I still believe the entrepunurial American programmer can be successfull as long as they come up with original and inovative services or products. But as far as being a gun for hire... that market might be gone.
Your exactly right, if you can find something that will fill an exact niche and do it well, you will make some money. Build a framework for filling orders for refills on gumball machines. Someone out there needs it, and will pay for it.. because your the only person that has it and they don't have the resouces to manage an outsourced team. Etc. etc.
Maybe there is just no room for lazy overpaid contract programmers, but good ones will always find a job.
Just like Dilberts company had their secret Albonians, our company had Romanians.
Our company did it for two years, and for a good reason we don't do it anymore. Not that there is no good work that comes out of it.. it was just a nightmare to manage. Our software is not one that can just be packaged and shipped, but was an ASP (Java) that requires constant work and modifications for new customers.
I suppose with something like Windows applications it might be easier to outsource, but web based applications it was a managment nightmare and ended up just not working.
I will not go into the differences of culture and work ethic or the irritations due to time zone differences.
As far as solid Java support, FreeBSD does support Java, as reported in this Slashdot article.
In my experience, Java on BSD doesn't scale. It core dumps often under load and performance isn't that great compared to linux (especially with IBM JVM). Linux api layer is not a smart thing to use on a production box imho... especially when my sleeping habits are at risk.
I haven't seen any real influence from the Stalin er *cough* Stallman side to negate the good experiences with the software. Most of my debian boxes are headless and on a high speed connection. Their package manager is a dream. (yes, I personally like it better than the bsd ports system.. and after figuring out the horid dselect tool find it strangely simple).
I agree though, for all the stalman might do for the world... he is enough to make me want to disassociate myself with the linux community as a whole.
Anyway, I am glad that bsd works well for ya.. I have used it in the past and never really had any problems with it other than lack of java support. I do enjoy hacking around on my wifes g4 w/OSX and will probably put osx on a ibook we have sitting on the shelf seldom used.
I basically went through the same crap to get it working for my firewall. Recompiling kernel on freebsd was not any easier. If you use what works without having to mess with it.. it will be fine. One thing, if you like BSD you might want to try Debian. It's a bit older but everything seems to always work. I use it at work and we have finally standardized all our servers to debian in our server farm (14 machines). Anyway, freebsd is ok.. but I believe that the it being a better server than a linux machine is a myth. The reality is it's probably a little less tempting to mess with so it doesn't have to many problems generally.
Without solid java support FreeBSD is unfortunately disqualified as even an option for me.
You should try winXP. Since you have finally graduated from the "my life is my computer" stage. You would most probably appreciate its stability and features. Really, I used to dualboot linux and NT/2k for 4 years. I got XP Pro(for free) and didn't think I would like or even need it. But after using it for a month now, I can say it has NEVER crashed and is now my only desktop OS.
Yup, I agree 100%. I have been fighting my machines for a long time now, dual booting, trying to get different things to work.. unstable this or that after installing this program or that program.. bleah.
I finally went out and bought windows xp home and put it over my win2k/linux partitions and love it. I have an older machine (p130) I use as my home network server and my wife happily uses her g4 w/osx which gives me another full time unix server to play with when necessary.
After discovering Cygwin I have been able to do most of my work related tasks without having to even ssh into my server. I can write scripts and manage my source code (java programmer, yippee) w/CVS and not wack out my code w/CR+LF wack and play all the games I want. None of the new games seem to have a problem and I have normal hardware (tnt graphics card + cheezy integrated sound) that seem to work fine too.
I am ripping dvd's as I type this and divx'ing them. I guess I am just tired of fighting w/my linux desktop. after the thrill of figuring it all out.. I discovered I really just want to play games , surf around and read email... JBuilder runs in anything and now with cygwin it lets me do most of my dev in xp. works for me.
Before you flame me, linux is about choice... to use it or not to use it.
Yup, I was thinking the same thing to myself not too long ago. I told myself when I bought my athlong 700 I wouldn't upgrade until things hit 1+ ghz. (I know, a while ago).. then , when that time came.. I decided to wait until things hit 2+ghz. hehehe... I finally broke down and bought a athlon 1800+ w/MB + Ram and upgraded my system.. but it wasn't anything crazy... and cost less than 500 dollars for top-notch upgrade.
