guilt from "employee loyalty" to keep your employees around, you have bigger problems than what we're talking about.
Sheesh, to blame the employee for keeping their eyes open for better opportunities is just insane.
And half not a joke. Prepare yourself, don't take this presonally, your mileage may vary, one man's experience, etc, etc, etc...
Programming skill is often proportional to beard length.
Value of code is often inversely proportional to beard length.
What I mean by "value of code" is maintainability, documentation, cleanliness, and all the other measurements besides "cleverness". The worst programmers I've ever had work under me had huge beards and antisocial personalities (of which beard length is often a symptom). These people gave ZERO thought to the programmers who would come after them, and only worshipped at the altar of "cleverness". Their primary objective was "how do I entertain myself today" rather than "what is the best solution for this problem taking into account the business case for the solution".
Once again, I'm half kidding about the "beard test". Mostly I'm issuing a warning against finding people who are TOO into programming for programming's sake, rather than "software engineers" who really like the "right" solution rather than the "clever" solution.
What Open Source projects have they contributed to?
With all due respect, that's really an idiotic question for evaluating someone's competency. I've release a certain amount of code the public domain, but I have two priorities in my life:
1. My family
2. Programming for money
Sure, if my money was taken care of, I might work on an open source project for fun. But to penalize those of us who have a life and/or dedicate ourselves to producing a product for money is really asinine.
Ummmmm i can tell you have no education with computer hardware. Because one of the most basic classes you would take would have taught you that clock speed is not the end all be all of how fast your computer will work.
Ummmmmmmm why don't you read WHAT I WROTE. Note the "20% faster clock-for-clock on the average" phrase. Before you criticize me, at least learn to read.
It bothers me whenever somebody, especially on/. where people ought to know better, perpetuates the clock speed myth.
And it irritates me no end when Mac people can't face the truth that it's SLOW. Clock speed isn't everything, but it DOES count. As has been proven over and over, a G4 is only 20% faster than a P4, clock-for-clock. When Intel clock speeds are 2.5 times G4 clock speeds, that makes a difference.
Maybe the Mac population can do us all a favor and stop screaming "MEGAHURTZ MYTH!!!" when the applications tests prove that price/performance on the Macintosh is horrible, and that the fastest Intel kills the fastest Macintosh*.
With respect, I just went through this with another Apple guy who just wouldn't listen to reason. If you look at identical applications on both platforms, a G4 is about 20% faster clock-for-clock as a P4, on the average. In some cases, it's more, and in some cases it's less, but on the average that's it. When you compare prices (I used Dell), it's about 2x on the low end, and 4x on the high end.
Yes, I know this subject has been beaten into the ground ad-infinitum, but it still needs to be said once again: DUMP THE PROPRIETARY HARDWARE.
Apple is selling hardware that is half the speed at 2 to 4 times the price of Intel hardware. Yes, apparently there are enough hard-core fanatics to keep the company alive, but why be satisfied with that? Why sit arrogantly back and just preach to those people?
Yes, I know that Apple is traditionally a hardware company. So what? Being a software company hasn't exactly hurt Microsoft. Software is HUGELY more profitable than hardware.
And besides, what's stopping them from "doing Intel right" and coming out with their own line of expensive hardware? Oh, no one will buy it because it will be so much more expensive? Well, some fanatics will continue to buy it, and meanwhile they continue to make huge $$$ on the software.
As much as I despise Apple-the-company, I would LOVE to have a real competitor to Microsoft on the desktop, particularly one that was Unix based.
I really wish Steve would pull his head out of his ass and stop being satisfied being a boutique.
let's punish the music industry for stealing the artist's money...
Absolutely nothing is stolen from the artist. Nobody puts a gun to their head to sign a contract. Nothing stops them from starting their own record company.
let's punish the theaters for stealing our money claiming we are paying to see the movie. if that were true, why would they make us watch all those ads before the movie?
Because the ads subsidize the ticket price. Or maybe you can tell me exactly where you were promised that you would see no ads? If there were no ads, there would be higher ticket prices.
let's punish those who become rich off other people's work. they don't earn the money, they indirectly steal it out of the working man's pocket.
Guess what? Contrary to popular belief, it's the organizers of society who are the most valuable in society, not the "workers". If you didn't have the people who organized record companies, artists would sit around all day playing their guitar and bedding chicks at night, and you would never hear them. You think the average artist has the skill to put together a mass distribution mechanism? Ha! fat chance based on the artists I know.
or... let's just sit here, throw our lives away in low paying jobs, and feed the fat.
