Re:Is this a good thing? Nigerian Miss World Riots
on
Smart Mobs
·
· Score: 2
I've heard anecdotal evidence that the angry protests that led to the bloody "Miss World" riots in Nigeria were coordinated by cell phones and text messaging. If this is true, we may long for the day of Dumb Mobs.
Though the Smart Mob theory is interesting, it may be that the Mob may use the "Smart" part to do some very stupid things.
I also wonder - will we see battling Mobs? Will the creation of one Smart Mob spawn others as countermeasures? Or will the speed of response make things far more integrated?
Of course in the end, it's what we (in general) do with technology.
How predictable is this, actually?
on
Smart Mobs
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I definitely agree that there's something going on with Smart Mobs, networks, etc. Communications are advancing at an amazing rate (despite plenty of stupidities), and I'm sure they'll only get more interlinked and complex.
However I do wonder just how much we can predict. As these systems get more complex and include more factors, what can we actually say and predict about them beyond some basics and metaphors?
I recall Vernor Vinge's idea of Singularity, the creation of greater-than human intelligence. Maybe we're witnessing a hint of that as people connect to machines and each others like neurons in the brain. However, the irony is that we may not be smart enough to know if something like that is happening.
This sounds like a great book and an interesting phenomena, and I plan to buy it. But I wonder how much we can say about this phenomena.
I don't pay attention to most ads. Many annoy me. Almost all are irrelevant to me.
From my perspective what ad comanies need are to make them:
More attention getting, but . ..
Less annoying and ..
Make them relevant.
In other words, make the ads something useful to me that I'm interested in. Make it a service, make me GLAD to have them (or at least not against them).
What place has the ads I pay attention to the most? Slashdot.org. The ads fit my interests and the interests of the site.
Some good targeting and restrained, intelligent design will do wonders. Trying to dominate my screen and get in my face is only going to make me not want to buy said product.
This is just more proof the ad people are existing in their own dreamworld.
DON'T use a hard drive for your backups. Find something, ANYTHING more solid, more reliable, and more compatible - the gods know what hell you'd go through using one of those 10 years from now - but I'll bet you things will still read your tapes and CDs.
Hard Drives having moving parts. For long term storage, moving parts==bad. They're highly vulnerable and wear themselves out, also bad.
One thing you may want to consider is a backup heirarchy. Some things get backed up so often on such and such media, etc. Maybe some things CAN get backed up on a hard drive, but it shouldn't be anything you can't live without or recover from loss quickly.
I say this not as a hardware guy, but a programmer who's seen storage go wrong all to often - then *I* get to rebuild or find things. Or, I have to think backup because NO one else has.
I'm not sure I see it happening by 2004, but I can easily see Microsoft selling Linux products and even their own version of Linux.
There are several reasons I can see:
Microsoft goes where the money is. Linux is going a lot of places, and M$ would want a cut from that.
Microsoft has to spend money on R&D and/or aquiring people. Linux work is being done for free around the world. There's a money-saver right there for Microsoft.
Linux has a good name. Microsoft can piggyback onto that. Ever heard that no one got fired for buying Microsoft? What if people could get Linux and have the M$ name to show to the boss?
Getting into the Linux game (and related?) is another way to jack up pressure on competitors and use leverage.
If M$ gets into Linux now they can avoid a potential future where Linux becomes a more serious enemy.
I'd say getting into Linux would be in character for Microsoft.
However, DON'T expect them to make it look like anything but a Oh-We-Care-For-Consumers routine. Expect something more along the lines of "Microsoft produces an advanced, user-friendly version of the popular operating system. Now you can take advantage of the best of both worlds" or something.
BTW, if this happens, there may be a massive shift in what skillsets employees are interested in. Something to watch.
Seeing the "Biography" of Shatner. It's really quite informative - and it helps put the interview in context. There is a lot to the man, he's a true original.
Two quotes stand out:
These are excellent words to live by: Regret is the worst of human emotions. There is no going back with regret. There is no future with regret. Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore or I forgive myself and try better.
