What are you doing (entrepreneur wise) and why can't you keep doing it after the summer? If you have the initiative to be an entrepreneur, you're instantly setting yourself apart from the crowd if your venture fails and you have to look for a job (been there, done that, lost my T-shirt:-) Employers are generally impressed by self-motivated people. I've mentioned my entrepreneurial side businesses at the interviews for this job and my previous job and the interviewers loved it. Even brought some hardware I designed with me. Heck, at the last job, before coming on board I told the dept. head that I would probably be working on occasional maintenance projects for some previous clients and he was fine with it as long as there was no conflict of interest.
Anyway, if you can post what you do, I'd be interested. I like hearing about others' self-employment projects.
I'm going to make a final attempt at this: either you're so stuck in conventional thinking that you can't get it, or you simply refuse to.
NO, you CAN'T just drive over to a state forest and steal dirt
Then instead of topsoil, make it firewood since I know that's perfectly legal here. But it's arguing semantics. It's not hard to find many examples of people willing to pay for resouces that can be had for free.
As far as the rest of your post, like I said: either you refuse to get it or you can only see the possibilities in terms of selling PC help. I am talking about writing from scratch, or modifying an OS application into a vertical application that can be sold to a few hundred or few dozen clients, or whatever minimum number is necessary to make it worthwhile. That modification may be as small as setting up a few parameters. If you think this is cheating someone by selling essentially free software, well I guess you're free to do so. I disagree. Even if all you do is repackage it so it's easy to install, you are still adding value. And the amount of that value will determine whether or not you have customers.
it seems to be "if people are too stupid to know you're selling them something free, they'll pay you for it".
No. That's why I made the comment about Home Depot selling dirt and rocks. I've bought dirt (topsoil) from the Depot. I'm well aware that I could drive over to a state forest and dig up my own, same goes for the rocks. But it's a better use of my time/money to just drive 2 miles and pay a corporation that's provided these commodities in a nice packaged form that's easy to use.
That's (part of) the point I'm making: people will pay for convenience and for skills they don't have and have no interest in acquiring. Let's beat the dead horse some more: I have a degree in electrical engineering. People have paid me to design circuits and software for them. All the knowledge needed for my degrees could be found in books in libraries and is thus free for the taking. And for that matter, many of the circuits I've designed could be found on the net in one form or another. So why do they pay me for this knowledge when it's available for free?
You're right: my bad. I was thinking of the excerpt from the (efficacy?) documentation that said that specific test was 95% accurate for a pregnancy 48 hours old. Forgot that accuracy went up with time.
When we're dealing with stuff like cancer, 95% (say) accuracy isn't enough.
For many blood tests, 95% accuracy is considered excellent and essentially means it's 100% accurate for all practical purposes. hCG (pregnancy test) comes to mind. I doubt current single tests for cancer are any better. Hmmm... a quick googling reveals that current breast cancer methods are around 80% and a new PSA (prostate) test clocks in at 98% best case. I'd say 95% is pretty damn good.
What I'm talking about here is for example that bikes are today better than those who ride 'm
Good point. That's exactly why I still ride my 97 Fisher Joshua. It is still after this time, more bike than I need. It is so far beyond any bike I had ridden up to that time it's not funny.
But while the point of sports is that you do it yourself, technology lets you go farther and do things more safely which leads to you enjoying it more, which leads you working to become even better, which leads to you enjoying it more...
I was about to make a flippant comment about the lack of technology in my weight room in the basement (after all it's just heavy cast iron circles and holders, right?) then I remembered my Olympic bar has swivel ends which make it much less painful to squat when your body rotates the bar slightly, but the inertia of a few 100lbs of weights wants to stay still.
Yeah, but, see, here you're painting yourself into a corner. You admit that my point about open source has validity. And, you admit that just about anything anyone might want to do is probably available open-source. But then, you assert that there's still a need to market these open source projects to small businesses, even though you've already admitted they could just go download the stuff -- so where's the market? IN reality, it's like, "Here's the website, here's an FTP client". Where's the sale? Where's the money you're talking about?
