So what you're saying is that a private school education teaches you how to be full of shit, ride the coat tails of others, and develop a huge ego?
No. That's how you choose to interpret it. Whether due to a desire to be maliciously/disingenuously/cynically obtuse, or to lack of reading comprehension skills, only you know.
No wonder the education system needs a massive wild fire.
If they do not rubber stamp everything, how do you explain this?
Holy crap, did someone actually filled that one out just to prove the USPTO is full of it????? I cannot imagine someone actually going through the trouble of filling such a ridiculous patent claim.
No, it's the muslim extremist that are so sexophobic....
Which I've always found very retarded given that their own sexual mores aren't that prude/hetero to begin with. It's been a long tradition in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan to molest and rape little boys, to the point of having a tradition of selecting very cute boys to wear make-up and female dresses when dancing. The Taliban during their reign put a stop to that, to a point. Now that they have been on the run, they as well as those no longer under their yoke are doing the same shit again. In the countries with the most repressive religious regimes, there has always been a dont-ask-dont-tell habit of homosexualism among the young. Even with the death penalty hanging around, it is an open secret.
I don't think it really makes a difference if there was a stash of goat-to-camel porn in bin Laden's compound. I cannot believe the government would be that stupid to release *that* info if it is not true (it is always possible, but still). People will always doubt that it is true, after all, look how many idiots here and in the Muslim world truly believe 9/11 was a zionist/CIA plot!!!
But I wouldn't think this to be impossible. Whether that was directly owned and sanctioned by bin Laden, that's an open question (and a pretty irrelevant one). But it is plausible, and I would have a hard time to believe the Obama administration would release this if it weren't true. There has always been a precedent of quote-and-quote deviant sexuality among those who condemn them the most.
In the end, it is entirely plausible, most likely true... and ultimately irrelevant.
iFlow says that five of them spent nearly a year and a half of our lives and over a million dollars in cash and sweat equity developing the iFlowReader app with its unique AutoScrolling approach but all of it now has gone to waste. "We put our faith in Apple and they screwed us. This happened even though we went to great lengths to clear our plans with Apple because we did not want to make this substantial investment of time and money blindly. Apple's response to our detailed inquiries was to tell us that our plans did not infringe their rules in any way, which was true at the time, but there is one little catch. Apple can change the rules at any time and they did. Sadly they must have known full well that they were going to do this. Apple's iBooks was already in development when we talked to them and they certainly must have known that their future plans would doom us to failure no matter how good our product was. We never really had a chance."
Why would they do that? I mean, seriously, not that I'm trolling in a anti-Apple or anti-M$ fanboy fashion, but really, why? It's not like they were developing games or some general-purpose utilitarian program. The application they were developing crossed at the same junction as the core of Apple vision first and foremost. Plus Apple has always retained the right to change the rules of the game (much more drastically than any other company, really.) The risk was too much IMO, but then again, fortune favors the bold.
It's nice that you tear apart his grammar, while at the same time screwing up your quote tags so as to make your post far less readable than his.
Screwing up a quote tag can happen by accident. talking like tis cuz u knwo its the inteweebz is not. Obviously one can make grammatical errors (specially when writing in haste), but you at least try to capitalize. It is the internet, thanks for pointing the obvious, a place where it has been typical to point people out about writing. And since we are in the interweebz, here is a link for you.
Under no circumstances I ever thought about ripping this guy's grammar out. I pointed something that I think can hinder him. It is you (for whatever reasons) that decide to interpret that as an act of ripping a new asshole.
Gosh you'd almost think no one is perfect. Also you have have several dangling participles. (Before anyone comments, yes, there probably will be grammatical errors in this post. That just reinforces my point. This is an Internet forum post, not a cover letter or engineering document).
Yes, it is the internet where it's has not been unheard of to call people on their writing style either.
Going on to the main topic: You know what? I'm good at what I do.
Good for you. How does my post applies to you? Do you fit in the category of people who "don't have anything to show" and that they need to because either they cannot code or are coming right out of school w/o an iota of experience? Because that's who my post was targeted at (in line with the topic of this thread). If this is not you, why are you replying back? Did it hid a hidden nerve or something?
I can say that as objectively as possible in a career field that lacks any real objective criteria for "good". I have a fairly senior level position, with a good company. They like me and my work well enough to offer a substantial raise to keep me when I got another offer. I get fairly regular contact from recruiters, and when I follow up I get interviews and even offers more often than I don't. I also really love my job. I love being able to play round on computers the likes of which would stagger most people to think about, and make them do things that people don't realize they can do.
You know what else? I do that eight or nine hours a day. Sometimes ten or twelve on a bad day. I do it everyday, even the days that I'm not really feeling it. That's way more time than I spend on any hobby, any other area of interest, my wife.. hell that's more time than I spend sleeping. I'm not doing it when I get home. Period. Not unless I get a wild hair up my ass and decide that something really needs to be done. If that makes me a bad engineer, a bad employee, well you better talk to my boss. He seems quite happy with my terrible work habits.
I am a very good tech, have several licenses for different professions in my state and own now two successful businesses, one full time, HVAC/R; and one part-time, Substance Abuse Assessments for people charged with DUI.
Good for you. So where does "software" applies to you? Are you fresh out of school with nothing to show and wondering why companies still insist you should have experience? No, it doesn't. So why are you barking at this tree? The comment is obviously targeted at those that fit that bill (and in line with the main topic of this article).