Now, I probably won't do anything until the CPU speeds reach 4Ghz and when I do that it will be dual processor.
I guess what I would really like to see if a PDA that could double as a workstation via docking station:) Now let the new age of rat-racing begin!
QNX can be taken back as quickly as it was given. i would much rather give my mind share to something thats free speach than beer. And these days, the beer tap is running dry and could be taken back at any time. I still don't understand why QNX is giving away their os, is there business sense in it.. will it last?
The whole point I was trying to make is that when the ethernet and the hard drive are standard parts of the game, developers will use it.. but to say that no games support ethernet, so why get ethernet?
Sounds like a chicken and egg scenerio , nobody is going to develop it until ethernet is standard. Same with caching and hard drives, etc.
I am actually very excited at the prospect of being able to load up media onto a console and use it for playing media (such as mp3's, whatever) in the living room.
I would love to have a hard drive if that meant I could store lots of game save data without having to spend lots extra on solid state storage devices that just can't hack it.
Why would I not want to have caching of data on a hard drive rather than have to constantly hit the cd rom drive? Geez.. caching would be fantastic and most games would benifit from this.
Ethernet would be great for anyone that has a broadband connection. I would love to play GT3 with people on the internet. Would I want to play Halo on the internet with lots of people? hell yah.
geez man.. Maybe xbox doesn't fit your personal needs but your arguments are pretty pathetic.
I am very disapointed that the Sony MP3 players are protected. The player locks the MP3 on your machine so you can't use it until the music is checked back in to the computer from the player.
I had bought one, 1 day later I took it back to Dixons (Uk) and demanded a refund which they gave me, one of the sales clerks said that he had many people do the same thing.
The sad thing is, I bought it because I like Sony equipment. I have a Sony stereo, a VIAO laptop, etc. They have lost me as customer for any portable stereo electronics until I am sure that this won't happen again. Even their stupid memory sticks are now having the secure music as a feature.
I just bought a Intel Pocket Concert and love it. Sounds great, easy, sexy and no hassle. Didn't look as nice as Sony's, but at least intel isn't jerking me around as a customer.
Just from talking with the retailer I bought it from, it sounds like sony's mp3 player sales are not very exciting at all.
My friend who graduated from Harvard said that he wished he learned Java instead of Lisp so he could of learned something he would use in the world.
I know that you learn and take more than details of a language, but his point was not unfounded. Depends on what you go to school to learn and do. Maybe you should choose your school based on your goals in education. His happened to be one that didn't see a lot of value in learning lisp.
It's very easy to say that and I can understand your perspective, but you have one huge cost I think is usually grossly underestimated. the R&D. It costs a lot of money to get a printer built and out the door, market it.. write drivers for it and support it, etc.
The manufacturing of a circuit board is cake if you know exactly what and how you want it built, but doing true case-studies on user reactions alone to a prototype could cost a small fortune.
*lol* , you have to wonder how many people REALLY got it before reading your note
Re:Is it really. - FUD
on
Perl6 for Mortals
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Hmm.. I hear the same fud when people talk about using Python for simple , quick and dirty scripts, etc. Just because Python gives you the ability to create classes , as well as advanced OOP features for a scripting language, doesn't mean that you have to use it at all.
I have seen and written many useful python scripts that do nothing more than impliment one function and the rest is just run out of the main.
With Perl moving (IMHO) maybe it's worth putting a few Python books aside and giving perl another look. (I haven't touched it for 2-3 years since I started doing Java programming and discovered python).
But these features are only as complicated as you force them to be.
BTW, Java can be as fast, if not faster, than perl for many many tasks. It all depends on how you write the code. Bad code can be written in any language. But frankly I wouldn't write Perl code where I would use Java, as I don't do that with Python. Like trying to use Bash scripts where perl / python would be needed.
Hmm... IE6 doesn't seem to be as stable as IE 5.5. I have had things like font rendering problems and 'hangs' in the system. They have imbedded things like a media player directly into the browser and whenever that or MSN Messenger have problems, it's effecting the browser for some reason.
