Someone asked this very question at Damien's Pel 6 talk YAPC. According to Damien the "use CGI" (or whichever package) construct will tell the Perl 6 interpreter that the package being "use"'d is Perl 5 code. So the CPAN modules will still work.
Though your criticisms of modern education are valid, they have nothing to do with John Dewey. Let me quote from this page
Dewey believed that school should teach students how to be problem-solvers by helping students learn how to think rather than simply learning rote lessons about large amounts of information. In Dewey's view, schools should focus on
judgment rather than knowledge so that school children become adults who can "pass judgments pertinently and discriminatingly on the problems of human living" (Campbell, 1995, p. 215-216). Dewey also believed that schools should help students learn to live and to work cooperatively with others. In School and Society he wrote, "In a complex society, ability to understand and sympathize with the operations and lot of others is a condition of common purpose which only education can procure."
You can find Dewey's book Democracy and Education at this page.
The problem in our system is not that Dewey's arguments prevailed, it's that they did not.
Re:Gambling against casinos
on
MIT vs. Las Vegas
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
There was a report a few years ago on 60 Minutes (or some such show) about the "near misses" that slot machine computers were programmed to give. Seems that the machines were much more likely to produce a "near miss" (one reel one position away from a big win) than random chance. This in turn produced a psychological effect among players, enticing them to play longer, since they "just missed" the big win.
You don't have property rights to you house if the government decides to use "eminent domain" to take it. When GWB was part-owner of the Texas Rangers, there was some chicanery involved in using eminent domain to grab land for a new stadium in Arlington. And if you think those property owners got full market value for the land, think again.
In the late 70's, Paramount was going to launch a new TV network, using a new Star Trek TV series with all the original cast except Leonard Nimoy. The plans for the network fell though, so they decided to make a movie, and and then convinced Nimoy to be in it. In a fit of creative accounting, Paramount took the costs involved in starting up the network and included them in the cost for making ST:TMP. So that $48M figure is somewhat inflated.
I appreciate your thoughtful comment. Let me disabuse you of a few of your assumptions about
me.
I have 14 years of IT experience, mostly in the UNIX/C/C++ area, though the last 4 years have been mostly web development with PERL/CGI and some C/C++ thrown in. I have worked on many projects through their entire life-cycle, and not one of them has "failed" due to problems in software development. I also have a web site I've developed for a non-profit, though I don't have a lot of bells and whistles on it because it will eventually need to be maintained by non-professionals.
As to putting myself in the company's position, I understand that they may not need to hire anyone (they have all those cheap H1B's working now), but that's not my point. When they do decide to hire someone, they look at experience only with the technology that they are using, never mind that these things can be learned quickly by competant engineers. So if you were unlucky enough to be assigned to a project that uses a less popular technology because that's what your company needs to produce revenue, well, that means nothing.
Example: I worked for 2 years a large project on AIX with C++ and DB2, and I have also been on other projects where I used Apache and Netscape Web Server, but I never used IBM's Websphere server. Can I get an AIX programming job today that has the same technologies, except that they also use Websphere? No. I can't even get an interview.
The only reason I got the certification because I (and some recruiters I was working with) thought it and my 14 years might get me in the door to say I knew Java well enough to contribute. Once again, the answer was no.
Like you, I landed a couple of small jobs in the interim, but St. Louis is not the hopping market that NYC is, and I've been perm all my career, so I don't have all the networking contacts that you need to get all those contracting jobs. I've been working on them, but it's been very slow. I've also considered moving to some city that is actually hiring Perl people, but uprooting the family is a huge step, and I'm not that desperate, yet.
As to the job I did get, it is doing embedded systems programming in assemply language at a tiny engineering shop here, paying 55K. A 20% pay cut, and as I said before, I was not overpaid before.
Are H1B's causing all these problems? Obviously not. However, I still claim that the "locking in" of the visa holder with the company artificially lowers salaries, and that the visa itself is little better than indentured servitude. And that the existence of the program allows companies to be ridiculously picky in terms of candidate qualifications.
Second: Though fewer visas have been used this year, they still can be. And it says nothing about the ones that are already here (working at below market wages because changing jobs with an H1B is almost impossible right now).
Third: Demeaning the unemployment rate with the team whining is simply infuriating. I suggest you try being out of work for 7 months (like me), with a BSEE and MSCS and a Sun Java 2 Programmer certification. The fact is that companies are not willing to hire unless you have on-the-job experience (can't just read it in a book, nosiree bob!) in a whole laundry list of technologies. They are unwilling to train anyone, and can't seem to fathom that people can learn things without that wonderful on-the-job experience.
It's not supply, it's the fact that H1B people are cheaper, due to the inability to change jobs while holding a visa.
Fourth: I don't know what their solution is, but mine is this, "Give the H1B visa holders the same right to change jobs that we as citizens do. And then let people who what to come to this country to work in IT do so, without limitations to artifically hold salaries down."
P.S. A SIG of IEEE is their Computer Society, which is geared to CS people. (You get a different magazine, for one thing) So there are lots of computer scientists represented by IEEE.
