I think both of these guys miss the point. The majority of so called "public funded code" shouldn't be. Anything funded by the public, means I was forced to pay for it against my will. This seems like the very opposite of Free (as in speech) Software. I'm allowed to do whatever I want with it, but you're going to make me pay for it? That's a attitude toward freedom I can do without.
I'm also willing to bet that that majority of such code written today with money from the U.S. Governement is done on projects that the U.S. Government has no consitutional right to be involved in - say, all the software that "became the Internet", or software to support research into the airspeed of an unladen swallow..
The general exception to this rule, is development of software to lower government costs. For example, software that enables government to produce legislation for less money (not that I want to encourage more legislation), would be reasonable to develop. Of course, they ought to be using an existing Word Processor for that one. Or software related to national defense.
1. You have to have cash on hand to exercise them. 500,000 options at $1 for a $100 stock do you no good if you don't have half a million on hand.
Bull****. If you're willing to sell the shares immediately, you don't really need the cash up front to exercise them.
2. You have to pay short term capital gains, even if you don't sell. You must pay taxes on the difference between your strike price and the current market price. If the stock went up a lot ($99 in the previous example), you have to pay $36 in taxes per share immediately-- even though you haven't sold your stock yet! People have lost a lot of money on ISO's this way.
Acutally, it's not short term captial gains, it is treated as "ordinary income", which means you (may) owe social security and medicare on it...
For those that don't know, Kim Stanley Robsinson wrote an excellent series on the colonization of Mars. It delved deeply into social, political, and scientific possibilities. Run, do not walk, to your nearest bookstore (online ordering means waiting) and get Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars.
Has anyone hear ever heard of the United States Constitution?
I'm libertarian and strong supporter of Mr. Browne. I absolutely do NOT want any govenment to spend my money support science research or the arts. But, if I did, I certainly wouldn't support the government doing it in violation of its constitution. The constistution was conceived of as chains on the federal government. Decades ago, politicians figured out they could ignore the constitution and get away with it, and now the monster is loose.
If you want funding for something like that, fine. You're entitled to such a belief. Get a constitutional amendment passed, and then at least it will be legal to do so.
Secondly, we can blame Visual C++'s extensions to the language.
It's been over a year since I used Visual C++, and even then it was 5.0 (6.0 was out but I admit that I never used it). At the point, I'm not aware of any extensions to the language that couldn't be easily disabled with a #define. All such extensions were fully compliant with ANSI C++, starting with double-underscore (I think it was two).
Are there other less compatible changes? I know this was a real problem with Borlands OWL, but I never had a problem with Visual C++.
You are, of course, entitled to your oppinion. In a well run business, it is not necessary to work 12-16 hours a day 360 days a year. If I did that to my employees, I'd expect them to leave, and be disappointed if they didn't.
The best employee is going to be one that looks out for "#1". That includes doing a good job for a company that will recognize such a job, and accepting responsiblity for their own career and life.
I've a BSCS degree from Georgia Tech (1985). I've spent 19 years programming computers professionally, and and additional 5 years before that for fun. I'm now in a position to do the hiring (part owner in a small open-source oriented company).
Industry spokesmen say older programmers with outdated skills would take too long to retrain.
The blame is not being laid in the right place with that statement. It is not the role of an employer to train employees in standard technologies. Many companies do, and I'd agree there is perhaps an obligation to an existing employee. I don't expect a new-hire to know everything. But I do expect them to have shown some effort to be able to evolve their skill set on their own. Even without knowing all the latest buzzwords, I'm not interested in hiring someone who isn't motivated enough to learn some new technologies on their own - not as "slave labor", but as self-improvement.
I don't care about someone's age, I care about their mentality. I want someone that loves programming. That enjoys finding new tools to solve problems with. And in today's world, someone that shift gears quickly - this means self teaching when necessary, and doing so quickly.
I'll admit that I've no experience hiring H1B employees. I'm not saying that those folks are meet all my requirements, just explaining my experiences.
I've heard it said that our industry is a meritocracy, and I think it is. Those that don't
show much merit don't get jobs.
Don't you just love it when authors make up new definitions to support their article:) not!
An operating system is the software that manages the resources (hardware?) of the computer. These resources include but are not limited to: RAM, CPU, Disk storage, Network access, and other peripheral devices.
