To be a little more serious, you need to carefully consider what you want to do. The dot-com tech boom is dead and gone (and most likely won't be back during our lifetime), so if you're just itching to become a programmer then you'll be disappointed to hear that you have two factors working against you:
Graduates in their 20s will work for a much lower salary and probably grew up with computers and have been writing their own programs for some time (translation, more programming experience).
A lot of the programming work is being outsourced overseas (not just India).
If you have an idea that you want to build a business around, then you should look at a business degree and go the venture capital route and hire out the technical work to people who are already in the business.
I don't want to be overly negative, but having worked in a number of industries that use computer technology I can tell you that anything that can be scripted or reduced to a manufacturing process will be constructed where labor is cheapest.
Have you considered that possibly that was management's attempt at humor? I know most PHBs don't appear to have a sense of humor, but some of them really do try.:-D
It sort of depends on what your skills are. I've been brutally honest with management in the past without repercussions. However, I also have no qualms about working as a contract worker if they dislike what I've said.:-)
Since when did the RIAA have anything remotely resembling police authority?
Are they attempting to make citizens' arrests?
Are they taking legitimate legal authorities with them?
Isn't this called vigilantism? Worse, isn't this sort of action also called extortion? If the guys are ex-cops, then they have no legal power to do anything and making threats was illegal the last time I looked.
Hello?!?!???!?! Since when does one illegal action justify another one?
A lot of the work in the tech sector seems to be going overseas where labor is less expensive. Unless you have a passionate interest in a particular niche area (read: not programming), you may find yourself out of a job before you can graduate. It's one of the unfortunate facets of business that any type of work that can be broken down to a sequential series of steps (such as manufacturing, programming, etc.) will eventually be moved to where labor is the least expensive. If you are interested in a niche specialty, you might start looking at the organizations associated with that specialty to see what academic scholarships are available. Otherwise, plan on getting a part- or full-time job and working your way through college (like many of us in the IT field did). You won't have time for the "party" life associated with college, but you'll more likely come out with a better education.
What you're looking at is a client/server set accompanied by a custom protocol. If you're wanting to work with keeping the client synched up with a server, you could look at SyncML.
Alternatively, you could use HTTP and set the refresh time-out to automatically poll the server for refreshes. Send your data in HTML/WML/xHTML/cHTML/whatever and let the client deal with interpreting it. Mod your client to provide a default error page if the refresh times out.
Actually, if MS followed the practices outlined in Code Complete, they wouldn't have anywhere near the number of issues (defects, whatever) that seem to keep biting them. The book is actually a pretty good "best practices" guide. Regardless that Microsoft Press is the publisher, it's not Windows-specific but rather is more focused on general best practices. Definitely worth a read (or two or three) in my opinion.
Of course, I remember Steve Ballmer's public call to Microsoft development teams to return to solid software engineering practices a few years ago. Maybe they don't read his press releases?
any market where there is reasonable competition? I had the same treatment many years ago when I first bought an Apple II. I wound up taking it back to the place I bought and getting my money back (which then went to building one of the Heathkit computers).
I've never bothered taking Apple, it's supposed cult of coolness, or it's army of fanatics dubbed users seriously since then. Apple does some interesting things with industrial engineering, but realistically, who cares?
I think maybe they learned customer service from Sun Microsystems........
Hmm, I can't help but notice that Microsoft used to more or less own a piece of SCO and that Sun ponied up their license fees too.
So I ask myself, would SCO benefit from the demise of Linux? Not really. Its market share would continue to dwindle in the face of Solaris and Windows.
The battle for the server is between Windows and Unix, for the most part, and Sun's Khosla more or less stated that Solaris was the version of Unix that made all other versions irrelevant.
SCO's claims are an attempt to damage IBM's sales of AIX and it's hardware which benefits Sun. Likewise, SCO's claims are an attempt to damage Linux which benefits Sun and Microsoft. So why would SCO take this course of action that can't really bring it any benefit unless there is some other motive?
