Walmart isnt breaking new ground. They are doing a measured roll-out of a new technology, which will tie in to their existing way of doing things; there is a subtle difference.
Walmart absolutely is breaking new ground. Particularly with RFID in the distrubution channel. I'm sure there are other areas, since Walmart is good about leveraging efficiencies, but even though RFID has been around for years, it's still in the infancy stage. And not only do they get to work out the technical issues, they stand a good chance of pioneering the legal ones too.
Non-square independently-skinned window, without the regular XP title bar and buttons. What they did was add the functionality so when the user hovered their mouse where the bar should be, it appears.
And how does the user know to hover their mouse where the bar should be? Same thing for 'flat' buttons. They're everywhere now, but how does a new user know that by putting the mouse cursor over the button that it will appear raised or in a different color? Another problem, open Windows explorer. You have a row of data; file name, size, type, date. Why can you only click on the file name to open the file? Here's a non computer example; you should never have to put PUSH or PULL on a door.
properties dialogs with non-standard, or effectively non-supported, keyboard navigation;
Here's one I keep running to with Linux apps. If you create a menu with options that have individual characters underlined, the expectation is that you can Alt-char to access it. IE. Alt-F for the File menu. That isn't always the case and it's very annoying.
So nothing is stopping 300 people from writing better GUIs.
301 versions of a GUI is not a solution. What we need is better communication between developers and users. You shouldn't need to be ESR to say that you had problems. Developers shouldn't take the comments personally and users shouldn't be derided for not being able to understand what the developer intended. And it should be someplace central, like a sourceforge for user feedback.
But, I fully expect everyone to stick with crappy XFree86 for another 10 years and espouse how great their poorly designed "KDE" and "GNOME" interfaces are. Five years after Longhorn comes out, KDE will finally get around to attempting hardware acceleration and also speeding up the horribly shit-slow app-loading.
Please tell me you aren't holding up Windows as an example of 'how things should be done.' X needs work, KDE needs work, Gnome probably does too. But completely changing the interface from version to version is not an example of how things should be done. Grab three machines, load NT (without active desktop), Win2000, and WinXP side by side. Now try to define a process that you can do consistantly on all three of them in their default state. Browse a network share, add a local user, change the computer name... Of course they are all consistant in expecting you to use the Start button to shut down. 'Windows' is not too generic, but apparently 'Menu' is.
You wouldn't believe how long I've been looking for a cocktail Dig Dug. I missed one 2 years ago at an auction when I thought $350 was too expensive. I've regretted that decision ever since.
Pretty much, if you recognize the name of the game and it's in decent shape, those 20 year old games are expensive. I've got a 1980 Black Knight pinball that's worth well over $1000. (and wouldn't you know it, too much RSI to play it)
For the few people not aware, Steve Jackson ran a game publishing company (think AD&D). On March 1, 1990 (Bush Sr administration), the Secret Service performed a search and confiscated all their computer equipment, nearly putting them out of business.
This is nothing new. The rule for Law Enforcement; when in doubt, confiscate.
Only $825 for the pair. If people are willing to pay that for 20 year old equipment, I'd say WBR is in the right business. Assuming we can convince them to add support for a real operating system. If White Box Robots is open with the interfaces to their "rig", I'll consider buying one.
Yeah, you're right. Most science fiction sucks. I have about 1000 SF books in my basement from my youth, and I find that few of them are readable now.
Tastes change. Rather than re-reading you should probably be looking at new authors. When I was much younger I read a lot of Jack London and Mark Twain. I enjoyed them when I read them, but couldn't tolerate either now. I recently tried to re-read some of the Tom Sawyer novels, and saw them in a completely different light. Connecticut Yankee seriously annoyed me. Surely that doesn't make them suck. I'm just no longer in the intended audience. For a SF example; Anne McCaffery and the Pern series.
Re:Sorta agree with both points of view
on
Singularity Sky
·
· Score: 1
I've spent many an otherwise-wasted hour reading good and bad SF, and I cannot honestly say I regret ANY of it, even *shudder* half of Battlefield Earth (as a research project in "Gods below, surely the book wasn't THAT bad, the filmmaker musta taken liberties... Gaah, he didn't, it was, it was!").
