Re:Puzzling indeed
on
Java Puzzlers
·
· Score: 3, Funny
He'll be here all week, folks.
Ah, there's nothing more productive than starting up the "your language sucks, you should code in [insert my language of choice here] because it's what real programmers use" argument. I've yet to meet a coder whose ability I truly respected that ever got into such an argument. But, hey, maybe this is really useful. Under that guise, let's run the entire argument here and anytime you feel like a language being discussed is for half-wits, you can reference this.
So, here's the argument in order from first salvo to coup-de-grace
[Language being discussed] is for n00bs! You should code in [language-1]
Ha! You think [language-1] is great? I agree you're not as l4m3 as the n00bs who code in [language being discussed], but please -- time to go to [language-2]
*Sigh* I'm so amused (not) when I come to/. and see you [language-2] coders flaming [language being discussed] coders or even [language-2] coders. It's all a bunch of crap and explains why so much money is spent tracking down buffer overflows and other security flaws. Get to machine language or get out!
I use 3 keys when I program -- 0, 1 and enter. Bitches!
I have a nephew who's 7 and I've been waiting for him to get a year or two older so we could start working on model rockets together. I spent a couple years as a kid playing with them, and while I didn't get into as much as some people (e.g., I'm no longer a model rocket builder), I remember having quite a lot of fun as a kid. It'd be a real shame not to be able to do this.
There are a ton of exemptions which would make it perfectly legal for the employer not to pay you overtime for your work. The Some of the others...If you do systems analysis and consult with users, If you program an OS (I am NOT making this up).
It really looks like this law is intended to grant overtime not to software engineers (or hardware engineers), but to (say) data entry folks.
Like everyone else, the last machine I bought came with Windows installed. It's worked fine for me, runs the games I want to run and I haven't seen any need to change.
If I bought a box with Linux pre-installed, I'd probably be running Linux right now. Absent a powerful reason to switch my OS, I'm not going to switch.
A statement like this is pure balls coming from a guy working for a company that's put out two mediocre offerings in the last couple of years that made major bucks because people are in love with their franchise.
If moviegoers were really content to wait for the dvd release why were so many people standing in line? If moviegoers were really into stealing movies and watching them at home, how did these films do so well -- especially given that the demographic they cater to is, on average, likely to be more tech savvy than the demographic catered to on the average?
It's hard to feel sorry for folks who want to squelch all news about their product, get oodles of money for doing a half-assed job and then whine when somebody nicks a penny from the collection plate.
The article actually says that the collected information was not destroyed -- citing an unnamed source. One would wonder with the backups a system like that would (should) have that destroying the evidence would be a lengthy job and may not have been done completely.
The article also notes people who have had their e-mail unintentionally collected are entitled to be informed. Can't wait to see if that happens...
Reading the link to Jerome Heckenkamp posted in the blurb gives some of idea of why the writer (and others) would think Jerome fired his defense attorneys. Namely, he likely felt that a defense attorney did not have the computer acumen to adequately defend him.
There's no end to the discussions on slashdot vis-a-vis the ridiculousness of the justice system attempting to regulate the computer industry without any clear understanding of how computers work. There's a good lesson in there. Computer-folk ought to at least allow that attorneys -- while incompetent at the keyboard -- know what they're doing in the courtroom.
Just because you're a brilliant programmer, it doesn't mean you'll be a brilliant defense attorney. The years spent getting a JD, passing the bar and working as a lawyer have to count for something.
The AOL SOB's are even worse than that. My girlfriend's parents are AOL subscribers who had trouble with a version of AOL they installed. They dutifully called tech support and were told that the problem was "noise on the phone line." I was very suspect of that answer and offered to put in a call on their behalf before they dragged someone from the phone company over.
When I called, I played dumb. I wanted to see what they would offer in the way of support if I didn't know anything. The standing rule must be to try and blame as much as possible on the user/phone comapany/other software manufacturer. The tech support person started by having my restart the computer. Then, we played around with some settings on the computer. I can't remember exactly what we changed, but I do remember noting that none of the changes we made could possibly meaningfully impact the problem.
After getting nowhere, I began to drop the ruse and started making suggestions and questioning whether the changes they suggested would do anything useful at all. When nothing could be done, the person told me I'd need to reinstall the software. I asked what could have happened to cause this. Below is, as well as I can remember, the conversation we had:
Me: So, how could this have happened?
AOL: Maybe you clicked on a bad web link.
Me: What do you mean?
AOL: You know, maybe a page had a broken link
Me: You mean like the URL doesn't point to an actual page?
AOL: Yes.
Me: You're telling me that an URL that doesn't point to an actual page could irreparably damage your software!?!?
AOL: Um....
Me: Yeah, thanks for the help.