Take your pick:
a) McBride and Co. are simply trying to get the last $$$ out of a dead horse.
b) SCO has a deal with Sun and/or Microsoft to be the "bad guy" that will result in SCO being bought by one or the other after irreparable damage has been wrought.
c) There is a greater conspiracy to rid the world of that troublesome GPL concept that SCO and Microsoft (and to some extent Sun) have called "a destroyer of intellectual property rights".
d) All of the above.
Of course, I could be misreading the events and the motives behind them.
So, it's those evil moviegoers who were upset that they had just shelled out $20-$30 to see a "movie" that has nothing resembling a plot and then SMSed their friends to keep them from making the same mistake that are to blame for poor screenwriting, bad editing, and overpaid, spoiled children, er actors, who play pretend for millions of dollars because they have few other skills that are to blame for flops like Gigli?
Good!
Expressions like "carefully crafted images" can be translated from their weasel words origins to:
"We think the public is dumb enough to go to any movie that we spend millions of dollars to create soundbite trailers that show all the good bits and then they're stuck with all of the dreck that comprise the rest of the movie."
I'd rather see a few good movies produced each year than the large volume of crap that gets released as the "movie of the spring/summer/year" onto an unsuspecting public. My reaction to "if you only see one movie this year..." is to not see that movie. I guess the Madison Avenue folks haven't figured out the lesson that "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, BUT YOU CAN'T FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME!!!!".
Oh well, next we'll see the MPAA and the RIAA pulling a SCO and threatening to sue end-users because they said something bad about a recording/movie/etc. Yeah, after all, only the MPAA and RIAA know the real truth and the rest of us are dummies.....
that SCO is issuing these threats without having proven anything in court? I'm just wondering how quickly that this situation can be turned around as a class action suit for harassment (or worse, extortion) over unproven claims and allegations. I'm eagerly waiting for my pay up or die letter from SCO so I can turn it over to my attorney for his perusal. Those who live by the law suit, die by the law suit.
This situation is too reminiscent of the strategy "grab all the power that you can until you get slapped down by those who have the power". At this point, SCO really has nothing but unproven claims that their IP has been infringed (that's Intellectual Property Darl, although I'm waiting for you to claim ownership to Internet Protocol too).
Ergo sum, nobody should pay anything until the case is settled in court. In fact, SCO may be pursuing this strategy to build a large enough war chest to survive the coming legal battles as it doesn't have the deep pockets of IBM (and those attorneys want to be paid in full and on time or they'll quit working for you).
But perhaps I'm being harsh. Let's look at SCO's end of the argument. They are largely a company that has become irrelevant because nobody wants to pay their exorbitant licensing fees for a second-rate version of Unix. Market share is diminishing in favor of free versions of Unix (Linux, FreeBSD) or Windows. Some SCO developers stumble on code that looks like "their" kernel code in the Caldera Linux distro. Now who could have put that code there? Obviously the Linux kernel developers couldn't have independently come up with the code, so who would stand to gain from this nefarious deed? Hmm, who pays the largest licenses to SCO? Ha! IBM!!!! Those scallywags must have decided to "boost" the maturity of Linux by using "our" code just so they can escape paying our license fees!!!!! Let's sue them and threaten everyone else to gain back our "lost" revenues!!!
After reading your comments, I have to make the following observations:
You're not sorry about the post, you're just technologically challenged.
You're spewing hate about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
You hide behind anonymity because your claims are as groundless as SCO's
You're a troll
I'm not sure why you felt motivated to make the comment other than to draw some wild conclusion to justify what appears to be your own personal issues with the Mormons. Seek professional counseling, hate grows like a weed and makes people do evil things.
Software Engineering is a relatively young engineering discipline that is (mostly) not recognized by the other engineering disciplines as being an engineering discipline. The title of Software Engineer has been handed out so haphazardly that it really doesn't mean anything any more. Every programmer gets the the title, whether they practice software engineering or not and regardless of their educational background.
Likewise, where are the board certification examinations that other engineering disciplines require? The smattering of A+, Microsoft, Oracle, Java, etc. certifications don't really provide the same level of credentials in the eyes of other engineering disciplines.
Until we begin to recognize that hacking is not the same thing as a software engineering, we will never receive our due as an engineering discipline.
