made technology startups mainstream news; focused public awareness and attention on the internet and what it can allow you to do. All of these are good things. It showed people what would work and what wouldn't. Sometimes in a stark and brutal fashion. I can't say it was an era that should have never happened, because sometime, somewhere, you need to make that leap of faith from merely thinking about a business to actually starting one. The new economy gave lots of budding entrepreneurs the chance to get their feet wet, chances that they may not have gotten before..Google came from the dotcom era, didn't it?
The best thing to come out of the whole "new economy" for me was the experience that I got.. Never jump into a project without a cold blooded analysis of risk vs reward, never go into a company because they "look" exciting; check the fundamental things out first. Feather your nest, because you never know if things could change for the worse tomorrow. In short, be conservative.
All the same, I wish I had graduated just a couple of years sooner (1997-1998) because regardless of competency or suitability, being called an "architect" fresh out of college gives you experience at that level that would otherwise take years to achieve.. Good times, good times.
It's indeed wonderful that niche markets and languages are served by open source software.. Regardless of the language that people choose to use, I would prefer to have the same interface to work with each time. I would prefer also, to not have to explain why the "close document" command is found in the "file menu", when those words may not necessarily be familiar or easy to find for a person whose native language is not English.
However, if the niche markets are small ones, it may make more sense for some speakers to adapt or learn to use the more common English variant. Interoperability is one reason why. The Rwandan effort in the article has 20 college students translating about 20k strings of text.
What happens when a new version is released? Will there be the same set of maintainers ? Will the next version be supported ? If you're used to the Rwandan (or Finnish or whichever language) version, and you don't have language support in the next version, what do you do ? Keep using the old version ? Look for alternatives ?
The second point to ponder for me is more an observation than anything else. Not being a native speaker of English myself, I was educated in another language. If I hadn't learnt English, then I would be forever dependent on translated texts to be able to use an application or read a fairly current technical journal or book. From an enduser perspective, it might be just be worth your while to get used to the English version as well, because the interface concepts (the File menu and so on) can be applied across many different applications, not just your localized OpenOffice.
I've tried Kingfisher beer. Light, not bad. Has to be better than Bud and Coors light *blech* Also something that might be called "Taj Mahal", but I am not sure.
For a real flameout though, try "Old Monk" whiskey (if that's what it is). Has a kick like a mule, and a little goes a very very long way:)
Because for the most part, hardware was expensive until a few years back, and so was the cost of accessing the internet. I can only speak for South Asia, though.. because I have quite a few friends and acquaintances there. My flatmate is from China, and from what I hear, it's much the same there as well.
In most cases, computers were prohibitively expensive (until recently, when Taiwanese manufacturers and the whole clone market got off the ground) and few could afford to have much time at computers, let alone own one. If a machine is not yours, and if you can only tinker with it on and off (and you're worried about breaking it and being denied access), and if you don't even have a good internet connection, your contribution to open source software is going to be slightly lacking.
But things are changing now, so I'd expect to see more projects soon. There is a learning curve associated with joining existing projects too.
I can just see the marketing people on the other side *cough* those convicted monopolists, remember them ? the guys who claim the GPL should be stamped out ? *cough* making hay with this.. ?
"Ooh, we don't manipulate you", they'll coo. "We just give you a product that you know and is easy to use". And heck, if that doesn't work, they'll just add a whopping discount on top of it to seal the bargain.
Maybe I'm just egotistic myself, but if I heard that I had been manipulated into something I wasn't sure about, and if I heard about it later on (with a "ha ha ha. owned!" comment, to boot), I'd be quite wary of the next thing that particular guy tried to foist on me.
Which brings me to the question.. does OSS really need marketshare like this ? It's just me, probably, but I'd prefer people make an informed choice rather than go "hey, why don't we use this because we don't want to be outdone/look foolish". If you can convince people to install it that easily, they'll just as easily be swayed by the next marketing gimmick, and which side (OSS or the other guys) have more marketing muscle ?
I might be able to answer that in real terms for outsourcing projects (instead of just relocating the jobs)
During the dotcom and shortly after, the going rate for Java developers was around $100-$120 per hour (Northern California). To undercut the competitors and local contractors, an Asian software company bid on (and received a contract) to supply Java programmers.