The fact that you react this way when it isn't even applicable to you is interesting to say the least.
In my time off, neither of them are something I do for "fun".
Do you do software?
And I am not "stagnated' in my career or knowledge in either field.
Do you do software?
Being that both require CEUs and due to the fact that I am a person who takes pride in my skills, so I attend any training courses available within my time constraints.
And those time constrains are off the time that you are not on the clock right? A slice off your personal life, to cultivate your career, right?
If you think the only way to advance your career or skills is to do the same thing in your "off time" as you do when getting paid, you must be one boring, miserable excuse for a human being.
Obviously your assessment of my personality has to be, I dunno, a tautology, an unassailable postulate. You don't do "the same" on your off time. You do things on your off time that cultivates the skills you use at work. Doctors, nurses and PTs take seminars to learn things that are not necessarily "learnable" on the job. Software engineers keep up learning the new tools that come by because one does not get that freedom to experiment with tools at work. And so on and so. That you interpret that as "doing the same thing at work on your free time" only speaks about your reading comprehension (and your willingness to be obtuse and take offense.)
Then you are very heavily biased based on class selection and what school they went to. Some schools have large projects particularly for juniors and seniors. You'll end up selecting for that.
Some, not all, and certainly not the majority (at least not the majority anymore.) If I'm biased on something, it is on the general case. Obviously, logic would dictate that a very complex and laborious junior/senior year would be an exception to the general rule. Perhaps I will have to spell it out explicitly you (and those who display the same level of reading comprehension), just to make sure your mind does not wander into the land of the straw man.
Software Engineering is a stupid title for stupid people to bolster their stupid little egos.
Dipshit.
That is just utter bullshit. I work with CS, EE, CE, Mechanical and Systems Engineers, and I can tell you that your statement is nothing but a proxy to bolster your own ego. Projection is a bitch, ain't it. Granted that a lot of people call themselves "software engineers" when they are anything but. But that'd be like saying EE is not engineering because there is a douche bag out there changing lightbulbs and calling what he does engineering.
Applications you've made because of a school project will not count.
SO not true. Most people don't have time or a even a reason to be writing code while they are in school and school projects can be the only thing you have to show if you are a recent grad.
I suppose my graduate research will not count either?
From experience (as both undergrad student and as someone that went to grad school after being on the job), I can tell you that you are just being obtuse.
There is a difference between graduate research and school homework projects. YOU KNOW THIS. YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Graduate research certainly counts as experience. Homework projects typically do not. Not unless they are done during independent studies and are not trivial.
I also call bullshit on people not having a reason to writing code when in school. Hello, not having a reason? How about collecting experience beyond the limited experience you get with classes and homeworks (because yes, that experience is still limited.) How about on part-time jobs at school (myself and almost everyone I know from CS did this one way or another... and it helped when hunting for jobs after graduation.)
There are so many opportunities to clock experience when in school - CS studies are geared for this - someone that cannot do this is someone that is just going through the motions. Not someone I would want to hire. The only exception would be a working adult (a parent) going through school part time to get his CS or MIS degree. Otherwise, that person is just going through the motions, no software development material. Period.
i do enjoy coding a lot, as in i cant think of anything i'd rather do for a living. But in my free time, i can think of thousands of things i'd rather spend my time on, so i hardly have any hobby-projects, certainly nothing that i would use to show off at a job interview.
First, write appropriately, with capitalization and all. Yeah, grammar nazi, I know. But writing skills are a good proxy of good engineering skills. People (even online) will treat you seriously (or dismiss you altogether) by the way you address them. Show some respect and effort in communications by writing like an adult that knows how to write.
Going to the main topic: One of the things in live is that when you pursue a career, you have to cultivate it. And that means making sacrifices in your free-time. With software, it involves writing a portfolio of things to show (or at least to sharpen your skills.) You won't get to sharpen your skills by jobs alone (as your jobs will almost always be very specific and narrow.) If you don't do this, you are not cultivating your career.
And this is true of other careers, not just software. This is what you have to do if you really want to be good at what you love and make a living with it.
Making your hobby into your job is a sure-fire way to lose it as a hobby by the way, all the managerial crap that comes with a work environment is not something you want to asociate with your hobby
That's just juvenile rhetorical bullshit. You don't even know what you are saying here. The only people who get to dismiss all that "managerial" crap are artists. You are not an artist and you are not being paid to be an artist. You are an engineer that does a specific job to solve someone's problem with software and get paid for it. That involves management because it is necessary. If you think you it is, you are a lousy engineer. Doesn't matter how much you like to code, you won't do what you like for a living until you understand and work around this fact.
This reminds me of the old expression "I can't get the job because I don't have any experience, but how can I get experience if they don't give me a job?"
Yes, on your own, but it is still saying "don't hire someone directly out of school" without considering that there are some advantages to this, such as being able to integrate someone into your system, before they have had the chance to develop "bad habits".
You get experience in school. That's what I did, getting part-time programming, lab and sysadmin jobs whenever I could. That kind of work is always serious, and, mucho importante very versatile. There are very few places that can have jobs that mix programming and sysadmin/network administration. A good place to be exposed to source control (something many "real" workplaces still don't have... scary.) Specially those school jobs that do support and sysadmin work, they tend to use bug-tracking software, network troubleshooting software with hands-on experience with routers, cables, Linux, Solaris and NT boxes. What better experience than this? During my school years, I clocked around 3K hours working with stuff from diskless 8086 and "green tube" terminals connected to mainframes to VAX machines to networks of Linux, Solaris, Silicon Graphics, AIX and NT servers, with all type of development and support software.