That doesn't mean that there aren't talented programmers out there because there certainly are. However, hacking by the seat of ones pants flies in the face of good engineering practices. For example, would you want to fly in a plane designed by a seat-of-the-pants engineer? Or drive over a bridge designed by one?
The GSM specification designates SMS as being transmitted on the control channel when there is sufficient capacity, i.e., it is not guaranteed delivery. In areas that with dense coverage for a relatively low population (such as Finland), you may have extremely high reliability as compared to parts of the US where an SMS may never get to its intended destination due to less capacity (such as New York City, Los Angeles, etc.). Frankly I'm surprised that it's under 10% as that is a considerable improvement.
" that in Silicon Valley, about 80-90% of the engineers are already underpaid H1b visa-types, and EVERY company I've worked for has had big offices in places like Taiwan, India and even Hong Kong, to get cheap labor."
Moving labor-intensive jobs offshore has been a long-standing tradition. Go to your local Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. and see where everything is made.
"The problem is that if we want to continue having a strong economy, we have to recognize that putting Americans out of work means less Americans buying products and less Americans with disposable income."
This strikes me as a rather simplistic approach to what is in reality a much more complex problem. To be honest, a lot of Americans don't want to do a lot of the work that is being sent overseas. Today we're seeing more and more of the "programming" jobs being sent overseas and that trend will likely continue as labor is much more affordable in Asia (as you point out).
"I can't wait until we just get rid of all the countries and start cooperating as a race rather than stupid tribes competing against each other. We ARE supposed to be modern and civilized, aren't we?"
Hmm, sort of a communal environment? Hasn't history demonstrated that Communism is, at best, a theoretical construct that only works in small areas? People simply aren't constructed to always put the good of the group ahead of their own interests. And for being civilized, that is somewhat of a subjective observation that seems to be disproved every day in the way we treat each other.
My advice is to become supple as the willow and bend with the wind and tide rather than break. Be prepared to change career paths if necessary rather than rail against changes that you have no control over.
The only issues I recall being raised had to do with all implementations of the STL not being equally available for all platforms. That may have changed, but from what I recall the implementation for M$ was not quite the same as the implementation on several Unix platforms and that caused some real headaches.
I'll be tactful and say that Mr. Mossberg is entitled to his opinion, but that I differ with him on the Zaurus. I purchased one at JavaOne and have been extremely pleased with it. My colleagues are planning on buying them and losing their Palms because the Zaurus offers more functionality, and they like the idea of a QWERTY keyboard as an option to Graffiti.
My only negative comment might be that the handwriting recognition differs from Graffiti shorthand, but I haven't had time to sit down and learn a new shorthand (yet). It hasn't been an issue because even with my large fingers, the keyboard works like a charm. My colleagues were amazed to see me taking notes on the Zaurus during a meeting because they couldn't keep up on their Palms.
I concur that the battery life could be longer, but I'm impressed by how quickly the Zaurus recharges. One other item that might have been nice is a cover that prevents the Zaurus from being inadvertently turned on. However, overall I give the Zaurus 9 out of 10 stars.
(I should mention that I got the SL-5000D, not the 5500)
Now, I only have to figure out how to port Tcl/Tk over.......
I'd ask Bill Gates if *he* considers computer graphics eligible as a category of art.:-)
IMNSHO, what you're experiencing is an offshoot of neo-Luddism, where the art snobs are desperately trying to cling to whatever control they can over what is defined as art. It took a long time for lithographs to be acknowledged as art because they could be easily reproduced. I think computer graphics fall into the same category.
IMHO, one man's objet d'art is another man's junkpile. I liken art to the Supreme Court's ruling on pornography, i.e., I can't define art but I know it when I see it. (I also recognize merde when I see it...)
I've always heard that art should speak to you. Unfortunately, bad art speaks to me as much as good art does, just in a somewhat different fashion.
Maybe I've missed something, but if the content is stored in XML and several XSL templates are provided for output, 'bit rot' goes away as well as closed solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
To be a little more serious, you need to carefully consider what you want to do. The dot-com tech boom is dead and gone (and most likely won't be back during our lifetime), so if you're just itching to become a programmer then you'll be disappointed to hear that you have two factors working against you:
- Graduates in their 20s will work for a much lower salary and probably grew up with computers and have been writing their own programs for some time (translation, more programming experience).
