Doing something more cost effectively and safely isnt a harm that needs to be mitigated.
It is if it causes mass unemployment. The industrial revolution did show us how to do things in more economical (and at times safer) ways. With that said, for the first 30-40 years of this period, by several estimates, about 1/3 of the working class was employed, 1/3 permanently in a state of half-employment, and the remaining 1/3 in a permanent state of unemployment, with nothing but scrapping by.
Let those numbers sink in. Poverty increased among the lowest sectors of society, in large numbers. It took decades for markets to "heal themselves".
We can give economies and societies of the time to not give a shit, or not even understanding the implications because, well, people act according to the times.
But what is our excuse now. I am not against modernization or globalization, but by God, private entities need to do a better job at looking at the consequences (which, if you play it right, can actually become profitable opportunities in creating new markets in which the unemployed transfer to work.)
And if private entities cannot or do not want, the it is up to the State. Because someone has to. This isn't the late 1700's, early 1800's. If we ever fall for the last option, we have only ourselves to blame.
There is no simultaneously. It will happen gradually. Wages for drivers will decrease. Any time you expect something to suddenly happen and need to simultaneously do stuff, you are misunderstanding how markets work.
And anyone who things the negative impact of change is negligible simply because change is gradual also misunderstand how markets work. These damages take decades to get undone. And here we are talking beyond the mere concepts of markets. We are talking about national policies. We have been taking purely market-driven ideological points up our asses for the last 2-3 decades without any national policy to handle the aftermaths, and see where it has taken us.
This argument was already covered above. I can protect myself for a modest outlay that's a lot less than I'm already paying in taxes.
And even if I couldn't, I don't know why I should think that paying off violent extortionists would result in anything but more violent extortion. Why do you think it might?
History tells me that bad things eventually happen to every society. There's not one single example of any system that endured permanently in peace. So what's the lesson? (Personally, the lesson I learned is not to use "look at history..." as an argument for anything.)
People that revolt from a position of abject poverty and unemployment are extortionists?
The problem with Socialism for someone who actually works for a living is that it doesn't seem like it promises me anything positive. I get to pay for things demanded by non-workers, but I get essentially nothing in return.
We do not get anything in return? How about this? We don't get our heads on a pitchfork. Put millions of people out of work and bad violent shit is bound to happen. Fucking history is right there to tell you this. How stupid can we be that do not see the self-preservation benefit of not putting millions of people out of work?
Yeah, God knows we don't need any of that advanced technology crap!
Next thing you know, they might develop big machines to replace covered wagons and plows. Then where will we be, when all those teamsters and farmers are put out of work?
And what's with these "computer" things? Everyone knows a computer is a (usually) young woman who calculates (by hand) the numbers required by Real Scientists (tm). Replace them with machines? I say no!
I say we just destroy all that automation and go back to the tried and true ways we've always known! Ned Ludd Lives!
This is the stupidest false dichotomy bullshit I've seen in a long time. No one is saying no to automation. What the concern is, how do we plan to introduce automation in the trucking industry while simultaneously handle the 10 +/- million people that will be affected? Do we just introduce automation and let markets self-heal (which is pretty much dog-eat-dog), or do we put in place transition job and training programs to ameliorate the impact of unemployment until the bulk of people is able to transition into other job sectors.
That you miss the gist of the problem shows that you are not as smart as you think you are, or you simply do not care. Don't know which is scarier.
It's never the tool, but the wielder. Give a process to a good engineer, and he will find a way to get things to work. Give any process to a code monkey, and you are just going to get a lot of shit flinging irregardless of the process of choice.
Then you haven't been in software development for very long or how little ability to discern a good tool from a bad one. Shitty tools are foisted upon software developers all the time in the form of buggy and/or poorly documented frameworks, databases, IDEs, etc.
Been in this business for 20 years, 9 different companies in various industries, doing application and system/embedded development. But whatever. If you want to play my lightsaber is bigger than yours, by all means, knock yourself out, you win.
We are obviously talking about processes in general. But if we want to talk about shitty IDEs, languages and coding-level artifacts, let's do it. Yes, there are shitty IDEs, bad languages and such. They make work difficult, if not painfully insane, but none of that stop good workers from delivering good work (or at least avoid the number of sophomoric WTFs from piling up.)
Back in 1994, I once had the disgrace of having to do support report generating programs on PICK systems, using nothing but ed (not even vi for ${DEITY:-FSM} sake), using a bastardized language that mixed sh-based constructs with SQL-like statements for multi-column databases and PICKBasic.
That last thing, PICK Basic, utter crap that made GW-BASIC look like Haskell. At least GW-BASIC supported named labels for your GOTOs. PICK Basic oth only supported numeric labels. Imagine that if you can. You can have named labels in most assembly languages, but not in PICK Basic. Wrap your head around that if you can.
Anyways, the existing programs were a monstrosity we inherited were a monstrosity. We started fixing that by establishing standards and procedures for creating new programs (or introducing changes in new ones). We established a hierarchy of numeric labels - labels in the 1000-1999 range for initialization, 2000-2999, 3000-3999 for general computation, 4000-4999 for reporting/output and 5000+ for error handling and abnormal termination.
Those are the tools we had for that specific job, and as ugly as they were, we found ways to deal with them, to increase value for our employer while minimizing the number of WTFs that had been piling up for years by incompetent code monkeys.
There is no question in my mind that PICK systems were pure crap because they required us to put significantly more attention to detail to avoid introducing WTFs. Thank God that was just one job I had to do, and that I have never had to deal with that ever since.
And I've experience deja-vu moments like that, in Java, Visual Basic, C/C++, FoxPro, you name it. There is no language or IDE out there that does not have some unbelievable collection of WTFs.
But none of them cause people to unavoidably fuck it up again and again and again. Wielder, not tool.