People are paid EXACTLY what they are monetarily worth. And that's based on supply and demand. Always has, always will. If you want more money, then be more in demand, or in shorter supply. Or not. It's up to you, but don't whine because some people are more monetarily valuable than you.
They've been "stealing" from every single one of their client by charging them prices much higher than the actual value of the product because they are in an oligopoly position and are price-fixing their products.
Wrong, by definition. If people didn't think the music was worth the price, they wouldn't buy it. Contrary to apparently popular belief, music is a LUXURY ITEM, not a necessity like air, water or food. You might have a point if they were selling water, but they are selling music.
If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it. It really is that simple.
If there is ONE person that has downloaded a song without paying for it, the industry has been damaged by EXACTLY that one song. QED.
I phrased this wrong. I should have said:
If there is ONE person that has downloaded a song without paying for it that would have bought it if they hadn't been able to download it, the industry has been damaged by EXACTLY that one song. QED.
If that ONE person who downloaded the song already owns the record
Then they paid for it. No issue.
If that ONE person downloaded the song to sample it in another work, then no crime has been committed because of fair use.
Wrong. First of all, you can't just "sample" it into another work for free (ask rap artists if they have to ask permission and pay royalties to the people they sample from). Second of all, your fair use rights don't kick in unless you purchase something.
Legally, I have no idea.
So what if I decide to delete a song 100 years after I download it. Guess what, I'm still in violation.
If that ONE person downloaded the song, and decides to keep the song even though he does not own the record, how is this different from taping songs off the radio?
Because radio stations already pay a licensing fee in order to broadcast it. Since it is coming into your radio, you get certain recording rights along with that.
The quality of a good radio tape is not much lower than the quality of mp3's
Huh? I'm not saying I have golden ears, but you must have ears of tin if you believe that. Either that, or you have never encoded an MP3 from a CD yourself.
I could go on and on, but as you can see, this issue is far from black and white.
Sorry, but the issue really is black and white. The only people who think there is any gray area are just people who want to rip off other people and get "stuff fer free". In other words, the takers of society want to take from the makers of society.
I hate to use you as a foil, but I've seen this far too much. I'm sorry, but that is just an idiotic argument.
Here's your proof:
If there is ONE person that has downloaded a song without paying for it, the industry has been damaged by EXACTLY that one song. QED.
And yes, it's irrelevent whether more music has been purchased or not through the use of filesharing because of the supposed added promotion ("Hey man! I wouldn't have bought this album if I hadn't downloaded it first!"). It's up to the copyright holder to decide if they want to use this oh-so-l33t new promotion method.
After all, these are not a bunch of fat cats we're talking about -- piracy now threatens the livelihood of the rank and file workers of Hollywood. After all, the movie studios are having a terrible year, right?
Yeah! After all, we ALL know that it's OK to steal from people if they have more money than you. The bastards!
If you're going to make a point about whether something is right or wrong, it doesn't help your case to bring out irrelevent facts about how rich someone is. Right is right, and wrong is wrong.
Not any more odd perhaps than the "voice of the leader of earth" being a more-or-less powerless figurehead of a more-or-less powerless political entity.
There are only two kinds of people who don't like 'vi':
1) Those who can't type
2) Those who don't understand 'vi'
Yes, Emacs has a programming language that theoretically gives you some advantages, but you can't beat the power of 'vi' for being able to do complex edits extremely quickly (without having to write a program).
I guess my deal is that I wish they would just explain all that on the accreditation page rather than that slippery wording. I used to do some work in the education industry, and it's amazing how sleazy a lot of colleges are about hiding the fact they are not accredited ("we are nationally accredited and registered with the education department!" is a typical example). I can understand how a college is loathe to say that they are "unaccredited", but they make just make themselves look shady by obscuring the fact.
Regional accreditation is incredibly important, and a student should be able to understand the risks ahead of time without having to go the orientation session.
Accreditation: Creating a curriculum and facilities that meet requirements for accreditation with the New England Association of Secondary Schools & Colleges (NEAS&C) and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)
First of all, the regional accreditation that means something is called the "New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC-CIHE)", which is similar, yet different from what they claim. Mistake? Or attempt to mislead?
The second red flag comes from the wording: "Creating a curriculum"? That smells like they haven't been accredited yet.
