I don't know what college you speak of but from where I came from every student was exposed to the following languages: Java, C, C++, (Pure) Lisp / (Pure) Scheme, Assembly (x86 or MIPS), and probably some Prolog...Instead it was a course in the study of programming languages (functional, imperative, object oriented, logic based) and how they are implemented,
So if I undertand you correctly your argument correctly it's better to be competent in no particular language as long as you know the general theory. That sounds good but won't get you hired at many places I know of.
In short it was incredibly hard to get out of college in my degree without knowing something about CS.
It's also just as hard that someone interested in programming would not know something about CS from experience.
Under your plan I would perhaps have made some extra cash for a couple of years and when the company hits hard times, you'd happily kick me out because I would only have a high school degree. No thanks PHB. In fact go to hell.
Actually under my plan a guy (or girl) that's been programming for 20 years or so would be teaching you the trade. If I hire a college grad he's better be productive out of the gate since he's wanting more money. Yes during hard times you'd be gone- but that would be true whether or not you had a college degree (well except for the fact that if I was paying you more you'd be gone faster). You seem to assume that somehow I think you should be unable to get a college degree. In fact my company will actually pay for college courses. The difference is I pay less to find out if you're worth keeping or not.
I went to a public university so there were few penalties from stopping a professor from failing the entire class if he felt like it. In fact, the penalties were more of a "slap on the hand" kind of deal since it is highly unlikely that every student in the class is that dumb.
I agree and what's scarier is that when I asked a couple of friends in a public middle school in NH about this they said that's what they learned but the teacher told them it didn't matter because in 7th grade they got calculators.
There is an ethical line you can cross by using a monopoly position coupled with free training to grow market share.
What monopoly position? Are you saying there are no free and or open source alternatives to windows? If there is no existing usage the playing field was open. The difference is Microsoft it offering free training if you use their products. There's nothing stopping red hat or apple (as they have in the past) from offering to do the same.
Personally I'd rather have the high school grad that likes to mess around with programming and would like an internship than the same kid after 4 years of college. The intern is grateful that he's getting paid to learn. The college kid thinks he should now be ready to start paying off his student loans, bu thinks he know enough to get a job. The college kid spent 4 years learning java and c at a base level (meaning spending half of that time learning syntax and idiosyncrasies rather than working on actual challenges Worse case scenario with the intern- I lose an entry level employee- I can fire and hire those as needed. With the college kid, worse case becomes a question from the CIO: why didn't I just outsource the projects instead?
I do not blame the professors on this issue. America sends completly unprepared kids from high school to college so they can get a job afterward. For an example see:
You really don't need alot of people. Wha tyou do need to mention is that you will tell everyone you know, come re-election time, where politician X stood on issue A and why it's a really bad idea to let that kind of guy stay in office. Numbers , of course, help but even a few of those types of calls make the staffers start sweating out letters "explaining" the position in hopes that a nicely worded letter will shut you up and make you forget about it during the election cycle. You have to remeber that these guys (in general) have 2 thoughts- 1. You (the voter) are an idiot, I know better than you. 2. keeping the idiots happy and divided keeps me (the politician) in office.
We could vote 'em out of office, but that didn't work too well either last year. The new ones quickly became just as evil and corrupt as the old ones.
Sigh.
That's because we didn't vote the corrupt ones out of office, we voted already corrupt ones in to office. What should have happened is that we should have talked to our party chairperson (on whatever party that we wanted someone out of) and explained that they had 2 choices- make that guy not run for re-election and we'd stick with that party or let that guy run and we'd switch. Party chairs have far more influence than any lobby rep. Believe me these guys will listen when their phones start ringing.
And why the hell is the Environmental Protection Agency trying to prevent states from protecting the environment?
They aren't. They are mitigating california's undue influence on the auto industry, and putting some sanity into the situation. That's why a waiver is required. The ratings california wants are unreasonable, but I think they should be allowed to have them and the people in california should have to bear the burden. Sadly california is 4th or 5th largest car market in the world so what they want usually ends up affecting the whole US.