The billing was at $80 per hour. Out of that, the programmers on site received the following:
a. $40-$50 per diem fees (yes, that's right.. per DAY)
b. free fuel
c. a rented car
d. rented housing, situated reasonably close to their office
Each of the outsourced contracts typically ran for 8-12 months. Obviously, the programmers were also flown in and back home by the parent company. Now, you figure the margins:)
Disclaimer: this is just one case.. so YMMV
dream jobs and being subjective ..
on
Dream Jobs of 2004
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Naysayer that I am, I think a "dream job" is impossibly subjective.
Some people may be thought to have dream jobs because it pays well in general(professional sports stars). Some people because it is something you wish you were paid for (professional gamers or err.. movie critics, if you like). Some may have dream jobs because you wish you were doing that job (it's description, at any rate.. some people entertain fantasies about being a photographer for a magazine like Playboy:p). Some people may wish for cutting edge technology jobs.. Hey, when Marcelo Toscatti was interviewed, I remember a comment saying "he's 20 years old, kernel maintainer and married"..:)
So what is it that we like about these jobs ? The fact that the grass always looks greener on someone else's pasture ? or the fact that we wish we were doing something else ?:)
For me, the job I landed immediately after I graduated was my "dream job". Hey, I was paid to code. I loved writing code, I liked finding tricky solutions to problems, I just liked my job. The fact that they paid me (obscenely well by the standards of an undergraduate who had been paid nothing before for doing mostly the same thing) didn't even enter the equation. For about 6 months or so, I was one happy puppy. Churning out code, design specs..researching things I wanted to do, learning new stuff.
Then the rest of my life kicked in. You figure out the 12 hour days are ok, but you didn't want to stay in office and miss the rest of your life pass you by. A progamer interview I saw recently (ShowTime, a War3 player) said he plays almost continuously for 15 hours a day. I may like gaming, but I couldn't take that continously for too long. Even people with dream jobs need to find a balance somewhere. If a dream job demands all your energy, your time.. leaves you with no energy for anything else.. then it won't be your dream job forever.
A true dream job (definitely not something you can be paid for, so I wonder if you can call it a "job" anymore) would allow you balance. If you're earning a wage for it, then sooner or later, you will find yourself wishing for something else.
Yes, you may have a job. But you have to reconcile yourself to a lower quality of life in India. It may cost less to live there, but at the same time, there are a few things that are taken for granted in the West, which aren't as easy to get there. The standards for judging things are far different from life in the West.
PhD and MSc workers are relatively thick on the ground there, especially in Engineering disciplines. The way things are in India, a lot of people (yes, I have many indian friends) want to move out due to competition from their peers, and difficulty in finding jobs. With this in mind, it's easy to understand why one article openly states that a main reason for hiring Europeans is to "represent their interests" in the home country.
When you go work in India, you may save some cash, for sure.. but if you don't plan on living there for the rest of your life, when you come back to your own country, you will find that the savings don't necessarily translate to much in your local currency.
Does all this sound like I am against people moving to India ? not at all. Just that, as the title of my post suggests, I doubt we're ever going to see a vast inrush of Europeans/Americans working in India at low level positions. Indian companies may be savvy enough to snap up a few qualified and experienced personnel, but for the greater majority of those out of work, India isn't the answer. There is a reason why there are STILL so many Indian workers in Silicon Valley and other technology hubs.
Earlier posters have already pointed out that you need either a business plan or a product to get a company started (not to mention some source of funding).
Another type of company that I've contemplated starting is a specialist in an area. For example, any sort of networking project, or any sort of database administration work... Guns for hire, in other words. You go in, do a specialized install, get a maintenance contract, and you're done. Some system administrators may require training courses in specialized server software.. you handle those.
Basically, you have two ways to go. You can either be a product oriented company, and try to push as many of your product out into the marketplace, or you can be service oriented, and take it project by project. Each has a set of pros and cons..
Product oriented means you need deep pockets at the start, and a lot of faith. You may be coding without a client for ages, while you build a product that works. These companies are a lot more stable in rough times, once they get a few clients, but breaking even is a huge task, because they have so much invested in a product (which may sink in the marketplace).