Many of my classmates did the same. I had classmates that did on-the-side work with FoxPro and Powerbuilder (I'd imagine one could do the same now with whatever is hot among the web stacks.)
Better yet, I had a couple of classmates that landed interships at Motorola and IBM. They started grooming themselves with work experience and "networking".
In any of these cases, no one ends up being "without experience" when they go out. Furthermore, when you play it correctly, you already have connections to potential employers.
If all one does is take courses and never be bothered to investigate what's out there, it is going to suck past graduation date. In a field like Computer Science (or MIS), there is really no excuse to not have something to show in terms of experience after graduation. This is something to be worked on diligently from at least when one enters junior year (I did when I was a freshman!).
One thing I have to admit is that nowadays is harder. Before it was relatively easy to get a job with a AA degree. You could work as a junior programmer (or get a job part-time) while working towards your BS degree (and have a lot of out-of-academia work experience in the process.) That is almost impossible nowadays (as everyone asks for a BS degree.)
So the only option really is exactly the same "default" options we had before - pursue internships. If that cannot be done (there can be economic constrains on this), then get part-time jobs in school, look for freelancing opportunities and develop pet projects and publish them (the more non-trivial the better.) People sometimes forget that open-source is a new phenomenon (new in terms of widespread acknowledgment.) People used to publish their work as freeware or shareware. The mere act of publishing something spoke volumes then. It still speaks volumes now.
In what way is our educational system a "joke"? I learned a lot in high school and it set me up for college. I was a science/math geek and built a radiotelescope for a sci fair project. A kid in the class ahead of me built an operating electron microscope. I went into engineering and got my masters. No I don't think STEM students should pay more but I also think we have a great educational system IF the parents and students will take advantage of it.
The only common factor in all of your life failures is you.
The system we have is a failure in that it makes no provisions for vocational training (as done in the German system of education for example). The only options people have are either HS degrees or 4-year degrees. It used to be a time that a A.A. or A.S. would help you get a job, but that's no more (even if the education obtained with such a degree is more than enough for a given position.) Our system creates a surplus of 4-year degree holders while at the same time failing to produce people trained vocationally (the end result being the creation of a largely unemployable, untrained lower class.)
What's your solution for backing up tens of terabytes of data, with hundreds of gigabytes of differential data being generated every day?
Why would you store terabytes of data on a 3rd party cloud provider? That's like using the wrong tool for the wrong job man. If you are an enterprise that indeed generates that much data, I'm sure you can fork enough moolah to have your own data center (or rent a physical one) where backups are not done over the interweebz.
The problem comes when you have sensitive data stored offsite and that service goes under and the servers are sold to highest bidder or end up at home at some employee who are setting up his own service.
Who takes responsibility for that the data is erased?
The first type of scenario does not occur overnight and it becomes almost a non-issue if you do daily back-ups (and verify the integrity of those backups by rehearsing full disaster recovery drills on a regular basis.) The second type of scenario can also occur with a typical 3rd party data center (or even with a data center managed within your own company), so it is really not an applicable critique of cloud services.
can't be done: the services of various clouds have such disjoint functions that's impossible
you're arm-waving and spewing B.S.
Let's think about this for a minute. A cloud provider will provide a data store, either a relational data store, or a non-relational one (typically a key-value or document-oriented one.) In the first case, transferring data from one relational store to another is doable (painful, but doable.)
If you are using a key/value store, you can migrate that to a relational store or to another key/value store. Painful, but also doable.
If it is a document-oriented store, then have your data (or objects) export themselves into XML or JSON (as most document-oriented stores allow for importing of such.)
In any event, none of these are trivial. And yet, none of them are inherently impossible. It becomes impossible if you don't design your systems with the ability to import and export its data or objects. Every decent system I've encountered have had some way to extract its data into a schema of things. If you are deploying your systems into the cloud without thinking about this, then yes, you are doing it wrong.
Moreover, it is rarely that you will take an app from a non-cloud data center and deploy it as-is to the cloud. If you can do that, then it means that you are using a relational data store provided by your cloud provider (possibly a virtualized image of your vendor's db.) In that case, migrating in and out is no different from migrating in and out of a typical data center.
If you are migrating out of a non-relational store, then obviously, your options for alternative cloud providers are limited. You have to select providers that have data storage facilities with compatible architectures.
Anyways, with respect to non-relational stores, you are modifying or building an app so that it uses a cloud's data storage facility. And it will be immensely insane and stupid to do so without taking into consideration to extract that system out and into a potentially different one. That means, your architecture has to be build on a data notion that is cloud-agnostic. And this typically will be an architectural notion of key/value stores or documents.
Furthermore, if your application is built with the capability to import/export its data, then your application architecture is way ahead in its deployment/maintenance requirements. If you do not do this, you are doing it wrong (as the OP you replied to said.)
The most important point of integration with a cloud-specific service is with the data storage and retrieval service provided by the a cloud service provider. Either it is relational or not. If it is relational, it can be (with some pain) migrated. If it is not relational, you need to have an abstraction layer (in the case of, say, Java, via JDOs or something like that.) Even with a cloud-based relational store, you still have to have an insulation layer.
The whole point of advanced education is to specialize so you can show the world that you can become an expert at something, and by contrast, anything!