I am sure that they will work it out.. but IE6 is definately not their highest quality browser released IMHO (5.0 had problems until they fixed it up shortly after release)
Really? You actually use your ISP for your email?:) I use my company and another account where I host my online stuff. I don't think I have ever checked my ISP mail once for that matter (NTL).
Anyway, if you don't like your isp's email, you can find another one. If they all get bought up by Microsoft.. more will creep out of the woodworks to take care of people that despise such service. They will prosper if the demand is there.. if not, and it's so important.. choose not to get on the net or pay for a private email address somewhere.
I have an Dual CPU 800 (Intel).. the CPU's won't shut the system down if the heat gets to hot, but the motherboard will.
the case fan died on my box , and because I run dual-seti at night, the machine heated up and started beeping.. woke up me up, but found that the box shut itself off.. later discovered that the motherboard was sinking ship after 75deg celc. from either CPU.
as a contractor it's not bad in Europe, same in England as Germany. Compared to the US market right now it's high demand for tech workers as europe hasn't slumped as bad as US market has.
Only problem working as an expat in DE for someone large like Bertelsman or Semens, G&J, etc , you won't get far in the organization if your not German. In the end you will hit a wall where you can't climb higher, though not because of lack of skill or tallent.. you are in the right place as a contractor IMHO.
Don't forget they also close at 12:00pm on saturday and CANT be open on sunday by law.
Hehehe... Germany is a very nice place, but sorta challenged my day-to-day habbits I took for granted in the states, though after 9-10 months I got used to it and it didn't phase me.
The one you probably read about was the person found next to the Oracle. He was stabbed to death, but not dumped.
A interesting thing about that article I believe you found when talking to the police in regards to my co-workers assault, aparantly the guy that stabbed him to death stuffed the knife that he used up his own ass to hide it from the police.
Now get this...;-)
The guy that he had stabbed was HIV positive. Aparantly the cop said that he had infected himself with the knife he used to kill the guy with!!! (I have heard some strange shit in my life, but that has to top it...)
I am not even living in Reading center (closer to Theal, or however it's spelled), thats probably why I haven't been burgled.. we are actually going to move our office to London and I am going to try and find somewhere a bit safer to live in the process.
.. I was not used to the CCTV cameras and found them quite disturbing.
For about the first 5 months living here, I thought that they might give me some sense of security. They did, until my Brother was beat up in the street.. the cameras didn't help him, and he spent 1 night in the hospital.
2 months later, a work mate was robbed , while he was in his house. Cameras didn't help him.
2 1/2 months after that another work mate was robbed. Cameras didn't help (out of his house).
(I am not making this up).. about 2 weeks after the last robbing, my friend was drug out of his car (about 1 block from the office I work) and had the shit kicked out of him for not yielding to another driver. The damn cameras (which where on that street) didn't pick up anything useful that the police could use to find the person that did it. (on that note, I waited with my friend for over 1 hour for the police to even arive to the scene).
Thus far I am the only person in our very small company that hasn't been either asulted or burgled, and Reading England (Uk) has cameras everywhere. Though, about 9 months ago, a CORPSE was found across the street in the garden from my house in near a building of flats. THERE WAS A CAMERA 150 FEET FROM WHERE THEY FOUND THE CORPSE, no-body was ever cought. (Though, they feel that the person was killed and dumped off, he had been out of prison for only 6 days).
My guess is that anyone that would be watching the cameras are too busy trying to look down someones shirt or sleeping on the job.
What I feel we need here in our town is not more cameras, they haven't done a bloody damn thing. More cops on the street would help, and make the ones that are out there a bit happier about their jobs. Criminals here seem to operate without any regard for getting cought. Maybe if the police had guns and the society here wasn't centric to drinking oneself sick before 11:00pm (when the pubs close) things wouldn't be so bad..
Living here though makes me think twice about gun-laws, never had ANYTHING like this happen to me living in the western united states, but maybe I was in a closet..
Slashdot Mirror
I still believe the entrepunurial American programmer can be successfull as long as they come up with original and inovative services or products. But as far as being a gun for hire... that market might be gone.