Service or contract or even project oriented companies are easier to start up. Here, funding is less of a problem but you need solid contacts to give you projects at the start. Your margins are driven solely by how well you can deliver and close out the individual project.
In either case, you're looking at a lot more work than you would encounter being a wage slave. It takes a lot of different skills (you need to be savvy with business, have a head for numbers, worry about your presentation, and like Napoleon asked of his generals, "you need luck"). Once I sat down and figured out all this (and had friends tell me pieces), I realized that I might be able to handle the technical aspect, but definitely wouldn't have a clue handling a business. So, for now.. my plans are on hold.
Personally, I think people who start companies and have an entrepreneurial streak generally have a pretty good idea and aren't doing it just because they can't find a job..
Its very difficult to be objective and to find a "one size fits all" sort of resume guide. Even one that is written by Joel Spolsky.
Joel has some criteria that he considers more important than others.. Fine. He's doing the hiring, it is his perogative (sp?). The thing is, not all hiring managers are ticked off by the same things that Joel rants about.
I have seen resumes with a few (minor) spelling errors that wouldn't have been caught by spellcheck make it into a short list. I've also seen letter perfect ones rejected. Obviously, some managers scan through and look for work experience and qualifications. They don't notice (or care) about "having a space only AFTER the comma" (direct quote from his rant).
I also don't completely agree with his idea that "if you don't have the right qualifications, don't apply for the job". I've applied for a job asking for 4 years experience, but I only had 2 (or a bit less). I still got the job. It is a nitpick, but if you think you're close enough, it's worth giving it a shot. Obviously, asking for a DBA and getting a COBOL programmer applying isn't ideal, but some employers are flexible about years of experience and specific technologies.
Last, but not least, I don't have a domain of my own. I use my Yahoo address and check mail on it regularly. What's wrong with using a free email service anyway ?
Sorry, Mr. Spolsky. You have good points, but I wonder if your rant deserves the publicity that it is going to get with a frontpage Slashdot story. Apologies for the rant of my own:)
Thanks for pointing out the "About" tab:) yes, I noticed it. Now, maybe you can do some research and figure out how many of that laundry list of items is represented in the staff ? notice anything ? Not all the fields in there match the peoples' interests.
As for that comment about the cheer, you wouldn't be my supervisor by any chance, would you ?:)
Most, if not all of these guys seem to be from Overture. I read the resumes which are available, simply because I was interested in what their focus for research would be. Everyone who has a blurb seems to have joined from Yahoo's acquisition of Overture..
Makes me wonder, then. Was Overture such a force in the search arena ?
Interestingly, I also notice that some of their developers are just BSc guys.. W00t!:) Its not a PhD/MSc only thing like Google (ok, there are a few PhDs as "senior" scientists)
First and foremost, if I gave anyone the impression that I am disparaging the development work being done on Squid/NT, I apologize, such was not my intention in the slightest. I know that a good job is being done on it (because I occasionally evaluate it, I WANT choice in reverse proxies for Win32)
However, I still stand by my previous comments. Squid/NT is *not* as stable and not as scalable as the Unix based versions. Do I have documented statistics for this ? no, I do not. YMMV. I've run more than half a dozen reverse proxy deployments (2 of them were in the 200+ req/sec range) and this is what I've observed. I've met more than a few people who've told me that it is (hence my use of the term "myth", which it is).
Further, I prefer the flexibility that Squid offers.. If I had any choice in the matter, I definitely wouldnt push for ISA, but please stop spreading FUD of your own by implying it doesnt do its core job (of proxy and reverse proxy) as well as Squid. It gets the job done. I prefer not to hit against one of the published limitations of Squid/NT and find out ONLY after I put it into production.
Even if you have all of that money and more to burn on webservers, a reverse proxy is still a good option and sometimes a better way to spend your cash.
Back in the dot com era, I had to work with near offshelf commodity hardware for the most part. The only specialist servers I had were the webservers (and servlet containers) running (I didnt make the decision, so dont flame me:) IIS.
20-30 concurrent connections off Loadrunner, and the CPU on the webserver maxes out (mostly because of the servlet container, to be fair). So, while the highly paid CTO types were off ordering more Dell servers, I got together with the main network admin and put in 3 RedHat 7.0 Squid machines to reverse proxy. These were mere 500MHz Intel machines, with some extra RAM popped in.
