Find a project you're interested in, see what needs doing and get involved. Contribute patches, propose ideas, ask for feedback from more experienced people. You can practice a number of important skills this way both technical and social. A big part of working with others is that you get to start understanding how other people think--that will both grow your understand and help you understand where your natural boundaries are. You need both those things to grow.
I could see it being useful if one could specify a search and have the results of the search be RRSified. Then you could do things like search for "programming c++ unix", stick a live bookmark on your Firefox bookmark toolbar and be able to easily watch new listings come up.
If it was just an "all the latest jobs" feed I think it would be far less useful.
I've recently been using http://del.icio.us combined with a live bookmark in my bookmarks toolbar. Now, on the 3 or 4 machines I used regularly I have centralized access to bookmarks. In my case, this turns out to be less hassle than carrying around a thumb drive.
I work from home 3 or 4 days a week and come into the office when I'm needed--typically during planning or integration phases. The thing I've found is that I'm *way* more productive at home. I don't have my friendly co-workers to chat with, I'm harder to interrupt, etc. I get about double the amount of work done at home than work.
I really enjoy working from home--I've learnt how to keep the work/life separation, which took some amount of learning. I'm not sure that I would accept less pay to work at home since my output is significantly better.
As a manager your duty is to ensure your developers don't do things that waste time or money. You need to do at least these things:
1. Figure out what the real requirements are. Don't simply believe that customer's (in house or not) know what they need. Don't treat customer's like idiots: they are the most valuable resource you have to ensure the software you deliver is actually useful. 2. Get the business folks to prioritize the requirements so that you can reduce scope effectively. You will have to reduce scope--better to be ready for it than to be surprised when the time comes. 3. Ensure that *everything* your developers do can be traced back to a requirement. If someone is doing something that can't be traced back to a requirement they are wasting time and introducing unnecessary complexity. 4. Never forget that your job is to bring value to the business. Don't rule out non-software options when you see them.
These ideas ultimately lead to or from, depending on how you look at it, to "build only what you need".
The idea of an album has become a conceptual structure. Each song tells part of a the story that an album represents. So no, I don't think the album is dead at all.
You may consider using something like ddclient and dyndns.org. You can setup ddclient to check the state of the machine's IP address at any interval you want. When the IP address changes ddclient notifies dyndns.org to update DNS records. It runs as a daemon so it shouldn't be too hard to make it start up everytime your machine boots. When running you can monitor the machine's IP address from the dyndns.org website.
Of course, this doesn't do anything to help you get into the machine if it's behind a NAT or other barrier. It could help with spotting the IP, though.
1. Traded in the stick-shift for an automatic. 2. Got her a smaller and lighter purse (less crap in it). 3. Went to a trackball. 4. Went to a split keyboard (Microsoft Natural).
I mentioned Pete Egoscue's book above. He suggests that the reason so many people have RSI's these days is because we are motion deprived; before the past 40-50 years life was harder- more manual. It kept our bodies in shape. Egoscue contends that we require food, clothing, shelter and motion to survive.
I can't dispute your claim that your wife's pain is gone- that's great- but, I wonder if limiting motion is a solution, or a band-aid?
The only technology you need is in your body. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a symptom; not the root of a problem. Your hands are taking a beating because likely your back, shoulder and pelvis are all out of alignment. I've been using computers since I was 9 (I'm 26 now) and having been working full-time at a computer for the last 8 years. I've found the only thing to fight of musculoskeletal dysfunction is Pete Egoscue's Pain Free for the PC
You can get relatively inexpensive keyboards for most PDAs nowadays. The Palm ones fold down pretty small... not quite small enough to fit into a pocket, but close. The screens on newer devices are clear enough that you'd probably be able to work without too much discomfort.