It isn't there. About the only way you could make a buck, and it wouldn't be a very BIG buck, would be to contract to set up the software for the small business in question. They might be aware of the software, they might want to use it, but they might not be capable enough to install it for themselves. Still, this isn't "software marketing". This is "PC Tutor to the rescue". It's not the same. Again, the book isn't going to provide any value here.
You're forgetting that most people on/. (at least the posters) are well versed in the net and where to find things and in general, quite expert at using computers. Most small business owners are not. In fact, based on the years when customer support was part of my job, I'd say that most computer users are not knowledgeable about computers except for the tasks they use them for, no matter how expert they might be at say, behavioral psychology.
What I'm getting at is that the guy who runs e.g., a small print shop may know that he has a need and may intuit that a computer could solve it, but his knowledge of how to find a solution ends there. Do you really think your average florist is going to do "./make?" He may find a few VARs or a consultant and conclude that their one-off custom solutions are just too expensive. So there's a business with a need. Where there is one, there are usually hundreds more with the same need. This is where the entrepreneurial developer comes in. He may either craft a solution from scratch (one general enough that it fits many businesses, but is still specific to the niche), or he can find an open source project to start from and take it from there. GPL? The average customer wouldn't have the slightest interest in source code. So you give it to him if he requests it, is he really likely to decide to suddenly enter the software development business? Based on my experience (admittedly selling hardware), he's more likely to just refer someone else to you.
For a while, I sold a small device from my apartment for approx $100 (depending on options) and made a bit of money and learned a little about business at the same time. I could open any electronics hobby magazine and see essentially the same product for $25, sometimes less! Yet I sold over 200 units for prices up to $125 each. Why? It was worth it to the companies who purchased them from me to not have to bother with setup issues or other minor irritations. My product did what they needed with minimal fiddling (I gave away the source code to all the demo/example programs on disk for them to customize to their own uses) and the time of their engineers was valuable enough to be worth the extra money. Lots of happy repeat customers.
People buy products that are available for free elsewhere all the time. I could go fishing or buy fish at the market. Home Depot sells dirt fer chrissake! It's all about perceived value.
It seems to me that software is one of the few things with no mass market left. There are only specialized niches that still want to pay for software, and business categories where software has always been paid for in the same way. This is a book whose point I cannot fathom.
THIS IS NOT A TROLL. I'm serious. What's the point of programmers and techies getting all worked up over some marketing blather? It's just not central to the business anymore
If marketing isn't central to your business, prepare to have no business left!
I can't speak to whether or not there is a mass consumer market as I really don't pay attention to what's on the shelf at the local CompUSA. But you are correct that there are lots of specialized niches. What you ignore, though, is that many of these niches are populated by small businesses that need software not available on the mass market but it's too expensive to have contracted. But is is possible for small developer shops to build these vertical apps in niches that are too small for Oracle/Microsoft, etc to bother with. That's when you need to understand marketing. I'm truly amazed by what's available open source. Just about anything I've looked for online from fish farm data collecting to machine shop operations, there's some open source project that attempts to meet the demand. Which probably means there's money for someone to take that OS app and customize it for a few businesses and market it to them.
If a consumer is doing potentially dangerous things with his or her household applicances, it is (at least it should be) his or her own responsibility if something bad happens.
Very true. But a large part of what UL does is protect the consumer from defectively designed devices that he is using properly. If I happen to have one hand on the fridge as I am putting a pot on the electric hotplate, I shouldn't get a shock (yes, this actually happened to me) because the hotplate isn't grounded properly.
Ditto to that. I already don't pay much attention to email that doesn't come from an address my filters allow in. In the last month, I have received an estimated 600+ emails at home. Approximately 3 of those that didn't get past the filter (filters out 90% of email) were legitimately for me and even then, it was stuff that wasn't all that important e.g., I forgot to add the monthly SIGARCH messages from ACM to the filter.
I'd use something like this in a heartbeat. I receive about 25 spams per day at work as it is (yeah, I count those emails from Rational as spam since their opt-out address has never worked and I think Rose is crap).
If you are trying to make a tiny computer why would you put a parallel port and serial port on them. Who the hell uses parallel printer cables any more? If you put a printer cable on one of these computers, its weight would tip the computer over.