If they're not accredited, they should come out and say so instead of all this sneaky crapola. The program might be good, but there are very distinct disadvantages to not going to an accredited school, not least of which your classes and/or degree means absolutely nothing if you want to transfer to an accredited school.
Because you can turn off Katz and ignore the "ad" stories. Slashdot is what it is because they have editors that choose reasonably interesting stories. K5's stories are generally crap because the "silent, reasonable majority" don't care enough to moderate stories, which means only the extreme wacko elements and/or teenage ignorant elements (with too much time on their hands) tend to moderate the stories. Which is why so many of the stories are either stupid or socialist circle-jerks.
Slashdot Mirror
An unlocked door does NOT imply a "big honking sign that says 'enter'". If you walk in my house uninvited, whether I leave the door wide-ass open or not, you are still risking my blowing your head off.
I wouldn't trust a programmer who does no programming for himself on his own time, just as I wouldn't trust an auto mechanic who has never popped the hood of his own car.
But see, this is your own prejudice coming through. I'm a pretty damn good programmer, but I don't do that much programming for fun, because I have a life. I've been doing it long enough that my other hobbies (including my family) are just plain more interesting. Now, I should say that early in life I used to do a LOT more programming for fun, but there are just other things in life.
And yes, I would trust an auto mechanic who gets enough grease at work that they don't feel like fixing their own car. That issue is orthoginal to whether they are competent or even great mechanics.
If someone in an interview said that they never contributes to open source project because they dont get any fast cash that way, it would not give me a good impression.
I think your zealotry is overriding your good sense here. Let's look at some slightly different questions along the same lines. Are they still reasonable?
1) Do you vote Democrat? (because we know Republicans are selfish non-team players)
2) Are you close to your family? (because we know if someone isn't close to their family, then they probably can't form relationships with anyone else, like employees)
3) Do you and your wife argue a lot? (because if he can't get along with his wife, how is he going to get along with other people?)
And dare I say it...
4) Are you black? (because we know black people are lazy)
You're going to think some of these are extreme and/or irrelevent, but I think if you think it through you'll see that you're applying a standard that is irrelevent to what you're trying to screen for, just like all of these cases.
If you are keeping your eyes open, then either your desire is just money, or something else it wrong. My guess is the former.
I'm astounded by this attitude. Are you seriously suggesting that there is something wrong if your employees keep their eyes open? Are you seriously suggesting that if an employee is happy working for you, then there is no possibility of a better job coming along that might be more in line with what they ultimately want to do?
Personally, I don't feel this need to hold employees in bondage and take it as some personal insult if they happen to find another job that is better for them. I don't know; maybe I'm just weird but I'm happy for people personally when they are able to find something better. Sure, it's a pain in the ass to replace people and often I wish they would stay, but I just don't feel this greedy need to hold onto every employee at all costs, and think "that ungrateful, disloyal bastard!" if they happen to find something better.
To be honest, it sounds like you (whether you think you do or not) look at employees as chattel who shouldn't dare to think their might be something better than what you offer. Maybe you should expand your outlook a bit and think that maybe employees are human beings with their own disires and ambition, and your job offering may not match what they ultimately want.
Then it is obvious that you would be taking off as soon as the next person waves money in your face. Therefore you were not worth all of the effort anyway.
So, in other words, you want to find people that you can pay less than market value, and will be so entrenched that they won't leave even if better offers come along?
Yeah, that sounds like a great place to work.
How about paying your employees what they're worth and then you don't have to worry about others coming along and waving money? Either that, or make the environment good enough so that money isn't a lure. In other words, if you have to depend on the guilt from "employee loyalty" to keep your employees around, you have bigger problems than what we're talking about.
Sheesh, to blame the employee for keeping their eyes open for better opportunities is just insane.
And half not a joke. Prepare yourself, don't take this presonally, your mileage may vary, one man's experience, etc, etc, etc...
Programming skill is often proportional to beard length.
Value of code is often inversely proportional to beard length.
What I mean by "value of code" is maintainability, documentation, cleanliness, and all the other measurements besides "cleverness". The worst programmers I've ever had work under me had huge beards and antisocial personalities (of which beard length is often a symptom). These people gave ZERO thought to the programmers who would come after them, and only worshipped at the altar of "cleverness". Their primary objective was "how do I entertain myself today" rather than "what is the best solution for this problem taking into account the business case for the solution".
Once again, I'm half kidding about the "beard test". Mostly I'm issuing a warning against finding people who are TOO into programming for programming's sake, rather than "software engineers" who really like the "right" solution rather than the "clever" solution.
