To be honest, I think US has actually advantage in leadership that there only few engineers. Engineers rarely make good leaders or can understand what customers want.
But I also agree that lack of the is a bad thing. It can be partly because its 'hard' field of expertise. You need to do math and actually be precise. Compare that to many business degrees. In all respect to many business people, their degrees are too often very abstract things you can pull off with good overall knowledge and minimal math.
Its ridicuously easy to get business degrees compared to many technical or nature science degress. So what I am saying, is that since people can get good salary with finance and business degrees quite easily, few care to go to more technical fields. In developing countries and some export oriented countries(like Germany, Japan, Finland or China) the case is bit diffrent. There are more engineers because there is more need for them more and less people with fancy business degrees because there are less jobs for them.
In overall I think its good if country needs engineers, it tells there is manufacturing and development in country. But I dont want them to be leaders.
Leaders have to be flexible, understand other humans well and be creative, and thats not many times what engineers are about. Many engineers don't make good business or people leaders in my experience. Much better chance with those flimsy business degrees.
I think immigration plays big role how good universities are.
US has lot of foreign students and researchers, even Europeans. They help great deal too, and I don't suspect US universities were bad without them. But they without doubt contribute lot.
I live in Finland, and it seems that many gifted people continue studies in US. Apparently non-US universities are adequete enough, so that people can come from them to places like Harvard.
Maybe the right way of seeing things is that US has best universities what comes to research, but primary education at university level is as good elsewhere too?
I think main problem with languages and their definitions is that they don't define always reasonably well what does exists.
Many times the concept and definitions that are in words are simply unaccurate. They fall short or don't exist for something we need.
How do you for example say precisely that something is not microkernel nor monolith but has lot of common with both? You don't, unless you figure out an accurate definition for it - which has to be shared by other people too .
Technial people sometimes miss this diffrence and difficulty.
In real life, there are lot of things that don't have real names or definitions for Joe Average. But also for not so Average Joes too.
The gift of abstractions is that, unlike computers, we can deduct from incomplete information complete solutions and answers. Why not use it then?
But I think the problem is people's perception of certificates, degrees and high quality.
Having first two raises propability to have last one - except if there are lot of people with first both. Only a minority of people can be better than the rest. High quality and high skills are also relative things.
When there are lot of degrees and certificates, diffrences to better must arise from somewhere else than from them. Being better and smarter than rest, can't be standardized to a course or a school curriculum that can be taught to anyone.
Higher pay comes from knowing things other don't know and being able to do things other can't or won't do. People who have these skills are either self taught, or with lot of education with lot of experience added to it. Most unlike person to have them is a person that does what is required in a course or in a degree, and doesn't do anything else than that. Such person knows what everybody else in the education also knows. But not much else.
Small wonder if ceritification papers don't alone carry a long way?
Of course if paper one has is very hard to obtain, whole matter is diffrent.
I'd like to get to SAP course for example. Hard to get in and people knowing SAP skills are needed all a time.
Obviously too much hiearchy can stiffle any endevour, but also too little can just cause badly run organisation where there reigns a chaos.
Overall I think most of what is said of open source can be applied to business too. I mean most of business fail or don't get awfully far. Only few of all do exceptionally well. Anybody can start a business, jusr like anyone can start open source project. Best of business have really innovative ideas and atleast adequate management. I can't think anything difficult and big project that wouldn't need good managament, open source or business.
And just like business, open source can be done by few loosely knit people with motivaiton if what they do isn't awfully complex and big. Most of what people do in open source, is obviously motivated by some benefit to doers themselves. Just like companies, except in open source people may have more varied motives than just plain cash.
Open source has all the elements markets have, but I find ironic that it's model is doubted for the same reason people believe in markets. Infact I'd argue open source is much more closer to original idea of free markets and today's 'build a big corporation' get rich attitude that Microsoft represents.
If you can't believe open source can work, how how can you trust markets can either? The critism in article is valid, but blown out of proportions.
I think the point is that it works on linux and windows, instead of just unix. It's not just question about Jave but platform too.
The article, or the link from it, says question is about offering cheaper alternative to server virtualiazation. And refers to linux and Windows, which leaves unix as 'expensive'.
My understanding unix rocks with clusters and similar , linux and windows far less.
So the logic must be that it's cheaper to build linux or Windows virtualization system that scales than one from unixes. That's the point, I'd wager.