I have a BS and AM in physics. After getting my masters, I taught high school for two years. I realized I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life and started shopping for new careers. I looked for a while I trying to get into a lab to use my physics degrees, but nothing appealed to me. Then, a friend told me about an opening in the IT department that he worked in.
Interestingly, my circuitous route to IT helped me. I was very worried that I would be far behind the rest of the work force and spent the first 6 months of the job going home to read up on programming, project management, etc. What I learned -- and the CS majors would likely attest to this -- is that what the CS majors I worked with learned in college was not necessarily directly applicable to their jobs. All the people that I've met who are good at their jobs -- whether they have a degree in computer science, math, engineering, physics, chemistry, English (yes) -- read and stay current.
We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
-- Dan Quayle
Perhaps we've deduced the source of the original post?
While you can certainly read Orwellian motives into this, I'm not certain we've seen it yet. (Of course, always better to be on the lookout than caught unaware.)
The war will, likely, be protracted. Terrorist organizations have the nasty habit of living all over the globe which means that attempts to get them will require hunting them down. We aren't going to lengthen the war to remove freedoms, it's simply a necessity of this type of war.
As far as 'excuses' to attack US civilians, they didn't need much more in the way of an excuse to hit us on Sept 11 (or our embassies or the USS Cole or countless other plots that were thankfully stopped before being carried out). We can't assume that Al-Qaida and associated groups are simply reactive to our policies in such a way that we can prevent further attacks by purely diplomatic means.
The level of comedy vis-a-vis anything done by Yahoo Serious could never by described as astounding.
Re:No financial incentive for good software
on
Software Aesthetics
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I would argue that there is a very real financial incentive to well designed software. Namely, it is easier to maintain and extend.
The problem I've seen (and this is from building in-house software for, say, banks) is that the managers of software projects don't understand this fact. They only understand the known relationship between time spent on a project and cost. They don't figure the time that will be spent AFTER initial coding.
The amazing thing about all of that is that there are thousands and thousands of pages of studies done on these very topics. Books are written every year to discuss this. It's a field of study unto itself. Yet, most managers you work for will still believe if you're behind on a project you should double the number of people working on it to get done twice as fast. At some point, the responsibility for these problems needs to be pushed up to people who can do something about it.
It's a question of diversity. They have 60 'lines' now that they can work with. This means that they have maximized -- until further review -- the genetic diversity available for research. There is actually even question whether as many as 60 lines exist or are available.
I'd be interested to know the money backing the change to.nap. One can easily believe that the record companies are firmly behind this and are the ones footing the bill for the software. If that's the case, at least the Napster folks are screwing the right people for their final paycheck before Napster dies for good.
I've worked on more than one project as a consultant based on an unwise business plan. They only ask me to code, not critique. Even bad ideas pay the bills:)
Oh, fellow Americans should read the article (actually, we all should always read the articles). I'm going to try and start working 'gormless' into everyday use for myself.
Okay, I've seen quite a few posts relating to how one should learn to program, debates about which languages are best to learn with, etc. I'll just go from my experience and why I think my experience worked well. I will admit, that the 'working-well' of my experience may have more to do with me than the experience, but I'll save the meta-analysis to others:)
First, I've seen posts that suggest that we must begin with assembly a lot of it arguing that knowing low-level programming makes for better coders. I don't agree for a few reasons. Most programmers (stressing most, not all) will work on systems that do not require real-time response. So, these people don't need to know how to clip a few milliseconds off the exec time. For most people, what is really necessary is an education in how to f***ing write clean code (personal annoyance at some folks obvious, eh?). Most of the systems I've worked on are your standard n-tier, database backend, web frontend lets-sell-some-crap.com systems. While performance is sometimes an issue, spending literally weeks trudging through dead-code, undocumented code and general crapola is far more problematic.
Second, if we're going to go to a language that is not assembly, let's go to an OO language. Is that where the industry is going? I guess I'd like to think so. I may be wrong, but if I'm not, then let's teach an OO language. When I learned Java (the language I program in for my jobs) I knew some C. I had used C in my physics major to do simple modelling. As a result of my lack of C knowledge, I think Java was easier to learn. Why? Because like learning a foreign language as a child, I learned the language and not how to translate what I knew to the language. (E.g., I never thought of objects as structs because I rarely used structs. So, I never wrote translated C code when writing Java. I learned to write objects. You OO coders out there with experience have seen and know the difference and I'm sure know exactly what I mean.)
Finally, Java is a nice and simple language that is widely used. Except for version differences, the libs are the same no matter where one goes. It isn't a 'pure' OO language, but is more widely used than, say, smalltalk. It has automatic (if crappy) memory management. You'll know all the basics and that's what learning should do. You'll also learn in a language that uses the dominant style (OO) and you'll know a language already in use at many companies.
Overall, I don't think anyone can claim that one particular language is the hands-down winner. I do believe that Java offers many advantages.