- A lot of the programming work is being outsourced overseas (not just India).
If you have an idea that you want to build a business around, then you should look at a business degree and go the venture capital route and hire out the technical work to people who are already in the business.I don't want to be overly negative, but having worked in a number of industries that use computer technology I can tell you that anything that can be scripted or reduced to a manufacturing process will be constructed where labor is cheapest.
In any case, I wish you the best of luck!
Have you considered that possibly that was management's attempt at humor? I know most PHBs don't appear to have a sense of humor, but some of them really do try. :-D
It sort of depends on what your skills are. I've been brutally honest with management in the past without repercussions. However, I also have no qualms about working as a contract worker if they dislike what I've said. :-)
Regardless, honesty is the best policy IMHO.
Since when did the RIAA have anything remotely resembling police authority?
Are they attempting to make citizens' arrests?
Are they taking legitimate legal authorities with them?
Isn't this called vigilantism? Worse, isn't this sort of action also called extortion? If the guys are ex-cops, then they have no legal power to do anything and making threats was illegal the last time I looked.
Hello?!?!???!?! Since when does one illegal action justify another one?
A lot of the work in the tech sector seems to be going overseas where labor is less expensive. Unless you have a passionate interest in a particular niche area (read: not programming), you may find yourself out of a job before you can graduate. It's one of the unfortunate facets of business that any type of work that can be broken down to a sequential series of steps (such as manufacturing, programming, etc.) will eventually be moved to where labor is the least expensive. If you are interested in a niche specialty, you might start looking at the organizations associated with that specialty to see what academic scholarships are available. Otherwise, plan on getting a part- or full-time job and working your way through college (like many of us in the IT field did). You won't have time for the "party" life associated with college, but you'll more likely come out with a better education.
What you're looking at is a client/server set accompanied by a custom protocol. If you're wanting to work with keeping the client synched up with a server, you could look at SyncML.
Alternatively, you could use HTTP and set the refresh time-out to automatically poll the server for refreshes. Send your data in HTML/WML/xHTML/cHTML/whatever and let the client deal with interpreting it. Mod your client to provide a default error page if the refresh times out.
Done.
Get a padded Halliburton case. You can drop the whole shooting match and your laptop will never know.
Actually, if MS followed the practices outlined in Code Complete, they wouldn't have anywhere near the number of issues (defects, whatever) that seem to keep biting them. The book is actually a pretty good "best practices" guide. Regardless that Microsoft Press is the publisher, it's not Windows-specific but rather is more focused on general best practices. Definitely worth a read (or two or three) in my opinion. Of course, I remember Steve Ballmer's public call to Microsoft development teams to return to solid software engineering practices a few years ago. Maybe they don't read his press releases?
any market where there is reasonable competition? I had the same treatment many years ago when I first bought an Apple II. I wound up taking it back to the place I bought and getting my money back (which then went to building one of the Heathkit computers).
I've never bothered taking Apple, it's supposed cult of coolness, or it's army of fanatics dubbed users seriously since then. Apple does some interesting things with industrial engineering, but realistically, who cares?
I think maybe they learned customer service from Sun Microsystems........
Is one of the designers named Mr. Garrison?
Hmm, I can't help but notice that Microsoft used to more or less own a piece of SCO and that Sun ponied up their license fees too.
So I ask myself, would SCO benefit from the demise of Linux? Not really. Its market share would continue to dwindle in the face of Solaris and Windows.
The battle for the server is between Windows and Unix, for the most part, and Sun's Khosla more or less stated that Solaris was the version of Unix that made all other versions irrelevant.
SCO's claims are an attempt to damage IBM's sales of AIX and it's hardware which benefits Sun. Likewise, SCO's claims are an attempt to damage Linux which benefits Sun and Microsoft. So why would SCO take this course of action that can't really bring it any benefit unless there is some other motive?
Take your pick:
a) McBride and Co. are simply trying to get the last $$$ out of a dead horse.
b) SCO has a deal with Sun and/or Microsoft to be the "bad guy" that will result in SCO being bought by one or the other after irreparable damage has been wrought.
c) There is a greater conspiracy to rid the world of that troublesome GPL concept that SCO and Microsoft (and to some extent Sun) have called "a destroyer of intellectual property rights".
d) All of the above.