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.
And this statement, of course, should make sense to most straight men: I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression.
This was definitely worth posting - it's a good, helpful summary. It's the kind of thing that I wish there was more of since I can pass the article on to people who need it.
I'd like to see a series of books on the way computers work, at various levels of knowledge, so people can get the knowledge in bite-sized chunks. It'd be helpful to me, since I often end up being "Mr. Explainer" and I'd LOVE to just hand someone a book and get back to work.
This gave me a chuckle. The DMCA is basically being used on itself. I guess it's sort of a mix of silly putty and a swiss army knife, apparently - shape it to anything, do anything you want!
More power to FatWallet. Let's hope this not only saves them, but deters future DMCA stupidity and helps point out how dumb the DMCA was in the first place.
Bah. I haven't called Microsoft for help in 4 years. I can usually do it myself, use their online help (which is erratic, but has moments of real usefulness), or find a solution on the internet.
I save money. I learn. I probably expend equal or less time doing it as well.
That's one odd thing about Microsoft support, and indeed any form of support - it needs to be evaluated not just by how much it costs or doesn't cost, but can it get the job done.
Actually, often 3 great developers can do the work of 30 codemonkeys. It really is that much of a distinction.
Furthermore, very often the best people will completely founder under a PHB, so the talent is never recognized and goes to waste. They'll be identified as troublemakers, or worse as lazy, rather than the creative problem-solvers they are. What we really need to teach our brilliant CS students is how to stick up for themselves and known their own worth (and how to bring it out).
A lot of my current job in a nutshell. New technology I have to use, a whole new architecture to get used to, plenty of extras, a nasty deadline, and I'm on my own. Only one other guy in my team has similar skills, and he's busy on other things.
But I know how to research, prototype, and analyze. I've done it for years.
There's no way a codemonkey could do this job. It'd probably take at least 3 to keep the pace. That doesn't mean I'm brilliant, but it does mean I'm experienced and I know what to look for.
My example of hiring half as many talented people as codemonkeys is just a rough estimate based on my experience overall. I agree in some cases you get a higher ratio, even the 1-10 you mention, especially when you factor in maintenace.
After all, the talented people do more right the first time, screw up less, and have less to go back and fix.
Furthermore, very often the best people will completely founder under a PHB, so the talent is never recognized and goes to waste. They'll be identified as troublemakers, or worse as lazy, rather than the creative problem-solvers they are. What we really need to teach our brilliant CS students is how to stick up for themselves and known their own worth (and how to bring it out).
Irony for me - I'm a psychology major. It actually helps a lot on the job, and in no small amount of interviews it gets brought up - mostly for the advantages it brings to dealing with people.
The ability to debate, analyze, and argue is definitely an advantage.
We seem to be running in circles and every loop around seems to require a toll at the Redmond Toll Booth.
Which is definitely part of the problem.
Software Companies do NOT neccessarily exist to produce good tools and products. They exist to make money and please the shareholders.
This does NOT mean they are out to produce the best, they're out to sell. Hopefully it is the best, but . . . well, no more needs to be said.
That clouds the initial question on the possibility of Silver Bullets. Even if they're out there, we've got to wade through tons of irrelevant stuff to find our particular Silver Bullet.
And a lot of our vendors are NOT helping. That's one reason I like open source. People may participate for different reasons, many far from noble, but the product and usefulness are a major focus.
A top-notch staff and a world-class leader, I'm guessing, is significantly more expensive than your average software development team. Therefore, it ain't exactly cheap.
It is actually cheap compared to the usual practices especially in big companies (hiring 100 cretinoids to midlessly click and drag). The problem is that such teams are not a commodity readily available on the market. You cannot just go out and buy one. And they are hard to manage so the average PHB prefers the monkeys
This hits on a very critical point - talented people who get the job done are the solution, but they aren't always easy to find and they aren't always what PHB's expect.