This already exists, though not on the Palm. When I taught high school a few years back, we had TI calculators and peripherals for science labs.
I taught at a private school and the students were all required to purchase the calculators and we would use them in the science classes. The calculators had some nifty features as well (spreadsheet, graphing). They could also be connected to a computer and any stored data could be written to a file. Finally, they were also programmable.
I'm not certain what the benefit to having this on a Palm is. Much cooler than computer/electronics companies developing toys for science labs would be someone developing better science curricula. Report on that when it happens...
No. First, not every employed citizen is a programmer, so your argument leaves a fair number of people out.
Second, I don't think "anyone with a brain can see it coming by at least a month." I worked for a company that today fired everyone. The parent company made it's budget for the year and simply decided not to fund the project/spin-off any longer. From top to bottom, everyone was axed. I can guarantee you noone saw it coming (the software just went into production 2 weeks ago). These people simply got laid without being kissed.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, there's nothing more productive than starting up the "your language sucks, you should code in [insert my language of choice here] because it's what real programmers use" argument. I've yet to meet a coder whose ability I truly respected that ever got into such an argument. But, hey, maybe this is really useful. Under that guise, let's run the entire argument here and anytime you feel like a language being discussed is for half-wits, you can reference this.
So, here's the argument in order from first salvo to coup-de-grace
Amen!
After playing so much Pong, I began to try and bounce large, bright squares off of my body and back to other people!
I contemplated buying green-tinted glasses to really simulate it, but that would be weird.
One of the ip addresses you mention is found on this page, which just seems odd. Can anyone translate?
Homer: I'm looking for something loose and billowy, something comfortable for my first day of work.
Salesman: Work, huh? Let me guess. Computer programmer, computer magazine columnist, something with computers?
Homer: Well, I use a computer.
Salesman: Yeah, what's the connection? Must be the non-stop sitting and snacking.
I have a nephew who's 7 and I've been waiting for him to get a year or two older so we could start working on model rockets together. I spent a couple years as a kid playing with them, and while I didn't get into as much as some people (e.g., I'm no longer a model rocket builder), I remember having quite a lot of fun as a kid. It'd be a real shame not to be able to do this.
Or, in this case, Read the F***ing Statute.
There are a ton of exemptions which would make it perfectly legal for the employer not to pay you overtime for your work. The
Some of the others...If you do systems analysis and consult with users, If you program an OS (I am NOT making this up).
It really looks like this law is intended to grant overtime not to software engineers (or hardware engineers), but to (say) data entry folks.
Like everyone else, the last machine I bought came with Windows installed. It's worked fine for me, runs the games I want to run and I haven't seen any need to change.
If I bought a box with Linux pre-installed, I'd probably be running Linux right now. Absent a powerful reason to switch my OS, I'm not going to switch.
Nothing earthshaking.
A statement like this is pure balls coming from a guy working for a company that's put out two mediocre offerings in the last couple of years that made major bucks because people are in love with their franchise.
If moviegoers were really content to wait for the dvd release why were so many people standing in line? If moviegoers were really into stealing movies and watching them at home, how did these films do so well -- especially given that the demographic they cater to is, on average, likely to be more tech savvy than the demographic catered to on the average?
It's hard to feel sorry for folks who want to squelch all news about their product, get oodles of money for doing a half-assed job and then whine when somebody nicks a penny from the collection plate.
I've already gained roast access to this!
Sorry...
The article actually says that the collected information was not destroyed -- citing an unnamed source. One would wonder with the backups a system like that would (should) have that destroying the evidence would be a lengthy job and may not have been done completely.
The article also notes people who have had their e-mail unintentionally collected are entitled to be informed. Can't wait to see if that happens...
There's no end to the discussions on slashdot vis-a-vis the ridiculousness of the justice system attempting to regulate the computer industry without any clear understanding of how computers work. There's a good lesson in there. Computer-folk ought to at least allow that attorneys -- while incompetent at the keyboard -- know what they're doing in the courtroom.
Just because you're a brilliant programmer, it doesn't mean you'll be a brilliant defense attorney. The years spent getting a JD, passing the bar and working as a lawyer have to count for something.
When I called, I played dumb. I wanted to see what they would offer in the way of support if I didn't know anything. The standing rule must be to try and blame as much as possible on the user/phone comapany/other software manufacturer. The tech support person started by having my restart the computer. Then, we played around with some settings on the computer. I can't remember exactly what we changed, but I do remember noting that none of the changes we made could possibly meaningfully impact the problem.
After getting nowhere, I began to drop the ruse and started making suggestions and questioning whether the changes they suggested would do anything useful at all. When nothing could be done, the person told me I'd need to reinstall the software. I asked what could have happened to cause this. Below is, as well as I can remember, the conversation we had:
Me: So, how could this have happened?
AOL: Maybe you clicked on a bad web link.