I think comments like this are often incorrectly moderated as "Flamebait". The poster makes a good point about practicality, but, at least for myself, practicality isn't enough to keep me happy and motivated. Programming is a craft; a craft involves developing and applying a collection of related and sometimes un-related skills. Craft also involves elegance. Having said all that, certainly one is able to solve many problems in C as in C++. In fact, one could probably argue that any problem solvable in C++ can also be solved in C. The difference is elegance... I think C++ makes it easier to write code that expresses the design aspect of a program without compromising the implementation; thus, well written C++ programs may be more maintainable/understable than well written C programs. Further, the biggest improvements I've made in my own programming ability has been to improve the way I do things I already know how to do; I believe that kind of behaviour has been of more benefit to me in some ways than learning how to do new things. In this sense, C++ is, as advertised, a "better C".
I started as a sysadmin many years ago and was competent at it but my heart wasn't in it. It felt static to me. I suppose that's what maintenance is in the end, if you're good at it: routine.
I enjoy programming, which I've been doing for about four years, because I get a variety of gratification: short-term: every few days you implement something or fix something that was broken and; long-term: you finish a project or major piece and see a system working as a whole. Neither form of gratification can really replace the other and I found that I didn't get enough of either of these as a sysadmin.
Other than the ways in which the job is rewarding one thing I've really had to learn is to keep expanding my understanding of software and design. If you haven't already you should really look to learning what best practices exist and when/how to apply them; I'm thinking of things like design patterns, analysis patterns (bit dry but good), refactoring, etc.
I can make myself work if I have to, but I don't enjoy it. I've found the best way to keep my motivation up is to make sure I devote some time to do something that's only for me. In my case, I play the drums and practice daily for about two hours.
My point is- it's important not to only have one thing (work) to be excited about or you get caught in the ups and downs of that one thing. If you have a couple things they help balance each other out.
In the end I've been fortunate to have good managers... what have they had in common? They've become my friends outside of work. That isn't to say managers and employees must or should spend time away from work but working with people you LIKE really helps. In practice manager's I've liked have worked hard, valued by input and been able to contructively criticize me in a way that has helped me grow.
Software development may be 50 years old... lots of things have changed and one could argue that the pace of change is only getting faster. What doesn't change is that development of any kind is a whole bunch of people individually developing themselves- the end result is (or isn't) some kind of product. Manager's that are technically-minded work best with software developers because developers are technically minded.
Seems obvious but has not been the norm as far as I can tell.
It'd be nice if the story content mentioned that it's a new version of Xerces-J- ie: Java. Our product (shameless plug: Expressus Design Studio) is built around Xerces-C (C++) which seems to lag a bit behind Xerces-J in terms of features. I believe development on Xerces-C started AFTER Xerces-J so it makes sense.
I'd have to agree with a previous poster who mentioned the Apache folk's as being good at keeping up with emerging technology- they've also proven quite helpful on the -dev mailing list.
It'll be interesting to see if the XML Schema handling is close to or as fast as the DTD handling. I know that in our particular application (real-time automated classification) parsing the document takes almost as much time as what we have to do to "learn" where it belongs in a given data set.
Another thought, partially off-topic, pertains to a previous poster's comments about working from a DTD and then migrating to XML Schema. I have to wonder how much of that is simply habit; I know that I've certainly had to solve problems that DTD's just can't handle. In my mind, even though habit may dictate starting with a DTD, starting with something that clearly will not accomplish the task at hand seems inherently flawed.
I have a few questions:
1. Are XML developer's ever NOT programmers?
2. If so, would XML developers be willing to use XML Schema design tools. My own reaction (as a [mostly C++] programmer) is that I'll stick with emacs and do everything by hand, thank you very much. I get the impression that most programmer's shun code-generating type products. Of course, last I checked there was a holy-war over such ideas... I may have just shot myself in the foot by mentioning emacs. =)
3. Do programmer's view XML (and it's friends) as a programming language? I feel a bit ridiculous even asking such a question because I certainly don't view XML as anything similar to C, C++, Java, etc. But then, I have been surprised on more than one occasion in the past.
Anyway, I ramble... =) Congratulations to the Apache folks on doing a great job with all of their projects I've come across!
