I've been working as a programmer since the age of 15 when I wrote a DBIII+ app for a local hospital.
Now I'm 31, still get carded for cigarettes if I'm clean shaven, and I'm the LAST person they will listen to at my shop, I feel primarily because I am the youngest by 20 years.
Two of our guys are over 60 and guess what? They are currently in the process of rolling out a SQL "conversion" of our Visual Fox app, that serves no purpose other than to be able to point at it and say, "Look! It's SQL! Geegaw!", and to (hopefully) keep these old farts in jobs for the next five years or until they die. Seems our new owners aren't too keen on Fox, but SQL they trust, even though we have no problems with Fox tables. The system needed to have MAJOR internal cleanup and overhaul work done to it (in dev since early 90's) during the conversion, none of which was done. No use of any SQL functionality or anything. Simply a port of tables from Fox to SQL with the minimum of code changes necessary to accomodate it. What's worse is that these old bastards don't even know what a design doc MIGHT look like if it came up and kicked them in the nuts. Two weeks to roll-out and they just yesterday agreed on a directory structure, there is no documentation of any security or system file changes, nada you would expect from 'professionals'. All they know how to do is regurgitate what they pick up in books on MS software and somehow that makes them gods. I just spent three days converting a hard-coded, cell by cell six page carpal fest of Excel object calls which build a spreadsheet from Fox to be table driven. Now it's 1.5 pages of code, reusable in other reports, and you don't have to do shit like change "D:D" all the way out to "AQ:AQ" by one letter BY HAND if you want to change the format. Incompetent idiots, but do they listen to me? Hell no. Do they pay them twice as much as me? Hell yes. Don't forget, I look at the code these guys produce EVERY DAY. Our boss never actually looks at code. Hello.
Anyone with job openings at a company which respects good design AND preferably doesn't "Seig Heil!" everytime BillG announces some new vaporware, I'm interested!
They are people who have VOLUNTEERED to do a job that says they are sworn to protect and SERVE.
Seems a few more of them would do well to remember those little facts.
Most folks are too young here to remember what life was like 40 years ago, but the shit cops pull now would NEVER have happened then. But it's all in the name of the children or drugs or social ill du jour. I counted NINE squad cars in the four miles from my house to work at lunch yesterday. America is rapidly turning into Amerika and the sheeple are largely too ignorant to see it or act on it if they do. I will not be at all surprised to have to present 'papers' at checkpoints for routine local travel in 20 years. It already happens around where I live (north Florida). Only thing that has to change is the frequency and a couple of bleating news shows saying how it will make the streets safer for the children...
I can't believe nobody else has seen through this ploy!
MS has been battered recently, relatively speaking of course. DOJ thing still looming, W2K not doing as well as they hoped, announcements of Linux being used by Shell and Telia, etc... So now, at the moment when they are feeling most reviled, they convince (pay) these people to file a BS suit for a freakish amount of money. A suit which will surely be overturned and so MS risks essentially nothing, while gaining some public sympathy once again, ie "Oh poor MS, being picked on like that by those evil greedy people!"
It's brilliant!
The LEXX
(For the comedically crippled, the above WAS a joke!)
I have to disagree with your comment about solar power. To my knowledge our best solar cells (read expensive NASA grade) are only about 32% efficient, with most commercial grade cells being, at best, half that (in clearer terms, they convert less than 15% of the light energy input to electrical energy output). We have a _long_ way to go with solar energy research.
"Win2k has a ton of compelling features, and is a lot more robust than 4.0"
I had to use NT4 at work for a couple of years, and recently we switched to W2k on the dev team (good little MSofties I work for). Yes W2k is more 'robust' insofar as that word is a euphemism for 'doesn't go tits up every other day or three'. Now it's only once every week or two. Try right-clicking on the taskbar icon for a runaway app and see what happens. Explorer.exe blows and takes everything down with it is what happens to me. (Don't need to reboot it seems, but it's as if I just logged in.) Can't guarantee it will happen to you too, but that's typical. How many times have you heard an exchange like this:
Cubie1: "What the hell is it doing?"
Cubie2: "I don't know. Is the hard-drive going?"
30 seconds later...