Actually this is exactly what I need, if only the PC cost $100 or less. I'm automating my aquarium and the I/O will be through the printer port using an interface card I designed a few years ago. As it is, I have to resort to scrounging for old PC motherboards. As far as it tipping over: well, that's what mounting screws are for.
So what you're saying is that your self esteem depends on your muscles and on your ear piercings.
I had to re-read my original post before I figured out why your reply didn't make sense. You assume I had low self-esteem to begin with. Anyone who knows me would laugh hysterically at that thought. (I'll grant you that I did word my original response poorly) There is a difference between basing one's self-worth solely on external validation and doing things that enhance an already strong sense of self. I didn't take up bodybuilding (back when I was *really* into it), or decide to pierce my ears or many other things I do because I felt like crap; sure, I wanted to feel better about myself, but that doesn't mean I felt bad to begin with.
The problem with saying that self-esteem can only come from within is that it ignores the fact that ultimately, everything is referenced to the external. For example: I can say that one of the things I like about myself is that I am a kindhearted person. Well, "kindhearted" compared to what? The concept is meaningless unless compared against the rest of society. The danger in basing self esteem on external forces comes when that's all there is; when the individual can't say decide which external forces he/she will align with and which ones to resist. Let's use my past bodybuilding hobby as an example: when I first started, if I described to friends what I wanted to look like, the most common response was "ewww. Why? Women hate guys who look like that, it's too much." Like you, they missed the point: I wasn't doing it so others would think I looked great. I was doing it because I thought it looked great; their opinions simply didn't count. At the same time, knowing a great woman loves me makes me feel fantastic, so obviously external opinions matter also.
why not just see a counselor and find out why your self esteem needed building up in the first place and why you weren't just satisified with who you were before you added these external enhancements
Oh, I know exactly why I wasn't satisfied with myself. The way I see myself, and the things I expect from myself, changes over time. When my self image gets too far out of whack with the reality, I do something to align the two. Sometimes it's deciding I'd look better with muscles; sometimes it's improving an important skill. But assuming that doing things that improve the way you feel about yourself means that something was wrong before is just silly.
I feel safe in saying that anyone who needs a tat or other body mod for self esteem has problems the body mod won't solve. Without malice or nastiness, I would honestly say if you want a body mod for self esteem purposes, then go see a therapist
A long time ago I grew muscles on my body for self esteem purposes. Explain to me how that requires therapy? I build things, learn new ideas and try new activities often in large part because it makes me feel better about myself. It's also why I have my ear piercings. So what about all this means I need therapy?
He ended up selling them back their building for the amount owed plus court costs.
Let me get this straight: this guy legally acquired real estate for $1 when he was owed a debt of less than $2000 (avg small claims limit) and yet gave up ownership of that building for the sum owed? Did SF real estate just take a huge nosedive or what? Or is he just insane?
The only difference between 'genetically engineered' and not that is if WE do it intentionally or nature does it at random.
There is a middle ground with those of us who aren't screaming gloom & doom and it's that humans doing it drastically speeds up the rate of change. Changes in species that occur in nature tend to propagate relatively slowly, giving those humans affected a way to react (if they even realize they're reacting) by moving, killing the new unwanted species, or selectively breeding the unwanted characteristics out (again, a time consuming trial and error process). What I thought of when I heard of these fish was the Zebra mussel problem: species introduced by boats into the Great lakes and surrounding waters that are causing a great amount of damage to structure and rapidly displacing native species. Obviously this is not a problem confined to GM (I have no problem with GM organisms per se). Rather the issue is the possible sudden release of a substantially altered animal into the wild and the problems that that might cause. Ultimately the environment will rebalance, but until that happens, life for those affected can be unpleasant. Speaking of rebalancing: how is the rabbit problem in Australia these days?
Fish with neon banners scrolling across their sides will be easy prey for predators
Consider the alternative: the oddly colored fish scare off the predators (bright coloration is a signal to some animals that an object should not be eaten) and as a result of no predation, their numbers grow out of control, displacing the native fish. Will this happen? No one knows: that's the point.
