I'm also noticing that everyone who says the right things, about how evil Microsoft are, and about how perfectly just the community response is, predictably gets modded Insightful, as well.
I've noticed just the oppostie. I have also noticed that you post is modded fairly high.
Ten years ago, slashdot was pro-linux, not so much anymore. It seems to me that, a few years back, msft learned to start flooding the board with their "technology evangelists." And that is not some mad conspiracy theory - msft has been caught doing just that.
With typical msft hypocrisy, the shills bitch about linux advocates, while msft is known to pay posters.
I agree with everything you posted. But I would like to add that msft zealots are just as bad, as are apple zealots, and sun worshipers.
Ten years ago, slashdot may have been over-run with such linux zealots, but not anymore. In fact, today, it's just the opposite. If there is a serious msft sore point: expect the slashdot discussion to be *flooded* with msft shills. I've seen it many times.
In IT, staffing is a circus. Education, and experience, requirements are entirely arbitrary - different for every employer. IT job titles are meaningless.
If I were to hire a professional, for any sector that is an established profession, I would not have to test that person's technical ability. I do not test the pilot when I get on a plane. I do not test my doctor, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, lawyer, accountant, plumber or whatever.
And that is good thing,because I don't know enough about those technical specialization to administer a appropriate test. And even if I did know enough, would that not be a waste of everybody's time? I could have somebody in my organization test the applicant: but is that person's test fair? Does that person have his/her own agenda? BTW: most employers are absolutely horrible at administering technical exams - and they don't even know how awful they are.
Does it not make much more sense to have stardards? If somebody has been an x-ray technician for the last five years, I have a good idea of that person's training, and experience. If somebody claims to have been a system administrator, I have no idea if that person has any formal education, or what the previous employer considered appropriate duties for sysadmin.
It's interesting how people side with Google on this site, even though they're guilty of many of the things people complain about Microsoft doing
Not even close. What about patent trolling, bogus lawsuits, atroturfing using the names of dead people, bogus TCO studies, bogus benchmark studies, bribing public officials, outright lying to the US-DoJ, and so much more.
I don't mind any company honestly working in it's own self-interest.
But, with msft it's scam, after scam, after scam. For example: outright lying to US-DoJ, caught red-handed bribing public officials during OOXML scam, caught red-handed astroturfing using letters from dead people to support msft's point of view, fake TCO studies, fake benchmarks, patent trolling, abusing US legal system to beat-up on competitors, and so on.
I believe there are numerous valid reasons for anybody with a sense of decency, and fair play, to hate msft.
I should have been more clear. I was mainly thinking along the lines of ERPs, or other such business software. As far as office software goes, I'm not sure if I see a big advantage that google-apps has over openoffice.
And avoid the silverlight embrace, extend, extinguish, scam.
Why Python's whitespace use really is a problem
on
Hello World!
·
· Score: 1
If you have the luxury of only working with your own code, and if you stick to your own conventions, then the whitespace issue may not be a big deal.
But, when I work with somebody else's code, I have to wonder: "what I am I looking at? Spaces? Tabs? Some combination of spaces and tabs?" I can not tell just by looking at the code, I have to do a hex dump, or something.
Then, if I want to put somebody else's code into my own, I have to muck with the code first to make sure I have the exact combination of spaces and tabs.
If I want to email Python code, or post Python code to a news-group, that is another potential headache.
Being able to use curly brackets makes the situation even worse. If somebody else uses curly brackets, and I don't, then I have to muck with the code even more.
I especially can not understand why Python 3.0 allows the use of spaces and tabs. Python 3.0 was supposed to fix long standing problems with Python. Even Guido has commented that indentations should be four spaces - so why not make that mandatory? Such a standard would go a long way towards mitigating the whitespace issue, and Python 3.0 is throwing away backwards compatibility anyway.
