Yeah, the kids liked it 10 years ago but who still uses a dedicated player when you can have it all on your phone? Hell, even I (a committed technophobe) gave up on the dedicated player a long time ag.
Hell, I didn't even know he was the one doing the voices. While his voice will be recognized, basically no one (outside of the fans who pay close attention) remembers the names of the voice actors. But legendary on screen performances will gain you real recognition among the masses because you put a face to a name. I remember thinking "hey, it's Derek Smalls" when Handsome Dan walked on screen in Wayne's World 2. I guarantee no one said "that's the guy who did the voice for Montgomery Burns".
Process and methodologies provide useful structure and standardization but it will not turn crap employees into good ones.
You are absolutely right. I've seen bad programmers write terrible code in every language and every process environment. People who have no business whatsoever writing code should never be hired. Sadly, they are everywhere because the people in charge of hiring have no idea how to weed them out. In many cases, the managers are the bad coders who were moved into a position where they couldn't infect the code any more. Trouble is, that opened the gates to let more and more bad coders in the door.
It is ironic that Agile was conceived to unshackle developers from monolithic bureaucracy and dogmatic mandates, only to become a dogmatic mandate handed down by a monolithic bureaucracy. Which, I believe, is the point being made by Hunt.
I think it's a mix between an ideal that is difficult to really implement and a concerted effort to grab a name to show off and throw out most (if not all) of the methodology. For the first part, the idea itself needs to be solid if you expect success. For the second, it is likely failure was predestined independent of the merit of the idea you're not actually trying to implement. Trouble is, it's difficult to differentiate between failures because it's not a solid black line between either side. There's a lot of gray, not to mention that so many more things than your development methodology impact your ultimate success or failure.
There is no shortage of that in his article. I really think the "failure" of agile (which by comparison isn't much different than any popular methodology) is a combination of "you're not smart enough to do it the way I said" and "we're just going to use the name and keep doing what we've always been doing".
But is that really the case? I mean, I've seen some projects that are nothing more than "chuck whatever $#!t compiles over the wall every Friday" but claiming to be "Agile". There is no disguising the fact that they took the name and didn't even bother to try to learn what Agile is all about. Is that really a failure of the idea of Agile or just a crap company giving Agile a bad name?
Like so many other things, it's very difficult to take an ideal theory and put it into practice in the real world. If your team really understands the ideas behind Agile and you have a good process in place to make it happen, you can have a great deal of success.
Unfortunately, like so many other things in life, most teams don't get it right and they end up failing to some degree or another.
I do count myself in with that "pretty much every computer professional" group. I know a lot within the niche I work in and a few things outside of that. And I do try to keep up with some things I find interesting. But there are huge swaths of the industry I have no real idea about. I think the only difference is that I don't try to pass myself off as an expert in parts of the field I don't know.
A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone—an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Since when is embedded programming associated with "immersive, responsive, consumer-facing applications"? I don't think Swift is going to replace C anytime soon in that department.
I think their idea of an "embedded system" is one where you "embed" an Apple product into it. And sure, by the strict definition you are embedding a computer in something. I'm sure there will be a market for such devices going forward. But that's really a very small corner of the embedded systems world.
I doubt very much the author of the article has any real idea what a true embedded system really is.
It's a company issued phone. Turn it off after you "clock out" via the app. When you're ready to "clock in", turn the phone on and do so. If you need to be reached at the number of the phone during off hours, use the call forwarding services provided by every major carrier. If you get a work call that requires you to do something on the work phone, you can turn it back on and clock in.
I never said that PC games were going away. I said that consoles have supplanted PCs in the "entertainment platform" environment. People who want to easily play games and stream movies are overwhelmingly likely to just buy a console because it gives them what they want without having invest a lot of time and effort figuring it out.