Cubie1: "Guess it's dead, time to reset."
Or how about 192M of RAM and it takes HOW long to 'check for necessary disk space' when REMOVING an app?
Forget accurate information on how long/fast/complete a file copy or move is. Just watch the pretty pictures and wildly inaccurate estimates...
What the hell is it doing on shutdown? Never have been able to figure that one out. It's a fucking mystery.
I remember seeing an interview with some members of a panel that was looking into likely forms of extraterrestrial life. They basically concluded that any life form not evolving with a similar composition and under similar circumstances to our own would be sufficiently different from us that we would have a difficult time even distinguishing it AS life. If you don't know what to look for, you'll have a terribly difficult time finding it. First looking for conditions and life similar to our own seems entirely logical. Remember, sci-fi is just that - fiction.
LEXX
PS - I know, I know, some reality has come of our fictions, but we have no warp drives, replicators or transporter beams, and likely won't for quite some time, if ever.
I would at first be inclined to believe you since it seems you know something of how the weather satellites work. However, now the area west of 'The Line' is vanishing too. Seems to me as if The Line is an artifact of weather.com image splicing and that sensors (only for this particular imaging it seems) are being affected as the effects of the storm reach their peak. Still could just be a computer error, but the timing is very coincidental...
Just checking out the weather.com satellite images to see what the skies would be like tonight and noticed that if you look at the US 'visibility' satellite images they gradually blank out over 3/4 of the US with a clear and distinct north-south line where the coverage ends. It's right at the westernmost tip of the Texas. The images keep getting updated so check it out soon.
"I think they need to keep coming out with completely new ergonomic devices like that keyboard where its split and the left side stands straight up and the right side stands sraight up and you type with your palms facing each other."
It called the Comfort Keyboard:
http://comfortkeyboard.com
I'm thinking of buying one (almost did last night) but I'm really wondering what people who've used it think? From checking out Deja, it seems medical transcriptionists lust after it and they do a LOT of typing. They aren't cheap ($270 at officeorganix.com - in black!), but I don't care about that if it's a high quality product that works. If you have one, let us know what you think of it please!
In December in fact, and I've been chewing on this subject in my mind a whiel now. Things have changed radically for me in the last few years and behavior/style/attitude-wise music is one that is most obvious. I find that I can't really listen to my old stuff anymore (Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, etc.) or my new-old stuff (Nirvana, NIN, etc.) and I'm not drawn to the new-new stuff. No angst. Dulled anger, or creeping resignation, not sure which. I like house/techo (brain-orgasm first time I heard Crystal Meth), but that's about it as far as newer stuff goes and I can't listen to it very much without getting burned out. I no longer feel the need to have a hammering beat as the soundtrack to my life. In fact it feels wrong and bums me out. The years are freaking flying past now as it is. Music is supposed to be many more things than just an outlet for aggression and depression. I'm now searching for those aspects and find that a solitary violin can my crank a great deal more lately than the vast majority of the teen-crap I've dl'd or bought in the last few years. Mass-media/mass-culture is encouraging us all to remain clueless adolescents for our entire adult lives. Better consumers that way. Looks like I'm maturing regardless though, and my search for understanding and good music continues.
Enough rambling, it's really a larger topic than might first be imagined, but those of you in the same relative temporal space as me _know_ what I'm talking about...
"and if you mention Ford-Johnson, you'd better be able to (a) provide an implementation, and (b) know the first few numbers for which it is optimal. ... Face it, very few can do what we do."
Face it, very few know who the fsck Ford and Johnson are. Competent programmers know how, when and where to reach for knowledge or mentoring. No one can possibly carry around every algorithm and supporting thesis material in their head. Ask me as part of an interview to whip such stuff out of my orifice to somehow prove myself to you and I will be excusing myself without hesitation or regret.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been working as a programmer since the age of 15 when I wrote a DBIII+ app for a local hospital.
Now I'm 31, still get carded for cigarettes if I'm clean shaven, and I'm the LAST person they will listen to at my shop, I feel primarily because I am the youngest by 20 years.