Seeing the Battlefield Earth movie before reading the book tainted you. BE was the first Hubbard book that I read, and I thought it was pretty good. I was one that anxiously awaited the movie, then cringed at the result. Of course, I read far too many of the Mission Earth series, and haven't touched a Hubbard book since.
I think you missed the whole FICTION part. Personally, I thought 2001 was incredibly boring. (The movie, couldn't get motivated to read it after sleeping through the movie. Try his Rama series instead) Good Science Fiction is about character interactions that happen to be in a SF environment. I'd much rather be reading something by Larry Niven.
I don't look to SF to tell me the future. I'm looking for entertainment, and if some of it inspires future discoveries, that's great.
If you want factually based forward thinking literature, go read NASA manuals.
It's time to kill the current shuttle. It was poorly concieved in the first place. Maybe we didn't know it then, but it's obvious now. Use a shuttle to launch people, and rockets to launch payloads. Reducing the size reduces the complexity and risk. Not to mention the launch costs.
Replacing the shuttle with something more efficient doesn't necessarily mean few jobs or smaller budgets. Retask the savings to other projects. Like actually finishing the ISS, building an orbiting launch platform, and robotic missions on the moon and Mars.
grab a mandrake install CD or 2, a brand new pc, and insert disc. turn computer on. choose all the defaults. reboot. use computer. you'll need to know your ISP's ADSL number and DNS, and be able to enter an administrator (root) password at the appropriate time.
Not really installing, but grab a Knoppix CD and simply boot. It has the best hardware detection I have seen (windows or linux). I've used it on old systems (pentiums, K6s) and brand new Dells, as well as single and multi processor. Has worked every time and I've never had to hunt for a driver.
Works pretty good for showing people how little they have to relearn to use linux.
I managed A's in my economics (micro and macro) and accounting (financial and managerial) classes. And you are doubling your costs. Working on the assumption that you didn't retask your employee (ie. they just sat there counting the holes in the ceiling tiles), you lost an actual amount of $120 and the opportunity to make $30. Total loss of $150.
...and it usually tops out between $350 and $500/week depending on various factors.
In Missouri it is even worse, the maximum is $250 a week.
And I don't think the thought process would be; "I just got laid off, maybe I'll start my own business." More likely it would be, "what little unemployment benefits I am receiving is about to run out and I'm not getting any offers, so I better start making my own opportunities before I'm living on the street."
I have a feeling IT could get a little rough while we shake out all the people who came because a CS degree got them lots of money. Salaries are going to adjust and we'll get the backlash from acting like prima donnas the last few years. I certainly wouldn't want to be a fresh graduate right now.
How do you start a business with no money? You ask your friends and family if they know anyone that needs their computer worked on. If you're lucky, one of them owns a small business. Small businesses are notorious for relying on 6 year old Win95 machines (or just as often, DOS) with NO system backups. It's not because they are cheap, it's because they aren't techies and they haven't considered the risk. A big opportunity for OS people to install some new software, pick up a little customization work, as well as some regular service. And a little word of mouth advertising too.
Creating a viable piece of software that someone will pay for takes a lot of effort, and a lot of time.
Creating a viable piece of software requires a need. I have seen software that costs $2000-5000 per machine that I personally could have coded in a month. (and ended up with a better product too) The only hook on this particular package is access to the hardware that is uses. If you had to buy it, it would cost $10k to get a test setup. But the business is going to have to buy it anyway to implement it.
There are lots of expensive packages out there that maintain their price because there is no alternative. Generally, look at any small package that requires a dongle. And there is room for plenty more.
IT departments buy packaged software because they don't have the expertise to create it or the desire to invest the time.
You forgot the essential fourth thing: money to live on
But the whole premise here is that they are unemployed. So they some alternate income already. Unemployment, SO,....
The same friend I mentioned earlier is working two jobs, one in retail and one in entertainment customer service (bouncer). Yet still finds many hours a week to play computer games. So there is obviously a little opportunity time for someone who is motivated. I didn't say it was supposed to be easy.