I thought the purpose of the PhD was to show that you were capable of doing high level research and being able to publish your results in a defensible manner showing that you are fully capable of being a contributing member to the scientific community?
Dot matrix printers: When it comes to debugging very poorly written undocumented spaghetti code (especially VB with goto abuse all over the place) nothing beats a wide dot matrix printer and tractor paper for making sense of spaghetti code because you can see all the code at once and trace through the spaghetti.
My impression is that this is a different anti-pattern, one megafunction and tons of global state - no encapsulation or classes. Spaghetti code is typically recognized by massive and unstructured layers and calling, making it impossible to see where one code call goes like tracing one piece of spaghetti on a plate. A matrix printer won't do you any good because it's not linear at all.
Wrong there buddy. It doesn't matter if the code is linear or not. After having dealt with typical procedural spagetti in FoxPro, QuickBasic and PickBasic or VB megafuncs, nothing beats tractor paper and a wide dot matrix printer. Sometimes a debugger just doesn't cut the mustard, and nothing beats the he ability to print a megachunk of shitty code all at one, that you can tape to a whole and look at it as a whole. That's one of the things I sometimes (but certainly not always) miss from the good ol' days.
REST is a meaningless buzzword. All it means is "a different url will return a different thing."
<sarcasm>
So, I could write a service that causes a change or side effect with each GET invocation (that is, a GET that is not idempotent) and I can still call it RESTful? Is that what you are saying in your infinite wisdom and professional experience?
After all, this will certainly fit the "a different url will return a different thing" description that you just proposed.
I'm amazed that someone can take a concept as simple as REST and turn it into something so complicated it requires a book. A language-specific book, at that. Is writing a Java application that can examine an HTTP POST (GET|PUT|DELETE) really so complex it requires an entire book on the subject?
<sarcasm>The concept is so simple and yet Roy Fielding had to do a complete Ph.D. dissertation on it. A whole Ph.D. dissertation and now books. The fools!!!!
After all, as you said, REST is just HTTP POST (GET|PUT|DELETE), and nothing, but absolutely nothing else. Right, right? Dude you are so awesome! Teh l33t hax0r!11
</sarcasm>
This is very true in industries which deal with specific and complex hardware... such as medical and defense. You can make a career as an expert in some specific piece of hardware, because that chunk of hardware is gonna be around for a long time... and there are very few people with detailed understanding of it.
Obviously you don't bet the farm on this.. but being _the_ expert in something tends to result in good things.
Yeah, with medical and the DoE/DoD, it can be a rewarding ($$$) career. I also believed (actually, have seen) it is also possible within the commercial sector to be an expert at something and make moolah up to the wahzoo. In the JEE arena, it pays to be an expert WebLogic/WebSphere admin, or an Oracle DBA. Not the typical type that does the every day job (like I was with WebLogic), but the actual experts that fly around to where the fires are. They can make a shitload of money with short 3-6 weeks emergency contracts (though it involves way too much travel for my taste.)
Being a real expert at something (compilers, OS development, sysadmin, some enterprise stack or software metrics), that can be a rewarding (and very safe, long-term) career.
Here, let me help you with some examples where technical advancement does not imply moving into management:
Programmer/code monkey > Entry Level Software Engineer > Sr. Software Engineer/Tech Lead > Software/Systems* Architect > Principal Engineer/Architect of a major engineering project.
Obviously, each technical advancement *must* entail some type of managerial skills as you will be expected to lead, mentor and delegate junior members under your belt while performing technical tasks that you possess via your extensive expertise. But that is not management proper (as in a pure definition.) Besides management runs the spectrum - you don't need to be a manager you to "own" a particular responsibility, and if you have to work with peers and juniors while supporting the section of the system that you "own", you have to displays implicit management skills. Otherwise, you will suck at it from a technical point of view.
To be technical does not mean having to do anything but l33t hax0r mayhem in complete isolation. Engineering does not work that way.
* and by Systems Architect, I don't mean the guy who lays out the hardware (which is how we typically use the term in IT), but one who has an architectural role in the realm of Systems Engineering.
"A nation that refuses to use diplomacy is a nation that should be left without weapons"
-Hillary Clinton said on September 13, 2001: "Every nation has to either be with us, or against us..."
-President George W. Bush, in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001 said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Both are from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_either_with_us,_or_against_us
Is that the kind of Diplomacy you are looking for?
Not pretty, but certainly a lot better than chanting the destruction of Israel (not that I agree what has been done to the Palestinians) or who blatantly keep labeling any external they disagree with an 'enemy'. But hey, don't let those details stop your line of logic.
Wow, that comment came out of left field, didn't it? How's this applicable to chess? Stupid Americans, always relating to the world by thinking of themselves first...it's not all about you. Really.
Because obviously making borderline racist generalizations about a particular group or nationality is the hallmark of a cultivated intellect.
a - Did you have a little bit too much of asshole tea in the morning?
b - were you keeping that inside your chest for too long and couldn't wait for a better opportunity to spit it out,
c - or are you just too fucking dumb and arrogant to realize how stupid your remarks is?
Slashdot Mirror
So what you're saying is that a private school education teaches you how to be full of shit, ride the coat tails of others, and develop a huge ego?
No. That's how you choose to interpret it. Whether due to a desire to be maliciously/disingenuously/cynically obtuse, or to lack of reading comprehension skills, only you know.