Two of our guys are over 60 and guess what? They are currently in the process of rolling out a SQL "conversion" of our Visual Fox app, that serves no purpose other than to be able to point at it and say, "Look! It's SQL! Geegaw!", and to (hopefully) keep these old farts in jobs for the next five years or until they die. Seems our new owners aren't too keen on Fox, but SQL they trust, even though we have no problems with Fox tables. The system needed to have MAJOR internal cleanup and overhaul work done to it (in dev since early 90's) during the conversion, none of which was done. No use of any SQL functionality or anything. Simply a port of tables from Fox to SQL with the minimum of code changes necessary to accomodate it. What's worse is that these old bastards don't even know what a design doc MIGHT look like if it came up and kicked them in the nuts. Two weeks to roll-out and they just yesterday agreed on a directory structure, there is no documentation of any security or system file changes, nada you would expect from 'professionals'. All they know how to do is regurgitate what they pick up in books on MS software and somehow that makes them gods. I just spent three days converting a hard-coded, cell by cell six page carpal fest of Excel object calls which build a spreadsheet from Fox to be table driven. Now it's 1.5 pages of code, reusable in other reports, and you don't have to do shit like change "D:D" all the way out to "AQ:AQ" by one letter BY HAND if you want to change the format. Incompetent idiots, but do they listen to me? Hell no. Do they pay them twice as much as me? Hell yes. Don't forget, I look at the code these guys produce EVERY DAY. Our boss never actually looks at code. Hello.
Anyone with job openings at a company which respects good design AND preferably doesn't "Seig Heil!" everytime BillG announces some new vaporware, I'm interested!
Disgruntled LEXX
Guess what?
COPS ARE FUCKING CIVILIANS!
They are NOT military personnel.
They are people who have VOLUNTEERED to do a job that says they are sworn to protect and SERVE.
Seems a few more of them would do well to remember those little facts.
Most folks are too young here to remember what life was like 40 years ago, but the shit cops pull now would NEVER have happened then. But it's all in the name of the children or drugs or social ill du jour. I counted NINE squad cars in the four miles from my house to work at lunch yesterday. America is rapidly turning into Amerika and the sheeple are largely too ignorant to see it or act on it if they do. I will not be at all surprised to have to present 'papers' at checkpoints for routine local travel in 20 years. It already happens around where I live (north Florida). Only thing that has to change is the frequency and a couple of bleating news shows saying how it will make the streets safer for the children...
I can't believe nobody else has seen through this ploy!
MS has been battered recently, relatively speaking of course. DOJ thing still looming, W2K not doing as well as they hoped, announcements of Linux being used by Shell and Telia, etc... So now, at the moment when they are feeling most reviled, they convince (pay) these people to file a BS suit for a freakish amount of money. A suit which will surely be overturned and so MS risks essentially nothing, while gaining some public sympathy once again, ie "Oh poor MS, being picked on like that by those evil greedy people!"
It's brilliant!
The LEXX
(For the comedically crippled, the above WAS a joke!)
I have to disagree with your comment about solar power. To my knowledge our best solar cells (read expensive NASA grade) are only about 32% efficient, with most commercial grade cells being, at best, half that (in clearer terms, they convert less than 15% of the light energy input to electrical energy output). We have a _long_ way to go with solar energy research.
LEXX
"Win2k has a ton of compelling features, and is a lot more robust than 4.0"
I had to use NT4 at work for a couple of years, and recently we switched to W2k on the dev team (good little MSofties I work for). Yes W2k is more 'robust' insofar as that word is a euphemism for 'doesn't go tits up every other day or three'. Now it's only once every week or two. Try right-clicking on the taskbar icon for a runaway app and see what happens. Explorer.exe blows and takes everything down with it is what happens to me. (Don't need to reboot it seems, but it's as if I just logged in.) Can't guarantee it will happen to you too, but that's typical. How many times have you heard an exchange like this:
Cubie1: "What the hell is it doing?"
Cubie2: "I don't know. Is the hard-drive going?"
30 seconds later...
Cubie1: "Guess it's dead, time to reset."
Or how about 192M of RAM and it takes HOW long to 'check for necessary disk space' when REMOVING an app?