When we had our choice to pick, we try to pick the best tools we can get.
But more often than not, we do not. And when that happens, what do you do? Do you go on auto-pilot and let the tool WTFquery imbue themselves into WTFs in your own code?
No. Not at all. You use your skills and find ways to make that shit work, to put some structure, some standards, some sane mechanisms and patterns and practices to maintain some quality in your work.
It can be done. Actually, it is done, and it has been done. Wielder, not tool. Always.
Why would you use a hammer made out of plastic straws?
Why wouldn't I? You've proclaimed that every tool is perfect and it's only the user that is at fault when it doesn't work.
I didn't say every tool is perfect. I said that every tool has a function, has a context, and that works in that context. But hey, I guess I have to go Barney Style in these realms.
It's never the tool, but the wielder. Give a process to a good engineer, and he will find a way to get things to work. Give any process to a code monkey, and you are just going to get a lot of shit flinging irregardless of the process of choice.
Good luck hammering nails with a hammer made out of plastic straws. And when you can't get it to work, it must have been your own fault not that of a bad tool.
Why would you use a hammer made out of plastic straws? What is the use of that tool? What is the purpose? What is the context? These are obviously rhetorical questions used to highlight the stupidity of your counter example.
For that matter, why don't you go and say "good luck hammering nails with a bar of soap, a saw, or a roll of toilet paper"?
Which is true. But here we are talking about tools, concepts and processes that are known to produce good results when used intelligently (or that should be known by anyone worth his/her salt in this industry.)
The context should have been apparent, but I guess we needed to go Barney Style with it.
If you're going to be a sysadmin, getting a certification can be well worth it (depending on the company, the certification, your position, etc).
If you're a programmer, getting a certification is a waste of time unless you learn something in the process. In that case, the certification will still be worthless but the knowledge you gained will be worth something.
Be careful here. A cert's worth is not defined simply by the lessons that come with it. It is also pixie dust or glitter that you use in your resume.
I'm not joking. During the last recession, I became unemployed (just 7 days before my first child was born). I had the skills, and references, but I could not make any progress in getting interviews with my resume. Then it dawned on me to call one of the recruiters I was using and asked her if I could see the resumes of the people her firm has placed in jobs in the last few months, the ones with the better salaries (names and personal info blacked out of course.)
Every single resume I saw had some type of certification it it - SCJP, ECSP, whatever. I worked on Java for a decade, but never cared for certificates. But when I saw the resumes, I immediately took the SCJP exam, nailed it, and put SCJP certificate # on my resume.
That was the only change I made on my resume. And voila, I started getting calls.
At any given time, but specially during economic downturns, there is a ton of people looking for jobs, and HR departments get bombarded by them. And they rely on keyboards and certs to filter resumes to a manageable number.
It is stupid. It doesn't guarantee shit. But it is what it is.
In this career, anyone should expect a downturn once a decade (if you are lucky), or two or more if you live in an area with crappy local economies. So protect yourself by getting a few certs specific to your career (or the ones that are more popular in job searches in your area of residence.)
They don't make you a better programmer, but they can give you an edge in passing the moronic keyword filters put in place by HR departments.
It is stupid, but unless you live in a robust job market like SV, it is what it is. That's my personal anecdote. YMMV.
No. It's just that people suck at doing quality work. People released shit when using procedural/modular programming. But that's people, not procedural/modular programming. Then OOP came, and people did more shit with it. But that's not on OOP, but on people.
I can say that with confidence because I know teams and companies that have delivered quality work using either any (or all) of these paradigms.
Same with processes. People have done good work with waterfall, and bad work with waterfall. Good work with spiral/iterative process, and bad work as well. Same with RAD, RUP, all flavors of agile, XP, Scrum, Kanban, etc.
It is people. It is organizations. A group of engineers that do good work with one reference process is very likely to do good work with most other processes, newer or older than the reference process by which they are currently being measured.
Newer processes are typically better than older ones when applied to general cases. Better as in helping ameliorate cost or increase delivery, or pretty much optimize some type of software development KPI. But that neither implies older methods are bad or that newer methods guarantee better deliveries.
It's never the tool, but the wielder. Give a process to a good engineer, and he will find a way to get things to work. Give any process to a code monkey, and you are just going to get a lot of shit flinging irregardless of the process of choice.
... and it would pay less. I highly suggest it for everyone though.
I started learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) about 6 years ago. One of the first things I noticed was that there seemed to be a higher percentage of technical/professional than I found in other athletic activities I had done in the past. Yes the UFC has made BJJ a bit trendy but it is more than that. BJJ is great for a smaller and weaker person because it effectively demonstrates technique over strength from day one.
^^^ this. Pretty much almost every person I've seen in BJJ (or Judo) has a technical/professional job. Training is not cheap, and it requires a certain type of income to keep it up. It is also worth noting a significant number of UFC fighters wrestle in college.
Sadly, their brags of "only five years behind" is an underestimate. It's a 65nm chip - its heyday was 2006-2007, on tail-end Pentium IVs, early Core 2, and Phenoms. 45nm hit in 2008, followed by 32nm in 2010. In 2012 Intel hit 22nm, but most others were on a 28nm half-node. Currently, 14nm is shipping from some vendors, and the rest are gearing up for it.
Account for the fact that these chips most likely won't actually be delivered until 2016, and you'll see they're really 10 years behind, not 5. That will probably still be fine for desktops or industrial use, but mobile is out, and servers will be very inefficient compared to modern ones.
You are right, but for most things, late 2000's tech is still fine. Slap moar ram and a SSD, or cluster the crap out of it, and voila, Franken-server to the rescue. It might not work when facing the public internet, but for internal usage, that thing can still be made to rock.
The only problem with old hardware is that it gets near its points of failure. Hardware is hardware, thus it will degrade. But newly fabricated tech that is equivalent to not-too-old tech, obtained with a cheaper price tag, what's there not to like?