He's talking about creating a job. Is your reputation so bad that you won't hire yourself? Anybody I know that is serious about programming owns a PC. All of them have compilers too. And if they didn't there are free compilers, either OS or previous versions of commercial compilers.
So you need three things; time (unemployed, you have plenty), a marketable idea (a little more difficult, but there are so many BAD programs out there than need replaced, not even counting processes where software doesn't even exist), and someone to sell it. The last being the hardest part.
I have a friend that is always telling me "I need to learn more about this or that so I can get a programming job". Let's see, he needed; better understanding of OOP, web services, XML, SQL.... So I gave him a project to write that addressed all of them. Since I have seen nothing in 4 months, I'm assuming he really doesn't want to program.
I turn down several consulting jobs a year because I like the security of a stable paycheck. I don't have time to do my job and consult. So my experience is that there is work out there. If you know anyone who owns a small business, they can probably tell you how some software that doesn't exist could benefit their company. And unless they have some really odd business, there are probably 1000 other small companies doing the same thing they are. Niche markets can be profitable for a small group of programmers.
I'm sorry to say that I was introduced to Cobol in 1981 on punched cards. (IBM 4331) Columns were the least of our worries.:-) I did my first real RPG (II) work in 1985 on a system 34. And then Cobol again in the early 90s on the PC with Microfocus.
BTW, Cobol does have some columnar restrictions. Since it's based on cards, lines can't go past column 72 (or is that 71...) Procedures and other bits start in column 1. The meat of the program has to start in column 5. Although there appears to be a compiler directive now SOURCEFORMAT"FREE" that relaxes them. Anyway, TMI. Rules that are happily forgotton.
Because sometimes it actually is useful to have a symbol "ID" and another one "id" in the same symbol table.
It's a very very bad programming practice! Come on you can use id1 and id2...
I'm not sure why you got moderated as flamebait. Other than it seems to happen a lot around here on dissenting opinions.
It comes down to the question that gets asked far too seldom in technology, ie. just because you can do something doesn't mean you should... All the arguments I've seen (enforcing types based on case) could be done in a case insensitive language as well. If the compiler isn't going to enforce the case rules (strong typecasting, something everyone here hates about Pascal), then case sensitivity is a hindrance. And the fact that the 'compiler will catch it' isn't a good thing. With case insensitive languages there is nothing to catch.
If your imagination is so limited that you need to use myID, MyID, myid, MYID all at the same time, maybe case sensitivity isn't the problem. I'll certainly agree that defining objects that way is a bad practice. I'm as anal as a C programmer with my variable names, even though I work in a case insensitive language. And I don't consider case sensitivity to be a missing feature. OTOH, it is one bug that I don't have to worry about.
Cobol doesn't require all upper case. Most likely it was just your terminals. And the column restrictions are small. Not any worse than 360 assembly. And not any worse than the code indenting you should be doing with most other languages.
RPG easy to read? In what universe? I'll bet you like those obfuscated perl contests too.
It should take all of three weeks to complete the course work, but we'll make it 5 so you can have a break in between.
I doubt that the developer track has any merit at all. If you can't understand the business you can't provide any solutions.
For the networking side, you're good until the software changes. But assuming you can get hired, you can probably talk them into retraining as the technology changes.
Not only would I consider the degrees worthless, I wouldn't want to work with someone with such a limited education. Personally, the most useful classes I took in college are the ones that help me understand how our business works. 2-accounting, 2-economics, finance, statistics, 2+-english.
Less than useful are the 3 datacom and networking classes. Few jobs out there for Netware (3.x), modems, codecs. You don't know how happy I am to know the difference between ethernet, arcnet, and token ring. And more recently, that amazing technology known as ATM. Windows 2003 is going to look good on your transcript when you graduate and Longhorn is the Win OS to run.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, is it me, or is this "press release" more of a series of writer's notes?
You missed a couple....
Pic, budgeted in the mid-eight figures, is skedded for a June start and should be ready for a 2005 release.
Apparently grammer is a lost art. 'skedded'?
speaking with other nets and cablers about the skein
Ok, I have no idea what the thought is here. Are you sure this wasn't written in chinese and run through a google translator?
U acquired the feature rights from Fox last fall.
Good news, apparently I have acquired the feature rights, so there should definately be a movie.