The way things are going we're looking for a showdown between Clinton and McCain. For a change, we may have a win-win choice this fall.
Only if you want higher taxes, a poorer economy, and open borders. Either choice could turn the recession into a full blown depression
Let's suppose that ODF is indirectly controlled by Sun, and OOXML is directly controlled by msft. Why is it that the indirect control by Sun is cause for alarm, but the direct contol by msft is not cause for alarm?
Neither should be casue for alarm. I think they were simply saying that the features and codebase are not controlled by general debate.
And if msft chose to do so, msft could support ODF just as much as Sun. Msft is also free to contribute to the ODF standard. Therefore ODF does not give Sun any competitive advantage.
That's the step they take after they've issued arrest warrants for Microsoft executives but found that they're all in the US and extradition isn't going to happen. Pretty extreme. There are treaties and so forth, but a copyright is considered a form of property, so there's no reason the EU courts couldn't confiscate Microsoft's copyrights as part of a legal penalty and declare them public domain, just as they could confiscate Microsoft's offices in Europe and auction them off.
Well except for the fact that AFAIK (and IANAL) that particular penalty is unavailable to them according to the TRIPS agreement. They certainly could fine MS and seize their offices (for what good that would do).
I think you are right in that this is the nuclear option for brussels. In my opinion this is some sort of EU money grab from microsoft since the adoption of the EU version of windows vs. the "regular" flavor is so dismal that the EU shouldn't have even accepted bundling as a valid argument - but here we are.
Microsoft would probably struggle to enforce any kind of premium on EU consumers anyway. What's to stop us importing their completely weightless product from outside the Union?
I don't think it would be that hard to do, as with windows-N they would just need to set up a new windows version that is only sold and only activated in the EU, and set up the current server to disallow activations inside the EU. Now you'd have to buy pre-activated PCs from outside the EU. At some point Microsoft has to get to the point where they say, tell us what you want or we're done here.
And then Microsoft announced it would be delaying the release of all new products to any EU countries by 6 to 12 months along with an internal 10% EU tax increase. And then the EU revokes all Microsoft's copyrights, designs and patents.
I'm not sure they could do that without breaking the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights(trips). I'm pretty sure that their will be a premium placed on EU citizens at some point for all these attacks on microsoft. What I'm waiting for is when microsoft tries to apply these legal theories to their competition, especially since the complaint isn't pricing or business agreements but bundling issues.
All it would take is for Microsoft to release a fully compatible viewer/converter so that everybody can open the oldest of documents, and companies would likely cease to care.
I agree with the parent post and the skill you need to acquire is how to get an internship. You will need to be able to acquire almost all of the skills you're currently paying to learn own your own anyway (unless your college teaches you how to study rather than making you study- meaning you're figuring out how to study on your own). Internships are the absolute best way to learn this sort of trade and will likely land you a paying gig faster than graduating.
Mod parent up- this is exactly right. If we have people bright enough took work on FOSS code can't we move them to the airports to replace the morons searching the handicapped and infants for security?
Why would you need to edit a document in its original format? If I had to edit an old document I'd copy and paste it into a new document in a newer format.
The phrasing here is nearly flamebait. I don't particularly care, but it shows your bias. Linux is a solid kernel that performs its job well.
What does linux doing it's job as a unix kernel well have to do with being innovative?
The point I am making was using apples to apples comparisons. Amigados, beOS , plan9, even vista/server 2008 are all examples of companies that came out with different kernel implementations in an attempt to innovate. Open source hasn't come up with any kernel innovations, and so far has chosen to use a 30 year old model. There are a lot of good reasons to use that model, but innovation isn't one of them. I don't have a bias. I'ved used and loved/hated stuff on every platform I've mentioned here.
OS X is a Unix, and it's innovative. Why? Because NeXT came up with an interesting programming environment and sold it to Apple. OS X would have been just as innovative using the NT kernel.