Well, I think question is largely about quality not quantity. Propably Indian or Chinese Engineer is not really so far away from US counterparts, but propably far more motivated.
Airbus for example has outsourced certaing things to Indian engineers, because they accomplish same things quicker than those in European side. When something is discovered somewhere, they usually spread quickest to near than far. If non-US engineers set the pace, then obviously there is far less need for US engineers than if they were setting it
Lot of shortages in work market today isn't really about skilled people, it's about having the rights set of skills and enought them from the employers point of view. Personally I think companies are being overly cautious and except to have everything dropped front of them. To have lot of skilled engineers with relevant skills and experience, they need to gather that experience from a workplace. If companies don't want to pay much, and don't want to lure people to field, then of course is born egg and chicken people. HIghly skilled experts can't exists, if skilled people don't feel they're needed and companies don't want to invest to them.
Indian and Chinese have honed and invested to engineering a lot. Not-so-few Chinse have in past decadedes been educated in US. I also suspect that lot of engineering education is done in both countries by people who have been educated in US.
Thus the whole argumentt that the numbers somehow prove there isn't lack of engineers in US and nothing to worry as engineers in India and China are less good, is bit questionable I think. They may actually be same or better there.
I'm sure there are lot techologies and solutions some people find godsend. Still, it doesn't mean that each or any of those will blow everybody elses mind.
Isn't this just one of those 'silver bullet' ideas that has lot good argument for it? IT and programming field has lot of those, and their problem is that while some solutions are good solving certain problems, very few solve all the most pressing problems average designer encounters.
I think one should go for WEB 2 if one is learning to do webdesingn first tme. But if you have already well learn tools and skills, majority of webdesigners will not feel learning it mandatory. It's not must.
There is also lot of legacy code that isn't turned to WEB 2 overnigth. And I think moving there isn't even cost effective if ít doesn't enchance something that is worth of the time sacrificed for it.
It has real significance. Because if you think you're doing more and accomplishing less, willingness to do more and better dimisnhes. I think it is propably difficult or maybe even impossible determine are peopel working more. Infact it can be irrelevant I'd claim.
Infact I'm not sure has the amount of work any signficance at all. All people who are at work, propably know demand for work never ends. I think the diffrence is have people anykind of idea have they moved forward in it. Or accomplished some temporary goal definetely.
What IT has caused. Is that lot of work is thrown to workers all at same time in a random order. It causes people to have unnessary stress, as they can't figure out how much they've done and have they accomplished anything. People are always reacting and doing something nowdays.
The amount of work [b]needed[/b] can be even same as before. But if you shred a building manual of some device to small pieces chapter by chapter, post it to the builder in random order in randomg intervals. You can bet the builder feels he has more work, than if he'd been given the parts in logical order, in easily anticipated order.
He may actually use same time to build as the person that has all of the manual arriving in a correct order. Problem is that he has to worry more about did he understood correctly the parts his already has. And also any new part that arrives may cause him to change his plan or he may even have to wait some of them to arrive. And when a three parts arrive at same time and there is a time limit, he has to work suddenly three times as hard.
The added uncertainity, the unpredictable work flow and the monents wasted to sheer waiting, do make people feel they work more. Lot of what I descripe above, can be seen being 'normal' in rapidly changing modern worl.
Well, that can be true if you go to college. But computer users are diverse group of old, young and all ages with wildly diffrent backgrounds. While computers maybe almost self evident thing here, they're still pretty new thing(20+ years) and majority doesn't know them well.
I don't live in US, and I study college/polytechnic where my major is ICT. Still there are teachers here that don't really use computer on everything, some still require to give lessons in paper. Infact the best ones do so.
What I'm trying to say, is that majority of people are just dragged forward by fact they have to use computers. Even the students in IT field. What people really grasp and understand is lot less than many curriculums and courses would suggest. And many don't even have any courses in subject.
I think of people in IT field don't see the situation this way, because they spend their own times with computers. And with things where computers are self evident. It gives disorted picture of reality.
Much of this bot nuisance for example, is direct result of people being just in wrong frame of mind and propably really ignorant without being stupid or lazy. They just buy computer plug it in to net and start to wonder when net starts to crawl after a while. It happens all a time. Is it their fault there is no basic requirements to use computers and they're not IT-experts?