This is not an endorsement of Russian tech, but an observation on the value of old technology, or technology that has not caught up (and is not trying to catch up) with the joneses.
About time. We can't trust the Asian chips anymore.
At least the Ruskies have good security.
What would make chips from this Asian country (Russia) inherently better than chips from another Asian country? And yes, given that nearly 1/3 of Asia is Russian territory it should be safe to call Russia an Asian country.
Geographically, it might be in Asia, but culturally, the majority of people aren't. And even if that weren't the case, what the hell does it mean Asian? Central Asian? Far East Asian? Siberian? Those three grossly oversimplified labels apply to Russia (and many other former USSR states for that matter.) Grossly oversimplified as they are, these stand for significantly different things.
And we are only discussing the Asian'ness of Russia, without even entering into the whole continent? Asian as in the Near East/Asia Minor? Central Asia as in Iran or Kazakhstan or Mongolia (the later, culturally, is a Central Asian nation)? Far East as in China, the Korean Peninsula or Japan? Japan in many ways is a unique Western Country, or a country whose Asian'ness is no longer in tandem with what 'Far East Asia' embodies. And we are not even touching South East Asia and South Asia at all.
Russia escapes such ridiculous descriptions. For all practical purposes, culturally, politically and economically, it is a European country. It is not a Western country, but neither is most of Eastern Europe.
And the term "Asian" means so many things that by itself, it almost means nothing.
Good for them. I hope they do start using their own fabs. The world needs less economic globalization right now. If countries started working on more self sufficiency it would solve a lot of problems, including loss of jobs and mass immigration. Now if the US would only do that...
Not sure why this gets neg-rep'ed. To be honest, every country needs a degree of self-sufficiency and, *gasp*, protectionism. This is not to say that I'm arguing against globalization and trade agreements that stem from it.
Barring Chicxulub II or, I dunno, Cthulhu's second coming, Globalization is 1) inevitable, and 2) not necessarily a bad thing. Every country needs to do its own balancing act regarding participating in a global economy while protecting its own national-level interests (and a national economy is, after all, a strategic asset). So the Russians, for whatever good or bad, or intelligent or stupid reasons, they are doing that at least in this type of market.
Good for them. The more companies and countries that compete in high tech (or at least try to push their local tech), the better on the long road. It might not be good for us in the US (and in other high-tech countries like Germany or Japan)... so long as we sleep in our laurels. If we do (and we are), then we just deserve a gold medal for the Dodo's Olympics, bestowed by the Darwin's Awards.
I mean, look -- there were a bunch of recent stories with suspects getting killed or beate...n
Well, I think ONE thing is pretty clear.
Don't RUN from the cops. The one common denominator from most of the recently publicized cop shootings of citizens, is that the citizen generally ran from the officer.
But one thing to do for sure...don't act like an ass, if you are (and you should) exerting your rights, do so in a calm, non-threatening fashion. Don't shout. Don't curse, use clear concise language. The "Am I free to go" statement is a very simple and very powerful thing to say and get an answer to.
If you don't give them a reason to beat you...99.999% of the time they are not..
Bad example. He actually resisted arrest and comes from a country where the police are far more corrupt than they are in the U.S. so he had some fear. Although, he did not speak English (how I don't know since English has been taught in India schools for over a century), he also did not submit and tried to get away from the cops. Now, the cop reaction was excessive--throwing the man down hard to a concrete slab and breaking a vertebrae or two--the man did resist arrest. It could have been handled a lot better.
On the contrary, this is a good example. That the LEO got fired and arrested is inconsequential to the argument at hand (the probability of a LEO beating the crap out of you for no valid reason.) The LEO's arrest is a consequence of the event whose probability is into question, so this is irrelevant.
As for the old grandpa resisting arrest, well that is still not a reason. For starters he wasn't resisting, he was simply in a state of not knowing what to do in the face of having uniformed strangers "touching" him during a patdown, not understanding WTF was going on.
That is not resisting. No judge in any goddamned court in this country (nor most LEOS) will ever find that as an example of resisting arrest. Let's be real.
So right there is a counter-example of the claim that if you do nothing (code for "act reasonable") will not get you taken like a piñata by a LEO.
Secondly, this "resisting arrest" mantra is very troublesome and common in forums.
What if instead of an old grandpa from India with zero English skills, we have an adult that is clearly suffering from mental retardation, and he walks back/away from LEOs during a patdown.
Is that resisting? And if so, does that warrant a beat down?
What about a deaf person who cannot hear you, who cannot comply with your orders? Is that person resisting arrest? Fuck no.
kfor.com/2014/02/26/dash-cam-video-deaf-man-charged-with-resisting-arrest-officers-cleared/
At some point, LEOs (and people in general) are bound to exercise common sense, decency, and compassion. In Mr. Patel's case, the LEO clearly understood the old man didn't speak English. Logic would dictate that the officer (a college degree holder and thus, supposedly, sufficiently educated to know better) would know that this person was not capable of understanding instructions, nor following them.
That right there blows up the argument that he was resisting arrest. You can't allege resistance to arrest when you (or should know) the person is incapacitated to comply (be them by obvious language barriers or physical/mental incapacity.) I mean, you can argue that it is so, just in the same way we can argue the world was created in 7 days and that the world is flat with the sun orbiting it.
It happens all the time, all the fucking time, for no reasons, for no valid reasons, not even for quasi-reasons that could be stretched into something barely resembling a reason. It just that nowadays, this type of shit gets move visible because the ubiquitous presence of cameras.
You go be the hero then. I've got a wife and kids who aren't going to accept "Daddy did something heroic" as an excuse when I lose my job and we're living in a van down by the river. Is the ACLU going to pay my mortgage when I have to call into work and explain to them that I can't come in because I'm in jail?