I have had worked at four different companies that use Oracle, and they all ran Oracle on Solaris. I have never seen one installation of "Oracle Unbreakable Linux."
It would seem to me that Sun will be a much bigger part of the merged company than Linux. If something has to go, shouldn't it be Linux.
BTW: I personally like Linux better than Solaris. But I am trying to look at this from a business perspective.
Um, in case you didn't know: ms-windows, and especially msie, have been a total security train wreck for the last 10+ years. As to reliability, I have far less trouble with firefox than msie. Also, firefox has far more useful features, especially when you consider the plugins.
Firefox is far from perfect, I am sure the same goes for chrome, but msie has been a complete disaster in terms of reliability, security, features, and support for standards.
I don't think you understand. This is not supposed to complete replace your desktop. It's something between a 3G cellphone and a laptop. You can run your business while you are sitting around waiting at the airport. Are of your files are easily accessible online. Use an online service, like Xero, for accounting and you probably don't need msft for anything.
1) To get a decent job in IT, you need a lot of experience. And that experience needs to be with enterprise-level technologies: cisco, java/j2ee, oracle, sap, etc. You will never get anywhere patching up desktops. However, nobody will give you experience until you already have experience. There are thousands of technologies out there, and every decent job requires experience in different dozen technologies. There is no way to be prepared for any particular job. Education is nice have, but experience is essential. And don't let anybody kid you: experience working as volunteer is worthless, some job ads even state that specifically.
2) The IT career field has been going downhill for US workers, for years, and will continue to do so. Jobs are being aggressively offshored, and Americans are being replaced with guest workers. Even if your job can not be offshored, you will be competing in a glutted workplace.
3) US companies despise US IT workers, and strongly prefer offshore workers. Guest workers cost less, and can not job hop as easily. Manufacturing jobs were offshored in the 1980s, IT jobs are being offshored now.
4) You are young enough to - fairly easily - make a clean break, and to get into a career field that actually has a future.
5) IT is extremely ageist. That may not mean anything to you now, but it will mean something before you know it.
6) IT is extremely unstable. People get laid off for no fault of their own all the time. IT is always hit first, and hardest, when there is an economic downturn. Even if you have a job, you have to constantly worry about getting your next job. Prepare for a life of constant uncertainty, constant turmoil, constantly looking for your next job, and constantly living below your means. Seriously: who needs it?
7) There is, at least, a 50% chance that your education will be wasted. In IT there is no standardization when it comes to degrees and/or certs. You are supposed to get the degree, or cert, and then hope-and-pray the employer will value it. Compare this to health care where: specific credential == specific job.
8) Experience in IT is typically not transferable, and can easily work against you. When you get experience in one thing, you paint yourself into a corner. If you have worked with Solaris, then nobody will consider you for AIX, because Solaris is what you really want to do. Your years in IT do not matter, only your recent, verifiable, enterprise-level, experience in exactly the technologies used by a particular employer matter.
9) If you have not used a particular technology in over a year, then your experience with that technology is worthless. Your experience may count against you, but it will not help you.
10) When you are 21 you may not have to worry about a mortgage, health care, and all that. But, when you get older: you can easily be financially ruined due to no fault of your own. You may be smart, well trained, experienced, honest, and hard working; and through no fault of your own you can ruined to the point that you will never recover. All so the managers will get a bigger bonus. Don't kid yourself, it happens in IT all the time. That sort of thing does not typically in more respectable career fields, such as health care.
11) As you get more experience in IT, it will become increasingly difficult to transfer into anything else. Employers will not take you seriously. Employers will figure that you will go back to IT after a short time.
12) IT workers are looked down upon by practically everybody else. Mangers are seen as creative geniuses - they are the gods that make things happen. Peon techies are looked down upon mere commodities. IT is viewed as a cost center. IT workers are the dogs that get kicked around.
Is Nick Carr just some academician who spins crazy theories just to get attention, and maybe make some money?