Everyone I know who still does PC games has a dedicated PC setup that's not connected to the TV in their living room. Instead, they have a dedicated space for a PC connected to a few monitors that is really only used for playing their games. And quite honestly, most dedicated gamers I know have both a dedicated PC with a monitor of it's own and a console hooked up to their TV. After all, TVs don't give you the resolution you want for a real PC game. I only know two people (including myself) who actually use a PC connected to their TV to run their "entertainment platform". Besides those two people, everyone else I know who has an "entertainment platform" associated with their TV is using a game console or some other dedicated device because it's just so much easier. There's a good chance that I will abandon my PC in favor of one of those devices at some point. The "entertainment platform" is a good example of yet another function where the desktop just doesn't work as well as a dedicated device except for a very small subset of people. Sure, power gamers and tech geeks like having a desktop for all it can be configured to do. Average people don't care enough to mess with it. They just want something to plug in and turn on and it gives them their TV shows.
So yes, I'm sure PC games are still going strong. But when it comes to setting up the TV in your living room to be your entertainment center, I just don't see PCs any more. Just consoles and other dedicated boxen.
Given the cost of living in the Valley, $170K isn't all that much, even if your expectations aren't just internet bluffing. I can have a much better life in areas that aren't so hideously crowded and still take home more real disposable income after paying for housing and transportation, not to mention all of the intangible benefits of having a short commute, while having a gross salary that's 2/3 of what you're bragging about. All I have to do is live almost anywhere else in the country.
Big salary numbers aren't impressive when you're paying 2-3x or more for your housing and you have a long commute that takes hours out of your day.
I started out in the middle of the recession in the early 90's where it was hard to buy a job and the internet wasn't a big thing yet. My salary now is 5x what it was then.
Slashdot Mirror
West Virginia and Mississippi being ahead of California in doing something involving common sense?
I don't know. Hair bands were popular when I was in high school. I'm pretty sure that aside from disco, it doesn't get much worse than that.
Death before disco!
Yeah, the kids liked it 10 years ago but who still uses a dedicated player when you can have it all on your phone? Hell, even I (a committed technophobe) gave up on the dedicated player a long time ag.
Yep. There are a lot of entertainers on the pop charts. Very few artists. The difference is important.
Where do you think I got my MP3 from?
Yes. It's an app on my phone.
As I sit here with "The Who" playing on my MP3 player.
Hell, I didn't even know he was the one doing the voices. While his voice will be recognized, basically no one (outside of the fans who pay close attention) remembers the names of the voice actors. But legendary on screen performances will gain you real recognition among the masses because you put a face to a name. I remember thinking "hey, it's Derek Smalls" when Handsome Dan walked on screen in Wayne's World 2. I guarantee no one said "that's the guy who did the voice for Montgomery Burns".
Process and methodologies provide useful structure and standardization but it will not turn crap employees into good ones.
You are absolutely right. I've seen bad programmers write terrible code in every language and every process environment. People who have no business whatsoever writing code should never be hired. Sadly, they are everywhere because the people in charge of hiring have no idea how to weed them out. In many cases, the managers are the bad coders who were moved into a position where they couldn't infect the code any more. Trouble is, that opened the gates to let more and more bad coders in the door.
It is ironic that Agile was conceived to unshackle developers from monolithic bureaucracy and dogmatic mandates, only to become a dogmatic mandate handed down by a monolithic bureaucracy. Which, I believe, is the point being made by Hunt.
I think it's a mix between an ideal that is difficult to really implement and a concerted effort to grab a name to show off and throw out most (if not all) of the methodology. For the first part, the idea itself needs to be solid if you expect success. For the second, it is likely failure was predestined independent of the merit of the idea you're not actually trying to implement. Trouble is, it's difficult to differentiate between failures because it's not a solid black line between either side. There's a lot of gray, not to mention that so many more things than your development methodology impact your ultimate success or failure.
Agreed.
But that is exactly what is the core of Agile.
"You keep using that word. I donna think it means what you think it means."