Of course, I could be misreading the events and the motives behind them.
Or not.
So, it's those evil moviegoers who were upset that they had just shelled out $20-$30 to see a "movie" that has nothing resembling a plot and then SMSed their friends to keep them from making the same mistake that are to blame for poor screenwriting, bad editing, and overpaid, spoiled children, er actors, who play pretend for millions of dollars because they have few other skills that are to blame for flops like Gigli?
Good!
Expressions like "carefully crafted images" can be translated from their weasel words origins to:
"We think the public is dumb enough to go to any movie that we spend millions of dollars to create soundbite trailers that show all the good bits and then they're stuck with all of the dreck that comprise the rest of the movie."
I'd rather see a few good movies produced each year than the large volume of crap that gets released as the "movie of the spring/summer/year" onto an unsuspecting public. My reaction to "if you only see one movie this year..." is to not see that movie. I guess the Madison Avenue folks haven't figured out the lesson that "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, BUT YOU CAN'T FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME!!!!".
Oh well, next we'll see the MPAA and the RIAA pulling a SCO and threatening to sue end-users because they said something bad about a recording/movie/etc. Yeah, after all, only the MPAA and RIAA know the real truth and the rest of us are dummies.....
In their dreams.......
that SCO is issuing these threats without having proven anything in court? I'm just wondering how quickly that this situation can be turned around as a class action suit for harassment (or worse, extortion) over unproven claims and allegations. I'm eagerly waiting for my pay up or die letter from SCO so I can turn it over to my attorney for his perusal. Those who live by the law suit, die by the law suit.
This situation is too reminiscent of the strategy "grab all the power that you can until you get slapped down by those who have the power". At this point, SCO really has nothing but unproven claims that their IP has been infringed (that's Intellectual Property Darl, although I'm waiting for you to claim ownership to Internet Protocol too).
Ergo sum, nobody should pay anything until the case is settled in court. In fact, SCO may be pursuing this strategy to build a large enough war chest to survive the coming legal battles as it doesn't have the deep pockets of IBM (and those attorneys want to be paid in full and on time or they'll quit working for you).
But perhaps I'm being harsh. Let's look at SCO's end of the argument. They are largely a company that has become irrelevant because nobody wants to pay their exorbitant licensing fees for a second-rate version of Unix. Market share is diminishing in favor of free versions of Unix (Linux, FreeBSD) or Windows. Some SCO developers stumble on code that looks like "their" kernel code in the Caldera Linux distro. Now who could have put that code there? Obviously the Linux kernel developers couldn't have independently come up with the code, so who would stand to gain from this nefarious deed? Hmm, who pays the largest licenses to SCO? Ha! IBM!!!! Those scallywags must have decided to "boost" the maturity of Linux by using "our" code just so they can escape paying our license fees!!!!! Let's sue them and threaten everyone else to gain back our "lost" revenues!!!
Yeah, seen in that light it makes a lot of sense.
Not.
I'm not sure why you felt motivated to make the comment other than to draw some wild conclusion to justify what appears to be your own personal issues with the Mormons. Seek professional counseling, hate grows like a weed and makes people do evil things.
Software Engineering is a relatively young engineering discipline that is (mostly) not recognized by the other engineering disciplines as being an engineering discipline. The title of Software Engineer has been handed out so haphazardly that it really doesn't mean anything any more. Every programmer gets the the title, whether they practice software engineering or not and regardless of their educational background.
Likewise, where are the board certification examinations that other engineering disciplines require? The smattering of A+, Microsoft, Oracle, Java, etc. certifications don't really provide the same level of credentials in the eyes of other engineering disciplines.
Until we begin to recognize that hacking is not the same thing as a software engineering, we will never receive our due as an engineering discipline.
That doesn't mean that there aren't talented programmers out there because there certainly are. However, hacking by the seat of ones pants flies in the face of good engineering practices. For example, would you want to fly in a plane designed by a seat-of-the-pants engineer? Or drive over a bridge designed by one?