No wonder the education system needs a massive wild fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(logic)
If they do not rubber stamp everything, how do you explain this?
Holy crap, did someone actually filled that one out just to prove the USPTO is full of it????? I cannot imagine someone actually going through the trouble of filling such a ridiculous patent claim.
No, it's the muslim extremist that are so sexophobic....
Which I've always found very retarded given that their own sexual mores aren't that prude/hetero to begin with. It's been a long tradition in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan to molest and rape little boys, to the point of having a tradition of selecting very cute boys to wear make-up and female dresses when dancing. The Taliban during their reign put a stop to that, to a point. Now that they have been on the run, they as well as those no longer under their yoke are doing the same shit again. In the countries with the most repressive religious regimes, there has always been a dont-ask-dont-tell habit of homosexualism among the young. Even with the death penalty hanging around, it is an open secret.
I don't think it really makes a difference if there was a stash of goat-to-camel porn in bin Laden's compound. I cannot believe the government would be that stupid to release *that* info if it is not true (it is always possible, but still). People will always doubt that it is true, after all, look how many idiots here and in the Muslim world truly believe 9/11 was a zionist/CIA plot!!!
But I wouldn't think this to be impossible. Whether that was directly owned and sanctioned by bin Laden, that's an open question (and a pretty irrelevant one). But it is plausible, and I would have a hard time to believe the Obama administration would release this if it weren't true. There has always been a precedent of quote-and-quote deviant sexuality among those who condemn them the most.
In the end, it is entirely plausible, most likely true... and ultimately irrelevant.
"I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."
Somebody give this AC a cigar. Priceless for a sig!
https://www.iflowreader.com/Closing.aspx
iFlow says that five of them spent nearly a year and a half of our lives and over a million dollars in cash and sweat equity developing the iFlowReader app with its unique AutoScrolling approach but all of it now has gone to waste. "We put our faith in Apple and they screwed us. This happened even though we went to great lengths to clear our plans with Apple because we did not want to make this substantial investment of time and money blindly. Apple's response to our detailed inquiries was to tell us that our plans did not infringe their rules in any way, which was true at the time, but there is one little catch. Apple can change the rules at any time and they did. Sadly they must have known full well that they were going to do this. Apple's iBooks was already in development when we talked to them and they certainly must have known that their future plans would doom us to failure no matter how good our product was. We never really had a chance."
Why would they do that? I mean, seriously, not that I'm trolling in a anti-Apple or anti-M$ fanboy fashion, but really, why? It's not like they were developing games or some general-purpose utilitarian program. The application they were developing crossed at the same junction as the core of Apple vision first and foremost. Plus Apple has always retained the right to change the rules of the game (much more drastically than any other company, really.) The risk was too much IMO, but then again, fortune favors the bold.
It's nice that you tear apart his grammar, while at the same time screwing up your quote tags so as to make your post far less readable than his.
Screwing up a quote tag can happen by accident. talking like tis cuz u knwo its the inteweebz is not. Obviously one can make grammatical errors (specially when writing in haste), but you at least try to capitalize. It is the internet, thanks for pointing the obvious, a place where it has been typical to point people out about writing. And since we are in the interweebz, here is a link for you.
Under no circumstances I ever thought about ripping this guy's grammar out. I pointed something that I think can hinder him. It is you (for whatever reasons) that decide to interpret that as an act of ripping a new asshole.
Gosh you'd almost think no one is perfect. Also you have have several dangling participles. (Before anyone comments, yes, there probably will be grammatical errors in this post. That just reinforces my point. This is an Internet forum post, not a cover letter or engineering document).
Yes, it is the internet where it's has not been unheard of to call people on their writing style either.
Going on to the main topic: You know what? I'm good at what I do.
Good for you. How does my post applies to you? Do you fit in the category of people who "don't have anything to show" and that they need to because either they cannot code or are coming right out of school w/o an iota of experience? Because that's who my post was targeted at (in line with the topic of this thread). If this is not you, why are you replying back? Did it hid a hidden nerve or something?
I can say that as objectively as possible in a career field that lacks any real objective criteria for "good". I have a fairly senior level position, with a good company. They like me and my work well enough to offer a substantial raise to keep me when I got another offer. I get fairly regular contact from recruiters, and when I follow up I get interviews and even offers more often than I don't. I also really love my job. I love being able to play round on computers the likes of which would stagger most people to think about, and make them do things that people don't realize they can do.
You know what else? I do that eight or nine hours a day. Sometimes ten or twelve on a bad day. I do it everyday, even the days that I'm not really feeling it. That's way more time than I spend on any hobby, any other area of interest, my wife.. hell that's more time than I spend sleeping. I'm not doing it when I get home. Period. Not unless I get a wild hair up my ass and decide that something really needs to be done. If that makes me a bad engineer, a bad employee, well you better talk to my boss. He seems quite happy with my terrible work habits.
Again, good for you.
You are a moron to a large extent.
I am a very good tech, have several licenses for different professions in my state and own now two successful businesses, one full time, HVAC/R; and one part-time, Substance Abuse Assessments for people charged with DUI.
Good for you. So where does "software" applies to you? Are you fresh out of school with nothing to show and wondering why companies still insist you should have experience? No, it doesn't. So why are you barking at this tree? The comment is obviously targeted at those that fit that bill (and in line with the main topic of this article).
The fact that you react this way when it isn't even applicable to you is interesting to say the least.