Finding talented people requires one be able to recognize the talent, be willing to pay for it, and be willing to use it properly. That's a tall order for many people. You can do it, but you have to really understand what you're doing.
Secondly, very talented people require proper management - that's sometimes at odds with common managerial philosophy. If you have someone who is good at what they do, micromanagement, not giving them proper resources, etc. can minimize the impact of the talent. Not understanding personality quirks of certain talented populations can be disastrous.
So, people go with what they know, even if 100 codemonkeys are hired as opposed to 50 talented people, even though the 50 talented people may save you 25% of your budget.
I'm fortunate. Where I'm consulting now is a place where my manager is an IT guy, knows how people work, and lets us to our job as long as we file progress reports. When he sees a talent/skill, he maximizes it. He talks to people as people.
I say this based on seven years as an IT professional and twenty years as a computer enthusiast.
There are definite improvements to programming. Tools, concepts, etc. have evolved. There are no true silver bullets, but we've got a good selection of choices out there.
The problem, however, is threefold:
First, the right tool (be it a language, software, or concept) for the right job. There are many "silver bullets" out there, but you have to find the right one for the job you're doing.
We're stuck in a sea of IT dreck that's concealing actual good ideas. New products, endless upgrades, marketing schemes, propaganda, FUD, evangelism, poor releases, confusing releases, and much more. What good tools and improvements in programming are out there, I feel, are concealed by the less-than good and utterly terrible tools, concepts, and techniques that exist.
Even if you have the right tool, you may be in a situation where you can't use it due to company standards, biases by others on your team, etc.
One of the real challenges for IT professionals today is to find the good tools and ideas out there, the ones that really have improved programming, and then actually get them into use. A good IT person is a good researcher and good at justifying their ideas to people.
The article is an excellent summary of the issues, what's happened, and how ridiculous some of this is.
Copyright was a legal system for protecting a creator's opportunities and placing things in the public domain. A win-win situation in the minds of the founders, I'm sure.
It's been turned into a way to hold onto information for a ridiculous (eternal?) amount of time. Something comes up, a few more campaign donations go out, and it gets changed again.
The basic idea of "find ways to strangle virii" is a good one. I think he's onto something here, something so obvious it wasn't obvious. Even if his technique slowed virii down only a few percent, the spread over time would be much lower.
However, this is really only one idea. Its value is in pointing out that to deal with an age of virii, unreliable web pages, email viruses, trojans, bad firewalls, and everything else that didn't exist fifty years ago, we need to think in radically different methods.
The greatest value of this research is really going to be how it gets people to take a new look at computing. And for that, I say, it is about time. Our ideas for dealing with computer troubles need to evolve since the troubles we're facing continue to occur, spread, and change.
The basic concept could be applied to emails, perhaps - unexpected email requests, a system that scans for outgoing mails and compares it to a common list of outgoings, or detects spoofed addresses, etc.
The BASIC idea of finding ways to strangle virii and warn of spreads is a good one. But you make an excellent point that we have to consider ALL methods of spreading virii.
I have a hard time seeing how the DMCA protects this price information.
Apparently, some people see otherwise. Namely, those with something to gain.
So, I wonder if the broad and poorly-worded DMCA is being "deliberately misunderstood" for various reasons. IE people are going to get as much out of it as possible - and always have the excuse of a poorly-written law to fall back on.
True that is a problem - when you're talented without a job you have to stand out among the noise of incompetents also seeking a job. And I agree, it's not as easy as it sounds.
I think the overall effect is beneficial to IT. But it definitely sucks in the small picture.
I have to agree. I've already seen this happen. One of the Incompetents followed the boss he kissed up to to another job. Everything fell apart, the entire team was dismissed. Everyone associated with the boss and the Incompetent lost their job. THIS was before the IT crunch to boot, back when people were talking about giving me 5-25K more a year to leave my job.
Hiring policies (and firing policies) really don't seem to be rational. There's not a sense of vision - there's a mix of get-what-you-can and short-term expectations.