What Open Source projects have they contributed to?
With all due respect, that's really an idiotic question for evaluating someone's competency. I've release a certain amount of code the public domain, but I have two priorities in my life:
1. My family
2. Programming for money
Sure, if my money was taken care of, I might work on an open source project for fun. But to penalize those of us who have a life and/or dedicate ourselves to producing a product for money is really asinine.
Ummmmm i can tell you have no education with computer hardware. Because one of the most basic classes you would take would have taught you that clock speed is not the end all be all of how fast your computer will work.
Ummmmmmmm why don't you read WHAT I WROTE. Note the "20% faster clock-for-clock on the average" phrase. Before you criticize me, at least learn to read.
It bothers me whenever somebody, especially on /. where people ought to know better, perpetuates the clock speed myth.
And it irritates me no end when Mac people can't face the truth that it's SLOW. Clock speed isn't everything, but it DOES count. As has been proven over and over, a G4 is only 20% faster than a P4, clock-for-clock. When Intel clock speeds are 2.5 times G4 clock speeds, that makes a difference.
Maybe the Mac population can do us all a favor and stop screaming "MEGAHURTZ MYTH!!!" when the applications tests prove that price/performance on the Macintosh is horrible, and that the fastest Intel kills the fastest Macintosh*.
*Except for carefully picked Apple benchmarks.
With respect, I just went through this with another Apple guy who just wouldn't listen to reason. If you look at identical applications on both platforms, a G4 is about 20% faster clock-for-clock as a P4, on the average. In some cases, it's more, and in some cases it's less, but on the average that's it. When you compare prices (I used Dell), it's about 2x on the low end, and 4x on the high end.
Yes, I know this subject has been beaten into the ground ad-infinitum, but it still needs to be said once again: DUMP THE PROPRIETARY HARDWARE.
Apple is selling hardware that is half the speed at 2 to 4 times the price of Intel hardware. Yes, apparently there are enough hard-core fanatics to keep the company alive, but why be satisfied with that? Why sit arrogantly back and just preach to those people?
Yes, I know that Apple is traditionally a hardware company. So what? Being a software company hasn't exactly hurt Microsoft. Software is HUGELY more profitable than hardware.
And besides, what's stopping them from "doing Intel right" and coming out with their own line of expensive hardware? Oh, no one will buy it because it will be so much more expensive? Well, some fanatics will continue to buy it, and meanwhile they continue to make huge $$$ on the software.
As much as I despise Apple-the-company, I would LOVE to have a real competitor to Microsoft on the desktop, particularly one that was Unix based.
I really wish Steve would pull his head out of his ass and stop being satisfied being a boutique.
How about making yourself into a frisbee for your family and friends. :)
let's punish the music industry for stealing the artist's money...
Absolutely nothing is stolen from the artist. Nobody puts a gun to their head to sign a contract. Nothing stops them from starting their own record company.
let's punish the theaters for stealing our money claiming we are paying to see the movie. if that were true, why would they make us watch all those ads before the movie?
Because the ads subsidize the ticket price. Or maybe you can tell me exactly where you were promised that you would see no ads? If there were no ads, there would be higher ticket prices.
let's punish those who become rich off other people's work. they don't earn the money, they indirectly steal it out of the working man's pocket.
Guess what? Contrary to popular belief, it's the organizers of society who are the most valuable in society, not the "workers". If you didn't have the people who organized record companies, artists would sit around all day playing their guitar and bedding chicks at night, and you would never hear them. You think the average artist has the skill to put together a mass distribution mechanism? Ha! fat chance based on the artists I know.
or... let's just sit here, throw our lives away in low paying jobs, and feed the fat.
People are paid EXACTLY what they are monetarily worth. And that's based on supply and demand. Always has, always will. If you want more money, then be more in demand, or in shorter supply. Or not. It's up to you, but don't whine because some people are more monetarily valuable than you.
In your world, I was a thief the moment I borrowed the CD from a friend.
No, in my world borrowing a CD is covered by fair-use rights and purchaser rights. In my world, it's anonymous mass distribution that is illegal.
They've been "stealing" from every single one of their client by charging them prices much higher than the actual value of the product because they are in an oligopoly position and are price-fixing their products.
Wrong, by definition. If people didn't think the music was worth the price, they wouldn't buy it. Contrary to apparently popular belief, music is a LUXURY ITEM, not a necessity like air, water or food. You might have a point if they were selling water, but they are selling music.
