Yes, rahvin112, I read every word of the article.:-) It was very well-written if not for the fact that it was extremely misleading. The article DOES make it pretty clear that they want to imply that what they describe is the norm rather than the exception.
I don't doubt that there are places within Amazon where management sucks. I socialized quite a bit while I was there, and, like any large company, there are places with poor management practices (demanding long work hours and burning people out, etc).
But yes, if what the article claims is true did or does actually happen there, it would greatly surprise me. I do know that some of the claims are outright lies, though (paying for our desks? unreimbursed travel pay??), so I'm skeptical of the rest.
As a former employee, this article really changed my view of the NY Times. I guess I expected more from such a well-known, established news source. But, this lengthy "expose" was clearly written by two authors with an agenda, and to what end? Readership?
I loved my time at Amazon.com. Yes, it was challenging. My time there forced me to grow as an engineer when I knew I was at risk of stagnation. But, I worked very reasonable hours (~7am-4pm, by choice to avoid traffic) and only very rarely (once very few months on average, typically leading up to Black Friday before all our deployments were locked down) worked nights of weekends. I traveled twice for Amazon - and had no trouble expensing the flight, hotel, meals, and transportation to/from the airport. I never saw anyone cry at their desk. Everyone who worked there was very civil.
I left for opportunity more than anything - an opportunity to both advance my career and be closer to my family on the east coast.
But yeah, I really have to wonder why the NY Times is busting Amazon's balls. I feel like a dope for not being more suspicious of them before now.
You need IDE for large project. Regardless of the language used.
The OP is still correct about Java. "Non-trivial" is not the same as "large project." Small applications can be written in Python, Ruby, Perl, and C without an IDE, but writing a small application without an IDE is really difficult task in Java (and C# or basically any other.NET language, fwiw - Java's not alone) due to the strong dependence on boilerplate code.
Further, you do *not* need an IDE for large projects regardless of language. I've seen a number of large projects (tens of thousands of lines of code) written in C and Ruby where more than half of the developers did NOT use an IDE. In fact, for the C projects on which I've worked recently (last 10 years, including those with tens of thousands of lines of source), the primary code editing tools used by the developers were exclusively text editors like nano and vim - there is no IDE during development.
The reason it's sold together is because people want it like that. There is obviously a demand for bundled software (given how prevalent it is), and the reasons for that demand probably range from "I don't care what goes on my computer" to "I'd rather my computer cost $2 less to have it include what essentially amounts to adware."
Many mom-and-pop shops can build computers without it, but it costs more and people aren't willing to shell out for it, which is why there are many fewer mom-and-pop computer stores out there now.
The Heartland Institute skews the data by taking two points and ignoring all of the data in between, kind of like grabbing two zero points from sin(x) and claiming you're looking at a steady state function.
Playing devil's advocate: it's kinda like pointing out that the last 3 months have been the warmest on record in an attempt to convince people that there's a warming trend.
Single data points cannot be used to make an argument - on either side - even if you're actually right. Intellectual dishonesty on both sides of the debate has made global warming/climate change a toxic topic.
True capitalism at work, everything is for sale, even the laws.
When the laws are for sale, it's no longer capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist without the free market, and free market disappears when laws (backed by coercive force) are changed to discriminate against people and businesses.
Perhaps TriNet's definition of "tech hub" is along the lines of "places where TriNet has many tech companies as customers." I'd never heard of TriNet until I moved to Atlanta (from Seattle).
Having just moved from the Seattle area to the Atlanta area for work, I'll share my tax-related findings:
-Property tax rates are about the same in Seattle and Atlanta (living in Atlanta, bought a very similar condo at a very similar price to what I had in Seattle metro)
-Seattle has 9.5% sales tax on non-food purchases - Atlanta has 8% sales tax on non-food purchases and 4% sales tax on food purchases
-Seattle (through WA) has no income tax, and Atlanta (through GA) has 6% income tax on virtually all income (very quick progression to 6%)
I'd wager that the 1.5% sales tax difference between Seattle and Atlanta is roughly a wash given Atlanta taxes food, so any cost of living differences between Atlanta and Seattle must aggressively be made up for through things being cheaper here, since my over-all tax burden is significantly higher (through the income tax) in GA than it was in Seattle.
Also, Seattle really does rock - I'd love to move back there one day:-)
Can you imagine what would happen to the Earth if humans weren't here to ensure that nothing changes, ever, from exactly the way things are now (or whenever some system was initially measured)?
From reading some of these pieces, you might think that the Earth is an extremely fragile place where the slightest human touch (direct, or indirect) ruins ecosystems from their pristine states. Granted, humans do mess up quite a few ecosystems, but the Earth has been, and will continue to be, an ever-changing, destructive place for life.
Pieces like this stroke our enormous collective egos (everything Earth does differently is because of something WE did!), and a select few are able make their living from finding "problems," proposing solutions, then "solving" the problems.
In the particular case linked above, yes, the NSA required physical access to the device. However, the article noted that "a remote version of the exploit is also in the works."
I would be very hesitant about claiming that the NSA couldn't figure out how to root the phone - it likely was just the easiest way for this particular program.
Meanwhile, you can continue to install apps like those made by Silent Circle and pretend like you're having private conversations with people with phones that are apparently easy to complete own.
The current admin aggressively discourages whistle-blowers, so if Snowden wanted to inform the people for whom the US government supposedly works, he did the most logical thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, rahvin112, I read every word of the article. :-) It was very well-written if not for the fact that it was extremely misleading. The article DOES make it pretty clear that they want to imply that what they describe is the norm rather than the exception.