As a parent, I agree with the sentiment with caveats. I film with my phone until I'm told to stop. I won't argue, I will simply comply and leave. Chances are my phone will not be taken from me, so the record stays with me. And if the phone is taken from me, I won't fight it. I will comply, hand it over, and go home, call my lawyer and litigate.
I haven't done yet, but I'm in the process of installing front and rear cameras in both our cars. And just by applying common sense, it can be done so without escalating a confrontation.
As a parent, you are completely right to avoid a confrontation. But as a parent, you are not right in doing a modicum of an low-risk effort to improve society. Your children will inherit it.
You don't have to go martyr, but for f* sake, at least show your children you have a backbone and a set of principles.
In theory this says "unless you are arresting me, this is a voluntary interaction which I am ending".
... but actually your are not ending it, but rather continuing it by keeping on filming...
Legally, he could claim that because you voluntarily stick around, you are voluntarily consenting to any abuse that he's subjecting you to after you've got your chance to leave or stop all interactions with him.
He can claim whatever he wants, it would still be a violation of your constitutional rights. That bad LEOs flunk at that one does not mean they legally have the power for it.
I mean, look -- there were a bunch of recent stories with suspects getting killed or beate...n
Well, I think ONE thing is pretty clear.
Don't RUN from the cops. The one common denominator from most of the recently publicized cop shootings of citizens, is that the citizen generally ran from the officer.
But one thing to do for sure...don't act like an ass, if you are (and you should) exerting your rights, do so in a calm, non-threatening fashion. Don't shout. Don't curse, use clear concise language. The "Am I free to go" statement is a very simple and very powerful thing to say and get an answer to.
If you don't give them a reason to beat you...99.999% of the time they are not..
It's understandable that there are times a person might want to to willfully relinquish or not stand up for their rights. This article is obviously not about you, then. So to you, and others like you, I ask that you please do STFU
It is your right to ask us to STFU. And it is equally our right to ignore you.
and allow those of us who DO wish to stand up for our rights to discuss the issues of standing up for our rights.
And who is stopping you? Just because we say it can be stupid, that doesn't constitute a way to stop you. Go ahead and bang yourself on the wall on principle. Whatever makes you feel like William Wallace. We'll still tell you you are being a dork too dumb to learn how to be strategic and pick your battles, that you are a dork who can't strategically know when NOT to fight so that you can fight another day and win. We will tell you so even more if your death is ineffectual to promoting your cause.
I don't go to protests. Mainly because I don't see them as very effective. The second reason is because I am not one of those that will set on a sidewalk and just let somebody (including a cop) push me around or pepper spray me or anything like that.
I don't start conflicts, but if one is started, I fight to win, and I use a constantly increasing levels of force to make sure I win. Situation dominance is my way. and yes, this applies to police.
The only reason you would have that code still running on those chips is because it's not forward compatible with something more modern.
Or the bean counters don't want to pay the up-front cost of moving to something more modern. Many financial departments take a 'if it ain't broke' stance on computing hardware (and software!).
That should be your reaction by default because change always incur costs and risks. So better have a valid reason to incur in new costs and risks. The operation of something old has to be costly, or difficult, or subpar, or the change to something new has a real chance of decreasing costs, or the change is part of a larger, business-related strategy. Only then you have a valid reason to change.
many of them don't factor in electricity and maintenance costs, all they see is "$N Dollars for new server hardware? Why? That's rediculous!"
The cost of electricity and maintenance costs may appear high, but if they are constant and well known, then they imply minimum risk. You can account them for (and you should if you are running a business,... otherwise, don't run a business.)
If maintenance costs are limited to hardware support, you can ignore them. If it is software costs in terms of difficult deployments or software upgrades, then yes, that is the threshold over which a change needs to be initiated.
But if you don't have that, then, don't fix what is broken. Let the cost be constant and the risk known (and ergo manageable.)
It's why many COBOL programmers still have a job.
No. It is because most COBOL systems are running within expected parameters. After running for years, if not decades, they are well known, their features and their glitches. They are battle tested.
And given the large size of these systems, it would be ridiculous to re-write them into something else. Why? Because that implies unknown risks and costs. Risk is something that grows exponential to the size of the re-write. This is not hand waving, this is a fact.
There is more to software engineering than writing code. It also involves delivering solutions and values and managing risk. Software engineering must be seen as integral part of a business process. Otherwise, we are not software engineers, but mere code monkeys throwing shit at the wall, packaging and selling whatever sticks.
The only reason you would have that code still running on those chips is because it's not forward compatible with something more modern.
Or because those platforms are running fine for the job they are required to do, and thus replacing them do yield any additional value? Proper engineering and business decisions call for changing things when you have to, when you have a reason, a valid reason.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it is not just an empty slogan.
Otherwise someone would have transitioned to some much cheaper, more recent, commodity hardware, and saved the business a lot of cash.
Why cheaper? What if the hardware is already owned? What if the systems therein are running just fine as expected? If it ain't broke, don't fix it
That's definitely not good engineering, or something to brag about.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you don't get it, you are not cut for this business.
Do we go about rewriting all those lines of working-fine COBOL code into whatever is in vogue nowadays? Do you change your working-condition car every time a new model comes?
The only time you change something is if you have a reasonable expectations of gains, or if the cost of keeping something that old goes above a certain threshold. Otherwise, you let it be.
You know you are doing it right when your creation becomes legacy, and it runs unchanged for years, many years, providing value and ease of integration. That is, when the thing you created delivers value AND does not give reasons to decommission, then you know you did your job right, and you can brag about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Doing something more cost effectively and safely isnt a harm that needs to be mitigated.