P.P.S. I just got a job, starting Monday, but I had to take a 20% pay cut, and I was not overpaid before. How would you like that to happen to you? Would you whine?
I live in St. Louis county, and can tell you that the St. Louis city polls were only open about an extra 40 minutes. A city judge originally ordered the polls help open 3 additional hours in order to handle the large turnout and give people time to sort out all the problems people had with the Board of Elections (The BoE was totally overwhelmed by the turnout, the original judge has stated that the entire BoE should be fired). That decision was overturned by a 3 judge court of appeals soon after. The polls were closed almost immediately after the appeals court ruled. Many people who were waiting at the Board of Elections were prevented from voting because they chose to wait outside the front door instead of inside the extremey crowded office.
Also, we did not 'freely transfer' votes to Jean Carnahan. We voted for Mel, leaving the seat 'open'. The governor, who appoints people to fill open seats, has said he will appoint her, but of course he could change his mind and appoint someone else, though I can't imagine him doing that.
Another important point is that she will not serve the full term, but only 2 years. There will be a special election in 2002 to elect someone to complete the remaining 4 years of the term, and I doubt she will run. If Ashcroft had won, he would have served a full 6 year term.
There is an old USENET saying that newsgroup discussion threads end when the first reference to Hitler or Nazis is used, because after that people's brains turn off.
I think this is where Katz is coming from. People, especially those with money and power and who benefit from the status quo, always seek to demonize their opposition, because then people stop thinking. So the first thing they do is call someone a "monster", a "Hitler", a "Nazi", a "baby-killer", or whatever pushes the emotional hot buttons of their supporters. The Christian establishment definitely has money and power and benefits from the status quo.
And nothing starts the demonization chorus like questioning religious tenets as Singer did.
The abolition of child-killing was one of the main tenets of the early Christians, and was one of the major reasons for Christianity's success in the old Roman Empire. It went against the old Romans, who routinely killed their own children for any reason they deemed fit. So this issue strikes and the very heart of Christian belief. So it naturally cannot even be discussed.
Also furthermore, why is it that Juliani can say that he doesn't want tax dollars going to fund obscene art, but I can't say that I don't want my tax dollars used to support (in the form of tax dedectible contributions) religious proselyzation?
Another incident where incorrect metric conversions were blamed was the so-called "Gimli Glider" where, back in 1983, an Air Canada 767 ran out of fuel mid-flight. The amount of fuel on the plane had been calculated incorrecly due to a mixup in the units involved. The pilot amazingly flew the plane (now a 132-ton glider) without power and landed safely at a WWII-era airport turned racetrack in Gimli, Manitoba. An account of the incident can be found here.
I originally read about it in Reader's Digest, and, not surprisingly given their conservative bent, they claimed the accident was really the Canadian government's fault, because they were forcing conversion to the metric system.
Slashdot Mirror
They started in 1967, not 1976.
1976 was the last time they updated their playlist.
Someone asked this very question at Damien's Pel 6 talk YAPC. According to Damien the "use CGI" (or whichever package) construct will tell the Perl 6 interpreter that the package being "use"'d is Perl 5 code. So the CPAN modules will still work.
Let me quote from this page
You can find Dewey's book Democracy and Education at this page.
The problem in our system is not that Dewey's arguments prevailed, it's that they did not.
There was a report a few years ago on 60 Minutes (or some such show) about the "near misses" that slot machine computers were programmed to give. Seems that the machines were much more likely to produce a "near miss" (one reel one position away from a big win) than random chance. This in turn produced a psychological effect among players, enticing them to play longer, since they "just missed" the big win.
You don't have property rights to you house if the government decides to use "eminent domain" to take it. When GWB was part-owner of the Texas Rangers, there was some chicanery involved in using eminent domain to grab land for a new stadium in Arlington. And if you think those property owners got full market value for the land, think again.
No, sorry, you only win if it's a Hitler reference.
In the late 70's, Paramount was going to launch a new TV network, using a new Star Trek TV series with all the original cast except Leonard Nimoy. The plans for the network fell though, so they decided to make a movie, and and then convinced Nimoy to be in it. In a fit of creative accounting, Paramount took the costs involved in starting up the network and included them in the cost for making ST:TMP. So that $48M figure is somewhat inflated.
I have 14 years of IT experience, mostly in the UNIX/C/C++ area, though the last 4 years have been mostly web development with PERL/CGI and some C/C++ thrown in. I have worked on many projects through their entire life-cycle, and not one of them has "failed" due to problems in software development. I also have a web site I've developed for a non-profit, though I don't have a lot of bells and whistles on it because it will eventually need to be maintained by non-professionals.
As to putting myself in the company's position, I understand that they may not need to hire anyone (they have all those cheap H1B's working now), but that's not my point. When they do decide to hire someone, they look at experience only with the technology that they are using, never mind that these things can be learned quickly by competant engineers. So if you were unlucky enough to be assigned to a project that uses a less popular technology because that's what your company needs to produce revenue, well, that means nothing.