It's a sad, sad day for journalism.
Maybe you just didn't recognize the conductor?
RFID Ink
Walmart isnt breaking new ground. They are doing a measured roll-out of a new technology, which will tie in to their existing way of doing things; there is a subtle difference.
Walmart absolutely is breaking new ground. Particularly with RFID in the distrubution channel. I'm sure there are other areas, since Walmart is good about leveraging efficiencies, but even though RFID has been around for years, it's still in the infancy stage. And not only do they get to work out the technical issues, they stand a good chance of pioneering the legal ones too.
Non-square independently-skinned window, without the regular XP title bar and buttons. What they did was add the functionality so when the user hovered their mouse where the bar should be, it appears.
And how does the user know to hover their mouse where the bar should be? Same thing for 'flat' buttons. They're everywhere now, but how does a new user know that by putting the mouse cursor over the button that it will appear raised or in a different color? Another problem, open Windows explorer. You have a row of data; file name, size, type, date. Why can you only click on the file name to open the file? Here's a non computer example; you should never have to put PUSH or PULL on a door.
properties dialogs with non-standard, or effectively non-supported, keyboard navigation;
Here's one I keep running to with Linux apps. If you create a menu with options that have individual characters underlined, the expectation is that you can Alt-char to access it. IE. Alt-F for the File menu. That isn't always the case and it's very annoying.
So nothing is stopping 300 people from writing better GUIs.
301 versions of a GUI is not a solution. What we need is better communication between developers and users. You shouldn't need to be ESR to say that you had problems. Developers shouldn't take the comments personally and users shouldn't be derided for not being able to understand what the developer intended. And it should be someplace central, like a sourceforge for user feedback.
But, I fully expect everyone to stick with crappy XFree86 for another 10 years and espouse how great their poorly designed "KDE" and "GNOME" interfaces are. Five years after Longhorn comes out, KDE will finally get around to attempting hardware acceleration and also speeding up the horribly shit-slow app-loading.
Please tell me you aren't holding up Windows as an example of 'how things should be done.' X needs work, KDE needs work, Gnome probably does too. But completely changing the interface from version to version is not an example of how things should be done. Grab three machines, load NT (without active desktop), Win2000, and WinXP side by side. Now try to define a process that you can do consistantly on all three of them in their default state. Browse a network share, add a local user, change the computer name... Of course they are all consistant in expecting you to use the Start button to shut down. 'Windows' is not too generic, but apparently 'Menu' is.
You wouldn't believe how long I've been looking for a cocktail Dig Dug. I missed one 2 years ago at an auction when I thought $350 was too expensive. I've regretted that decision ever since.
Pretty much, if you recognize the name of the game and it's in decent shape, those 20 year old games are expensive. I've got a 1980 Black Knight pinball that's worth well over $1000. (and wouldn't you know it, too much RSI to play it)
Not to step on your Clinton rant, but from the article category itself: from the shades-of-steve-jackson dept.
Steve Jackson Games
For the few people not aware, Steve Jackson ran a game publishing company (think AD&D). On March 1, 1990 (Bush Sr administration), the Secret Service performed a search and confiscated all their computer equipment, nearly putting them out of business.
This is nothing new. The rule for Law Enforcement; when in doubt, confiscate.
Only $825 for the pair. If people are willing to pay that for 20 year old equipment, I'd say WBR is in the right business. Assuming we can convince them to add support for a real operating system. If White Box Robots is open with the interfaces to their "rig", I'll consider buying one.
Yeah, you're right. Most science fiction sucks. I have about 1000 SF books in my basement from my youth, and I find that few of them are readable now.
Tastes change. Rather than re-reading you should probably be looking at new authors. When I was much younger I read a lot of Jack London and Mark Twain. I enjoyed them when I read them, but couldn't tolerate either now. I recently tried to re-read some of the Tom Sawyer novels, and saw them in a completely different light. Connecticut Yankee seriously annoyed me. Surely that doesn't make them suck. I'm just no longer in the intended audience. For a SF example; Anne McCaffery and the Pern series.