It is if it causes mass unemployment. The industrial revolution did show us how to do things in more economical (and at times safer) ways. With that said, for the first 30-40 years of this period, by several estimates, about 1/3 of the working class was employed, 1/3 permanently in a state of half-employment, and the remaining 1/3 in a permanent state of unemployment, with nothing but scrapping by.
Let those numbers sink in. Poverty increased among the lowest sectors of society, in large numbers. It took decades for markets to "heal themselves".
We can give economies and societies of the time to not give a shit, or not even understanding the implications because, well, people act according to the times.
But what is our excuse now. I am not against modernization or globalization, but by God, private entities need to do a better job at looking at the consequences (which, if you play it right, can actually become profitable opportunities in creating new markets in which the unemployed transfer to work.)
And if private entities cannot or do not want, the it is up to the State. Because someone has to. This isn't the late 1700's, early 1800's. If we ever fall for the last option, we have only ourselves to blame.
There is no simultaneously. It will happen gradually. Wages for drivers will decrease. Any time you expect something to suddenly happen and need to simultaneously do stuff, you are misunderstanding how markets work.
And anyone who things the negative impact of change is negligible simply because change is gradual also misunderstand how markets work. These damages take decades to get undone. And here we are talking beyond the mere concepts of markets. We are talking about national policies. We have been taking purely market-driven ideological points up our asses for the last 2-3 decades without any national policy to handle the aftermaths, and see where it has taken us.
So, people who revolt from a position of poverty are extortionists. You can rephrase any way you want to avoid the question.
This argument was already covered above. I can protect myself for a modest outlay that's a lot less than I'm already paying in taxes.
And even if I couldn't, I don't know why I should think that paying off violent extortionists would result in anything but more violent extortion. Why do you think it might?
History tells me that bad things eventually happen to every society. There's not one single example of any system that endured permanently in peace. So what's the lesson? (Personally, the lesson I learned is not to use "look at history..." as an argument for anything.)
People that revolt from a position of abject poverty and unemployment are extortionists?
The problem with Socialism for someone who actually works for a living is that it doesn't seem like it promises me anything positive. I get to pay for things demanded by non-workers, but I get essentially nothing in return.
We do not get anything in return? How about this? We don't get our heads on a pitchfork. Put millions of people out of work and bad violent shit is bound to happen. Fucking history is right there to tell you this. How stupid can we be that do not see the self-preservation benefit of not putting millions of people out of work?
Yeah, God knows we don't need any of that advanced technology crap!
Next thing you know, they might develop big machines to replace covered wagons and plows. Then where will we be, when all those teamsters and farmers are put out of work?
And what's with these "computer" things? Everyone knows a computer is a (usually) young woman who calculates (by hand) the numbers required by Real Scientists (tm). Replace them with machines? I say no!
I say we just destroy all that automation and go back to the tried and true ways we've always known! Ned Ludd Lives!
This is the stupidest false dichotomy bullshit I've seen in a long time. No one is saying no to automation. What the concern is, how do we plan to introduce automation in the trucking industry while simultaneously handle the 10 +/- million people that will be affected? Do we just introduce automation and let markets self-heal (which is pretty much dog-eat-dog), or do we put in place transition job and training programs to ameliorate the impact of unemployment until the bulk of people is able to transition into other job sectors.
That you miss the gist of the problem shows that you are not as smart as you think you are, or you simply do not care. Don't know which is scarier.
It's never the tool, but the wielder. Give a process to a good engineer, and he will find a way to get things to work. Give any process to a code monkey, and you are just going to get a lot of shit flinging irregardless of the process of choice.
Then you haven't been in software development for very long or how little ability to discern a good tool from a bad one. Shitty tools are foisted upon software developers all the time in the form of buggy and/or poorly documented frameworks, databases, IDEs, etc.
Been in this business for 20 years, 9 different companies in various industries, doing application and system/embedded development. But whatever. If you want to play my lightsaber is bigger than yours, by all means, knock yourself out, you win.
We are obviously talking about processes in general. But if we want to talk about shitty IDEs, languages and coding-level artifacts, let's do it. Yes, there are shitty IDEs, bad languages and such. They make work difficult, if not painfully insane, but none of that stop good workers from delivering good work (or at least avoid the number of sophomoric WTFs from piling up.)
Back in 1994, I once had the disgrace of having to do support report generating programs on PICK systems, using nothing but ed (not even vi for ${DEITY:-FSM} sake), using a bastardized language that mixed sh-based constructs with SQL-like statements for multi-column databases and PICKBasic.
That last thing, PICK Basic, utter crap that made GW-BASIC look like Haskell. At least GW-BASIC supported named labels for your GOTOs. PICK Basic oth only supported numeric labels. Imagine that if you can. You can have named labels in most assembly languages, but not in PICK Basic. Wrap your head around that if you can.
Anyways, the existing programs were a monstrosity we inherited were a monstrosity. We started fixing that by establishing standards and procedures for creating new programs (or introducing changes in new ones). We established a hierarchy of numeric labels - labels in the 1000-1999 range for initialization, 2000-2999, 3000-3999 for general computation, 4000-4999 for reporting/output and 5000+ for error handling and abnormal termination.
Those are the tools we had for that specific job, and as ugly as they were, we found ways to deal with them, to increase value for our employer while minimizing the number of WTFs that had been piling up for years by incompetent code monkeys.
There is no question in my mind that PICK systems were pure crap because they required us to put significantly more attention to detail to avoid introducing WTFs. Thank God that was just one job I had to do, and that I have never had to deal with that ever since.
And I've experience deja-vu moments like that, in Java, Visual Basic, C/C++, FoxPro, you name it. There is no language or IDE out there that does not have some unbelievable collection of WTFs.
But none of them cause people to unavoidably fuck it up again and again and again. Wielder, not tool.
When we had our choice to pick, we try to pick the best tools we can get.
But more often than not, we do not. And when that happens, what do you do? Do you go on auto-pilot and let the tool WTFquery imbue themselves into WTFs in your own code?