Slashdot Mirror
Find a project you're interested in, see what needs doing and get involved. Contribute patches, propose ideas, ask for feedback from more experienced people. You can practice a number of important skills this way both technical and social. A big part of working with others is that you get to start understanding how other people think--that will both grow your understand and help you understand where your natural boundaries are. You need both those things to grow.
https://www.chipmark.com/Main
It's pretty cool... there's a plugin for firefox... take your bookmarks anywhere. Might be what you're looking for.
I could see it being useful if one could specify a search and have the results of the search be RRSified. Then you could do things like search for "programming c++ unix", stick a live bookmark on your Firefox bookmark toolbar and be able to easily watch new listings come up.
If it was just an "all the latest jobs" feed I think it would be far less useful.
I've recently been using http://del.icio.us combined with a live bookmark in my bookmarks toolbar. Now, on the 3 or 4 machines I used regularly I have centralized access to bookmarks. In my case, this turns out to be less hassle than carrying around a thumb drive.
I work from home 3 or 4 days a week and come into the office when I'm needed--typically during planning or integration phases. The thing I've found is that I'm *way* more productive at home. I don't have my friendly co-workers to chat with, I'm harder to interrupt, etc. I get about double the amount of work done at home than work.
I really enjoy working from home--I've learnt how to keep the work/life separation, which took some amount of learning. I'm not sure that I would accept less pay to work at home since my output is significantly better.
As a manager your duty is to ensure your developers don't do things that waste time or money. You need to do at least these things:
1. Figure out what the real requirements are. Don't simply believe that customer's (in house or not) know what they need. Don't treat customer's like idiots: they are the most valuable resource you have to ensure the software you deliver is actually useful.
2. Get the business folks to prioritize the requirements so that you can reduce scope effectively. You will have to reduce scope--better to be ready for it than to be surprised when the time comes.
3. Ensure that *everything* your developers do can be traced back to a requirement. If someone is doing something that can't be traced back to a requirement they are wasting time and introducing unnecessary complexity.
4. Never forget that your job is to bring value to the business. Don't rule out non-software options when you see them.
These ideas ultimately lead to or from, depending on how you look at it, to "build only what you need".
The idea of an album has become a conceptual structure. Each song tells part of a the story that an album represents. So no, I don't think the album is dead at all.
This is a dupe from a couple days ago... still a semi-interesting read if you missed it.
You may consider using something like ddclient and dyndns.org. You can setup ddclient to check the state of the machine's IP address at any interval you want. When the IP address changes ddclient notifies dyndns.org to update DNS records. It runs as a daemon so it shouldn't be too hard to make it start up everytime your machine boots. When running you can monitor the machine's IP address from the dyndns.org website.
Of course, this doesn't do anything to help you get into the machine if it's behind a NAT or other barrier. It could help with spotting the IP, though.
1. Traded in the stick-shift for an automatic.
2. Got her a smaller and lighter purse (less crap in it).
3. Went to a trackball.
4. Went to a split keyboard (Microsoft Natural).
I mentioned Pete Egoscue's book above. He suggests that the reason so many people have RSI's these days is because we are motion deprived; before the past 40-50 years life was harder- more manual. It kept our bodies in shape. Egoscue contends that we require food, clothing, shelter and motion to survive.
I can't dispute your claim that your wife's pain is gone- that's great- but, I wonder if limiting motion is a solution, or a band-aid?
The only technology you need is in your body. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a symptom; not the root of a problem. Your hands are taking a beating because likely your back, shoulder and pelvis are all out of alignment. I've been using computers since I was 9 (I'm 26 now) and having been working full-time at a computer for the last 8 years. I've found the only thing to fight of musculoskeletal dysfunction is Pete Egoscue's Pain Free for the PC
You can get relatively inexpensive keyboards for most PDAs nowadays. The Palm ones fold down pretty small... not quite small enough to fit into a pocket, but close. The screens on newer devices are clear enough that you'd probably be able to work without too much discomfort.