In my time off, neither of them are something I do for "fun".
Do you do software?
And I am not "stagnated' in my career or knowledge in either field.
Do you do software?
Being that both require CEUs and due to the fact that I am a person who takes pride in my skills, so I attend any training courses available within my time constraints.
And those time constrains are off the time that you are not on the clock right? A slice off your personal life, to cultivate your career, right?
If you think the only way to advance your career or skills is to do the same thing in your "off time" as you do when getting paid, you must be one boring, miserable excuse for a human being.
Obviously your assessment of my personality has to be, I dunno, a tautology, an unassailable postulate. You don't do "the same" on your off time. You do things on your off time that cultivates the skills you use at work. Doctors, nurses and PTs take seminars to learn things that are not necessarily "learnable" on the job. Software engineers keep up learning the new tools that come by because one does not get that freedom to experiment with tools at work. And so on and so. That you interpret that as "doing the same thing at work on your free time" only speaks about your reading comprehension (and your willingness to be obtuse and take offense.)
Then you are very heavily biased based on class selection and what school they went to. Some schools have large projects particularly for juniors and seniors. You'll end up selecting for that.
Some, not all, and certainly not the majority (at least not the majority anymore.) If I'm biased on something, it is on the general case. Obviously, logic would dictate that a very complex and laborious junior/senior year would be an exception to the general rule. Perhaps I will have to spell it out explicitly you (and those who display the same level of reading comprehension), just to make sure your mind does not wander into the land of the straw man.
We're talking about engineering,
You ARE NOT an engineer.
Software engineering IS NOT engineering.
They are very good engineers.
NO they are not because they are NOT engineers.
Moron.
Software Engineering is a stupid title for stupid people to bolster their stupid little egos.
Dipshit.
That is just utter bullshit. I work with CS, EE, CE, Mechanical and Systems Engineers, and I can tell you that your statement is nothing but a proxy to bolster your own ego. Projection is a bitch, ain't it. Granted that a lot of people call themselves "software engineers" when they are anything but. But that'd be like saying EE is not engineering because there is a douche bag out there changing lightbulbs and calling what he does engineering.
Applications you've made because of a school project will not count.
SO not true. Most people don't have time or a even a reason to be writing code while they are in school and school projects can be the only thing you have to show if you are a recent grad.
I suppose my graduate research will not count either?
From experience (as both undergrad student and as someone that went to grad school after being on the job), I can tell you that you are just being obtuse.
There is a difference between graduate research and school homework projects. YOU KNOW THIS. YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Graduate research certainly counts as experience. Homework projects typically do not. Not unless they are done during independent studies and are not trivial.
I also call bullshit on people not having a reason to writing code when in school. Hello, not having a reason? How about collecting experience beyond the limited experience you get with classes and homeworks (because yes, that experience is still limited.) How about on part-time jobs at school (myself and almost everyone I know from CS did this one way or another... and it helped when hunting for jobs after graduation.)
There are so many opportunities to clock experience when in school - CS studies are geared for this - someone that cannot do this is someone that is just going through the motions. Not someone I would want to hire. The only exception would be a working adult (a parent) going through school part time to get his CS or MIS degree. Otherwise, that person is just going through the motions, no software development material. Period.
i do enjoy coding a lot, as in i cant think of anything i'd rather do for a living. But in my free time, i can think of thousands of things i'd rather spend my time on, so i hardly have any hobby-projects, certainly nothing that i would use to show off at a job interview.
First, write appropriately, with capitalization and all. Yeah, grammar nazi, I know. But writing skills are a good proxy of good engineering skills. People (even online) will treat you seriously (or dismiss you altogether) by the way you address them. Show some respect and effort in communications by writing like an adult that knows how to write.
Going to the main topic: One of the things in live is that when you pursue a career, you have to cultivate it. And that means making sacrifices in your free-time. With software, it involves writing a portfolio of things to show (or at least to sharpen your skills.) You won't get to sharpen your skills by jobs alone (as your jobs will almost always be very specific and narrow.) If you don't do this, you are not cultivating your career.
And this is true of other careers, not just software. This is what you have to do if you really want to be good at what you love and make a living with it.
Making your hobby into your job is a sure-fire way to lose it as a hobby by the way, all the managerial crap that comes with a work environment is not something you want to asociate with your hobby
That's just juvenile rhetorical bullshit. You don't even know what you are saying here. The only people who get to dismiss all that "managerial" crap are artists. You are not an artist and you are not being paid to be an artist. You are an engineer that does a specific job to solve someone's problem with software and get paid for it. That involves management because it is necessary. If you think you it is, you are a lousy engineer. Doesn't matter how much you like to code, you won't do what you like for a living until you understand and work around this fact.
This reminds me of the old expression "I can't get the job because I don't have any experience, but how can I get experience if they don't give me a job?"
Yes, on your own, but it is still saying "don't hire someone directly out of school" without considering that there are some advantages to this, such as being able to integrate someone into your system, before they have had the chance to develop "bad habits".
You get experience in school. That's what I did, getting part-time programming, lab and sysadmin jobs whenever I could. That kind of work is always serious, and, mucho importante very versatile. There are very few places that can have jobs that mix programming and sysadmin/network administration. A good place to be exposed to source control (something many "real" workplaces still don't have... scary.) Specially those school jobs that do support and sysadmin work, they tend to use bug-tracking software, network troubleshooting software with hands-on experience with routers, cables, Linux, Solaris and NT boxes. What better experience than this? During my school years, I clocked around 3K hours working with stuff from diskless 8086 and "green tube" terminals connected to mainframes to VAX machines to networks of Linux, Solaris, Silicon Graphics, AIX and NT servers, with all type of development and support software.