I've spent many an otherwise-wasted hour reading good and bad SF, and I cannot honestly say I regret ANY of it, even *shudder* half of Battlefield Earth (as a research project in "Gods below, surely the book wasn't THAT bad, the filmmaker musta taken liberties... Gaah, he didn't, it was, it was!").
Seeing the Battlefield Earth movie before reading the book tainted you. BE was the first Hubbard book that I read, and I thought it was pretty good. I was one that anxiously awaited the movie, then cringed at the result. Of course, I read far too many of the Mission Earth series, and haven't touched a Hubbard book since.
I think you missed the whole FICTION part. Personally, I thought 2001 was incredibly boring. (The movie, couldn't get motivated to read it after sleeping through the movie. Try his Rama series instead) Good Science Fiction is about character interactions that happen to be in a SF environment. I'd much rather be reading something by Larry Niven.
I don't look to SF to tell me the future. I'm looking for entertainment, and if some of it inspires future discoveries, that's great.
If you want factually based forward thinking literature, go read NASA manuals.
And today I have no mod points. It's a cruel world.
It's time to kill the current shuttle. It was poorly concieved in the first place. Maybe we didn't know it then, but it's obvious now. Use a shuttle to launch people, and rockets to launch payloads. Reducing the size reduces the complexity and risk. Not to mention the launch costs.
Replacing the shuttle with something more efficient doesn't necessarily mean few jobs or smaller budgets. Retask the savings to other projects. Like actually finishing the ISS, building an orbiting launch platform, and robotic missions on the moon and Mars.
grab a mandrake install CD or 2, a brand new pc, and insert disc. turn computer on. choose all the defaults. reboot. use computer. you'll need to know your ISP's ADSL number and DNS, and be able to enter an administrator (root) password at the appropriate time.
Not really installing, but grab a Knoppix CD and simply boot. It has the best hardware detection I have seen (windows or linux). I've used it on old systems (pentiums, K6s) and brand new Dells, as well as single and multi processor. Has worked every time and I've never had to hunt for a driver.
Works pretty good for showing people how little they have to relearn to use linux.
I managed A's in my economics (micro and macro) and accounting (financial and managerial) classes. And you are doubling your costs. Working on the assumption that you didn't retask your employee (ie. they just sat there counting the holes in the ceiling tiles), you lost an actual amount of $120 and the opportunity to make $30. Total loss of $150.
...and it usually tops out between $350 and $500/week depending on various factors.
In Missouri it is even worse, the maximum is $250 a week.
And I don't think the thought process would be; "I just got laid off, maybe I'll start my own business." More likely it would be, "what little unemployment benefits I am receiving is about to run out and I'm not getting any offers, so I better start making my own opportunities before I'm living on the street."
I have a feeling IT could get a little rough while we shake out all the people who came because a CS degree got them lots of money. Salaries are going to adjust and we'll get the backlash from acting like prima donnas the last few years. I certainly wouldn't want to be a fresh graduate right now.
How do you start a business with no money? You ask your friends and family if they know anyone that needs their computer worked on. If you're lucky, one of them owns a small business. Small businesses are notorious for relying on 6 year old Win95 machines (or just as often, DOS) with NO system backups. It's not because they are cheap, it's because they aren't techies and they haven't considered the risk. A big opportunity for OS people to install some new software, pick up a little customization work, as well as some regular service. And a little word of mouth advertising too.
Creating a viable piece of software that someone will pay for takes a lot of effort, and a lot of time.
Creating a viable piece of software requires a need. I have seen software that costs $2000-5000 per machine that I personally could have coded in a month. (and ended up with a better product too) The only hook on this particular package is access to the hardware that is uses. If you had to buy it, it would cost $10k to get a test setup. But the business is going to have to buy it anyway to implement it.
There are lots of expensive packages out there that maintain their price because there is no alternative. Generally, look at any small package that requires a dongle. And there is room for plenty more.
IT departments buy packaged software because they don't have the expertise to create it or the desire to invest the time.
You forgot the essential fourth thing: money to live on
....
But the whole premise here is that they are unemployed. So they some alternate income already. Unemployment, SO,
The same friend I mentioned earlier is working two jobs, one in retail and one in entertainment customer service (bouncer). Yet still finds many hours a week to play computer games. So there is obviously a little opportunity time for someone who is motivated. I didn't say it was supposed to be easy.