Example:
I worked for 2 years a large project on AIX with C++ and DB2, and I have also been on other projects where I used Apache and Netscape Web Server, but I never used IBM's Websphere server. Can I get an AIX programming job today that has the same technologies, except that they also use Websphere? No. I can't even get an interview.
The only reason I got the certification because I (and some recruiters I was working with) thought it and my 14 years might get me in the door to say I knew Java well enough to contribute. Once again, the answer was no.
Like you, I landed a couple of small jobs in the interim, but St. Louis is not the hopping market that NYC is, and I've been perm all my career, so I don't have all the networking contacts that you need to get all those contracting jobs. I've been working on them, but it's been very slow. I've also considered moving to some city that is actually hiring Perl people, but uprooting the family is a huge step, and I'm not that desperate, yet.
As to the job I did get, it is doing embedded systems programming in assemply language at a tiny engineering shop here, paying 55K. A 20% pay cut, and as I said before, I was not overpaid before.
Are H1B's causing all these problems? Obviously not. However, I still claim that the "locking in" of the visa holder with the company artificially lowers salaries, and that the visa itself is little better than indentured servitude. And that the existence of the program allows companies to be ridiculously picky in terms of candidate qualifications.
Second: Though fewer visas have been used this year, they still can be. And it says nothing about the ones that are already here (working at below market wages because changing jobs with an H1B is almost impossible right now).
Third: Demeaning the unemployment rate with the team whining is simply infuriating. I suggest you try being out of work for 7 months (like me), with a BSEE and MSCS and a Sun Java 2 Programmer certification. The fact is that companies are not willing to hire unless you have on-the-job experience (can't just read it in a book, nosiree bob!) in a whole laundry list of technologies. They are unwilling to train anyone, and can't seem to fathom that people can learn things without that wonderful on-the-job experience.
It's not supply, it's the fact that H1B people are cheaper, due to the inability to change jobs while holding a visa.
Fourth: I don't know what their solution is, but mine is this, "Give the H1B visa holders the same right to change jobs that we as citizens do. And then let people who what to come to this country to work in IT do so, without limitations to artifically hold salaries down."
P.S. A SIG of IEEE is their Computer Society, which is geared to CS people. (You get a different magazine, for one thing) So there are lots of computer scientists represented by IEEE.
P.P.S. I just got a job, starting Monday, but I had to take a 20% pay cut, and I was not overpaid before. How would you like that to happen to you? Would you whine?
I guess the fact that Rob is listed above Bjarne Stroustrup shows just how far C++ has fallen.
I live in St. Louis county, and can tell you that the St. Louis city polls were only open about an extra 40 minutes. A city judge originally ordered the polls help open 3 additional hours in order to handle the large turnout and give people time to sort out all the problems people had with the Board of Elections (The BoE was totally overwhelmed by the turnout, the original judge has stated that the entire BoE should be fired). That decision was overturned by a 3 judge court of appeals soon after. The polls were closed almost immediately after the appeals court ruled. Many people who were waiting at the Board of Elections were prevented from voting because they chose to wait outside the front door instead of inside the extremey crowded office.
Also, we did not 'freely transfer' votes to Jean Carnahan. We voted for Mel, leaving the seat 'open'. The governor, who appoints people to fill open seats, has said he will appoint her, but of course he could change his mind and appoint someone else, though I can't imagine him doing that.
Another important point is that she will not serve the full term, but only 2 years. There will be a special election in 2002 to elect someone to complete the remaining 4 years of the term, and I doubt she will run. If Ashcroft had won, he would have served a full 6 year term.
There is an old USENET saying that newsgroup discussion threads end when the first reference to Hitler or Nazis is used, because after that people's brains turn off.
I think this is where Katz is coming from. People, especially those with money and power and who benefit from the status quo, always seek to demonize their opposition, because then people stop thinking. So the first thing they do is call someone a "monster", a "Hitler", a "Nazi", a "baby-killer", or whatever pushes the emotional hot buttons of their supporters. The Christian establishment definitely has money and power and benefits from the status quo.
And nothing starts the demonization chorus like questioning religious tenets as Singer did.
The abolition of child-killing was one of the main tenets of the early Christians, and was one of the major reasons for Christianity's success in the old Roman Empire. It went against the old Romans, who routinely killed their own children for any reason they deemed fit. So this issue strikes and the very heart of Christian belief. So it naturally cannot even be discussed.
Also furthermore, why is it that Juliani can say that he doesn't want tax dollars going to fund obscene art, but I can't say that I don't want my tax dollars used to support (in the form of tax dedectible contributions) religious proselyzation?
Another incident where incorrect metric conversions were blamed was the so-called "Gimli Glider" where, back in 1983, an Air Canada 767 ran out of fuel mid-flight. The amount of fuel on the plane had been calculated incorrecly due to a mixup in the units involved. The pilot amazingly flew the plane (now a 132-ton glider) without power and landed safely at a WWII-era airport turned racetrack in Gimli, Manitoba. An account of the incident can be found here.
I originally read about it in Reader's Digest, and, not surprisingly given their conservative bent, they claimed the accident was really the Canadian government's fault, because they were forcing conversion to the metric system.