He seem almost like a professional troll, with sensationalist, often inflammatory, subject lines like "is google making us stupid."
Is there any reason to assume that Nick Carr knows any more about the future of IT than the average bum on the street? Okay, he's educated, since when have whack-job college educated predictors ever proven to be more accurate than flipping a coin?
I am guessing it will be mainly top-secret. But DoD/TS or SSBI/TC or TS/SCI, or something else? I wonder if they will use anything less that TS? Like DoD/Secret?
I have had the dis-pleasure of having to take over several projects that were started by hackers. Most of the these hackers were very smart, and well educated, but not in software development.
In every case the code was more awful than anything I could imagine in my worse nightmare. Every rule of proper design was broken wholesale. And the hackers did not even know what they didn't know. As far as the hackers were concerned, their was nothing wrong with their code.
The reasons for this are fairly obvious. Design and structure do not come naturally. It is more natural to just sit down and start hacking away. And if something works, and you can read your own code, and understand your own reasoning, then what's the problem?
Self taught hackers practically never try to learn about structured methodology, because they don't even know what it is, and since they only work with their own code: they see no reason for it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm also noticing that everyone who says the right things, about how evil Microsoft are, and about how perfectly just the community response is, predictably gets modded Insightful, as well.
I've noticed just the oppostie. I have also noticed that you post is modded fairly high.
Ten years ago, slashdot was pro-linux, not so much anymore. It seems to me that, a few years back, msft learned to start flooding the board with their "technology evangelists." And that is not some mad conspiracy theory - msft has been caught doing just that.
With typical msft hypocrisy, the shills bitch about linux advocates, while msft is known to pay posters.
I agree with everything you posted. But I would like to add that msft zealots are just as bad, as are apple zealots, and sun worshipers.
Ten years ago, slashdot may have been over-run with such linux zealots, but not anymore. In fact, today, it's just the opposite. If there is a serious msft sore point: expect the slashdot discussion to be *flooded* with msft shills. I've seen it many times.
In IT, staffing is a circus. Education, and experience, requirements are entirely arbitrary - different for every employer. IT job titles are meaningless.
If I were to hire a professional, for any sector that is an established profession, I would not have to test that person's technical ability. I do not test the pilot when I get on a plane. I do not test my doctor, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, lawyer, accountant, plumber or whatever.
And that is good thing,because I don't know enough about those technical specialization to administer a appropriate test. And even if I did know enough, would that not be a waste of everybody's time? I could have somebody in my organization test the applicant: but is that person's test fair? Does that person have his/her own agenda? BTW: most employers are absolutely horrible at administering technical exams - and they don't even know how awful they are.
Does it not make much more sense to have stardards? If somebody has been an x-ray technician for the last five years, I have a good idea of that person's training, and experience. If somebody claims to have been a system administrator, I have no idea if that person has any formal education, or what the previous employer considered appropriate duties for sysadmin.
Get in line! Considering the way msft handed out bribe money for the ooxml scam, I'll bet the bribes will be even bigger this time.
That is what a US federal judge call msft tactics.
The Android just came out.
I am guessing this will mean more layoffs. I wonder if managers will be targeted, or tech workers?
I am not a gamer. I dual boot w2k/debian on my home PC, and run XP on my laptop. I just see no good reason to "upgrade."
All my apps, and hardware, work just fine with either w2k or XP. I am already familiar with those OSes. So what is the point?
Sure, msft may eventually force me to abandon w2k and/or XP. But until that day comes, why bother?
Please spare me all the "why not just run windows 3.1" comments, and give a compelling reason to upgrade - if you can.
I'm not so sure. Win 95/98/ME were all DOS based. 2K/XP are NT based. As such 2K and XP were substantially more stable, and had other advantages.
After 2K, I don't see much real progress. Mostly MS just shifts around the UI.