As someone, who has some experience in this field, I can assure you, that the correct answer to the question "Want To Write Your Own OS?" is "No, you certainly do not."
I have to disagree. I wrote a real-time preemptive multitasking kernel for a class on RealTime systems and it was a fantastic experience. It was for a small microcontroller (AVR series) for which few such applications exist, so I wanted something that would be useful if I decided to make it a commercial product. I learned a tremendous amount from that project, and while I stopped short of my original goals (message passing, mutexes, etc) the system was certainly usable and I would recommend that someone interested in operating systems give it a try. It does depend on how far you want to take it.
I'd agree that writing an operating system for a desktop/server is probably not wise unless you have an earth-shattering insight, but operating systems for small embedded processors that go beyond "toy systems" can be very useful and can readily be completed by a single person in reasonable time. Learn by doing!
Probably depends on industry...
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
Remember, "IT" spans a wide range of work activities from the guy lugging PCs into cubes to be set up by someone else, to the CTO of a Fortune 100 corp. So it has to vary by industry. Try looking at companies where maturity is an asset. I'm in the medical device industry, and I don't think we have a software developer under the age of 28 or so. At age 38, I'm the youngest embedded SW developer. Average age seems to be around 33.
The average age in other sectors such as banking seems to be even higher. I knew someone in that area who reported that her co-workers were mostly in their 40's & 50's.
I'd tend to say that companies that are so concerned about the age of their employees (teenagers! what an idiot!) are places I wouldn't want to work at anyway.
Now my motto, and I really believe it, is "do what you love and the money will follow..." to which I add, "live where you love living... and life will follow." Why live in an industrial hell hole when you can just move to your idea of the most beautiful part of the country and work out the trivial stuff like how exactly you make a living once you get there?
Most people make a living in most places, after all.
Since I don't have any real mod points, I'll have to settle for virtually modding you into orbit. Couldn't have said it better myself!
It doesn't mean much in my estimation. It's not like Linux is a unique or especially cost effective solution here.
You're kidding, right? It's free and there are a lot of people with experience using it. It looks like they offloaded all the hard realtime stuff to other processors, leaving Linux doing all the other work it's capable of. Which is exactly the approach I'd take. Unlike most of the Microsoft OSs, you can minimize the Linux's footprint (you can also do this with NT/XP embedded, but the licensing requirements are ridiculous. Even by Microsoft standards!). QNX's RTOS can be had for free, but then you need to learn it. All in all, I think Linux is an excellent choice for work like this and we're going to see more of it in the future, esp. in cases where you'd like to be able to plug in a terminal or keyboard/monitor and download data or do debugging.
Put simply: why code for a circuitboard when you can code for a PC?
Because that circuit board may be doing things you PC can't dream of... like running on 3 AA cells. Or like fitting into a small corner of your pocket, or controlling fuel injection and ignition in your formerly carburetted VW, or controlling the robot walking up the basement stairs... Office-automation type desktop PC programming is (to me) at best somewhat interesting; embedded systems is where the real fun starts! Now combine a PC and a machine full of motors and solenoids and the code gets truly sexy. Used to be I couldn't believe I got paid to come to work every day!
If every company wrote their own web server, that'd be stupid. But when a solution needs to be written due to a technical requirement or a business requirement, that will be more likely unique.
Exactly. Tbe problem is to make available those components that may be common from project to project. Say I need to read a MIcrosoft Word8.0 (or whatever version they're up to now)document so my app can manipulate the text. Or I just need to autogenerate a document in Word format. It would be nice to be able to find/purchase a Word converter that will provide output to a user-supplied buffer or something. The rest of my program is my custom business logic, but reading a Word doc is something that many applications could use if it were possible. Same thing with the guy who needed an expression parser (although I remember coming across one for sale a few years ago.).
Slashdot Mirror
I was wondering the same thing. Then again, I'm a software engineer in an industrial park surrounded by cornfields, so...
Definitely more fun too. Good luck to you.