Many of my classmates did the same. I had classmates that did on-the-side work with FoxPro and Powerbuilder (I'd imagine one could do the same now with whatever is hot among the web stacks.)
Better yet, I had a couple of classmates that landed interships at Motorola and IBM. They started grooming themselves with work experience and "networking".
In any of these cases, no one ends up being "without experience" when they go out. Furthermore, when you play it correctly, you already have connections to potential employers.
If all one does is take courses and never be bothered to investigate what's out there, it is going to suck past graduation date. In a field like Computer Science (or MIS), there is really no excuse to not have something to show in terms of experience after graduation. This is something to be worked on diligently from at least when one enters junior year (I did when I was a freshman!).
One thing I have to admit is that nowadays is harder. Before it was relatively easy to get a job with a AA degree. You could work as a junior programmer (or get a job part-time) while working towards your BS degree (and have a lot of out-of-academia work experience in the process.) That is almost impossible nowadays (as everyone asks for a BS degree.)
So the only option really is exactly the same "default" options we had before - pursue internships. If that cannot be done (there can be economic constrains on this), then get part-time jobs in school, look for freelancing opportunities and develop pet projects and publish them (the more non-trivial the better.) People sometimes forget that open-source is a new phenomenon (new in terms of widespread acknowledgment.) People used to publish their work as freeware or shareware. The mere act of publishing something spoke volumes then. It still speaks volumes now.
In what way is our educational system a "joke"? I learned a lot in high school and it set me up for college. I was a science/math geek and built a radiotelescope for a sci fair project. A kid in the class ahead of me built an operating electron microscope. I went into engineering and got my masters. No I don't think STEM students should pay more but I also think we have a great educational system IF the parents and students will take advantage of it.
The only common factor in all of your life failures is you.
The system we have is a failure in that it makes no provisions for vocational training (as done in the German system of education for example). The only options people have are either HS degrees or 4-year degrees. It used to be a time that a A.A. or A.S. would help you get a job, but that's no more (even if the education obtained with such a degree is more than enough for a given position.) Our system creates a surplus of 4-year degree holders while at the same time failing to produce people trained vocationally (the end result being the creation of a largely unemployable, untrained lower class.)
What's your solution for backing up tens of terabytes of data, with hundreds of gigabytes of differential data being generated every day?
Why would you store terabytes of data on a 3rd party cloud provider? That's like using the wrong tool for the wrong job man. If you are an enterprise that indeed generates that much data, I'm sure you can fork enough moolah to have your own data center (or rent a physical one) where backups are not done over the interweebz.
The problem comes when you have sensitive data stored offsite and that service goes under and the servers are sold to highest bidder or end up at home at some employee who are setting up his own service.
Who takes responsibility for that the data is erased?
The first type of scenario does not occur overnight and it becomes almost a non-issue if you do daily back-ups (and verify the integrity of those backups by rehearsing full disaster recovery drills on a regular basis.) The second type of scenario can also occur with a typical 3rd party data center (or even with a data center managed within your own company), so it is really not an applicable critique of cloud services.
Here's an obvious fix:
You store it as encrypted. Duh.
-- BMO
Yeah, because encryption will magically make the data available to you once the cloud provider disappears or goes kaput.
can't be done: the services of various clouds have such disjoint functions that's impossible
you're arm-waving and spewing B.S.
Let's think about this for a minute. A cloud provider will provide a data store, either a relational data store, or a non-relational one (typically a key-value or document-oriented one.) In the first case, transferring data from one relational store to another is doable (painful, but doable.)
If you are using a key/value store, you can migrate that to a relational store or to another key/value store. Painful, but also doable.
If it is a document-oriented store, then have your data (or objects) export themselves into XML or JSON (as most document-oriented stores allow for importing of such.)
In any event, none of these are trivial. And yet, none of them are inherently impossible. It becomes impossible if you don't design your systems with the ability to import and export its data or objects. Every decent system I've encountered have had some way to extract its data into a schema of things. If you are deploying your systems into the cloud without thinking about this, then yes, you are doing it wrong.
Moreover, it is rarely that you will take an app from a non-cloud data center and deploy it as-is to the cloud. If you can do that, then it means that you are using a relational data store provided by your cloud provider (possibly a virtualized image of your vendor's db.) In that case, migrating in and out is no different from migrating in and out of a typical data center.
If you are migrating out of a non-relational store, then obviously, your options for alternative cloud providers are limited. You have to select providers that have data storage facilities with compatible architectures.
Anyways, with respect to non-relational stores, you are modifying or building an app so that it uses a cloud's data storage facility. And it will be immensely insane and stupid to do so without taking into consideration to extract that system out and into a potentially different one. That means, your architecture has to be build on a data notion that is cloud-agnostic. And this typically will be an architectural notion of key/value stores or documents.
Furthermore, if your application is built with the capability to import/export its data, then your application architecture is way ahead in its deployment/maintenance requirements. If you do not do this, you are doing it wrong (as the OP you replied to said.) The most important point of integration with a cloud-specific service is with the data storage and retrieval service provided by the a cloud service provider. Either it is relational or not. If it is relational, it can be (with some pain) migrated. If it is not relational, you need to have an abstraction layer (in the case of, say, Java, via JDOs or something like that.) Even with a cloud-based relational store, you still have to have an insulation layer.