Do people need to be car mechanic or a flight engineer or a pilot to use cars or to fly by plane? They don't, so why should they learn about computers to use them then either? Nobody requires them to learn, so they can't be blamed if they become victims using computers and internet. There is no minium requirements to use computers. So nobody can actually say people are stupid or lazy. Because nobody can actually say what a average computer user should know. It isn't written or defined anywhere.
Above paragraph I think I define quite well the dilemma. We may cry about how users are stupid, but nothing is going to change if we don't somehow start to demand some minimum skills and knowledge to use computers safely. Users are weak point in all systems, internet or corporate intranet. Large corporations have already started to learn this lesson, why it shouldn't be applied more widely to rest of society too?
First of all I think it's question about being realistic.
If 21 year olds can so easily penetrate home computers with little risk of being caught, sudden we be bit worried about the Joe Average using net? He may not know about risks. But can still encounter them fully. People are taught in driving school about rules and how to drive safely. Why not do it sameway with computers and net too?
Secondly, my point was only conditional one. I don't think we would really need a license. But if companies and markets don't supply choices that are enough safe for Joe Average, then logically next best idea is to educate people about dangers concerning net. It's also a decent thing to do. Or is somebody arguin letting crimes to happen to people is a desirable thing?
Even if any license wouldn't stop bots altogether, it's in surely in common intrests of any country to try stop it's citizens being exploited in the Net?
Now someone may say that it's invidua choice and risk, but bots can be used to attack 3rd party after which is not anymore anyones personal intrest alone. Even foreign countries may try to create bots and harm some countrys economy during some crisis.
Anyway you look it, the security in net concerns all of us. It belongs to sphere of public intrest.
If technological solutions don't solve the problem quickly, then it's only logical try to solve it by changing way humans act. Meaning, making them to learn.
Just think if you're running mon & pop business and your daily earnings depends on PC that is infected. Also, how do you explain that XXX icon's are popping up on your desktop to wife who uses same computer or is very religious?
I can think multiple ways what he does could hurt people in their private life or business.
Also, doesn't infecting one computer also open door to others too? What's stops from somebody else taking over already installed exploits and take with him/her stuff like passwords etc.?
On the other hand, some plame does go to MS and major tehcnology players. These kind of problems shouldn't be totally unexpected. Either there should be somekind of requirements akin to drivers license to go to Net or solutions should be such that no highschool dropout could hack himself in when he likes to.
I wouldn't want to live world were people would pretend that adults don't swear.
But on the other hand, not sure would I'd like to live in world were now teen agers and to-be adults think swearing should be done anytime and anywhere. Games, school, publicly, anywhere.
I think swearing should be saved when there is need for it, not each and every fucking reason one any motherfucker wants to use it(you see?).
It otherwise loses it's appeal. Becoming just plain ugly and silly.
Good swearing needs patience, skill and imagination. There are lot of amateurs in swearing, unfortunately.
It had about 16 or 32k RAM and some odd DOS system that later came MSX-DOS I think. Not sure had it anything to with Gates, but looked and sounded similar than MS-DOS I think.
Bought it in 1984 because it came with cool ski jump game.
Later bought few Spectravideo and Yamaha MSX computers with pluggable ROM cards and played first Metal Gear game. First console game stations, before world knew about Playstations.
I don't like MS world but neither do I like RMS world either. Other wants world where everything is MS, other wants world something absolutely can't be. To be absolutely be and not absolutely be are just two sides of same coin. I don't see a diffrence there.
I think I should, and everybody else too, to be able use DRM technology if I want to. RMS or some stupid license shouldn't deny it from me. Or should I move to Windows if I want to defend my right to choose?
This shouldn't be where Linux is going to. Keep the system open, let the users and developers design what there can be, Don't say what they can't do.
I can understand the operators in one hand. But on the other hand, I say tough luck.
Lot of what enterpreuners do is to connect some resources that exist to something else to get the third thing. There wouldn't be companies if somebody wouldn't make babies, roads, basic infastructure, people wouldn't go to school, sun wouldn't shine to farms etc. Let's face it, business takes lot of granted and builds top of ready things. In the process it creates somethng somebody else will use and so forth .
So what's the problem here? Google has a concept that works, and now it makes money building top of something somebody else has build before there was Google at all. Why should Google or Yahoo pay something that wasn't build for them, but despite?
They've figured(Yahoo and Google) how to make money on the web, operators haven't Why punish Google for that and reward telecoms for it? It is not their fault is somebody else does bad business and they don't.
Personally, if diffrent isn't really significant to one self and it means one is more instrested in new work, I'd say go for it.