What are you doing (entrepreneur wise) and why can't you keep doing it after the summer? If you have the initiative to be an entrepreneur, you're instantly setting yourself apart from the crowd if your venture fails and you have to look for a job (been there, done that, lost my T-shirt
Anyway, if you can post what you do, I'd be interested. I like hearing about others' self-employment projects.
Then instead of topsoil, make it firewood since I know that's perfectly legal here. But it's arguing semantics. It's not hard to find many examples of people willing to pay for resouces that can be had for free.
As far as the rest of your post, like I said: either you refuse to get it or you can only see the possibilities in terms of selling PC help. I am talking about writing from scratch, or modifying an OS application into a vertical application that can be sold to a few hundred or few dozen clients, or whatever minimum number is necessary to make it worthwhile. That modification may be as small as setting up a few parameters. If you think this is cheating someone by selling essentially free software, well I guess you're free to do so. I disagree. Even if all you do is repackage it so it's easy to install, you are still adding value. And the amount of that value will determine whether or not you have customers.
No. That's why I made the comment about Home Depot selling dirt and rocks. I've bought dirt (topsoil) from the Depot. I'm well aware that I could drive over to a state forest and dig up my own, same goes for the rocks. But it's a better use of my time/money to just drive 2 miles and pay a corporation that's provided these commodities in a nice packaged form that's easy to use.
That's (part of) the point I'm making: people will pay for convenience and for skills they don't have and have no interest in acquiring. Let's beat the dead horse some more: I have a degree in electrical engineering. People have paid me to design circuits and software for them. All the knowledge needed for my degrees could be found in books in libraries and is thus free for the taking. And for that matter, many of the circuits I've designed could be found on the net in one form or another. So why do they pay me for this knowledge when it's available for free?
You're right: my bad. I was thinking of the excerpt from the (efficacy?) documentation that said that specific test was 95% accurate for a pregnancy 48 hours old. Forgot that accuracy went up with time.
For many blood tests, 95% accuracy is considered excellent and essentially means it's 100% accurate for all practical purposes. hCG (pregnancy test) comes to mind. I doubt current single tests for cancer are any better.
Hmmm... a quick googling reveals that current breast cancer methods are around 80% and a new PSA (prostate) test clocks in at 98% best case.
I'd say 95% is pretty damn good.
Good point. That's exactly why I still ride my 97 Fisher Joshua. It is still after this time, more bike than I need. It is so far beyond any bike I had ridden up to that time it's not funny.
But while the point of sports is that you do it yourself, technology lets you go farther and do things more safely which leads to you enjoying it more, which leads you working to become even better, which leads to you enjoying it more...
I was about to make a flippant comment about the lack of technology in my weight room in the basement (after all it's just heavy cast iron circles and holders, right?) then I remembered my Olympic bar has swivel ends which make it much less painful to squat when your body rotates the bar slightly, but the inertia of a few 100lbs of weights wants to stay still.
You're forgetting that most people on
What I'm getting at is that the guy who runs e.g., a small print shop may know that he has a need and may intuit that a computer could solve it, but his knowledge of how to find a solution ends there. Do you really think your average florist is going to do "./make?" He may find a few VARs or a consultant and conclude that their one-off custom solutions are just too expensive. So there's a business with a need. Where there is one, there are usually hundreds more with the same need.
This is where the entrepreneurial developer comes in. He may either craft a solution from scratch (one general enough that it fits many businesses, but is still specific to the niche), or he can find an open source project to start from and take it from there. GPL? The average customer wouldn't have the slightest interest in source code. So you give it to him if he requests it, is he really likely to decide to suddenly enter the software development business? Based on my experience (admittedly selling hardware), he's more likely to just refer someone else to you.
For a while, I sold a small device from my apartment for approx $100 (depending on options) and made a bit of money and learned a little about business at the same time. I could open any electronics hobby magazine and see essentially the same product for $25, sometimes less! Yet I sold over 200 units for prices up to $125 each. Why? It was worth it to the companies who purchased them from me to not have to bother with setup issues or other minor irritations. My product did what they needed with minimal fiddling (I gave away the source code to all the demo/example programs on disk for them to customize to their own uses) and the time of their engineers was valuable enough to be worth the extra money. Lots of happy repeat customers.