Your exactly right, if you can find something that will fill an exact niche and do it well, you will make some money. Build a framework for filling orders for refills on gumball machines. Someone out there needs it, and will pay for it.. because your the only person that has it and they don't have the resouces to manage an outsourced team. Etc. etc.
Maybe there is just no room for lazy overpaid contract programmers, but good ones will always find a job.
Just like Dilberts company had their secret Albonians, our company had Romanians.
Our company did it for two years, and for a good reason we don't do it anymore. Not that there is no good work that comes out of it.. it was just a nightmare to manage. Our software is not one that can just be packaged and shipped, but was an ASP (Java) that requires constant work and modifications for new customers.
I suppose with something like Windows applications it might be easier to outsource, but web based applications it was a managment nightmare and ended up just not working.
I will not go into the differences of culture and work ethic or the irritations due to time zone differences.
As far as solid Java support, FreeBSD does support Java, as reported in this Slashdot article.
In my experience, Java on BSD doesn't scale. It core dumps often under load and performance isn't that great compared to linux (especially with IBM JVM). Linux api layer is not a smart thing to use on a production box imho... especially when my sleeping habits are at risk.
I haven't seen any real influence from the Stalin er *cough* Stallman side to negate the good experiences with the software. Most of my debian boxes are headless and on a high speed connection. Their package manager is a dream. (yes, I personally like it better than the bsd ports system.. and after figuring out the horid dselect tool find it strangely simple).
I agree though, for all the stalman might do for the world... he is enough to make me want to disassociate myself with the linux community as a whole.
Anyway, I am glad that bsd works well for ya.. I have used it in the past and never really had any problems with it other than lack of java support. I do enjoy hacking around on my wifes g4 w/OSX and will probably put osx on a ibook we have sitting on the shelf seldom used.
Cheers... happy new year.
I basically went through the same crap to get it working for my firewall. Recompiling kernel on freebsd was not any easier. If you use what works without having to mess with it.. it will be fine. One thing, if you like BSD you might want to try Debian. It's a bit older but everything seems to always work. I use it at work and we have finally standardized all our servers to debian in our server farm (14 machines). Anyway, freebsd is ok.. but I believe that the it being a better server than a linux machine is a myth. The reality is it's probably a little less tempting to mess with so it doesn't have to many problems generally.
Without solid java support FreeBSD is unfortunately disqualified as even an option for me.
You should try winXP. Since you have finally graduated from the "my life is my computer" stage. You would most probably appreciate its stability and features. Really, I used to dualboot linux and NT/2k for 4 years. I got XP Pro(for free) and didn't think I would like or even need it. But after using it for a month now, I can say it has NEVER crashed and is now my only desktop OS.
Yup, I agree 100%. I have been fighting my machines for a long time now, dual booting, trying to get different things to work.. unstable this or that after installing this program or that program.. bleah.
I finally went out and bought windows xp home and put it over my win2k/linux partitions and love it. I have an older machine (p130) I use as my home network server and my wife happily uses her g4 w/osx which gives me another full time unix server to play with when necessary.
After discovering Cygwin I have been able to do most of my work related tasks without having to even ssh into my server. I can write scripts and manage my source code (java programmer, yippee) w/CVS and not wack out my code w/CR+LF wack and play all the games I want. None of the new games seem to have a problem and I have normal hardware (tnt graphics card + cheezy integrated sound) that seem to work fine too.
I am ripping dvd's as I type this and divx'ing them. I guess I am just tired of fighting w/my linux desktop. after the thrill of figuring it all out.. I discovered I really just want to play games , surf around and read email... JBuilder runs in anything and now with cygwin it lets me do most of my dev in xp. works for me.
Before you flame me, linux is about choice... to use it or not to use it.
Yup, I was thinking the same thing to myself not too long ago. I told myself when I bought my athlong 700 I wouldn't upgrade until things hit 1+ ghz. (I know, a while ago).. then , when that time came.. I decided to wait until things hit 2+ghz. hehehe... I finally broke down and bought a athlon 1800+ w/MB + Ram and upgraded my system.. but it wasn't anything crazy... and cost less than 500 dollars for top-notch upgrade.
:) Now let the new age of rat-racing begin!