No. Not at all. You use your skills and find ways to make that shit work, to put some structure, some standards, some sane mechanisms and patterns and practices to maintain some quality in your work.
It can be done. Actually, it is done, and it has been done. Wielder, not tool. Always.
Why would you use a hammer made out of plastic straws?
Why wouldn't I? You've proclaimed that every tool is perfect and it's only the user that is at fault when it doesn't work.
I didn't say every tool is perfect. I said that every tool has a function, has a context, and that works in that context. But hey, I guess I have to go Barney Style in these realms.
It's never the tool, but the wielder. Give a process to a good engineer, and he will find a way to get things to work. Give any process to a code monkey, and you are just going to get a lot of shit flinging irregardless of the process of choice.
Good luck hammering nails with a hammer made out of plastic straws. And when you can't get it to work, it must have been your own fault not that of a bad tool.
Why would you use a hammer made out of plastic straws? What is the use of that tool? What is the purpose? What is the context? These are obviously rhetorical questions used to highlight the stupidity of your counter example.
For that matter, why don't you go and say "good luck hammering nails with a bar of soap, a saw, or a roll of toilet paper"?
It's never the tool, but the wielder.
This is bullshit. Tools can be poorly made.
Which is true. But here we are talking about tools, concepts and processes that are known to produce good results when used intelligently (or that should be known by anyone worth his/her salt in this industry.)
The context should have been apparent, but I guess we needed to go Barney Style with it.
If you're going to be a sysadmin, getting a certification can be well worth it (depending on the company, the certification, your position, etc). If you're a programmer, getting a certification is a waste of time unless you learn something in the process. In that case, the certification will still be worthless but the knowledge you gained will be worth something.
Be careful here. A cert's worth is not defined simply by the lessons that come with it. It is also pixie dust or glitter that you use in your resume.
I'm not joking. During the last recession, I became unemployed (just 7 days before my first child was born). I had the skills, and references, but I could not make any progress in getting interviews with my resume. Then it dawned on me to call one of the recruiters I was using and asked her if I could see the resumes of the people her firm has placed in jobs in the last few months, the ones with the better salaries (names and personal info blacked out of course.)
Every single resume I saw had some type of certification it it - SCJP, ECSP, whatever. I worked on Java for a decade, but never cared for certificates. But when I saw the resumes, I immediately took the SCJP exam, nailed it, and put SCJP certificate # on my resume.
That was the only change I made on my resume. And voila, I started getting calls.
At any given time, but specially during economic downturns, there is a ton of people looking for jobs, and HR departments get bombarded by them. And they rely on keyboards and certs to filter resumes to a manageable number.
It is stupid. It doesn't guarantee shit. But it is what it is.
In this career, anyone should expect a downturn once a decade (if you are lucky), or two or more if you live in an area with crappy local economies. So protect yourself by getting a few certs specific to your career (or the ones that are more popular in job searches in your area of residence.)
They don't make you a better programmer, but they can give you an edge in passing the moronic keyword filters put in place by HR departments.
It is stupid, but unless you live in a robust job market like SV, it is what it is. That's my personal anecdote. YMMV.
Is Agile Development a Failing Concept?
No. It's just that people suck at doing quality work. People released shit when using procedural/modular programming. But that's people, not procedural/modular programming. Then OOP came, and people did more shit with it. But that's not on OOP, but on people.
I can say that with confidence because I know teams and companies that have delivered quality work using either any (or all) of these paradigms.
Same with processes. People have done good work with waterfall, and bad work with waterfall. Good work with spiral/iterative process, and bad work as well. Same with RAD, RUP, all flavors of agile, XP, Scrum, Kanban, etc.
It is people. It is organizations. A group of engineers that do good work with one reference process is very likely to do good work with most other processes, newer or older than the reference process by which they are currently being measured.
Newer processes are typically better than older ones when applied to general cases. Better as in helping ameliorate cost or increase delivery, or pretty much optimize some type of software development KPI. But that neither implies older methods are bad or that newer methods guarantee better deliveries.
It's never the tool, but the wielder. Give a process to a good engineer, and he will find a way to get things to work. Give any process to a code monkey, and you are just going to get a lot of shit flinging irregardless of the process of choice.
I started learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) about 6 years ago. One of the first things I noticed was that there seemed to be a higher percentage of technical/professional than I found in other athletic activities I had done in the past. Yes the UFC has made BJJ a bit trendy but it is more than that. BJJ is great for a smaller and weaker person because it effectively demonstrates technique over strength from day one.
^^^ this. Pretty much almost every person I've seen in BJJ (or Judo) has a technical/professional job. Training is not cheap, and it requires a certain type of income to keep it up. It is also worth noting a significant number of UFC fighters wrestle in college.
Sadly, their brags of "only five years behind" is an underestimate. It's a 65nm chip - its heyday was 2006-2007, on tail-end Pentium IVs, early Core 2, and Phenoms. 45nm hit in 2008, followed by 32nm in 2010. In 2012 Intel hit 22nm, but most others were on a 28nm half-node. Currently, 14nm is shipping from some vendors, and the rest are gearing up for it.
Account for the fact that these chips most likely won't actually be delivered until 2016, and you'll see they're really 10 years behind, not 5. That will probably still be fine for desktops or industrial use, but mobile is out, and servers will be very inefficient compared to modern ones.
You are right, but for most things, late 2000's tech is still fine. Slap moar ram and a SSD, or cluster the crap out of it, and voila, Franken-server to the rescue. It might not work when facing the public internet, but for internal usage, that thing can still be made to rock.
The only problem with old hardware is that it gets near its points of failure. Hardware is hardware, thus it will degrade. But newly fabricated tech that is equivalent to not-too-old tech, obtained with a cheaper price tag, what's there not to like?