That's all. It is that simple. Users may want more to be bundled with their purchased hardware, but just be cause Dell puts Microsoft Office on my computer when I buy it doesn't make it part of the operating system. Just because Microsoft puts Notepad in the Windows box, doesn't make it part of the operating system.
It's a very tight labor market out there. If you're a highly qualified techie, and the company is reasonably convinced they want you, they've frequently got to sell you on the business/project. If you're getting stock options, you should care a great deal about what the business idea is, and how they're going to make money on it. If you're just looking for a cool project to work on, they've got to sell you on that, but they don't want their competitors to finding out.
I've have not yet read the book, but I gather it's about (in part) the rise of libertarianism in the cyber-community. One reason for the rise in general, I think is the that our freedoms are being taken away at a faster rate than ever before (no proof, just oppinion). It's certainly amazing how much this is happening, and it was a large motivating factor me to start Liberty Rally. It's a slash site that focuses on disappearing freedoms, government excesses, etc.
We attempt to track down relevent stories, so that people will be aware of how much is happening that they never new of. (We're young, at only a month old, so bear with us as we grow).
I have not read the book. What irritates me most about this is the blatant name-calling in the title. I disagree strongly with (modern) liberal beliefs, but I don't call everyone who supports them stupid.
Funny you should mention this. Perl is part of the solution Celera uses in manipulating their genome data. HUGE text processing.... David Corbin
Here here! GUIs *NEED* Shortcuts
on
Interface Zen
·
· Score: 1
I agree with most of Tom's article, but most of all with the point that GUI's should all have keyboard access. This is one of the things the MS folks got right. Under Windows, in *MOST* applications, I can quickly invoke any menu item, and I can also quickly navigate dialog boxes. When I'm doing an eval of a GUI program, if it doesn't have "Windows-style" menu access (ALT-x y), it generally doesn't last long on my system. X and Java programs seem to fail this test all too frequently.
While I like many of the reasons given for using Perl over C/C++ for CGI, the best reason for me is DBI. I don't know any database-access API for Unix that I can use to access such a wide variety of databases. I certainly don't know about any that are portable to other OSes if necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to patent the idea of getting lots of stupid patents as a way to be make it rich.
Sure, there's prior art for this "business innovation", but that hasn't mattered to the PTO for a long time now.
IANAL, If you didn't get have an NDA signed in advance, your basically screwed.
David Corbin
I'm also willing to bet that that majority of such code written today with money from the U.S. Governement is done on projects that the U.S. Government has no consitutional right to be involved in - say, all the software that "became the Internet", or software to support research into the airspeed of an unladen swallow..
The general exception to this rule, is development of software to lower government costs. For example, software that enables government to produce legislation for less money (not that I want to encourage more legislation), would be reasonable to develop. Of course, they ought to be using an existing Word Processor for that one. Or software related to national defense.
1. You have to have cash on hand to exercise them. 500,000 options at $1 for a $100 stock do you no good if you don't have half a million on hand.
Bull****. If you're willing to sell the shares immediately, you don't really need the cash up front to exercise them.
2. You have to pay short term capital gains, even if you don't sell. You must pay taxes on the difference between your strike price and the current market price. If the stock went up a lot ($99 in the previous example), you have to pay $36 in taxes per share immediately-- even though you haven't sold your stock yet! People have lost a lot of money on ISO's this way.
Acutally, it's not short term captial gains, it is treated as "ordinary income", which means you (may) owe social security and medicare on it...
In covering the culture of computers, the biggest problem you'll face is that there are so many different cultures...
To my knowledge, there isn't a fourth one...
Has anyone hear ever heard of the United States Constitution? I'm libertarian and strong supporter of Mr. Browne. I absolutely do NOT want any govenment to spend my money support science research or the arts. But, if I did, I certainly wouldn't support the government doing it in violation of its constitution. The constistution was conceived of as chains on the federal government. Decades ago, politicians figured out they could ignore the constitution and get away with it, and now the monster is loose. If you want funding for something like that, fine. You're entitled to such a belief. Get a constitutional amendment passed, and then at least it will be legal to do so.