My philosophy is that life is about keeping moving. To keep moving one needs is both change and sometimes letting go things that overpower one, like work. Work doesn't end during my lifetime, question is more about does one it easy way or difficult way. It's also very important to keep one self in such state of mind, that you can honestly say you're intrested what you do. Having higher pay for boring job may sound good idea. Until you notice you're not intrested to current job and don't want new challanges either. Because you're used to the good pay that takes toll of you.
Avoid that, if you can. Keep yourself fresh and moving.
Sure there are situations what I suggest above isn't practical. Havign mortage and big family may limit choices and cause some hard choises between personal pleasure and thinking it 'all'. However as long there isn't any really overriding factors, I'd wager what I say above is essentially flawless. Having more intresting work and lower pay, can be considered an investment for future too. Compared to staying in one place and not doing anything new or goin anywhere.
I mean it's true that medicine at average wasn't really advanced. But let's however look what was the best level one could get. The level pharaosh and kings had.
Egyptians mummified their dead, and propably had knowledge of many illnesses. After all they did build pyramids and had allkinds of knowledge of astronomy, so it's not far fetched to think they could known the problems Tutankhamon had with his knee. Certainly he couldn't have been first Eqyptian to be harmed by sword and suffering from a severe knee injury?
Reading books of history(I do it a lot), kings and rulers of past times did many times have good experts on medicine and seemed to know things many things we know now. Things that never ended to common use in their era. The diffrence between common folk and their rulers in that respect was far bigger than it is today I think.
I must disagree with the support part. There is no guarantee what will be supported my Microsoft in 10 years. Infact, I'd wager that some companies now try to move to.NET or do so in future, because of this.
Let's think about VB and C++. If Microsoft plans to support those in future, why would companies move to.NET at all? Let's turn this around, if MS doesn't support them now and companies have to move to.NET, why couldn't it happen in future to.NET too?
I think here is a clear dilemma. Why fix something if it isn't broken?
Companies that use.NET propably have lot of money in their servers and are trying to do something new as they're anticipating they have to move there anyway and they have some profit in it too.
Python, PHP and such are diffrent ball park altogether. Big companies that use them may have already experts who can do them or then they're quite small. Maybe even one or two person business.
Looking recruiting ads, you can't directly say what is popular and much used. It tells more about whick kind of organizations recruit publicly and what skills are propably missing in the market.
Dot Net being new, it's no wonder there isn't lot of experienced developers for it.
What about 'Huge black worm between legs'? It summarises both suggested in a one sentence.
Finally, getting there!
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Beyond Java
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· Score: 1
Just though to post a small insight to matter. My opinion is that a good programmer can almost anything with any language. Yes certainly there are diffrences how long something can take and how easy/difficult it is. There are some limitations of course what are ready libraries etc.
But honestly, put your palmas to your chest near your heart, how much real life problems in programming have much to do with any specific languages and it's features?
I've done in 3 month in a J2EE course my first real 3-tier and J2EE application in two weeks. A bit over week went to planning, rest to coding. I've done much less with PHP in few weeks because customer doesn't know what he wants and there isn't documentation to begin with.
I don't care about language, give me people who know what they want and somebody who can organize well it's coding! I'd argue most of waste in effiency and speed in programming isn't lost to weaknesses of some language, but weakness of organization communication and generally people not being up to the job.
Is it PHP, JAVA, Python, or Ruby on Rails are just a seconday issues.
They aren't alternatives.
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Practical Mono
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· Score: 1
I think the problem is that not many people have to ponder that question(JVM vs..NET).
Java's strength is that it's crossplatform and fares well with distributed systems. C# that it's on Windows, part of.NET, Java/C++ like and runs on MS servers as in graphical applications too.
People who have to ponder which is better, propably either don't really need Java and those who need Java propably don't need or can't use C#.
Only reason people really would need C# is propably if working on Windows Servers or doing Windows GUI's. If you need crossplatform compatability and scalability, you're better of with Java but forget the fast graphical application witht it.
It might be diffent thing if.NET were really cross platform with MS support, but it isn't. Too bad for Microsoft, good for Sun and Java.
Slashdot Mirror
To be honest, I think US has actually advantage in leadership that there only few engineers. Engineers rarely make good leaders or can understand what customers want.
But I also agree that lack of the is a bad thing. It can be partly because its 'hard' field of expertise. You need to do math and actually be precise.