Forget accurate information on how long/fast/complete a file copy or move is. Just watch the pretty pictures and wildly inaccurate estimates...
What the hell is it doing on shutdown? Never have been able to figure that one out. It's a fucking mystery.
Damn, do I ever feel compelled!
LEXX
I remember seeing an interview with some members of a panel that was looking into likely forms of extraterrestrial life. They basically concluded that any life form not evolving with a similar composition and under similar circumstances to our own would be sufficiently different from us that we would have a difficult time even distinguishing it AS life. If you don't know what to look for, you'll have a terribly difficult time finding it. First looking for conditions and life similar to our own seems entirely logical. Remember, sci-fi is just that - fiction. LEXX PS - I know, I know, some reality has come of our fictions, but we have no warp drives, replicators or transporter beams, and likely won't for quite some time, if ever.
I would at first be inclined to believe you since it seems you know something of how the weather satellites work. However, now the area west of 'The Line' is vanishing too. Seems to me as if The Line is an artifact of weather.com image splicing and that sensors (only for this particular imaging it seems) are being affected as the effects of the storm reach their peak. Still could just be a computer error, but the timing is very coincidental...
Just checking out the weather.com satellite images to see what the skies would be like tonight and noticed that if you look at the US 'visibility' satellite images they gradually blank out over 3/4 of the US with a clear and distinct north-south line where the coverage ends. It's right at the westernmost tip of the Texas. The images keep getting updated so check it out soon.
"I think they need to keep coming out with completely new ergonomic devices like that keyboard where its split and the left side stands straight up and the right side stands sraight up and you type with your palms facing each other."
It called the Comfort Keyboard:
http://comfortkeyboard.com
I'm thinking of buying one (almost did last night) but I'm really wondering what people who've used it think? From checking out Deja, it seems medical transcriptionists lust after it and they do a LOT of typing. They aren't cheap ($270 at officeorganix.com - in black!), but I don't care about that if it's a high quality product that works. If you have one, let us know what you think of it please!
LEXX
In December in fact, and I've been chewing on this subject in my mind a whiel now. Things have changed radically for me in the last few years and behavior/style/attitude-wise music is one that is most obvious. I find that I can't really listen to my old stuff anymore (Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, etc.) or my new-old stuff (Nirvana, NIN, etc.) and I'm not drawn to the new-new stuff. No angst. Dulled anger, or creeping resignation, not sure which. I like house/techo (brain-orgasm first time I heard Crystal Meth), but that's about it as far as newer stuff goes and I can't listen to it very much without getting burned out. I no longer feel the need to have a hammering beat as the soundtrack to my life. In fact it feels wrong and bums me out. The years are freaking flying past now as it is. Music is supposed to be many more things than just an outlet for aggression and depression. I'm now searching for those aspects and find that a solitary violin can my crank a great deal more lately than the vast majority of the teen-crap I've dl'd or bought in the last few years. Mass-media/mass-culture is encouraging us all to remain clueless adolescents for our entire adult lives. Better consumers that way. Looks like I'm maturing regardless though, and my search for understanding and good music continues.
Enough rambling, it's really a larger topic than might first be imagined, but those of you in the same relative temporal space as me _know_ what I'm talking about...
LEXX
This must be up there in the rankings of quickest sites to cave to a /. onslaught.
Did anyone get a mirror of some pics to share?
LEXX
In my experience MIS = Management Info Systems, as in information used by/for/in management of the company.
Regardless, the point is that at the very least you need to make sure you aren't pulling programmers or sysadmins to do this stuff. It happens. A lot.
LEXX
This isn't a job for an IT staff, this is a job for *accountants*
Preach it brother. So many of them seem to think they are IT anyway...
(pun intended)
LEXX
"and if you mention Ford-Johnson, you'd better be able to (a) provide an implementation, and (b) know the first few numbers for which it is optimal.
...
Face it, very few can do what we do."
Face it, very few know who the fsck Ford and Johnson are. Competent programmers know how, when and where to reach for knowledge or mentoring. No one can possibly carry around every algorithm and supporting thesis material in their head. Ask me as part of an interview to whip such stuff out of my orifice to somehow prove myself to you and I will be excusing myself without hesitation or regret.