I do admit I'm sort of enjoying the car wreck. In my area people are catching on to the need for talent (in fact the interview that landed me my current contract was conducted by two people with technical skills). I hope this spreads nationwide.
I'll be first to admit I'm sure the downsizing did trim deadwood. In fact, having been in IT some seven years, I can definitely say I've worked with a few too many people who shouldn't be in the profession. A third of my job has been cleaning up after them.
However, I don't think the trimming went too well. I lost my job, became a contractor, and then did two contracts where extremely expereinced developers were needed. The companies in question didn't have people to fill these positions - so they spent more on me (on one contract the company probably paid 250% to 225% of what it'd have cost to have me as a regular employee).
Yet I've run into complete incompetents with stable jobs. Some of them the very people whose bad code and designs I had to fix.
The downsizings weren't that rational, from what I've seen. I dearly wish more of the deadwood had been cut, but I keep running into it.
IT seems to have a pretty high turnover rate - and I'd hate to think how recent grads are doing. When the economy improves, when companies add to their IT staff, what will they be left with?
My guess? A mix of the high-powered people who managed to survive the downturn, the lucky, and the improperly retained incompetents. The glow will be off of IT, so I don't expect people to rush back.
Loved this article. Sent it on to my manager and a co-worker.
One thing I liked especially is the danger of the Shiny New Thing. It may be neat and cool and save time, but knowing how to use it does not mean that you can do anything else - or function outside of it.
Right now I'm on an ASP.NET project - and some ASP.NET stuff I actually like. But the IDE actually makes it harder to program responsibly, and even utilize.NET effectively. Unless one understands some of the underpinnings of this NEW technology, you actually can't take advantage of it. Throw in the generated code issues and the IDE, an abstraction of an abstraction, really is disadvantageous.
A friend of mine just about strangled some web developers he worked with as they ONLY use tools (and they love all the Shiny New Ones) and barely know what the tools produce. This has led to hideous issues of having to configure servers and designs to work with their products as opposed to them actually knowing how they work. The guy's a saint, I swear.
I think managers and employers need to be aware of how abstract things can get, and realize good programmers can "drill down" from one layer to another to fix things. A Shiny New Thing made with Shiny New Things does NOT mean the people who did it are talented programmers, or that they can haul your butt out of a jam when the Shiny New Thing looses its shine.
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard anecdotal evidence that the angry protests that led to the bloody "Miss World" riots in Nigeria were coordinated by cell phones and text messaging. If this is true, we may long for the day of Dumb Mobs.
Though the Smart Mob theory is interesting, it may be that the Mob may use the "Smart" part to do some very stupid things.
I also wonder - will we see battling Mobs? Will the creation of one Smart Mob spawn others as countermeasures? Or will the speed of response make things far more integrated?
Of course in the end, it's what we (in general) do with technology.
I definitely agree that there's something going on with Smart Mobs, networks, etc. Communications are advancing at an amazing rate (despite plenty of stupidities), and I'm sure they'll only get more interlinked and complex.
However I do wonder just how much we can predict. As these systems get more complex and include more factors, what can we actually say and predict about them beyond some basics and metaphors?
I recall Vernor Vinge's idea of Singularity, the creation of greater-than human intelligence. Maybe we're witnessing a hint of that as people connect to machines and each others like neurons in the brain. However, the irony is that we may not be smart enough to know if something like that is happening.
This sounds like a great book and an interesting phenomena, and I plan to buy it. But I wonder how much we can say about this phenomena.
I don't pay attention to most ads. Many annoy me. Almost all are irrelevant to me.
From my perspective what ad comanies need are to make them:
In other words, make the ads something useful to me that I'm interested in. Make it a service, make me GLAD to have them (or at least not against them).
What place has the ads I pay attention to the most? Slashdot.org. The ads fit my interests and the interests of the site.
Some good targeting and restrained, intelligent design will do wonders. Trying to dominate my screen and get in my face is only going to make me not want to buy said product.
This is just more proof the ad people are existing in their own dreamworld.
and second, and third.