Now, I probably won't do anything until the CPU speeds reach 4Ghz and when I do that it will be dual processor.
I guess what I would really like to see if a PDA that could double as a workstation via docking station
Whatever, don't be a mindless sheep.
The guys has his opinion, if it doesn't match yours don't scream foul.
QNX can be taken back as quickly as it was given. i would much rather give my mind share to something thats free speach than beer. And these days, the beer tap is running dry and could be taken back at any time. I still don't understand why QNX is giving away their os, is there business sense in it.. will it last?
The whole point I was trying to make is that when the ethernet and the hard drive are standard parts of the game, developers will use it.. but to say that no games support ethernet, so why get ethernet?
Sounds like a chicken and egg scenerio , nobody is going to develop it until ethernet is standard. Same with caching and hard drives, etc.
I am actually very excited at the prospect of being able to load up media onto a console and use it for playing media (such as mp3's, whatever) in the living room.
Cheers
Wow, those are some future thinking statements.
I would love to have a hard drive if that meant I could store lots of game save data without having to spend lots extra on solid state storage devices that just can't hack it.
Why would I not want to have caching of data on a hard drive rather than have to constantly hit the cd rom drive? Geez.. caching would be fantastic and most games would benifit from this.
Ethernet would be great for anyone that has a broadband connection. I would love to play GT3 with people on the internet. Would I want to play Halo on the internet with lots of people? hell yah.
geez man.. Maybe xbox doesn't fit your personal needs but your arguments are pretty pathetic.
Hehe,
I am very disapointed that the Sony MP3 players are protected. The player locks the MP3 on your machine so you can't use it until the music is checked back in to the computer from the player.
I had bought one, 1 day later I took it back to Dixons (Uk) and demanded a refund which they gave me, one of the sales clerks said that he had many people do the same thing.
The sad thing is, I bought it because I like Sony equipment. I have a Sony stereo, a VIAO laptop, etc. They have lost me as customer for any portable stereo electronics until I am sure that this won't happen again. Even their stupid memory sticks are now having the secure music as a feature.
I just bought a Intel Pocket Concert and love it. Sounds great, easy, sexy and no hassle. Didn't look as nice as Sony's, but at least intel isn't jerking me around as a customer.
Just from talking with the retailer I bought it from, it sounds like sony's mp3 player sales are not very exciting at all.
Hehe,
My friend who graduated from Harvard said that he wished he learned Java instead of Lisp so he could of learned something he would use in the world.
I know that you learn and take more than details of a language, but his point was not unfounded. Depends on what you go to school to learn and do. Maybe you should choose your school based on your goals in education. His happened to be one that didn't see a lot of value in learning lisp.
Oh well.
HEhehe, then our race is the VHS of the animal kingdom. :)
It's very easy to say that and I can understand your perspective, but you have one huge cost I think is usually grossly underestimated. the R&D. It costs a lot of money to get a printer built and out the door, market it .. write drivers for it and support it, etc.
The manufacturing of a circuit board is cake if you know exactly what and how you want it built, but doing true case-studies on user reactions alone to a prototype could cost a small fortune.
*lol* , you have to wonder how many people REALLY got it before reading your note
Hmm.. I hear the same fud when people talk about using Python for simple , quick and dirty scripts, etc. Just because Python gives you the ability to create classes , as well as advanced OOP features for a scripting language, doesn't mean that you have to use it at all.
I have seen and written many useful python scripts that do nothing more than impliment one function and the rest is just run out of the main.
With Perl moving (IMHO) maybe it's worth putting a few Python books aside and giving perl another look. (I haven't touched it for 2-3 years since I started doing Java programming and discovered python).
But these features are only as complicated as you force them to be.
BTW, Java can be as fast, if not faster, than perl for many many tasks. It all depends on how you write the code. Bad code can be written in any language. But frankly I wouldn't write Perl code where I would use Java, as I don't do that with Python. Like trying to use Bash scripts where perl / python would be needed.
I ran the volano benchmark on my G4 466 and it ran 20% faster than the IBM JDK running on my Dual CPU PIII 800.
I have found java on OSX to be outstanding. I am a java programmer and use it for dev all day, though we deploy to linux boxes.