It's interesting how people side with Google on this site, even though they're guilty of many of the things people complain about Microsoft doing
Not even close. What about patent trolling, bogus lawsuits, atroturfing using the names of dead people, bogus TCO studies, bogus benchmark studies, bribing public officials, outright lying to the US-DoJ, and so much more.
I don't mind any company honestly working in it's own self-interest.
But, with msft it's scam, after scam, after scam. For example: outright lying to US-DoJ, caught red-handed bribing public officials during OOXML scam, caught red-handed astroturfing using letters from dead people to support msft's point of view, fake TCO studies, fake benchmarks, patent trolling, abusing US legal system to beat-up on competitors, and so on.
I believe there are numerous valid reasons for anybody with a sense of decency, and fair play, to hate msft.
JMHO.
I should have been more clear. I was mainly thinking along the lines of ERPs, or other such business software. As far as office software goes, I'm not sure if I see a big advantage that google-apps has over openoffice.
1) Flexibility: difficult to mold SaaS solution to your specific business operations.
2) Reliability: requiring a connection to the internet adds an additional point of failure.
3) Speed: easy to get 40mbps internally. Internet connect is more likely to be 1.5mbps split 50 ways.
4) Cost: from what I have seen, SaaS is not especially cheap.
5) Security: debatable.
6) Vendor-lockin: if you need something changed on the server side, you only have one choice for the developers.
I don't really know, and I suppose a lot of it is situational, but I am not certain that that is going to take over the world any time soon.
You can get the lectures here:
http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8
And avoid the silverlight embrace, extend, extinguish, scam.
If you have the luxury of only working with your own code, and if you stick to your own conventions, then the whitespace issue may not be a big deal.
But, when I work with somebody else's code, I have to wonder: "what I am I looking at? Spaces? Tabs? Some combination of spaces and tabs?" I can not tell just by looking at the code, I have to do a hex dump, or something.
Then, if I want to put somebody else's code into my own, I have to muck with the code first to make sure I have the exact combination of spaces and tabs.
If I want to email Python code, or post Python code to a news-group, that is another potential headache.
Being able to use curly brackets makes the situation even worse. If somebody else uses curly brackets, and I don't, then I have to muck with the code even more.
I especially can not understand why Python 3.0 allows the use of spaces and tabs. Python 3.0 was supposed to fix long standing problems with Python. Even Guido has commented that indentations should be four spaces - so why not make that mandatory? Such a standard would go a long way towards mitigating the whitespace issue, and Python 3.0 is throwing away backwards compatibility anyway.
I have had worked at four different companies that use Oracle, and they all ran Oracle on Solaris. I have never seen one installation of "Oracle Unbreakable Linux."
It would seem to me that Sun will be a much bigger part of the merged company than Linux. If something has to go, shouldn't it be Linux.
BTW: I personally like Linux better than Solaris. But I am trying to look at this from a business perspective.
Um, in case you didn't know: ms-windows, and especially msie, have been a total security train wreck for the last 10+ years. As to reliability, I have far less trouble with firefox than msie. Also, firefox has far more useful features, especially when you consider the plugins.
Firefox is far from perfect, I am sure the same goes for chrome, but msie has been a complete disaster in terms of reliability, security, features, and support for standards.
It supports google apps, which are good enough when you are mobile.
Have you forgotten about how msft apps love to "phone home?"
When it comes to privacy, and security, it is hard for me to believe that any company could possibly do any worse than msft.
I don't think you understand. This is not supposed to complete replace your desktop. It's something between a 3G cellphone and a laptop. You can run your business while you are sitting around waiting at the airport. Are of your files are easily accessible online. Use an online service, like Xero, for accounting and you probably don't need msft for anything.
1) To get a decent job in IT, you need a lot of experience. And that experience needs to be with enterprise-level technologies: cisco, java/j2ee, oracle, sap, etc. You will never get anywhere patching up desktops. However, nobody will give you experience until you already have experience. There are thousands of technologies out there, and every decent job requires experience in different dozen technologies. There is no way to be prepared for any particular job. Education is nice have, but experience is essential. And don't let anybody kid you: experience working as volunteer is worthless, some job ads even state that specifically.