It's been over a year since I used Visual C++, and even then it was 5.0 (6.0 was out but I admit that I never used it). At the point, I'm not aware of any extensions to the language that couldn't be easily disabled with a #define. All such extensions were fully compliant with ANSI C++, starting with double-underscore (I think it was two).
Are there other less compatible changes? I know this was a real problem with Borlands OWL, but I never had a problem with Visual C++.
You are, of course, entitled to your oppinion. In a well run business, it is not necessary to work 12-16 hours a day 360 days a year. If I did that to my employees, I'd expect them to leave, and be disappointed if they didn't.
The best employee is going to be one that looks out for "#1". That includes doing a good job for a company that will recognize such a job, and accepting responsiblity for their own career and life.
Industry spokesmen say older programmers with outdated skills would take too long to retrain.
The blame is not being laid in the right place with that statement. It is not the role of an employer to train employees in standard technologies. Many companies do, and I'd agree there is perhaps an obligation to an existing employee. I don't expect a new-hire to know everything. But I do expect them to have shown some effort to be able to evolve their skill set on their own. Even without knowing all the latest buzzwords, I'm not interested in hiring someone who isn't motivated enough to learn some new technologies on their own - not as "slave labor", but as self-improvement.
I don't care about someone's age, I care about their mentality. I want someone that loves programming. That enjoys finding new tools to solve problems with. And in today's world, someone that shift gears quickly - this means self teaching when necessary, and doing so quickly.
I'll admit that I've no experience hiring H1B employees. I'm not saying that those folks are meet all my requirements, just explaining my experiences.
I've heard it said that our industry is a meritocracy, and I think it is. Those that don't show much merit don't get jobs.
Did they try to auction them on Ebay :-?
Don't you just love it when authors make up new definitions to support their article :) not!
An operating system is the software that manages the resources (hardware?) of the computer. These resources include but are not limited to: RAM, CPU, Disk storage, Network access, and other peripheral devices.
That's all. It is that simple. Users may want more to be bundled with their purchased hardware, but just be cause Dell puts Microsoft Office on my computer when I buy it doesn't make it part of the operating system. Just because Microsoft puts Notepad in the Windows box, doesn't make it part of the operating system.
It's a very tight labor market out there. If you're a highly qualified techie, and the company is reasonably convinced they want you, they've frequently got to sell you on the business/project. If you're getting stock options, you should care a great deal about what the business idea is, and how they're going to make money on it. If you're just looking for a cool project to work on, they've got to sell you on that, but they don't want their competitors to finding out.
I've have not yet read the book, but I gather it's about (in part) the rise of libertarianism in the cyber-community. One reason for the rise in general, I think is the that our freedoms are being taken away at a faster rate than ever before (no proof, just oppinion). It's certainly amazing how much this is happening, and it was a large motivating factor me to start Liberty Rally. It's a slash site that focuses on disappearing freedoms, government excesses, etc. We attempt to track down relevent stories, so that people will be aware of how much is happening that they never new of. (We're young, at only a month old, so bear with us as we grow).
David CorbinVisit Liberty Rally at www.libertyrally.org - a Slash site
I have not read the book. What irritates me most about this is the blatant name-calling in the title. I disagree strongly with (modern) liberal beliefs, but I don't call everyone who supports them stupid.
David CorbinVisit Liberty Rally at www.libertyrally.org - a Slash site
Funny you should mention this. Perl is part of the solution Celera uses in manipulating their genome data. HUGE text processing....
David Corbin
I agree with most of Tom's article, but most of all with the point that GUI's should all have keyboard access. This is one of the things the MS folks got right. Under Windows, in *MOST* applications, I can quickly invoke any menu item, and I can also quickly navigate dialog boxes. When I'm doing an eval of a GUI program, if it doesn't have "Windows-style" menu access (ALT-x y), it generally doesn't last long on my system. X and Java programs seem to fail this test all too frequently.
While I like many of the reasons given for using Perl over C/C++ for CGI, the best reason for me is DBI. I don't know any database-access API for Unix that I can use to access such a wide variety of databases. I certainly don't know about any that are portable to other OSes if necessary.
Everyone knows that Microsoft doesn't get things "right" until the 3rd version (and often not then) so just wait for the next rev.
Are they taxing them as well? You can fit a lot of MP3 on a 10G hard drive...