Compare that to many business degrees. In all respect to many business people, their degrees are too often very abstract things you can pull off with good overall knowledge and minimal math.
Its ridicuously easy to get business degrees compared to many technical or nature science degress. So what I am saying, is that since people can get good salary with finance and business degrees quite easily, few care to go to more technical fields. In developing countries and some export oriented countries(like Germany, Japan, Finland or China) the case is bit diffrent. There are more engineers because there is more need for them more and less people with fancy business degrees because there are less jobs for them.
In overall I think its good if country needs engineers, it tells there is manufacturing and development in country. But I dont want them to be leaders.
Leaders have to be flexible, understand other humans well and be creative, and thats not many times what engineers are about.
Many engineers don't make good business or people leaders in my experience. Much better chance with those flimsy business degrees.
I think it must be two legs and one arm if no cash is given.
How else I'm going to grab it and run?
Same can be said of foreign universities too.
I think immigration plays big role how good universities are.
US has lot of foreign students and researchers, even Europeans.
They help great deal too, and I don't suspect US universities were
bad without them. But they without doubt contribute lot.
I live in Finland, and it seems that many gifted people continue studies
in US. Apparently non-US universities are adequete enough, so that people can come
from them to places like Harvard.
Maybe the right way of seeing things is that US has best universities what comes
to research, but primary education at university level is as good elsewhere too?
Well, I sort of agree and the I don't.
I think main problem with languages and their definitions is that they
don't define always reasonably well what does exists.
Many times the concept and definitions that are in words are
simply unaccurate. They fall short or don't exist for something we need.
How do you for example say precisely that something is not microkernel nor monolith
but has lot of common with both? You don't, unless you figure out an accurate definition
for it - which has to be shared by other people too .
Technial people sometimes miss this diffrence and difficulty.
In real life, there are lot of things that don't have real names or definitions
for Joe Average. But also for not so Average Joes too.
The gift of abstractions is that, unlike computers, we can deduct from incomplete
information complete solutions and answers. Why not use it then?
Why act like a computer?
I agree very much with you.
But I think the problem is people's perception of certificates, degrees and high quality.
Having first two raises propability to have last one - except if there are lot of people with first both.
Only a minority of people can be better than the rest. High quality and high skills are also relative things.
When there are lot of degrees and certificates, diffrences to better must arise from somewhere else than from them. Being better and smarter than rest, can't be standardized to a course or a school curriculum that can be taught to anyone.
Higher pay comes from knowing things other don't know and being able to do things other can't or won't do.
People who have these skills are either self taught, or with lot of education with lot of experience added to it. Most unlike person to have them is a person that does what is required in a course or in a degree, and doesn't do anything else than that. Such person knows what everybody else in the education also knows.
But not much else.
Small wonder if ceritification papers don't alone carry a long way?
Of course if paper one has is very hard to obtain, whole matter is diffrent.
I'd like to get to SAP course for example. Hard to get in and people knowing SAP skills are needed all a time.
I think this is not on/off situation.
Obviously too much hiearchy can stiffle any endevour, but also too little can just cause
badly run organisation where there reigns a chaos.
Overall I think most of what is said of open source can be applied to business too.
I mean most of business fail or don't get awfully far. Only few of all do exceptionally well. Anybody can start a business, jusr like anyone can start open source project. Best of business have really innovative ideas and atleast adequate management. I can't think anything difficult and big project that wouldn't need good managament, open source or business.
And just like business, open source can be done by few loosely knit people with motivaiton if what they do isn't awfully complex and big. Most of what people do in open source, is obviously motivated by some benefit to doers themselves. Just like companies, except in open source people may have more varied motives than just plain cash.
Open source has all the elements markets have, but I find ironic that it's model is doubted for the same reason people believe in markets. Infact I'd argue open source is much more closer to original idea of free markets and today's 'build a big corporation' get rich attitude that Microsoft represents.
If you can't believe open source can work, how how can you trust markets can either?
The critism in article is valid, but blown out of proportions.
I think the point is that it works on linux and windows, instead of just unix. It's not just question about Jave but platform too.
The article, or the link from it, says question is about offering cheaper alternative to server virtualiazation. And refers to linux and Windows, which leaves unix as 'expensive'.
My understanding unix rocks with clusters and similar , linux and windows far less.
So the logic must be that it's cheaper to build linux or Windows virtualization system that scales than one from unixes.
That's the point, I'd wager.