If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it. It really is that simple.
If there is ONE person that has downloaded a song without paying for it, the industry has been damaged by EXACTLY that one song. QED.
I phrased this wrong. I should have said:
If there is ONE person that has downloaded a song without paying for it that would have bought it if they hadn't been able to download it, the industry has been damaged by EXACTLY that one song. QED.
If that ONE person who downloaded the song already owns the record
Then they paid for it. No issue.
If that ONE person downloaded the song to sample it in another work, then no crime has been committed because of fair use.
Wrong. First of all, you can't just "sample" it into another work for free (ask rap artists if they have to ask permission and pay royalties to the people they sample from). Second of all, your fair use rights don't kick in unless you purchase something.
Legally, I have no idea.
So what if I decide to delete a song 100 years after I download it. Guess what, I'm still in violation.
If that ONE person downloaded the song, and decides to keep the song even though he does not own the record, how is this different from taping songs off the radio?
Because radio stations already pay a licensing fee in order to broadcast it. Since it is coming into your radio, you get certain recording rights along with that.
The quality of a good radio tape is not much lower than the quality of mp3's
Huh? I'm not saying I have golden ears, but you must have ears of tin if you believe that. Either that, or you have never encoded an MP3 from a CD yourself.
I could go on and on, but as you can see, this issue is far from black and white.
Sorry, but the issue really is black and white. The only people who think there is any gray area are just people who want to rip off other people and get "stuff fer free". In other words, the takers of society want to take from the makers of society.
I hate to use you as a foil, but I've seen this far too much. I'm sorry, but that is just an idiotic argument.
Here's your proof:
If there is ONE person that has downloaded a song without paying for it, the industry has been damaged by EXACTLY that one song. QED.
And yes, it's irrelevent whether more music has been purchased or not through the use of filesharing because of the supposed added promotion ("Hey man! I wouldn't have bought this album if I hadn't downloaded it first!"). It's up to the copyright holder to decide if they want to use this oh-so-l33t new promotion method.
After all, these are not a bunch of fat cats we're talking about -- piracy now threatens the livelihood of the rank and file workers of Hollywood. After all, the movie studios are having a terrible year, right?
Yeah! After all, we ALL know that it's OK to steal from people if they have more money than you. The bastards!
If you're going to make a point about whether something is right or wrong, it doesn't help your case to bring out irrelevent facts about how rich someone is. Right is right, and wrong is wrong.
Not any more odd perhaps than the "voice of the leader of earth" being a more-or-less powerless figurehead of a more-or-less powerless political entity.
There are only two kinds of people who don't like 'vi':
1) Those who can't type
2) Those who don't understand 'vi'
Yes, Emacs has a programming language that theoretically gives you some advantages, but you can't beat the power of 'vi' for being able to do complex edits extremely quickly (without having to write a program).
Why couldn't you load it into your personal directory? It's not like it needs root privileges.
I guess my deal is that I wish they would just explain all that on the accreditation page rather than that slippery wording. I used to do some work in the education industry, and it's amazing how sleazy a lot of colleges are about hiding the fact they are not accredited ("we are nationally accredited and registered with the education department!" is a typical example). I can understand how a college is loathe to say that they are "unaccredited", but they make just make themselves look shady by obscuring the fact.
Regional accreditation is incredibly important, and a student should be able to understand the risks ahead of time without having to go the orientation session.
Their accreditation says:
Accreditation: Creating a curriculum and facilities that meet requirements for accreditation with the New England Association of Secondary Schools & Colleges (NEAS&C) and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)
First of all, the regional accreditation that means something is called the "New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC-CIHE)", which is similar, yet different from what they claim. Mistake? Or attempt to mislead?
The second red flag comes from the wording: "Creating a curriculum"? That smells like they haven't been accredited yet.
If they're not accredited, they should come out and say so instead of all this sneaky crapola. The program might be good, but there are very distinct disadvantages to not going to an accredited school, not least of which your classes and/or degree means absolutely nothing if you want to transfer to an accredited school.
Because you can turn off Katz and ignore the "ad" stories. Slashdot is what it is because they have editors that choose reasonably interesting stories. K5's stories are generally crap because the "silent, reasonable majority" don't care enough to moderate stories, which means only the extreme wacko elements and/or teenage ignorant elements (with too much time on their hands) tend to moderate the stories. Which is why so many of the stories are either stupid or socialist circle-jerks.