I don't doubt that there are places within Amazon where management sucks. I socialized quite a bit while I was there, and, like any large company, there are places with poor management practices (demanding long work hours and burning people out, etc).
But yes, if what the article claims is true did or does actually happen there, it would greatly surprise me. I do know that some of the claims are outright lies, though (paying for our desks? unreimbursed travel pay??), so I'm skeptical of the rest.
As a former employee, this article really changed my view of the NY Times. I guess I expected more from such a well-known, established news source. But, this lengthy "expose" was clearly written by two authors with an agenda, and to what end? Readership?
I loved my time at Amazon.com. Yes, it was challenging. My time there forced me to grow as an engineer when I knew I was at risk of stagnation. But, I worked very reasonable hours (~7am-4pm, by choice to avoid traffic) and only very rarely (once very few months on average, typically leading up to Black Friday before all our deployments were locked down) worked nights of weekends. I traveled twice for Amazon - and had no trouble expensing the flight, hotel, meals, and transportation to/from the airport. I never saw anyone cry at their desk. Everyone who worked there was very civil.
I left for opportunity more than anything - an opportunity to both advance my career and be closer to my family on the east coast.
But yeah, I really have to wonder why the NY Times is busting Amazon's balls. I feel like a dope for not being more suspicious of them before now.
Not surprising given we are all created in his image.
In Soviet Russia, God created US in HIS image!
You need IDE for large project. Regardless of the language used.
The OP is still correct about Java. "Non-trivial" is not the same as "large project." Small applications can be written in Python, Ruby, Perl, and C without an IDE, but writing a small application without an IDE is really difficult task in Java (and C# or basically any other .NET language, fwiw - Java's not alone) due to the strong dependence on boilerplate code.
Further, you do *not* need an IDE for large projects regardless of language. I've seen a number of large projects (tens of thousands of lines of code) written in C and Ruby where more than half of the developers did NOT use an IDE. In fact, for the C projects on which I've worked recently (last 10 years, including those with tens of thousands of lines of source), the primary code editing tools used by the developers were exclusively text editors like nano and vim - there is no IDE during development.
Interestingly, Truth ^ Justice ^ The American Way = 1. I'm not quite sure what that means, though...
Those are some of the worst pictures I have seen for ebay listings...
The reason it's sold together is because people want it like that. There is obviously a demand for bundled software (given how prevalent it is), and the reasons for that demand probably range from "I don't care what goes on my computer" to "I'd rather my computer cost $2 less to have it include what essentially amounts to adware."
Many mom-and-pop shops can build computers without it, but it costs more and people aren't willing to shell out for it, which is why there are many fewer mom-and-pop computer stores out there now.
Simple: don't purchase from vendors that do that. No coercion is necessary.
Big Spock
The Heartland Institute skews the data by taking two points and ignoring all of the data in between, kind of like grabbing two zero points from sin(x) and claiming you're looking at a steady state function.
Playing devil's advocate: it's kinda like pointing out that the last 3 months have been the warmest on record in an attempt to convince people that there's a warming trend.
Single data points cannot be used to make an argument - on either side - even if you're actually right. Intellectual dishonesty on both sides of the debate has made global warming/climate change a toxic topic.
True capitalism at work, everything is for sale, even the laws.
When the laws are for sale, it's no longer capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist without the free market, and free market disappears when laws (backed by coercive force) are changed to discriminate against people and businesses.
"...has helped several Davidson students score in the 96th percentile (or higher)"
If he had only 25 students, just by random chance I'd expect 1 of them to be in the 96th percentile.
That does seem like a serious oversight.
Perhaps TriNet's definition of "tech hub" is along the lines of "places where TriNet has many tech companies as customers." I'd never heard of TriNet until I moved to Atlanta (from Seattle).
I'd wager that the 1.5% sales tax difference between Seattle and Atlanta is roughly a wash given Atlanta taxes food, so any cost of living differences between Atlanta and Seattle must aggressively be made up for through things being cheaper here, since my over-all tax burden is significantly higher (through the income tax) in GA than it was in Seattle.
:-)
Also, Seattle really does rock - I'd love to move back there one day
Can you imagine what would happen to the Earth if humans weren't here to ensure that nothing changes, ever, from exactly the way things are now (or whenever some system was initially measured)?
From reading some of these pieces, you might think that the Earth is an extremely fragile place where the slightest human touch (direct, or indirect) ruins ecosystems from their pristine states. Granted, humans do mess up quite a few ecosystems, but the Earth has been, and will continue to be, an ever-changing, destructive place for life.
Pieces like this stroke our enormous collective egos (everything Earth does differently is because of something WE did!), and a select few are able make their living from finding "problems," proposing solutions, then "solving" the problems.
In the particular case linked above, yes, the NSA required physical access to the device. However, the article noted that "a remote version of the exploit is also in the works."
Regardless, there is ample attack area for someone determined to get into a phone (or your computer, or just about any connected device really), and the government pays big money to find exploits before they're publicly known to do just that.
I would be very hesitant about claiming that the NSA couldn't figure out how to root the phone - it likely was just the easiest way for this particular program.
Meanwhile, you can continue to install apps like those made by Silent Circle and pretend like you're having private conversations with people with phones that are apparently easy to complete own.
The current admin aggressively discourages whistle-blowers, so if Snowden wanted to inform the people for whom the US government supposedly works, he did the most logical thing.