DON'T use a hard drive for your backups. Find something, ANYTHING more solid, more reliable, and more compatible - the gods know what hell you'd go through using one of those 10 years from now - but I'll bet you things will still read your tapes and CDs.
Hard Drives having moving parts. For long term storage, moving parts==bad. They're highly vulnerable and wear themselves out, also bad.
One thing you may want to consider is a backup heirarchy. Some things get backed up so often on such and such media, etc. Maybe some things CAN get backed up on a hard drive, but it shouldn't be anything you can't live without or recover from loss quickly.
I say this not as a hardware guy, but a programmer who's seen storage go wrong all to often - then *I* get to rebuild or find things. Or, I have to think backup because NO one else has.
There are several reasons I can see:
I'd say getting into Linux would be in character for Microsoft.
However, DON'T expect them to make it look like anything but a Oh-We-Care-For-Consumers routine. Expect something more along the lines of "Microsoft produces an advanced, user-friendly version of the popular operating system. Now you can take advantage of the best of both worlds" or something.
BTW, if this happens, there may be a massive shift in what skillsets employees are interested in. Something to watch.
This is what I get for not visiting webmd.com first to get a proper spelling.
;)
Pretty funny reply though
Such a quote may be a philosophy he thought up awhile ago. Either way, it makes a lot of sense.
There's many things he can regret. Career downs. Tintinitus. The death of his wife. Being made fun of.
But he doesn't. How many people with far less to regret are still trapped in regrets anyway?
Seeing the "Biography" of Shatner. It's really quite informative - and it helps put the interview in context. There is a lot to the man, he's a true original.
;)
Two quotes stand out:
These are excellent words to live by:
Regret is the worst of human emotions. There is no going back with regret. There is no future with regret. Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore or I forgive myself and try better.
My life is my statement and I try to be true to myself and thusly to other people. Whatever my failings are, they are human and I try to perfect it each day.
And this statement, of course, should make sense to most straight men:
I think the whole interracial kiss thing has been overrated. Nichelle Nichols was a beautiful woman and her lips were full. I merely sought to make an impression.
Keep going, Bill
This was definitely worth posting - it's a good, helpful summary. It's the kind of thing that I wish there was more of since I can pass the article on to people who need it.
I'd like to see a series of books on the way computers work, at various levels of knowledge, so people can get the knowledge in bite-sized chunks. It'd be helpful to me, since I often end up being "Mr. Explainer" and I'd LOVE to just hand someone a book and get back to work.
This gave me a chuckle. The DMCA is basically being used on itself. I guess it's sort of a mix of silly putty and a swiss army knife, apparently - shape it to anything, do anything you want!
More power to FatWallet. Let's hope this not only saves them, but deters future DMCA stupidity and helps point out how dumb the DMCA was in the first place.
Bah. I haven't called Microsoft for help in 4 years. I can usually do it myself, use their online help (which is erratic, but has moments of real usefulness), or find a solution on the internet.
I save money. I learn. I probably expend equal or less time doing it as well.
That's one odd thing about Microsoft support, and indeed any form of support - it needs to be evaluated not just by how much it costs or doesn't cost, but can it get the job done.
Actually, often 3 great developers can do the work of 30 codemonkeys. It really is that much of a distinction.
Furthermore, very often the best people will completely founder under a PHB, so the talent is never recognized and goes to waste. They'll be identified as troublemakers, or worse as lazy, rather than the creative problem-solvers they are. What we really need to teach our brilliant CS students is how to stick up for themselves and known their own worth (and how to bring it out).
A lot of my current job in a nutshell. New technology I have to use, a whole new architecture to get used to, plenty of extras, a nasty deadline, and I'm on my own. Only one other guy in my team has similar skills, and he's busy on other things.
But I know how to research, prototype, and analyze. I've done it for years.
There's no way a codemonkey could do this job. It'd probably take at least 3 to keep the pace. That doesn't mean I'm brilliant, but it does mean I'm experienced and I know what to look for.