If you consider OSX innovative due to it's NeXT roots, you've given yet another example of a commercial closed source team coming up with innovation.
Linux represents about 30 years of knowledge of best practices in software engineering.
I think this is exactly the point of the article- 30 years of "best practices" and the best open source can come up with is a Unix clone (cloning a 30 year old OS model)? Where have I seen new ideas in OS the last few years? commercial space- bell labs ( plan 9) Amigados, BEos, and (yes) Microsoft (although they failed to implement the oft promised new filesystem at least the idea was there).
Who cares how long a GP has access to your records- the ones selling your info to insurance companies ( the only winner in using EHR systems) will copy it with one swipe of a mouse or printscreen. I can't think if a single reason to have a centralized repository of private health data that isn't completly offset by the privacy and liability issues attached to it.
I guess if you are going to chop down more carbon absorbing trees and use up more resources to make fake "trees", you might actually have to worry about the carbon emissions from energy production.
Or you could just stop cutting down every tree in sight...
We already have term limits in the constitution. The problem is that dopey Americans continue to vote for the same losers and expect that "this time" it'll be different. Case in point was the last election where republicans got hit with their term limits and democrats were elected in to replace them, mostly by saying they would end the conflict in Iraq. Last time I checked , we're still in Iraq and most democratic voters think they are still getting good service from their representatives.
So you know he's not electable, so what's the point of voting for him? Especially when you end with the line "Good for healthcare; bad for everything else."
No, the format that word produces is doc format(thus the standard format)No, it is in de facto usage, it is not a officially recognized standard. What standards organizations even see it as a standard?
Claiming ODF is not a standard is the fallacy I was pointing out though. I don't see anywhere that I've said ODF is not a standard. What I am saying explicitly is that that word is the tool used by both parties and word's standard format is doc; not odf. If Norway wants to internally standardize on odf that's fine for them. Since the company I mention is explicitly not the Norwegian govt then the standard for them is doc ( like it is for the rest of the world). Yes it is de facto especially since we don't have a world government. Norway has made the standard for them (odf) de jure ignoring the de facto standard (and I'm not arguing for or against their decision- it's their issue) It's not relevant if ISO, ECMA, IEEE, or the Pope declares that odf is a standard for the purposes of discussing what standards will be used between 2 enterprises (or governments). I could demand that any business that sends me a bill send it to me in cuneiform tablets. If I am important enough, that company the will either comply (and take the translation hit to their bottom line) or ask me to cough up the added costs. As I said before, to bring it full circle- I think that latter is the likely option for companies doing business with Norway.
I think what will likely happen ( and what I've heard has happened with the one company I know that has to send docs to a Norwegian govt agency) is that the govt will be charged a surcharge for having to create non standard documentation.
This statement is a logical fallacy. No, the format that word produces is doc format(thus the standard format), anything else is therefore nonstandard. Even docx is nonstandard since only word 2007 can read it.
I think what will likely happen ( and what I've heard has happened with the one company I know that has to send docs to a Norwegian govt agency) is that the govt will be charged a surcharge for having to create non standard documentation. What's even more interesting about the instance I know about is that since there are serious header/footer issues in ODF, both an ODF and word doc get sent, but the ODF version (being essentially useless) won't be used by either side
There are ODF plugins for Microsoft Office, most of the other office suites already support ODF... What niche group that doesn't have ODF support are you referring to?
however most companies do not let their users install or use random plugins so that "niche group" is 90% of the business world.
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So if I undertand you correctly your argument correctly it's better to be competent in no particular language as long as you know the general theory. That sounds good but won't get you hired at many places I know of.
It's also just as hard that someone interested in programming would not know something about CS from experience.
Actually under my plan a guy (or girl) that's been programming for 20 years or so would be teaching you the trade. If I hire a college grad he's better be productive out of the gate since he's wanting more money. Yes during hard times you'd be gone- but that would be true whether or not you had a college degree (well except for the fact that if I was paying you more you'd be gone faster). You seem to assume that somehow I think you should be unable to get a college degree. In fact my company will actually pay for college courses. The difference is I pay less to find out if you're worth keeping or not.