This is not an endorsement of Russian tech, but an observation on the value of old technology, or technology that has not caught up (and is not trying to catch up) with the joneses.
About time. We can't trust the Asian chips anymore.
At least the Ruskies have good security.
What would make chips from this Asian country (Russia) inherently better than chips from another Asian country? And yes, given that nearly 1/3 of Asia is Russian territory it should be safe to call Russia an Asian country.
Geographically, it might be in Asia, but culturally, the majority of people aren't. And even if that weren't the case, what the hell does it mean Asian? Central Asian? Far East Asian? Siberian? Those three grossly oversimplified labels apply to Russia (and many other former USSR states for that matter.) Grossly oversimplified as they are, these stand for significantly different things.
And we are only discussing the Asian'ness of Russia, without even entering into the whole continent? Asian as in the Near East/Asia Minor? Central Asia as in Iran or Kazakhstan or Mongolia (the later, culturally, is a Central Asian nation)? Far East as in China, the Korean Peninsula or Japan? Japan in many ways is a unique Western Country, or a country whose Asian'ness is no longer in tandem with what 'Far East Asia' embodies. And we are not even touching South East Asia and South Asia at all.
Russia escapes such ridiculous descriptions. For all practical purposes, culturally, politically and economically, it is a European country. It is not a Western country, but neither is most of Eastern Europe.
And the term "Asian" means so many things that by itself, it almost means nothing.
Good for them. I hope they do start using their own fabs. The world needs less economic globalization right now. If countries started working on more self sufficiency it would solve a lot of problems, including loss of jobs and mass immigration. Now if the US would only do that...
Not sure why this gets neg-rep'ed. To be honest, every country needs a degree of self-sufficiency and, *gasp*, protectionism. This is not to say that I'm arguing against globalization and trade agreements that stem from it.
Barring Chicxulub II or, I dunno, Cthulhu's second coming, Globalization is 1) inevitable, and 2) not necessarily a bad thing. Every country needs to do its own balancing act regarding participating in a global economy while protecting its own national-level interests (and a national economy is, after all, a strategic asset). So the Russians, for whatever good or bad, or intelligent or stupid reasons, they are doing that at least in this type of market.
Good for them. The more companies and countries that compete in high tech (or at least try to push their local tech), the better on the long road. It might not be good for us in the US (and in other high-tech countries like Germany or Japan)... so long as we sleep in our laurels. If we do (and we are), then we just deserve a gold medal for the Dodo's Olympics, bestowed by the Darwin's Awards.
Well, I think ONE thing is pretty clear.
Don't RUN from the cops. The one common denominator from most of the recently publicized cop shootings of citizens, is that the citizen generally ran from the officer.
But one thing to do for sure...don't act like an ass, if you are (and you should) exerting your rights, do so in a calm, non-threatening fashion. Don't shout. Don't curse, use clear concise language. The "Am I free to go" statement is a very simple and very powerful thing to say and get an answer to.
If you don't give them a reason to beat you...99.999% of the time they are not..
Tell that to poor Mr. Sureshbhai Patel: http://www.al.com/news/index.s...
Bad example. He actually resisted arrest and comes from a country where the police are far more corrupt than they are in the U.S. so he had some fear. Although, he did not speak English (how I don't know since English has been taught in India schools for over a century), he also did not submit and tried to get away from the cops. Now, the cop reaction was excessive--throwing the man down hard to a concrete slab and breaking a vertebrae or two--the man did resist arrest. It could have been handled a lot better.
On the contrary, this is a good example. That the LEO got fired and arrested is inconsequential to the argument at hand (the probability of a LEO beating the crap out of you for no valid reason.) The LEO's arrest is a consequence of the event whose probability is into question, so this is irrelevant.
As for the old grandpa resisting arrest, well that is still not a reason. For starters he wasn't resisting, he was simply in a state of not knowing what to do in the face of having uniformed strangers "touching" him during a patdown, not understanding WTF was going on.
That is not resisting. No judge in any goddamned court in this country (nor most LEOS) will ever find that as an example of resisting arrest. Let's be real.
So right there is a counter-example of the claim that if you do nothing (code for "act reasonable") will not get you taken like a piñata by a LEO.
Secondly, this "resisting arrest" mantra is very troublesome and common in forums.
What if instead of an old grandpa from India with zero English skills, we have an adult that is clearly suffering from mental retardation, and he walks back/away from LEOs during a patdown.
Is that resisting? And if so, does that warrant a beat down?
What about a deaf person who cannot hear you, who cannot comply with your orders? Is that person resisting arrest? Fuck no.
kfor.com/2014/02/26/dash-cam-video-deaf-man-charged-with-resisting-arrest-officers-cleared/ At some point, LEOs (and people in general) are bound to exercise common sense, decency, and compassion. In Mr. Patel's case, the LEO clearly understood the old man didn't speak English. Logic would dictate that the officer (a college degree holder and thus, supposedly, sufficiently educated to know better) would know that this person was not capable of understanding instructions, nor following them.
That right there blows up the argument that he was resisting arrest. You can't allege resistance to arrest when you (or should know) the person is incapacitated to comply (be them by obvious language barriers or physical/mental incapacity.) I mean, you can argue that it is so, just in the same way we can argue the world was created in 7 days and that the world is flat with the sun orbiting it.
It happens all the time, all the fucking time, for no reasons, for no valid reasons, not even for quasi-reasons that could be stretched into something barely resembling a reason. It just that nowadays, this type of shit gets move visible because the ubiquitous presence of cameras.
You go be the hero then. I've got a wife and kids who aren't going to accept "Daddy did something heroic" as an excuse when I lose my job and we're living in a van down by the river. Is the ACLU going to pay my mortgage when I have to call into work and explain to them that I can't come in because I'm in jail?