2) The IT career field has been going downhill for US workers, for years, and will continue to do so. Jobs are being aggressively offshored, and Americans are being replaced with guest workers. Even if your job can not be offshored, you will be competing in a glutted workplace.
3) US companies despise US IT workers, and strongly prefer offshore workers. Guest workers cost less, and can not job hop as easily. Manufacturing jobs were offshored in the 1980s, IT jobs are being offshored now.
4) You are young enough to - fairly easily - make a clean break, and to get into a career field that actually has a future.
5) IT is extremely ageist. That may not mean anything to you now, but it will mean something before you know it.
6) IT is extremely unstable. People get laid off for no fault of their own all the time. IT is always hit first, and hardest, when there is an economic downturn. Even if you have a job, you have to constantly worry about getting your next job. Prepare for a life of constant uncertainty, constant turmoil, constantly looking for your next job, and constantly living below your means. Seriously: who needs it?
7) There is, at least, a 50% chance that your education will be wasted. In IT there is no standardization when it comes to degrees and/or certs. You are supposed to get the degree, or cert, and then hope-and-pray the employer will value it. Compare this to health care where: specific credential == specific job.
8) Experience in IT is typically not transferable, and can easily work against you. When you get experience in one thing, you paint yourself into a corner. If you have worked with Solaris, then nobody will consider you for AIX, because Solaris is what you really want to do. Your years in IT do not matter, only your recent, verifiable, enterprise-level, experience in exactly the technologies used by a particular employer matter.
9) If you have not used a particular technology in over a year, then your experience with that technology is worthless. Your experience may count against you, but it will not help you.
10) When you are 21 you may not have to worry about a mortgage, health care, and all that. But, when you get older: you can easily be financially ruined due to no fault of your own. You may be smart, well trained, experienced, honest, and hard working; and through no fault of your own you can ruined to the point that you will never recover. All so the managers will get a bigger bonus. Don't kid yourself, it happens in IT all the time. That sort of thing does not typically in more respectable career fields, such as health care.
11) As you get more experience in IT, it will become increasingly difficult to transfer into anything else. Employers will not take you seriously. Employers will figure that you will go back to IT after a short time.
12) IT workers are looked down upon by practically everybody else. Mangers are seen as creative geniuses - they are the gods that make things happen. Peon techies are looked down upon mere commodities. IT is viewed as a cost center. IT workers are the dogs that get kicked around.
Is Nick Carr just some academician who spins crazy theories just to get attention, and maybe make some money?
He seem almost like a professional troll, with sensationalist, often inflammatory, subject lines like "is google making us stupid."
Is there any reason to assume that Nick Carr knows any more about the future of IT than the average bum on the street? Okay, he's educated, since when have whack-job college educated predictors ever proven to be more accurate than flipping a coin?
I am guessing it will be mainly top-secret. But DoD/TS or SSBI/TC or TS/SCI, or something else? I wonder if they will use anything less that TS? Like DoD/Secret?
Maybe it's smart to be cheap? What moron would pay good money for an inferior OS?
I have had the dis-pleasure of having to take over several projects that were started by hackers. Most of the these hackers were very smart, and well educated, but not in software development.
In every case the code was more awful than anything I could imagine in my worse nightmare. Every rule of proper design was broken wholesale. And the hackers did not even know what they didn't know. As far as the hackers were concerned, their was nothing wrong with their code.
The reasons for this are fairly obvious. Design and structure do not come naturally. It is more natural to just sit down and start hacking away. And if something works, and you can read your own code, and understand your own reasoning, then what's the problem?
Self taught hackers practically never try to learn about structured methodology, because they don't even know what it is, and since they only work with their own code: they see no reason for it.