I think comments like this are often incorrectly moderated as "Flamebait". The poster makes a good point about practicality, but, at least for myself, practicality isn't enough to keep me happy and motivated. Programming is a craft; a craft involves developing and applying a collection of related and sometimes un-related skills. Craft also involves elegance. Having said all that, certainly one is able to solve many problems in C as in C++. In fact, one could probably argue that any problem solvable in C++ can also be solved in C. The difference is elegance... I think C++ makes it easier to write code that expresses the design aspect of a program without compromising the implementation; thus, well written C++ programs may be more maintainable/understable than well written C programs. Further, the biggest improvements I've made in my own programming ability has been to improve the way I do things I already know how to do; I believe that kind of behaviour has been of more benefit to me in some ways than learning how to do new things. In this sense, C++ is, as advertised, a "better C".
I started as a sysadmin many years ago and was competent at it but my heart wasn't in it. It felt static to me. I suppose that's what maintenance is in the end, if you're good at it: routine.
I enjoy programming, which I've been doing for about four years, because I get a variety of gratification: short-term: every few days you implement something or fix something that was broken and; long-term: you finish a project or major piece and see a system working as a whole. Neither form of gratification can really replace the other and I found that I didn't get enough of either of these as a sysadmin.
Other than the ways in which the job is rewarding one thing I've really had to learn is to keep expanding my understanding of software and design. If you haven't already you should really look to learning what best practices exist and when/how to apply them; I'm thinking of things like design patterns, analysis patterns (bit dry but good), refactoring, etc.
Good luck!
I can make myself work if I have to, but I don't enjoy it. I've found the best way to keep my motivation up is to make sure I devote some time to do something that's only for me. In my case, I play the drums and practice daily for about two hours.
My point is- it's important not to only have one thing (work) to be excited about or you get caught in the ups and downs of that one thing. If you have a couple things they help balance each other out.
In the end I've been fortunate to have good managers... what have they had in common? They've become my friends outside of work. That isn't to say managers and employees must or should spend time away from work but working with people you LIKE really helps. In practice manager's I've liked have worked hard, valued by input and been able to contructively criticize me in a way that has helped me grow.
Software development may be 50 years old... lots of things have changed and one could argue that the pace of change is only getting faster. What doesn't change is that development of any kind is a whole bunch of people individually developing themselves- the end result is (or isn't) some kind of product. Manager's that are technically-minded work best with software developers because developers are technically minded.
Seems obvious but has not been the norm as far as I can tell.
It'd be nice if the story content mentioned that it's a new version of Xerces-J- ie: Java. Our product (shameless plug: Expressus Design Studio) is built around Xerces-C (C++) which seems to lag a bit behind Xerces-J in terms of features. I believe development on Xerces-C started AFTER Xerces-J so it makes sense.
I'd have to agree with a previous poster who mentioned the Apache folk's as being good at keeping up with emerging technology- they've also proven quite helpful on the -dev mailing list.
It'll be interesting to see if the XML Schema handling is close to or as fast as the DTD handling. I know that in our particular application (real-time automated classification) parsing the document takes almost as much time as what we have to do to "learn" where it belongs in a given data set.
Another thought, partially off-topic, pertains to a previous poster's comments about working from a DTD and then migrating to XML Schema. I have to wonder how much of that is simply habit; I know that I've certainly had to solve problems that DTD's just can't handle. In my mind, even though habit may dictate starting with a DTD, starting with something that clearly will not accomplish the task at hand seems inherently flawed.
I have a few questions:
1. Are XML developer's ever NOT programmers?
2. If so, would XML developers be willing to use XML Schema design tools. My own reaction (as a [mostly C++] programmer) is that I'll stick with emacs and do everything by hand, thank you very much. I get the impression that most programmer's shun code-generating type products. Of course, last I checked there was a holy-war over such ideas... I may have just shot myself in the foot by mentioning emacs. =)
3. Do programmer's view XML (and it's friends) as a programming language? I feel a bit ridiculous even asking such a question because I certainly don't view XML as anything similar to C, C++, Java, etc. But then, I have been surprised on more than one occasion in the past.
Anyway, I ramble... =) Congratulations to the Apache folks on doing a great job with all of their projects I've come across!