You'd be amazed to find out what kind of pressure is put on professors, take a look at: http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/
I agree and what's scarier is that when I asked a couple of friends in a public middle school in NH about this they said that's what they learned but the teacher told them it didn't matter because in 7th grade they got calculators.
What monopoly position? Are you saying there are no free and or open source alternatives to windows? If there is no existing usage the playing field was open. The difference is Microsoft it offering free training if you use their products. There's nothing stopping red hat or apple (as they have in the past) from offering to do the same.
Personally I'd rather have the high school grad that likes to mess around with programming and would like an internship than the same kid after 4 years of college. The intern is grateful that he's getting paid to learn. The college kid thinks he should now be ready to start paying off his student loans, bu thinks he know enough to get a job. The college kid spent 4 years learning java and c at a base level (meaning spending half of that time learning syntax and idiosyncrasies rather than working on actual challenges Worse case scenario with the intern- I lose an entry level employee- I can fire and hire those as needed. With the college kid, worse case becomes a question from the CIO: why didn't I just outsource the projects instead?
I do not blame the professors on this issue. America sends completly unprepared kids from high school to college so they can get a job afterward. For an example see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI&NR=1
You really don't need alot of people. Wha tyou do need to mention is that you will tell everyone you know, come re-election time, where politician X stood on issue A and why it's a really bad idea to let that kind of guy stay in office. Numbers , of course, help but even a few of those types of calls make the staffers start sweating out letters "explaining" the position in hopes that a nicely worded letter will shut you up and make you forget about it during the election cycle. You have to remeber that these guys (in general) have 2 thoughts- 1. You (the voter) are an idiot, I know better than you. 2. keeping the idiots happy and divided keeps me (the politician) in office.
That's because we didn't vote the corrupt ones out of office, we voted already corrupt ones in to office. What should have happened is that we should have talked to our party chairperson (on whatever party that we wanted someone out of) and explained that they had 2 choices- make that guy not run for re-election and we'd stick with that party or let that guy run and we'd switch. Party chairs have far more influence than any lobby rep. Believe me these guys will listen when their phones start ringing.
They aren't. They are mitigating california's undue influence on the auto industry, and putting some sanity into the situation. That's why a waiver is required. The ratings california wants are unreasonable, but I think they should be allowed to have them and the people in california should have to bear the burden. Sadly california is 4th or 5th largest car market in the world so what they want usually ends up affecting the whole US.
Only if you want higher taxes, a poorer economy, and open borders. Either choice could turn the recession into a full blown depression
Neither should be casue for alarm. I think they were simply saying that the features and codebase are not controlled by general debate.
Microsoft does have a plugin that they are working on see:
http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/index.html
Well except for the fact that AFAIK (and IANAL) that particular penalty is unavailable to them according to the TRIPS agreement. They certainly could fine MS and seize their offices (for what good that would do).
I think you are right in that this is the nuclear option for brussels. In my opinion this is some sort of EU money grab from microsoft since the adoption of the EU version of windows vs. the "regular" flavor is so dismal that the EU shouldn't have even accepted bundling as a valid argument - but here we are.
I don't think it would be that hard to do, as with windows-N they would just need to set up a new windows version that is only sold and only activated in the EU, and set up the current server to disallow activations inside the EU. Now you'd have to buy pre-activated PCs from outside the EU. At some point Microsoft has to get to the point where they say, tell us what you want or we're done here.
I'm not sure they could do that without breaking the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights(trips). I'm pretty sure that their will be a premium placed on EU citizens at some point for all these attacks on microsoft. What I'm waiting for is when microsoft tries to apply these legal theories to their competition, especially since the complaint isn't pricing or business agreements but bundling issues.
They supposedly have:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en
I don't have any old docs to test it with but it is descibed as reading all the old files.