I can't do it because its toooooo haaarddd....
He's talking about creating a job. Is your reputation so bad that you won't hire yourself? Anybody I know that is serious about programming owns a PC. All of them have compilers too. And if they didn't there are free compilers, either OS or previous versions of commercial compilers.
So you need three things; time (unemployed, you have plenty), a marketable idea (a little more difficult, but there are so many BAD programs out there than need replaced, not even counting processes where software doesn't even exist), and someone to sell it. The last being the hardest part.
I have a friend that is always telling me "I need to learn more about this or that so I can get a programming job". Let's see, he needed; better understanding of OOP, web services, XML, SQL.... So I gave him a project to write that addressed all of them. Since I have seen nothing in 4 months, I'm assuming he really doesn't want to program.
I turn down several consulting jobs a year because I like the security of a stable paycheck. I don't have time to do my job and consult. So my experience is that there is work out there. If you know anyone who owns a small business, they can probably tell you how some software that doesn't exist could benefit their company. And unless they have some really odd business, there are probably 1000 other small companies doing the same thing they are. Niche markets can be profitable for a small group of programmers.
Don't be using the 'O' word.
:-) I did my first real RPG (II) work in 1985 on a system 34. And then Cobol again in the early 90s on the PC with Microfocus.
I'm sorry to say that I was introduced to Cobol in 1981 on punched cards. (IBM 4331) Columns were the least of our worries.
BTW, Cobol does have some columnar restrictions. Since it's based on cards, lines can't go past column 72 (or is that 71...) Procedures and other bits start in column 1. The meat of the program has to start in column 5. Although there appears to be a compiler directive now SOURCEFORMAT"FREE" that relaxes them. Anyway, TMI. Rules that are happily forgotton.
Because sometimes it actually is useful to have a symbol "ID" and another one "id" in the same symbol table.
It's a very very bad programming practice! Come on you can use id1 and id2...
I'm not sure why you got moderated as flamebait. Other than it seems to happen a lot around here on dissenting opinions.
It comes down to the question that gets asked far too seldom in technology, ie. just because you can do something doesn't mean you should... All the arguments I've seen (enforcing types based on case) could be done in a case insensitive language as well. If the compiler isn't going to enforce the case rules (strong typecasting, something everyone here hates about Pascal), then case sensitivity is a hindrance. And the fact that the 'compiler will catch it' isn't a good thing. With case insensitive languages there is nothing to catch.
If your imagination is so limited that you need to use myID, MyID, myid, MYID all at the same time, maybe case sensitivity isn't the problem. I'll certainly agree that defining objects that way is a bad practice. I'm as anal as a C programmer with my variable names, even though I work in a case insensitive language. And I don't consider case sensitivity to be a missing feature. OTOH, it is one bug that I don't have to worry about.
Cobol doesn't require all upper case. Most likely it was just your terminals. And the column restrictions are small. Not any worse than 360 assembly. And not any worse than the code indenting you should be doing with most other languages.
RPG easy to read? In what universe? I'll bet you like those obfuscated perl contests too.
Ahh, I understand now.
Ok, here's what you are proposing.
Information Technology: Network Engineering
CCNE
MCSE
RHCE
Information Technology: Development
MCSD
RHCE
It should take all of three weeks to complete the course work, but we'll make it 5 so you can have a break in between.
I doubt that the developer track has any merit at all. If you can't understand the business you can't provide any solutions.
For the networking side, you're good until the software changes. But assuming you can get hired, you can probably talk them into retraining as the technology changes.
Not only would I consider the degrees worthless, I wouldn't want to work with someone with such a limited education. Personally, the most useful classes I took in college are the ones that help me understand how our business works. 2-accounting, 2-economics, finance, statistics, 2+-english.
Less than useful are the 3 datacom and networking classes. Few jobs out there for Netware (3.x), modems, codecs. You don't know how happy I am to know the difference between ethernet, arcnet, and token ring. And more recently, that amazing technology known as ATM. Windows 2003 is going to look good on your transcript when you graduate and Longhorn is the Win OS to run.