Well, I think question is largely about quality not quantity. Propably Indian or Chinese Engineer is not really so far away from US counterparts, but propably far more motivated.
Airbus for example has outsourced certaing things to Indian engineers, because they accomplish same things quicker than those in European side. When something is discovered somewhere, they usually spread quickest to near than far. If non-US engineers set the pace, then obviously there is far less need for US engineers than if they were setting it
Lot of shortages in work market today isn't really about skilled people, it's about having the rights set of skills and enought them from the employers point of view. Personally I think companies are being overly cautious and except to have everything dropped front of them. To have lot of skilled engineers with relevant skills and experience, they need to gather that experience from a workplace. If companies don't want to pay much, and don't want to lure people to field, then of course is born egg and chicken people. HIghly skilled experts can't exists, if skilled people don't feel they're needed and companies don't want to invest to them.
Indian and Chinese have honed and invested to engineering a lot. Not-so-few Chinse have in past decadedes been educated in US. I also suspect that lot of engineering education is done in both countries by people who have been educated in US.
Thus the whole argumentt that the numbers somehow prove there isn't lack of engineers in US and nothing to worry as engineers in India and China are less good, is bit questionable I think. They may actually be same or better there.
I'm sure there are lot techologies and solutions some people find godsend. Still, it doesn't mean that each or any of those will blow everybody elses mind.
Isn't this just one of those 'silver bullet' ideas that has lot good argument for it? IT and programming field has lot of those, and their problem is that while some solutions are good solving certain problems, very few solve all the most pressing problems average designer encounters.
I think one should go for WEB 2 if one is learning to do webdesingn first tme. But if you have already well learn tools and skills, majority of webdesigners will not feel learning it mandatory. It's not must.
There is also lot of legacy code that isn't turned to WEB 2 overnigth. And I think moving there isn't even cost effective if ít doesn't enchance something that is worth of the time sacrificed for it.
WEB 2.0 != Internet 2
It has real significance. Because if you think you're doing more and accomplishing less, willingness to do more and better dimisnhes. I think it is propably difficult or maybe even impossible determine are peopel working more. Infact it can be irrelevant I'd claim.
Infact I'm not sure has the amount of work any signficance at all. All people who are at work, propably know demand for work never ends. I think the diffrence is have people anykind of idea have they moved forward in it. Or accomplished some temporary goal definetely.
What IT has caused. Is that lot of work is thrown to workers all at same time in a random order. It causes people to have unnessary stress, as they can't figure out how much they've done and have they accomplished anything. People are always reacting and doing something nowdays.
The amount of work [b]needed[/b] can be even same as before. But if you shred a building manual of some device to small pieces chapter by chapter, post it to the builder in random order in randomg intervals. You can bet the builder feels he has more work, than if he'd been given the parts in logical order, in easily anticipated order.
He may actually use same time to build as the person that has all of the manual arriving in a correct order. Problem is that he has to worry more about did he understood correctly the parts his already has. And also any new part that arrives may cause him to change his plan or he may even have to wait some of them to arrive. And when a three parts arrive at same time and there is a time limit, he has to work suddenly three times as hard.
The added uncertainity, the unpredictable work flow and the monents wasted to sheer waiting, do make people feel they work more. Lot of what I descripe above, can be seen being 'normal' in rapidly changing modern worl.
Well, that can be true if you go to college. But computer users are diverse group of old, young and all ages with wildly diffrent backgrounds. While computers maybe almost self evident thing here, they're still pretty new thing(20+ years) and majority doesn't know them well.
I don't live in US, and I study college/polytechnic where my major is ICT. Still there are teachers here that don't really use computer on everything, some still require to give lessons in paper. Infact the best ones do so.
What I'm trying to say, is that majority of people are just dragged forward by fact they have to use computers. Even the students in IT field. What people really grasp and understand is lot less than many curriculums and courses would suggest.
And many don't even have any courses in subject.
I think of people in IT field don't see the situation this way, because they spend their own times with computers. And with things where computers are self evident. It gives disorted picture of reality.
Much of this bot nuisance for example, is direct result of people being just in wrong frame of mind and propably really ignorant without being stupid or lazy. They just buy computer plug it in to net and start to wonder when net starts to crawl after a while. It happens all a time. Is it their fault there is no basic requirements to use computers and they're not IT-experts?