Net result: they canned the orders for the servers, and just ordered a load balancer (FreeBSD based specialized device, which cost about $400, IIRC). The webservers now handled twice the load without even running hot. We stopped testing after 100 concurrent connections (because the site never got that kind of traffic anyway, it wasnt Slashdot)
My answer to the original question, if you *must* stick with Win32, then use ISA. That wasnt an option for me at the time, but subsequent gigs made me realize that ISA can get the job done. But if you have dedicated machines for reverse proxy, please DO use Squid (running on a Unix-ish OS, dont buy into the myth that the NT version runs as well, it doesnt), or use mod_proxy on Apache.
Heh, you can still find one of my log analyser tools and a sample config for Squid posted on the mailing list archives. Its ridiculously easy to setup.. just try it.
Yes, its great that people embed "remove-this" and so on into their email addresses at Slashdot and other places (like Usenet), for example to make it harder for bots to parse and detect valid email addresses..
But one wonders if tools cant easily be written to remove basic patterns of that sort... a simple substitute (or regex, whatever) would cleanse quite a few addresses, especially on UseNet..
Why is this worth it ? playing devils advocate, if I wanted to market ThinkGeek-like toys, Slashdot readership would be squarely in my "target market". A bit of effort cleansing addresses would pay off (because presumably, a fair portion of the populace reading Slashdot have more disposable income to spend on toys and geeky appliances ? ) and thus the spam would be more "directed" ?
Along those lines, how much longer before someone just hires a highschool kid to manually "collect" addresses ? (a few bucks an hour payment, say).. all the fancy email obfuscation tricks would fly out the window then..
It all depends on the payment model for spammers (which I never could understand anyway..). Paid per email sent (with incentive to forge or do shoddy cleansing), or paid per items bought ? If its per item, then there is a good incentive to cleanse, I'd think..
Everything beyond the TOC (which I loaded onto my browser) is slashdotted. The problem with the links to the different articles is that its not part of a tree hierarchy, I cant just say "wget all pages beyond point X", nor can I make a guess and do a regex download of all URLs with "search" in them, because some articles do not conform to that pattern.
A tarball for offline browsing would be nice ? didnt see it on the page, though. Save you a part of a slashdotting, Tim.. how about it ?:)
The situation in some Asian countries runs counter to this article, at least for the mass adoption of open source.
Piracy is rampant and the cost of a Windows installation is only around 50c American. Bandwidth is expensive, so downloading a Linux ISO is also prohibitively expensive, definitely more so than buying a pirate CD off the streets.
Linux distros are pre-pressed and available for sale. However, those distros are usually 3-5 disks (3 for Mandrake,5 for Suse). A Windows install, is the price of 2 disks at most. Everyone has "heard" of Windows, not many have heard of Linux. Therefore, you go with the software that you've heard of, rather than trying out new,esoteric OS and tools. That is why Linux is limited to some corporate servers and hobbyists only.
Which one is wider used ? Windows, of course. Will that change anytime soon ? Only when there is a crackdown on pirated software.
So, legalizing eliminates the black market ? is it not possible that thrill seeking kids will just buy it from any "legal" dealer who'd sell it "under the counter" ? and if you legalize, there'd be far more dealers, and far greater chance of finding a bad guy..
What about all the people who dont qualify for drugs but want them anyway ? wont the black market evolve to handle that demand ?
Legalization may be an answer, I dont know.. but its not going to fix anything. Even what you propose is a legal solution to what is ultimately a social problem.. If people dont buy drugs, if they're conditioned to reject it (the way tobacco is, in some quarters), then maybe the problem will lessen... but it took several decades for tobacco to move from acceptable to unacceptable.. it could take as long for drugs..
Freshnews.. I really like this news aggregator site, from there, I usually scan OReilly, Kuro5hin, Ars and a few other sites they feature for interesting articles and visit if the title seems interesting..
Trillian, Phoenix, Apache and a few more software sites for possible updates...