My example of hiring half as many talented people as codemonkeys is just a rough estimate based on my experience overall. I agree in some cases you get a higher ratio, even the 1-10 you mention, especially when you factor in maintenace.
After all, the talented people do more right the first time, screw up less, and have less to go back and fix.
Furthermore, very often the best people will completely founder under a PHB, so the talent is never recognized and goes to waste. They'll be identified as troublemakers, or worse as lazy, rather than the creative problem-solvers they are. What we really need to teach our brilliant CS students is how to stick up for themselves and known their own worth (and how to bring it out).
Irony for me - I'm a psychology major. It actually helps a lot on the job, and in no small amount of interviews it gets brought up - mostly for the advantages it brings to dealing with people.
The ability to debate, analyze, and argue is definitely an advantage.
We seem to be running in circles and every loop around seems to require a toll at the Redmond Toll Booth.
Which is definitely part of the problem.
Software Companies do NOT neccessarily exist to produce good tools and products. They exist to make money and please the shareholders.
This does NOT mean they are out to produce the best, they're out to sell. Hopefully it is the best, but . . . well, no more needs to be said.
That clouds the initial question on the possibility of Silver Bullets. Even if they're out there, we've got to wade through tons of irrelevant stuff to find our particular Silver Bullet.
And a lot of our vendors are NOT helping. That's one reason I like open source. People may participate for different reasons, many far from noble, but the product and usefulness are a major focus.
A top-notch staff and a world-class leader, I'm guessing, is significantly more expensive than your average software development team. Therefore, it ain't exactly cheap.
It is actually cheap compared to the usual practices especially in big companies (hiring 100 cretinoids to midlessly click and drag). The problem is that such teams are not a commodity readily available on the market. You cannot just go out and buy one. And they are hard to manage so the average PHB prefers the monkeys
This hits on a very critical point - talented people who get the job done are the solution, but they aren't always easy to find and they aren't always what PHB's expect.
Finding talented people requires one be able to recognize the talent, be willing to pay for it, and be willing to use it properly. That's a tall order for many people. You can do it, but you have to really understand what you're doing.
Secondly, very talented people require proper management - that's sometimes at odds with common managerial philosophy. If you have someone who is good at what they do, micromanagement, not giving them proper resources, etc. can minimize the impact of the talent. Not understanding personality quirks of certain talented populations can be disastrous.
So, people go with what they know, even if 100 codemonkeys are hired as opposed to 50 talented people, even though the 50 talented people may save you 25% of your budget.
I'm fortunate. Where I'm consulting now is a place where my manager is an IT guy, knows how people work, and lets us to our job as long as we file progress reports. When he sees a talent/skill, he maximizes it. He talks to people as people.
I got lucky.
There are definite improvements to programming. Tools, concepts, etc. have evolved. There are no true silver bullets, but we've got a good selection of choices out there.
The problem, however, is threefold:
One of the real challenges for IT professionals today is to find the good tools and ideas out there, the ones that really have improved programming, and then actually get them into use. A good IT person is a good researcher and good at justifying their ideas to people.
The article is an excellent summary of the issues, what's happened, and how ridiculous some of this is.
Copyright was a legal system for protecting a creator's opportunities and placing things in the public domain. A win-win situation in the minds of the founders, I'm sure.
It's been turned into a way to hold onto information for a ridiculous (eternal?) amount of time. Something comes up, a few more campaign donations go out, and it gets changed again.
'nuff said.
The basic idea of "find ways to strangle virii" is a good one. I think he's onto something here, something so obvious it wasn't obvious. Even if his technique slowed virii down only a few percent, the spread over time would be much lower.
However, this is really only one idea. Its value is in pointing out that to deal with an age of virii, unreliable web pages, email viruses, trojans, bad firewalls, and everything else that didn't exist fifty years ago, we need to think in radically different methods.
The greatest value of this research is really going to be how it gets people to take a new look at computing. And for that, I say, it is about time. Our ideas for dealing with computer troubles need to evolve since the troubles we're facing continue to occur, spread, and change.