Do people need to be car mechanic or a flight engineer or a pilot to use cars or to fly by plane? They don't, so why should they learn about computers to use them then either? Nobody requires them to learn, so they can't be blamed if they become victims using computers and internet. There is no minium requirements to use computers. So nobody can actually say people are stupid or lazy. Because nobody can actually say what a average computer user should know. It isn't written or defined anywhere.
Above paragraph I think I define quite well the dilemma. We may cry about how users are stupid, but nothing is going to change if we don't somehow start to demand some minimum skills and knowledge to use computers safely. Users are weak point in all systems, internet or corporate intranet. Large corporations have already started to learn this lesson, why it shouldn't be applied more widely to rest of society too?
First of all I think it's question about being realistic.
If 21 year olds can so easily penetrate home computers with little risk of being caught, sudden we be bit worried about the Joe Average using net? He may not know about risks. But can still encounter them fully. People are taught in driving school about rules and how to drive safely. Why not do it sameway with computers and net too?
Secondly, my point was only conditional one. I don't think we would really need a license. But if companies and markets don't supply choices that are enough safe for Joe Average, then logically next best idea is to educate people about dangers concerning net. It's also a decent thing to do. Or is somebody arguin letting crimes to happen to people is a desirable thing?
Even if any license wouldn't stop bots altogether, it's in surely in common intrests of any country to try stop it's citizens being exploited in the Net?
Now someone may say that it's invidua choice and risk, but bots can be used to attack 3rd party after which is not anymore anyones personal intrest alone. Even foreign countries may try to create bots and harm some countrys economy during some crisis.
Anyway you look it, the security in net concerns all of us. It belongs to sphere of public intrest.
If technological solutions don't solve the problem quickly, then it's only logical try to solve it by changing way humans act. Meaning, making them to learn.
It's not victimless crime.
Just think if you're running mon & pop business and your daily earnings depends on PC that is infected.
Also, how do you explain that XXX icon's are popping up on your desktop to wife who uses same computer or is very religious?
I can think multiple ways what he does could hurt people in their private life or business.
Also, doesn't infecting one computer also open door to others too? What's stops from somebody else taking over already installed exploits and take with him/her stuff like passwords etc.?
On the other hand, some plame does go to MS and major tehcnology players. These kind of problems shouldn't be totally unexpected. Either there should be somekind of requirements akin to drivers license to go to Net or solutions should be such that no highschool dropout could hack himself in when he likes to.
I wouldn't want to live world were people would pretend that adults don't swear.
But on the other hand, not sure would I'd like to live in world were now teen agers and to-be adults think swearing should be done anytime and anywhere. Games, school, publicly, anywhere.
I think swearing should be saved when there is need for it, not each and every fucking reason one any motherfucker wants to use it(you see?).
It otherwise loses it's appeal. Becoming just plain ugly and silly.
Good swearing needs patience, skill and imagination. There are lot of amateurs in swearing, unfortunately.
It had about 16 or 32k RAM and some odd DOS system that later came MSX-DOS I think. Not sure had it anything to with Gates, but looked and sounded similar than MS-DOS I think.
Bought it in 1984 because it came with cool ski jump game.
Later bought few Spectravideo and Yamaha MSX computers with pluggable ROM cards and played first Metal Gear game. First console game stations, before world knew about Playstations.
Still have all them of somewhere.
I didn't read the article throughout, but what is RTFA?
I think Linus is absolutely right.
I don't like MS world but neither do I like RMS world either. Other wants world where everything is MS, other wants world something absolutely can't be. To be absolutely be and not absolutely be are just two sides of same coin. I don't see a diffrence there.
I think I should, and everybody else too, to be able use DRM technology if I want to. RMS or some stupid license shouldn't deny it from me. Or should I move to Windows if I want to defend my right to choose?
This shouldn't be where Linux is going to. Keep the system open, let the users and developers design what there can be,
Don't say what they can't do.
I can understand the operators in one hand. But on the other hand, I say tough luck.
Lot of what enterpreuners do is to connect some resources that exist to something else to get the third thing.
There wouldn't be companies if somebody wouldn't make babies, roads, basic infastructure, people wouldn't go to school, sun wouldn't shine to farms etc. Let's face it, business takes lot of granted and builds top of ready things. In the process it creates somethng somebody else will use and so forth .
So what's the problem here? Google has a concept that works, and now it makes money building top of something somebody else has build before there was Google at all. Why should Google or Yahoo pay something that wasn't build for them, but despite?