There is no shortage of that in his article. I really think the "failure" of agile (which by comparison isn't much different than any popular methodology) is a combination of "you're not smart enough to do it the way I said" and "we're just going to use the name and keep doing what we've always been doing".
But is that really the case? I mean, I've seen some projects that are nothing more than "chuck whatever $#!t compiles over the wall every Friday" but claiming to be "Agile". There is no disguising the fact that they took the name and didn't even bother to try to learn what Agile is all about. Is that really a failure of the idea of Agile or just a crap company giving Agile a bad name?
Like so many other things, it's very difficult to take an ideal theory and put it into practice in the real world. If your team really understands the ideas behind Agile and you have a good process in place to make it happen, you can have a great deal of success.
Unfortunately, like so many other things in life, most teams don't get it right and they end up failing to some degree or another.
I do count myself in with that "pretty much every computer professional" group. I know a lot within the niche I work in and a few things outside of that. And I do try to keep up with some things I find interesting. But there are huge swaths of the industry I have no real idea about. I think the only difference is that I don't try to pass myself off as an expert in parts of the field I don't know.
That's true of pretty much every computer professional I've ever worked with.
Read the first sentence of the article
A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone—an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Since when is embedded programming associated with "immersive, responsive, consumer-facing applications"? I don't think Swift is going to replace C anytime soon in that department.
I think their idea of an "embedded system" is one where you "embed" an Apple product into it. And sure, by the strict definition you are embedding a computer in something. I'm sure there will be a market for such devices going forward. But that's really a very small corner of the embedded systems world.
I doubt very much the author of the article has any real idea what a true embedded system really is.
It's a company issued phone. Turn it off after you "clock out" via the app. When you're ready to "clock in", turn the phone on and do so. If you need to be reached at the number of the phone during off hours, use the call forwarding services provided by every major carrier. If you get a work call that requires you to do something on the work phone, you can turn it back on and clock in.
I never said that PC games were going away. I said that consoles have supplanted PCs in the "entertainment platform" environment. People who want to easily play games and stream movies are overwhelmingly likely to just buy a console because it gives them what they want without having invest a lot of time and effort figuring it out.
Everyone I know who still does PC games has a dedicated PC setup that's not connected to the TV in their living room. Instead, they have a dedicated space for a PC connected to a few monitors that is really only used for playing their games. And quite honestly, most dedicated gamers I know have both a dedicated PC with a monitor of it's own and a console hooked up to their TV. After all, TVs don't give you the resolution you want for a real PC game. I only know two people (including myself) who actually use a PC connected to their TV to run their "entertainment platform". Besides those two people, everyone else I know who has an "entertainment platform" associated with their TV is using a game console or some other dedicated device because it's just so much easier. There's a good chance that I will abandon my PC in favor of one of those devices at some point. The "entertainment platform" is a good example of yet another function where the desktop just doesn't work as well as a dedicated device except for a very small subset of people. Sure, power gamers and tech geeks like having a desktop for all it can be configured to do. Average people don't care enough to mess with it. They just want something to plug in and turn on and it gives them their TV shows.
So yes, I'm sure PC games are still going strong. But when it comes to setting up the TV in your living room to be your entertainment center, I just don't see PCs any more. Just consoles and other dedicated boxen.
Given the cost of living in the Valley, $170K isn't all that much, even if your expectations aren't just internet bluffing. I can have a much better life in areas that aren't so hideously crowded and still take home more real disposable income after paying for housing and transportation, not to mention all of the intangible benefits of having a short commute, while having a gross salary that's 2/3 of what you're bragging about. All I have to do is live almost anywhere else in the country.
Big salary numbers aren't impressive when you're paying 2-3x or more for your housing and you have a long commute that takes hours out of your day.
I started out in the middle of the recession in the early 90's where it was hard to buy a job and the internet wasn't a big thing yet. My salary now is 5x what it was then.