People buy products that are available for free elsewhere all the time. I could go fishing or buy fish at the market. Home Depot sells dirt fer chrissake! It's all about perceived value.
If marketing isn't central to your business, prepare to have no business left!
I can't speak to whether or not there is a mass consumer market as I really don't pay attention to what's on the shelf at the local CompUSA. But you are correct that there are lots of specialized niches. What you ignore, though, is that many of these niches are populated by small businesses that need software not available on the mass market but it's too expensive to have contracted. But is is possible for small developer shops to build these vertical apps in niches that are too small for Oracle/Microsoft, etc to bother with. That's when you need to understand marketing. I'm truly amazed by what's available open source. Just about anything I've looked for online from fish farm data collecting to machine shop operations, there's some open source project that attempts to meet the demand. Which probably means there's money for someone to take that OS app and customize it for a few businesses and market it to them.
Very true. But a large part of what UL does is protect the consumer from defectively designed devices that he is using properly. If I happen to have one hand on the fridge as I am putting a pot on the electric hotplate, I shouldn't get a shock (yes, this actually happened to me) because the hotplate isn't grounded properly.
Ditto to that. I already don't pay much attention to email that doesn't come from an address my filters allow in. In the last month, I have received an estimated 600+ emails at home. Approximately 3 of those that didn't get past the filter (filters out 90% of email) were legitimately for me and even then, it was stuff that wasn't all that important e.g., I forgot to add the monthly SIGARCH messages from ACM to the filter.
I'd use something like this in a heartbeat. I receive about 25 spams per day at work as it is (yeah, I count those emails from Rational as spam since their opt-out address has never worked and I think Rose is crap).
Actually this is exactly what I need, if only the PC cost $100 or less. I'm automating my aquarium and the I/O will be through the printer port using an interface card I designed a few years ago. As it is, I have to resort to scrounging for old PC motherboards. As far as it tipping over: well, that's what mounting screws are for.
I had to re-read my original post before I figured out why your reply didn't make sense. You assume I had low self-esteem to begin with. Anyone who knows me would laugh hysterically at that thought. (I'll grant you that I did word my original response poorly)
There is a difference between basing one's self-worth solely on external validation and doing things that enhance an already strong sense of self. I didn't take up bodybuilding (back when I was *really* into it), or decide to pierce my ears or many other things I do because I felt like crap; sure, I wanted to feel better about myself, but that doesn't mean I felt bad to begin with.
The problem with saying that self-esteem can only come from within is that it ignores the fact that ultimately, everything is referenced to the external. For example: I can say that one of the things I like about myself is that I am a kindhearted person. Well, "kindhearted" compared to what? The concept is meaningless unless compared against the rest of society. The danger in basing self esteem on external forces comes when that's all there is; when the individual can't say decide which external forces he/she will align with and which ones to resist. Let's use my past bodybuilding hobby as an example: when I first started, if I described to friends what I wanted to look like, the most common response was "ewww. Why? Women hate guys who look like that, it's too much." Like you, they missed the point: I wasn't doing it so others would think I looked great. I was doing it because I thought it looked great; their opinions simply didn't count. At the same time, knowing a great woman loves me makes me feel fantastic, so obviously external opinions matter also.
Oh, I know exactly why I wasn't satisfied with myself. The way I see myself, and the things I expect from myself, changes over time. When my self image gets too far out of whack with the reality, I do something to align the two. Sometimes it's deciding I'd look better with muscles; sometimes it's improving an important skill. But assuming that doing things that improve the way you feel about yourself means that something was wrong before is just silly.
A long time ago I grew muscles on my body for self esteem purposes. Explain to me how that requires therapy? I build things, learn new ideas and try new activities often in large part because it makes me feel better about myself. It's also why I have my ear piercings.
So what about all this means I need therapy?
Let me get this straight: this guy legally acquired real estate for $1 when he was owed a debt of less than $2000 (avg small claims limit) and yet gave up ownership of that building for the sum owed? Did SF real estate just take a huge nosedive or what? Or is he just insane?