As a parent, I agree with the sentiment with caveats. I film with my phone until I'm told to stop. I won't argue, I will simply comply and leave. Chances are my phone will not be taken from me, so the record stays with me. And if the phone is taken from me, I won't fight it. I will comply, hand it over, and go home, call my lawyer and litigate.
I haven't done yet, but I'm in the process of installing front and rear cameras in both our cars. And just by applying common sense, it can be done so without escalating a confrontation.
As a parent, you are completely right to avoid a confrontation. But as a parent, you are not right in doing a modicum of an low-risk effort to improve society. Your children will inherit it.
You don't have to go martyr, but for f* sake, at least show your children you have a backbone and a set of principles.
In theory this says "unless you are arresting me, this is a voluntary interaction which I am ending".
... but actually your are not ending it, but rather continuing it by keeping on filming...
Legally, he could claim that because you voluntarily stick around, you are voluntarily consenting to any abuse that he's subjecting you to after you've got your chance to leave or stop all interactions with him.
He can claim whatever he wants, it would still be a violation of your constitutional rights. That bad LEOs flunk at that one does not mean they legally have the power for it.
Well, I think ONE thing is pretty clear.
Don't RUN from the cops. The one common denominator from most of the recently publicized cop shootings of citizens, is that the citizen generally ran from the officer.
But one thing to do for sure...don't act like an ass, if you are (and you should) exerting your rights, do so in a calm, non-threatening fashion. Don't shout. Don't curse, use clear concise language. The "Am I free to go" statement is a very simple and very powerful thing to say and get an answer to.
If you don't give them a reason to beat you...99.999% of the time they are not..
Tell that to poor Mr. Sureshbhai Patel: http://www.al.com/news/index.s...
It's understandable that there are times a person might want to to willfully relinquish or not stand up for their rights. This article is obviously not about you, then. So to you, and others like you, I ask that you please do STFU
It is your right to ask us to STFU. And it is equally our right to ignore you.
and allow those of us who DO wish to stand up for our rights to discuss the issues of standing up for our rights.
And who is stopping you? Just because we say it can be stupid, that doesn't constitute a way to stop you. Go ahead and bang yourself on the wall on principle. Whatever makes you feel like William Wallace. We'll still tell you you are being a dork too dumb to learn how to be strategic and pick your battles, that you are a dork who can't strategically know when NOT to fight so that you can fight another day and win. We will tell you so even more if your death is ineffectual to promoting your cause.
I don't go to protests. Mainly because I don't see them as very effective. The second reason is because I am not one of those that will set on a sidewalk and just let somebody (including a cop) push me around or pepper spray me or anything like that.
I don't start conflicts, but if one is started, I fight to win, and I use a constantly increasing levels of force to make sure I win. Situation dominance is my way. and yes, this applies to police.
Ooooo, internet tiger here!
When an officer of the law (which implies "officer of the law-courts") tells you to do something you, as a citizen under the law, must comply.
If you do not comply, then the officer has the right and obligation to clear you from the area by whatever means necessary.
Tell that to Rosa Parks.
The only reason you would have that code still running on those chips is because it's not forward compatible with something more modern.
Or the bean counters don't want to pay the up-front cost of moving to something more modern. Many financial departments take a 'if it ain't broke' stance on computing hardware (and software!).
That should be your reaction by default because change always incur costs and risks. So better have a valid reason to incur in new costs and risks. The operation of something old has to be costly, or difficult, or subpar, or the change to something new has a real chance of decreasing costs, or the change is part of a larger, business-related strategy. Only then you have a valid reason to change.
many of them don't factor in electricity and maintenance costs, all they see is "$N Dollars for new server hardware? Why? That's rediculous!"
The cost of electricity and maintenance costs may appear high, but if they are constant and well known, then they imply minimum risk. You can account them for (and you should if you are running a business, ... otherwise, don't run a business.)
If maintenance costs are limited to hardware support, you can ignore them. If it is software costs in terms of difficult deployments or software upgrades, then yes, that is the threshold over which a change needs to be initiated.
But if you don't have that, then, don't fix what is broken. Let the cost be constant and the risk known (and ergo manageable.)
It's why many COBOL programmers still have a job.
No. It is because most COBOL systems are running within expected parameters. After running for years, if not decades, they are well known, their features and their glitches. They are battle tested.
And given the large size of these systems, it would be ridiculous to re-write them into something else. Why? Because that implies unknown risks and costs. Risk is something that grows exponential to the size of the re-write. This is not hand waving, this is a fact.
There is more to software engineering than writing code. It also involves delivering solutions and values and managing risk. Software engineering must be seen as integral part of a business process. Otherwise, we are not software engineers, but mere code monkeys throwing shit at the wall, packaging and selling whatever sticks.
The only reason you would have that code still running on those chips is because it's not forward compatible with something more modern.
Or because those platforms are running fine for the job they are required to do, and thus replacing them do yield any additional value? Proper engineering and business decisions call for changing things when you have to, when you have a reason, a valid reason.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it is not just an empty slogan.
Otherwise someone would have transitioned to some much cheaper, more recent, commodity hardware, and saved the business a lot of cash.
Why cheaper? What if the hardware is already owned? What if the systems therein are running just fine as expected? If it ain't broke, don't fix it
That's definitely not good engineering, or something to brag about.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you don't get it, you are not cut for this business.
Do we go about rewriting all those lines of working-fine COBOL code into whatever is in vogue nowadays? Do you change your working-condition car every time a new model comes?
The only time you change something is if you have a reasonable expectations of gains, or if the cost of keeping something that old goes above a certain threshold. Otherwise, you let it be.
You know you are doing it right when your creation becomes legacy, and it runs unchanged for years, many years, providing value and ease of integration. That is, when the thing you created delivers value AND does not give reasons to decommission, then you know you did your job right, and you can brag about it.