The GSM specification designates SMS as being transmitted on the control channel when there is sufficient capacity, i.e., it is not guaranteed delivery. In areas that with dense coverage for a relatively low population (such as Finland), you may have extremely high reliability as compared to parts of the US where an SMS may never get to its intended destination due to less capacity (such as New York City, Los Angeles, etc.). Frankly I'm surprised that it's under 10% as that is a considerable improvement.
Moving labor-intensive jobs offshore has been a long-standing tradition. Go to your local Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. and see where everything is made.
"The problem is that if we want to continue having a strong economy, we have to recognize that putting Americans out of work means less Americans buying products and less Americans with disposable income."
This strikes me as a rather simplistic approach to what is in reality a much more complex problem. To be honest, a lot of Americans don't want to do a lot of the work that is being sent overseas. Today we're seeing more and more of the "programming" jobs being sent overseas and that trend will likely continue as labor is much more affordable in Asia (as you point out).
"I can't wait until we just get rid of all the countries and start cooperating as a race rather than stupid tribes competing against each other. We ARE supposed to be modern and civilized, aren't we?"
Hmm, sort of a communal environment? Hasn't history demonstrated that Communism is, at best, a theoretical construct that only works in small areas? People simply aren't constructed to always put the good of the group ahead of their own interests. And for being civilized, that is somewhat of a subjective observation that seems to be disproved every day in the way we treat each other.
My advice is to become supple as the willow and bend with the wind and tide rather than break. Be prepared to change career paths if necessary rather than rail against changes that you have no control over.
The only issues I recall being raised had to do with all implementations of the STL not being equally available for all platforms. That may have changed, but from what I recall the implementation for M$ was not quite the same as the implementation on several Unix platforms and that caused some real headaches.
But your mileage may vary.....
I'll be tactful and say that Mr. Mossberg is entitled to his opinion, but that I differ with him on the Zaurus. I purchased one at JavaOne and have been extremely pleased with it. My colleagues are planning on buying them and losing their Palms because the Zaurus offers more functionality, and they like the idea of a QWERTY keyboard as an option to Graffiti.
My only negative comment might be that the handwriting recognition differs from Graffiti shorthand, but I haven't had time to sit down and learn a new shorthand (yet). It hasn't been an issue because even with my large fingers, the keyboard works like a charm. My colleagues were amazed to see me taking notes on the Zaurus during a meeting because they couldn't keep up on their Palms.
I concur that the battery life could be longer, but I'm impressed by how quickly the Zaurus recharges. One other item that might have been nice is a cover that prevents the Zaurus from being inadvertently turned on. However, overall I give the Zaurus 9 out of 10 stars.
(I should mention that I got the SL-5000D, not the 5500)
Now, I only have to figure out how to port Tcl/Tk over.......
Great joke!
Let's see the errors:
COBOL, Fortran, and Perl have yet to be retired.
Java just turned 6, VB just turned 11 or 12.
C is markedly faster than Java or VB
Garbage collectors perform the same sort of memory management, often in a less optimal fashion
The FSF has marketing people?
Harsh restrictions of the BSD license?
Rewrite the Linux kernel in VB?
With Stallman's support?
I thought Torvalds was a Finn! Darn those sneaky Swedes!
Did I miss anything?
Maybe I'm missing something, but what's the beef with a 100K program?
I'd ask Bill Gates if *he* considers computer graphics eligible as a category of art. :-)
IMNSHO, what you're experiencing is an offshoot of neo-Luddism, where the art snobs are desperately trying to cling to whatever control they can over what is defined as art. It took a long time for lithographs to be acknowledged as art because they could be easily reproduced. I think computer graphics fall into the same category.
IMHO, one man's objet d'art is another man's junkpile. I liken art to the Supreme Court's ruling on pornography, i.e., I can't define art but I know it when I see it. (I also recognize merde when I see it...)
I've always heard that art should speak to you. Unfortunately, bad art speaks to me as much as good art does, just in a somewhat different fashion.
Does this help or should I ramble on?
Maybe I've missed something, but if the content is stored in XML and several XSL templates are provided for output, 'bit rot' goes away as well as closed solutions.