Webmail accounts
Yeah, that's about it.. Fortunately for my productivity, I cant find a good public news server, or I'd also be on Usenet for a large portion of the day:D
I personally prefer Tom's eTextReader myself, have read some fairly large texts on it (Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman empire, for example). you can set background colours, it actually renders the pages like a book (double columns).. YMMV, but I read a lot of texts off the screen and I havent found anything better.. This assumes that you're using Win32, of course.
Its been established that nature plays a lesser role than nurture in the personality of a human.. obviously, the same must apply to animals as well..
No matter even if you clone an Einstein, they're not going to pop out spouting theorems, it just doesnt work that way.. from a purely research oriented perspective, though, it might be interesting to have an Einstein clone, simply to see how he may use his innate talents along ANOTHER field of science (or maybe not even a science, he might have been a GREAT musician, for all we know)..
For any person, most things we do are not innate but rather taught.. Would Mozart have started composing from the age of 4 if he hadnt had parents who encouraged him ? I doubt it.. With a clone, the only thing you CAN get is the potential to achieve the same things as the "original" (I hate using that term, but whatever)..
So, finally, in typical Slashdot-style, let me ask.. Is this really news ? (yeah, it is, it probably helped correct a lot of peoples misconceptions about the cloning process, which is GREAT, but it should have been obvious from the start)
Just a suggestion, based on similar experience with bug tracking software and getting management approval..
Part of the problem might be that its open-source software, part of the problem might be that it (if you consider Bugzilla) written in Perl, a language that your managment may not be comfortable with..
I'd suggest you test the waters with Scarab, implemented using servlets.. that might go down better..since you obviously seem to develop using Java (based on the other open source tools you cited)
If you are sure the choice of language isnt the issue, I would HIGHLY recommend Mantis, a simple, VERY useful bug tracker written in PHP.. I use this myself, and its very small and fast to configure (only problem I have with it right now is that it can only use MySQL as a source database)..
Sometimes, the easiest way to get bug tracking software in a large org. is to install it and start using it personally (ie: for bugs related to modules that you develop).. People will gradually come to appreciate exactly how much easier it is on your system as opposed to the other thing, and there will be a creep towards an easier to use system that cant be ignored..
Sometimes, the persons in charge of decisions like this simply dont know how much easier bug tracking software can be than your present software, which is what holds them back:D
I disagree with your statement that "one benchmark of a machine's ability to think intelligently is to beat a grandmaster in chess".. Simply, chess can be reduced to a series of patterns and combinations that have very little to do with intelligence per se
If a simple database search through millions or billions of records which returns matches can be termed "intelligent", then the current set of chess playing computers are indeed intelligent.. But humans play chess differently, there is a lot more intuition, and far far less brute force techniques to evaluate a particular move..
As others have noted, the Deep Blue vs Kasparov match was tailormade by the programmers to defeat ONLY Kasparov.. his past games, his playing style were all analysed in depth and preprogrammed into the machine.. if you like, call it the difference between rote learning and knowledge.. What humans do with chess now is knowledge management, computers are STILL stuck in rote learning, and from what I know, its unlikely that computers will make the step forward into true knowledge management in the near future..
Don't get me wrong, I share your excitement at another chance to see a computer vs human chess match.. but I can't understand why ppl use this as an indication of the advances made to truly intelligent computers; when in reality, its nothing of the sort; just a combination of database technology, rule evaluation and faster processors..
The main thing: testing does absolutely nothing to minimize the number of defects in a particular application.. There are lots of other things that are as important.. ie: are these defect reports being seen by the appropriate developers and are they being acted on, what types of procedures and communication actually exists between the developer and the QA persons (assuming that they are not the same folk)..
The last point isn't as bizarre as it sounds, I've seen lots of places where a QA person enters bugs, but the developers silently reject them ("its not a bug, that's how the program works")
Testing just tries to discover the presence of defects, by itself, it cannot ensure that your product works perfectly (for an application of even moderate complexity, there may be an exponential number of cases and paths to check, most test cases are written for a percentage of those only).. Because of this, if you feel that you're spending too much time testing, perhaps you need to check if your test cases are appropriate to the situation and stage of development..
Another point is that tests can be automated to some degree or the other, perhaps a scriptable tool might assist in lowering some of the drudgery associated with actually assuring the quality of your software...
rant mode = on...Excessive testing ONLY hurts if it takes people away from development at the early or even middle stages of a project and forces them to run tests on incomplete sections of code.. otherwise, there is NO such thing as too many things...