They've figured(Yahoo and Google) how to make money on the web, operators haven't Why punish Google for that and reward telecoms for it? It is not their fault is somebody else does bad business and they don't.
Depends what you gain and what you lose.
Personally, if diffrent isn't really significant to one self and it means one is more instrested in new work, I'd say go for it.
My philosophy is that life is about keeping moving. To keep moving one needs is both change and sometimes letting go things that overpower one, like work. Work doesn't end during my lifetime, question is more about does one it easy way or difficult way.
It's also very important to keep one self in such state of mind, that you can honestly say you're intrested what you do.
Having higher pay for boring job may sound good idea. Until you notice you're not intrested to current job and don't want new challanges either. Because you're used to the good pay that takes toll of you.
Avoid that, if you can. Keep yourself fresh and moving.
Sure there are situations what I suggest above isn't practical. Havign mortage and big family may limit choices and cause some hard choises between personal pleasure and thinking it 'all'. However as long there isn't any really overriding factors, I'd wager what I say above is essentially flawless. Having more intresting work and lower pay, can be considered an investment for future too.
Compared to staying in one place and not doing anything new or goin anywhere.
That I wondered also.
I mean it's true that medicine at average wasn't really advanced.
But let's however look what was the best level one could get. The level pharaosh and kings had.
Egyptians mummified their dead, and propably had knowledge of many illnesses. After all they did build pyramids and had allkinds of knowledge of astronomy, so it's not far fetched to think they could known the problems Tutankhamon had with his knee. Certainly he couldn't have been first Eqyptian to be harmed by sword and suffering from a severe knee injury?
Reading books of history(I do it a lot), kings and rulers of past times did many times have good experts on medicine and seemed to know things many things we know now. Things that never ended to common use in their era. The diffrence between common folk and their rulers in that respect was far bigger than it is today I think.
Did Tutankhamon refuse to be treated?
I must disagree with the support part. There is no guarantee what will be supported my Microsoft in 10 years. Infact, I'd wager that some companies now try to move to .NET or do so in future, because of this.
.NET at all? .NET, why couldn't it happen in future to .NET too?
Let's think about VB and C++. If Microsoft plans to support those in future, why would companies move to
Let's turn this around, if MS doesn't support them now and companies have to move to
I think here is a clear dilemma. Why fix something if it isn't broken?
Well, it's about recruiting patterns I think.
.NET propably have lot of money in their servers and are trying to do something new as they're anticipating they have to move there anyway and they have some profit in it too.
Companies that use
Python, PHP and such are diffrent ball park altogether. Big companies that use them may have already experts who can do them or then they're quite small. Maybe even one or two person business.
Looking recruiting ads, you can't directly say what is popular and much used. It tells more about whick kind of organizations recruit publicly and what skills are propably missing in the market.
Dot Net being new, it's no wonder there isn't lot of experienced developers for it.
What about 'Huge black worm between legs'? It summarises both suggested in a one sentence.
Just though to post a small insight to matter. My opinion is that a good programmer can almost anything with any language.
Yes certainly there are diffrences how long something can take and how easy/difficult it is. There are some limitations of course what are ready libraries etc.
But honestly, put your palmas to your chest near your heart, how much real life problems in programming have much to do with any specific languages and it's features?
I've done in 3 month in a J2EE course my first real 3-tier and J2EE application in two weeks. A bit over week went to planning, rest to coding.
I've done much less with PHP in few weeks because customer doesn't know what he wants and there isn't documentation to begin with.
I don't care about language, give me people who know what they want and somebody who can organize well it's coding!
I'd argue most of waste in effiency and speed in programming isn't lost to weaknesses of some language, but weakness of organization communication and generally people not being up to the job.
Is it PHP, JAVA, Python, or Ruby on Rails are just a seconday issues.
I think the problem is that not many people have to ponder that question(JVM vs. .NET).
.NET, Java/C++ like and runs on MS servers as in graphical applications too.
.NET were really cross platform with MS support, but it isn't. Too bad for Microsoft, good for Sun and Java.
Java's strength is that it's crossplatform and fares well with distributed systems.
C# that it's on Windows, part of
People who have to ponder which is better, propably either don't really need Java and those who need Java propably don't need or can't use C#.
Only reason people really would need C# is propably if working on Windows Servers or doing Windows GUI's. If you need crossplatform compatability and scalability, you're better of with Java but forget the fast graphical application witht it.
It might be diffent thing if