Hmm... IE6 doesn't seem to be as stable as IE 5.5. I have had things like font rendering problems and 'hangs' in the system. They have imbedded things like a media player directly into the browser and whenever that or MSN Messenger have problems, it's effecting the browser for some reason.
I am sure that they will work it out.. but IE6 is definately not their highest quality browser released IMHO (5.0 had problems until they fixed it up shortly after release)
Really? You actually use your ISP for your email?
Anyway, if you don't like your isp's email, you can find another one. If they all get bought up by Microsoft.. more will creep out of the woodworks to take care of people that despise such service. They will prosper if the demand is there.. if not, and it's so important.. choose not to get on the net or pay for a private email address somewhere.
God, like AOL is any less terrible.
Not too many deals that anybody was involved in was a real success.
I have an Dual CPU 800 (Intel).. the CPU's won't shut the system down if the heat gets to hot, but the motherboard will.
.. later discovered that the motherboard was sinking ship after 75deg celc. from either CPU.
the case fan died on my box , and because I run dual-seti at night, the machine heated up and started beeping.. woke up me up, but found that the box shut itself off
as a contractor it's not bad in Europe, same in England as Germany. Compared to the US market right now it's high demand for tech workers as europe hasn't slumped as bad as US market has.
Only problem working as an expat in DE for someone large like Bertelsman or Semens, G&J, etc , you won't get far in the organization if your not German. In the end you will hit a wall where you can't climb higher, though not because of lack of skill or tallent.. you are in the right place as a contractor IMHO.
Don't forget they also close at 12:00pm on saturday and CANT be open on sunday by law.
Hehehe... Germany is a very nice place, but sorta challenged my day-to-day habbits I took for granted in the states, though after 9-10 months I got used to it and it didn't phase me.
The one you probably read about was the person found next to the Oracle. He was stabbed to death, but not dumped.
;-)
A interesting thing about that article I believe you found when talking to the police in regards to my co-workers assault, aparantly the guy that stabbed him to death stuffed the knife that he used up his own ass to hide it from the police.
Now get this...
The guy that he had stabbed was HIV positive. Aparantly the cop said that he had infected himself with the knife he used to kill the guy with!!! (I have heard some strange shit in my life, but that has to top it...)
I am not even living in Reading center (closer to Theal, or however it's spelled), thats probably why I haven't been burgled.. we are actually going to move our office to London and I am going to try and find somewhere a bit safer to live in the process.
Cheers
.. I was not used to the CCTV cameras and found them quite disturbing.
For about the first 5 months living here, I thought that they might give me some sense of security. They did, until my Brother was beat up in the street.. the cameras didn't help him, and he spent 1 night in the hospital.
2 months later, a work mate was robbed , while he was in his house. Cameras didn't help him.
2 1/2 months after that another work mate was robbed. Cameras didn't help (out of his house).
(I am not making this up).. about 2 weeks after the last robbing, my friend was drug out of his car (about 1 block from the office I work) and had the shit kicked out of him for not yielding to another driver. The damn cameras (which where on that street) didn't pick up anything useful that the police could use to find the person that did it. (on that note, I waited with my friend for over 1 hour for the police to even arive to the scene).
Thus far I am the only person in our very small company that hasn't been either asulted or burgled, and Reading England (Uk) has cameras everywhere. Though, about 9 months ago, a CORPSE was found across the street in the garden from my house in near a building of flats. THERE WAS A CAMERA 150 FEET FROM WHERE THEY FOUND THE CORPSE, no-body was ever cought. (Though, they feel that the person was killed and dumped off, he had been out of prison for only 6 days).
My guess is that anyone that would be watching the cameras are too busy trying to look down someones shirt or sleeping on the job.
What I feel we need here in our town is not more cameras, they haven't done a bloody damn thing. More cops on the street would help, and make the ones that are out there a bit happier about their jobs. Criminals here seem to operate without any regard for getting cought. Maybe if the police had guns and the society here wasn't centric to drinking oneself sick before 11:00pm (when the pubs close) things wouldn't be so bad..
Living here though makes me think twice about gun-laws, never had ANYTHING like this happen to me living in the western united states, but maybe I was in a closet..
*sigh*