Was I the only one who saw "Red Storm Rising" and thought it was about yet another movie adaption of a Tom Clancy novel ? (might be because I read a Sum of all Fears review recently)...
Slashdot Mirror
made technology startups mainstream news; focused public awareness and attention on the internet and what it can allow you to do. All of these are good things. It showed people what would work and what wouldn't. Sometimes in a stark and brutal fashion. I can't say it was an era that should have never happened, because sometime, somewhere, you need to make that leap of faith from merely thinking about a business to actually starting one. The new economy gave lots of budding entrepreneurs the chance to get their feet wet, chances that they may not have gotten before..Google came from the dotcom era, didn't it?
The best thing to come out of the whole "new economy" for me was the experience that I got.. Never jump into a project without a cold blooded analysis of risk vs reward, never go into a company because they "look" exciting; check the fundamental things out first. Feather your nest, because you never know if things could change for the worse tomorrow. In short, be conservative.
All the same, I wish I had graduated just a couple of years sooner (1997-1998) because regardless of competency or suitability, being called an "architect" fresh out of college gives you experience at that level that would otherwise take years to achieve.. Good times, good times.
It's indeed wonderful that niche markets and languages are served by open source software.. Regardless of the language that people choose to use, I would prefer to have the same interface to work with each time. I would prefer also, to not have to explain why the "close document" command is found in the "file menu", when those words may not necessarily be familiar or easy to find for a person whose native language is not English.
However, if the niche markets are small ones, it may make more sense for some speakers to adapt or learn to use the more common English variant. Interoperability is one reason why. The Rwandan effort in the article has 20 college students translating about 20k strings of text.
What happens when a new version is released? Will there be the same set of maintainers ? Will the next version be supported ? If you're used to the Rwandan (or Finnish or whichever language) version, and you don't have language support in the next version, what do you do ? Keep using the old version ? Look for alternatives ?
The second point to ponder for me is more an observation than anything else. Not being a native speaker of English myself, I was educated in another language. If I hadn't learnt English, then I would be forever dependent on translated texts to be able to use an application or read a fairly current technical journal or book. From an enduser perspective, it might be just be worth your while to get used to the English version as well, because the interface concepts (the File menu and so on) can be applied across many different applications, not just your localized OpenOffice.
I've tried Kingfisher beer. Light, not bad. Has to be better than Bud and Coors light *blech* Also something that might be called "Taj Mahal", but I am not sure.
For a real flameout though, try "Old Monk" whiskey (if that's what it is). Has a kick like a mule, and a little goes a very very long way :)
Because for the most part, hardware was expensive until a few years back, and so was the cost of accessing the internet. I can only speak for South Asia, though.. because I have quite a few friends and acquaintances there. My flatmate is from China, and from what I hear, it's much the same there as well.
In most cases, computers were prohibitively expensive (until recently, when Taiwanese manufacturers and the whole clone market got off the ground) and few could afford to have much time at computers, let alone own one. If a machine is not yours, and if you can only tinker with it on and off (and you're worried about breaking it and being denied access), and if you don't even have a good internet connection, your contribution to open source software is going to be slightly lacking.
But things are changing now, so I'd expect to see more projects soon. There is a learning curve associated with joining existing projects too.
I can just see the marketing people on the other side *cough* those convicted monopolists, remember them ? the guys who claim the GPL should be stamped out ? *cough* making hay with this.. ?
"Ooh, we don't manipulate you", they'll coo. "We just give you a product that you know and is easy to use". And heck, if that doesn't work, they'll just add a whopping discount on top of it to seal the bargain.
Maybe I'm just egotistic myself, but if I heard that I had been manipulated into something I wasn't sure about, and if I heard about it later on (with a "ha ha ha. owned!" comment, to boot), I'd be quite wary of the next thing that particular guy tried to foist on me.
Which brings me to the question.. does OSS really need marketshare like this ? It's just me, probably, but I'd prefer people make an informed choice rather than go "hey, why don't we use this because we don't want to be outdone/look foolish". If you can convince people to install it that easily, they'll just as easily be swayed by the next marketing gimmick, and which side (OSS or the other guys) have more marketing muscle ?