Me: What do you mean?
AOL: You know, maybe a page had a broken link
Me: You mean like the URL doesn't point to an actual page?
AOL: Yes.
Me: You're telling me that an URL that doesn't point to an actual page could irreparably damage your software!?!?
AOL: Um....
Me: Yeah, thanks for the help.
Interestingly, my circuitous route to IT helped me. I was very worried that I would be far behind the rest of the work force and spent the first 6 months of the job going home to read up on programming, project management, etc. What I learned -- and the CS majors would likely attest to this -- is that what the CS majors I worked with learned in college was not necessarily directly applicable to their jobs. All the people that I've met who are good at their jobs -- whether they have a degree in computer science, math, engineering, physics, chemistry, English (yes) -- read and stay current.
Perhaps we've deduced the source of the original post?
The war will, likely, be protracted. Terrorist organizations have the nasty habit of living all over the globe which means that attempts to get them will require hunting them down. We aren't going to lengthen the war to remove freedoms, it's simply a necessity of this type of war.
As far as 'excuses' to attack US civilians, they didn't need much more in the way of an excuse to hit us on Sept 11 (or our embassies or the USS Cole or countless other plots that were thankfully stopped before being carried out). We can't assume that Al-Qaida and associated groups are simply reactive to our policies in such a way that we can prevent further attacks by purely diplomatic means.
The level of comedy vis-a-vis anything done by Yahoo Serious could never by described as astounding.
The problem I've seen (and this is from building in-house software for, say, banks) is that the managers of software projects don't understand this fact. They only understand the known relationship between time spent on a project and cost. They don't figure the time that will be spent AFTER initial coding.
The amazing thing about all of that is that there are thousands and thousands of pages of studies done on these very topics. Books are written every year to discuss this. It's a field of study unto itself. Yet, most managers you work for will still believe if you're behind on a project you should double the number of people working on it to get done twice as fast. At some point, the responsibility for these problems needs to be pushed up to people who can do something about it.
Gnu IS Unix!
You can also get some more answers here.
I'm so sorry you folks couldn't make the connection.
I've worked on more than one project as a consultant based on an unwise business plan. They only ask me to code, not critique. Even bad ideas pay the bills :)
Oh, fellow Americans should read the article (actually, we all should always read the articles). I'm going to try and start working 'gormless' into everyday use for myself.
First, I've seen posts that suggest that we must begin with assembly a lot of it arguing that knowing low-level programming makes for better coders. I don't agree for a few reasons. Most programmers (stressing most, not all) will work on systems that do not require real-time response. So, these people don't need to know how to clip a few milliseconds off the exec time. For most people, what is really necessary is an education in how to f***ing write clean code (personal annoyance at some folks obvious, eh?). Most of the systems I've worked on are your standard n-tier, database backend, web frontend lets-sell-some-crap.com systems. While performance is sometimes an issue, spending literally weeks trudging through dead-code, undocumented code and general crapola is far more problematic.
Second, if we're going to go to a language that is not assembly, let's go to an OO language. Is that where the industry is going? I guess I'd like to think so. I may be wrong, but if I'm not, then let's teach an OO language. When I learned Java (the language I program in for my jobs) I knew some C. I had used C in my physics major to do simple modelling. As a result of my lack of C knowledge, I think Java was easier to learn. Why? Because like learning a foreign language as a child, I learned the language and not how to translate what I knew to the language. (E.g., I never thought of objects as structs because I rarely used structs. So, I never wrote translated C code when writing Java. I learned to write objects. You OO coders out there with experience have seen and know the difference and I'm sure know exactly what I mean.)
Finally, Java is a nice and simple language that is widely used. Except for version differences, the libs are the same no matter where one goes. It isn't a 'pure' OO language, but is more widely used than, say, smalltalk. It has automatic (if crappy) memory management. You'll know all the basics and that's what learning should do. You'll also learn in a language that uses the dominant style (OO) and you'll know a language already in use at many companies.
Overall, I don't think anyone can claim that one particular language is the hands-down winner. I do believe that Java offers many advantages.
...and 2 days later, electronic porn celebrates its 50th anniversary.
I taught at a private school and the students were all required to purchase the calculators and we would use them in the science classes. The calculators had some nifty features as well (spreadsheet, graphing). They could also be connected to a computer and any stored data could be written to a file. Finally, they were also programmable.
I'm not certain what the benefit to having this on a Palm is. Much cooler than computer/electronics companies developing toys for science labs would be someone developing better science curricula. Report on that when it happens...
Second, I don't think "anyone with a brain can see it coming by at least a month." I worked for a company that today fired everyone. The parent company made it's budget for the year and simply decided not to fund the project/spin-off any longer. From top to bottom, everyone was axed. I can guarantee you noone saw it coming (the software just went into production 2 weeks ago). These people simply got laid without being kissed.