There is a middle ground with those of us who aren't screaming gloom & doom and it's that humans doing it drastically speeds up the rate of change. Changes in species that occur in nature tend to propagate relatively slowly, giving those humans affected a way to react (if they even realize they're reacting) by moving, killing the new unwanted species, or selectively breeding the unwanted characteristics out (again, a time consuming trial and error process). What I thought of when I heard of these fish was the Zebra mussel problem: species introduced by boats into the Great lakes and surrounding waters that are causing a great amount of damage to structure and rapidly displacing native species.
Obviously this is not a problem confined to GM (I have no problem with GM organisms per se). Rather the issue is the possible sudden release of a substantially altered animal into the wild and the problems that that might cause. Ultimately the environment will rebalance, but until that happens, life for those affected can be unpleasant. Speaking of rebalancing: how is the rabbit problem in Australia these days?
Consider the alternative: the oddly colored fish scare off the predators (bright coloration is a signal to some animals that an object should not be eaten) and as a result of no predation, their numbers grow out of control, displacing the native fish.
Will this happen? No one knows: that's the point.
I have to disagree. I wrote a real-time preemptive multitasking kernel for a class on RealTime systems and it was a fantastic experience. It was for a small microcontroller (AVR series) for which few such applications exist, so I wanted something that would be useful if I decided to make it a commercial product. I learned a tremendous amount from that project, and while I stopped short of my original goals (message passing, mutexes, etc) the system was certainly usable and I would recommend that someone interested in operating systems give it a try. It does depend on how far you want to take it.
I'd agree that writing an operating system for a desktop/server is probably not wise unless you have an earth-shattering insight, but operating systems for small embedded processors that go beyond "toy systems" can be very useful and can readily be completed by a single person in reasonable time.
Learn by doing!
Remember, "IT" spans a wide range of work activities from the guy lugging PCs into cubes to be set up by someone else, to the CTO of a Fortune 100 corp.
So it has to vary by industry. Try looking at companies where maturity is an asset. I'm in the medical device industry, and I don't think we have a software developer under the age of 28 or so. At age 38, I'm the youngest embedded SW developer. Average age seems to be around 33.
The average age in other sectors such as banking seems to be even higher. I knew someone in that area who reported that her co-workers were mostly in their 40's & 50's.
I'd tend to say that companies that are so concerned about the age of their employees (teenagers! what an idiot!) are places I wouldn't want to work at anyway.
Since I don't have any real mod points, I'll have to settle for virtually modding you into orbit. Couldn't have said it better myself!
Sounds an awful lot like a Union :-)
You're kidding, right? It's free and there are a lot of people with experience using it. It looks like they offloaded all the hard realtime stuff to other processors, leaving Linux doing all the other work it's capable of. Which is exactly the approach I'd take. Unlike most of the Microsoft OSs, you can minimize the Linux's footprint (you can also do this with NT/XP embedded, but the licensing requirements are ridiculous. Even by Microsoft standards!). QNX's RTOS can be had for free, but then you need to learn it. All in all, I think Linux is an excellent choice for work like this and we're going to see more of it in the future, esp. in cases where you'd like to be able to plug in a terminal or keyboard/monitor and download data or do debugging.
Because that circuit board may be doing things you PC can't dream of... like running on 3 AA cells.
Or like fitting into a small corner of your pocket, or controlling fuel injection and ignition in your formerly carburetted VW, or controlling the robot walking up the basement stairs...
Office-automation type desktop PC programming is (to me) at best somewhat interesting; embedded systems is where the real fun starts! Now combine a PC and a machine full of motors and solenoids and the code gets truly sexy. Used to be I couldn't believe I got paid to come to work every day!
Exactly. Tbe problem is to make available those components that may be common from project to project. Say I need to read a MIcrosoft Word8.0 (or whatever version they're up to now)document so my app can manipulate the text. Or I just need to autogenerate a document in Word format. It would be nice to be able to find/purchase a Word converter that will provide output to a user-supplied buffer or something. The rest of my program is my custom business logic, but reading a Word doc is something that many applications could use if it were possible. Same thing with the guy who needed an expression parser (although I remember coming across one for sale a few years ago.).