The whole point of advanced education is to specialize so you can show the world that you can become an expert at something, and by contrast, anything!
I thought the purpose of the PhD was to show that you were capable of doing high level research and being able to publish your results in a defensible manner showing that you are fully capable of being a contributing member to the scientific community?
These aren't mutually exclusive.
Dot matrix printers: When it comes to debugging very poorly written undocumented spaghetti code (especially VB with goto abuse all over the place) nothing beats a wide dot matrix printer and tractor paper for making sense of spaghetti code because you can see all the code at once and trace through the spaghetti.
My impression is that this is a different anti-pattern, one megafunction and tons of global state - no encapsulation or classes. Spaghetti code is typically recognized by massive and unstructured layers and calling, making it impossible to see where one code call goes like tracing one piece of spaghetti on a plate. A matrix printer won't do you any good because it's not linear at all.
Wrong there buddy. It doesn't matter if the code is linear or not. After having dealt with typical procedural spagetti in FoxPro, QuickBasic and PickBasic or VB megafuncs, nothing beats tractor paper and a wide dot matrix printer. Sometimes a debugger just doesn't cut the mustard, and nothing beats the he ability to print a megachunk of shitty code all at one, that you can tape to a whole and look at it as a whole. That's one of the things I sometimes (but certainly not always) miss from the good ol' days.
REST is a meaningless buzzword. All it means is "a different url will return a different thing."
<sarcasm>
So, I could write a service that causes a change or side effect with each GET invocation (that is, a GET that is not idempotent) and I can still call it RESTful? Is that what you are saying in your infinite wisdom and professional experience?
After all, this will certainly fit the "a different url will return a different thing" description that you just proposed.
</sarcasm>
I'm amazed that someone can take a concept as simple as REST and turn it into something so complicated it requires a book. A language-specific book, at that. Is writing a Java application that can examine an HTTP POST (GET|PUT|DELETE) really so complex it requires an entire book on the subject?
<sarcasm>The concept is so simple and yet Roy Fielding had to do a complete Ph.D. dissertation on it. A whole Ph.D. dissertation and now books. The fools!!!!
After all, as you said, REST is just HTTP POST (GET|PUT|DELETE), and nothing, but absolutely nothing else. Right, right? Dude you are so awesome! Teh l33t hax0r!11 </sarcasm>
This is very true in industries which deal with specific and complex hardware... such as medical and defense. You can make a career as an expert in some specific piece of hardware, because that chunk of hardware is gonna be around for a long time... and there are very few people with detailed understanding of it.
Obviously you don't bet the farm on this.. but being _the_ expert in something tends to result in good things.
Yeah, with medical and the DoE/DoD, it can be a rewarding ($$$) career. I also believed (actually, have seen) it is also possible within the commercial sector to be an expert at something and make moolah up to the wahzoo. In the JEE arena, it pays to be an expert WebLogic/WebSphere admin, or an Oracle DBA. Not the typical type that does the every day job (like I was with WebLogic), but the actual experts that fly around to where the fires are. They can make a shitload of money with short 3-6 weeks emergency contracts (though it involves way too much travel for my taste.)
Being a real expert at something (compilers, OS development, sysadmin, some enterprise stack or software metrics), that can be a rewarding (and very safe, long-term) career.
Does it mean not giving examples?
Here, let me help you with some examples where technical advancement does not imply moving into management: Programmer/code monkey > Entry Level Software Engineer > Sr. Software Engineer/Tech Lead > Software/Systems* Architect > Principal Engineer/Architect of a major engineering project.
Obviously, each technical advancement *must* entail some type of managerial skills as you will be expected to lead, mentor and delegate junior members under your belt while performing technical tasks that you possess via your extensive expertise. But that is not management proper (as in a pure definition.) Besides management runs the spectrum - you don't need to be a manager you to "own" a particular responsibility, and if you have to work with peers and juniors while supporting the section of the system that you "own", you have to displays implicit management skills. Otherwise, you will suck at it from a technical point of view.
To be technical does not mean having to do anything but l33t hax0r mayhem in complete isolation. Engineering does not work that way. * and by Systems Architect, I don't mean the guy who lays out the hardware (which is how we typically use the term in IT), but one who has an architectural role in the realm of Systems Engineering.
"A nation that refuses to use diplomacy is a nation that should be left without weapons"
-Hillary Clinton said on September 13, 2001: "Every nation has to either be with us, or against us..." -President George W. Bush, in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001 said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Both are from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_either_with_us,_or_against_us
Is that the kind of Diplomacy you are looking for?
Not pretty, but certainly a lot better than chanting the destruction of Israel (not that I agree what has been done to the Palestinians) or who blatantly keep labeling any external they disagree with an 'enemy'. But hey, don't let those details stop your line of logic.
Wow, that comment came out of left field, didn't it? How's this applicable to chess? Stupid Americans, always relating to the world by thinking of themselves first...it's not all about you. Really.
Because obviously making borderline racist generalizations about a particular group or nationality is the hallmark of a cultivated intellect.
a - Did you have a little bit too much of asshole tea in the morning?
b - were you keeping that inside your chest for too long and couldn't wait for a better opportunity to spit it out,
c - or are you just too fucking dumb and arrogant to realize how stupid your remarks is?