The basic concept could be applied to emails, perhaps - unexpected email requests, a system that scans for outgoing mails and compares it to a common list of outgoings, or detects spoofed addresses, etc.
The BASIC idea of finding ways to strangle virii and warn of spreads is a good one. But you make an excellent point that we have to consider ALL methods of spreading virii.
A point of speculation:
I have a hard time seeing how the DMCA protects this price information.
Apparently, some people see otherwise. Namely, those with something to gain.
So, I wonder if the broad and poorly-worded DMCA is being "deliberately misunderstood" for various reasons. IE people are going to get as much out of it as possible - and always have the excuse of a poorly-written law to fall back on.
Or maybe I'm just cynical. Well, more than usual.
True that is a problem - when you're talented without a job you have to stand out among the noise of incompetents also seeking a job. And I agree, it's not as easy as it sounds.
I think the overall effect is beneficial to IT. But it definitely sucks in the small picture.
You've had, to say the least, a very interesting life with many ups, downs, and detours. So I have a two part question.
1) Based on your life experience, what is one thing you'd advise no one EVER do, and why?
2) Based on your life experience, what is one thing you'd advise everyone to definitely do (at least once), and why?
I have to agree. I've already seen this happen. One of the Incompetents followed the boss he kissed up to to another job. Everything fell apart, the entire team was dismissed. Everyone associated with the boss and the Incompetent lost their job. THIS was before the IT crunch to boot, back when people were talking about giving me 5-25K more a year to leave my job.
Hiring policies (and firing policies) really don't seem to be rational. There's not a sense of vision - there's a mix of get-what-you-can and short-term expectations.
I do admit I'm sort of enjoying the car wreck. In my area people are catching on to the need for talent (in fact the interview that landed me my current contract was conducted by two people with technical skills). I hope this spreads nationwide.
I'll be first to admit I'm sure the downsizing did trim deadwood. In fact, having been in IT some seven years, I can definitely say I've worked with a few too many people who shouldn't be in the profession. A third of my job has been cleaning up after them.
However, I don't think the trimming went too well. I lost my job, became a contractor, and then did two contracts where extremely expereinced developers were needed. The companies in question didn't have people to fill these positions - so they spent more on me (on one contract the company probably paid 250% to 225% of what it'd have cost to have me as a regular employee).
Yet I've run into complete incompetents with stable jobs. Some of them the very people whose bad code and designs I had to fix.
The downsizings weren't that rational, from what I've seen. I dearly wish more of the deadwood had been cut, but I keep running into it.
IT seems to have a pretty high turnover rate - and I'd hate to think how recent grads are doing. When the economy improves, when companies add to their IT staff, what will they be left with?
My guess? A mix of the high-powered people who managed to survive the downturn, the lucky, and the improperly retained incompetents. The glow will be off of IT, so I don't expect people to rush back.
Then what will hiring be like?
Loved this article. Sent it on to my manager and a co-worker.
.NET effectively. Unless one understands some of the underpinnings of this NEW technology, you actually can't take advantage of it. Throw in the generated code issues and the IDE, an abstraction of an abstraction, really is disadvantageous.
One thing I liked especially is the danger of the Shiny New Thing. It may be neat and cool and save time, but knowing how to use it does not mean that you can do anything else - or function outside of it.
Right now I'm on an ASP.NET project - and some ASP.NET stuff I actually like. But the IDE actually makes it harder to program responsibly, and even utilize
A friend of mine just about strangled some web developers he worked with as they ONLY use tools (and they love all the Shiny New Ones) and barely know what the tools produce. This has led to hideous issues of having to configure servers and designs to work with their products as opposed to them actually knowing how they work. The guy's a saint, I swear.
I think managers and employers need to be aware of how abstract things can get, and realize good programmers can "drill down" from one layer to another to fix things. A Shiny New Thing made with Shiny New Things does NOT mean the people who did it are talented programmers, or that they can haul your butt out of a jam when the Shiny New Thing looses its shine.