I agree with the parent post and the skill you need to acquire is how to get an internship. You will need to be able to acquire almost all of the skills you're currently paying to learn own your own anyway (unless your college teaches you how to study rather than making you study- meaning you're figuring out how to study on your own). Internships are the absolute best way to learn this sort of trade and will likely land you a paying gig faster than graduating.
Mod parent up- this is exactly right. If we have people bright enough took work on FOSS code can't we move them to the airports to replace the morons searching the handicapped and infants for security?
Why would you need to edit a document in its original format? If I had to edit an old document I'd copy and paste it into a new document in a newer format.
Or Word viewer- which is unaffected by this.
What does linux doing it's job as a unix kernel well have to do with being innovative?
The point I am making was using apples to apples comparisons. Amigados, beOS , plan9, even vista/server 2008 are all examples of companies that came out with different kernel implementations in an attempt to innovate. Open source hasn't come up with any kernel innovations, and so far has chosen to use a 30 year old model. There are a lot of good reasons to use that model, but innovation isn't one of them. I don't have a bias. I'ved used and loved/hated stuff on every platform I've mentioned here.
If you consider OSX innovative due to it's NeXT roots, you've given yet another example of a commercial closed source team coming up with innovation.
I think this is exactly the point of the article- 30 years of "best practices" and the best open source can come up with is a Unix clone (cloning a 30 year old OS model)? Where have I seen new ideas in OS the last few years? commercial space- bell labs ( plan 9) Amigados, BEos, and (yes) Microsoft (although they failed to implement the oft promised new filesystem at least the idea was there).
Who cares how long a GP has access to your records- the ones selling your info to insurance companies ( the only winner in using EHR systems) will copy it with one swipe of a mouse or printscreen. I can't think if a single reason to have a centralized repository of private health data that isn't completly offset by the privacy and liability issues attached to it.
I guess if you are going to chop down more carbon absorbing trees and use up more resources to make fake "trees", you might actually have to worry about the carbon emissions from energy production.
Or you could just stop cutting down every tree in sight...
We already have term limits in the constitution. The problem is that dopey Americans continue to vote for the same losers and expect that "this time" it'll be different. Case in point was the last election where republicans got hit with their term limits and democrats were elected in to replace them, mostly by saying they would end the conflict in Iraq. Last time I checked , we're still in Iraq and most democratic voters think they are still getting good service from their representatives.
So you know he's not electable, so what's the point of voting for him? Especially when you end with the line "Good for healthcare; bad for everything else."
Claiming ODF is not a standard is the fallacy I was pointing out though. I don't see anywhere that I've said ODF is not a standard. What I am saying explicitly is that that word is the tool used by both parties and word's standard format is doc; not odf. If Norway wants to internally standardize on odf that's fine for them. Since the company I mention is explicitly not the Norwegian govt then the standard for them is doc ( like it is for the rest of the world). Yes it is de facto especially since we don't have a world government. Norway has made the standard for them (odf) de jure ignoring the de facto standard (and I'm not arguing for or against their decision- it's their issue) It's not relevant if ISO, ECMA, IEEE, or the Pope declares that odf is a standard for the purposes of discussing what standards will be used between 2 enterprises (or governments). I could demand that any business that sends me a bill send it to me in cuneiform tablets. If I am important enough, that company the will either comply (and take the translation hit to their bottom line) or ask me to cough up the added costs. As I said before, to bring it full circle- I think that latter is the likely option for companies doing business with Norway.
This statement is a logical fallacy. No, the format that word produces is doc format(thus the standard format), anything else is therefore nonstandard. Even docx is nonstandard since only word 2007 can read it.
I think what will likely happen ( and what I've heard has happened with the one company I know that has to send docs to a Norwegian govt agency) is that the govt will be charged a surcharge for having to create non standard documentation. What's even more interesting about the instance I know about is that since there are serious header/footer issues in ODF, both an ODF and word doc get sent, but the ODF version (being essentially useless) won't be used by either side
however most companies do not let their users install or use random plugins so that "niche group" is 90% of the business world.