I might be able to answer that in real terms for outsourcing projects (instead of just relocating the jobs)
During the dotcom and shortly after, the going rate for Java developers was around $100-$120 per hour (Northern California). To undercut the competitors and local contractors, an Asian software company bid on (and received a contract) to supply Java programmers.
The billing was at $80 per hour. Out of that, the programmers on site received the following:
:)
a. $40-$50 per diem fees (yes, that's right.. per DAY)
b. free fuel
c. a rented car
d. rented housing, situated reasonably close to their office
Each of the outsourced contracts typically ran for 8-12 months. Obviously, the programmers were also flown in and back home by the parent company. Now, you figure the margins
Disclaimer: this is just one case.. so YMMV
Naysayer that I am, I think a "dream job" is impossibly subjective.
Some people may be thought to have dream jobs because it pays well in general(professional sports stars). Some people because it is something you wish you were paid for (professional gamers or err.. movie critics, if you like). Some may have dream jobs because you wish you were doing that job (it's description, at any rate.. some people entertain fantasies about being a photographer for a magazine like Playboy :p). Some people may wish for cutting edge technology jobs.. Hey, when Marcelo Toscatti was interviewed, I remember a comment saying "he's 20 years old, kernel maintainer and married".. :)
So what is it that we like about these jobs ? The fact that the grass always looks greener on someone else's pasture ? or the fact that we wish we were doing something else ? :)
For me, the job I landed immediately after I graduated was my "dream job". Hey, I was paid to code. I loved writing code, I liked finding tricky solutions to problems, I just liked my job. The fact that they paid me (obscenely well by the standards of an undergraduate who had been paid nothing before for doing mostly the same thing) didn't even enter the equation. For about 6 months or so, I was one happy puppy. Churning out code, design specs..researching things I wanted to do, learning new stuff.
Then the rest of my life kicked in. You figure out the 12 hour days are ok, but you didn't want to stay in office and miss the rest of your life pass you by. A progamer interview I saw recently (ShowTime, a War3 player) said he plays almost continuously for 15 hours a day. I may like gaming, but I couldn't take that continously for too long. Even people with dream jobs need to find a balance somewhere. If a dream job demands all your energy, your time.. leaves you with no energy for anything else.. then it won't be your dream job forever.
A true dream job (definitely not something you can be paid for, so I wonder if you can call it a "job" anymore) would allow you balance. If you're earning a wage for it, then sooner or later, you will find yourself wishing for something else.
My $0.02
Yes, you may have a job. But you have to reconcile yourself to a lower quality of life in India. It may cost less to live there, but at the same time, there are a few things that are taken for granted in the West, which aren't as easy to get there. The standards for judging things are far different from life in the West.
PhD and MSc workers are relatively thick on the ground there, especially in Engineering disciplines. The way things are in India, a lot of people (yes, I have many indian friends) want to move out due to competition from their peers, and difficulty in finding jobs. With this in mind, it's easy to understand why one article openly states that a main reason for hiring Europeans is to "represent their interests" in the home country.
When you go work in India, you may save some cash, for sure.. but if you don't plan on living there for the rest of your life, when you come back to your own country, you will find that the savings don't necessarily translate to much in your local currency.
Does all this sound like I am against people moving to India ? not at all. Just that, as the title of my post suggests, I doubt we're ever going to see a vast inrush of Europeans/Americans working in India at low level positions. Indian companies may be savvy enough to snap up a few qualified and experienced personnel, but for the greater majority of those out of work, India isn't the answer. There is a reason why there are STILL so many Indian workers in Silicon Valley and other technology hubs.
Earlier posters have already pointed out that you need either a business plan or a product to get a company started (not to mention some source of funding).
Another type of company that I've contemplated starting is a specialist in an area. For example, any sort of networking project, or any sort of database administration work... Guns for hire, in other words. You go in, do a specialized install, get a maintenance contract, and you're done. Some system administrators may require training courses in specialized server software.. you handle those.
Basically, you have two ways to go. You can either be a product oriented company, and try to push as many of your product out into the marketplace, or you can be service oriented, and take it project by project. Each has a set of pros and cons..
Product oriented means you need deep pockets at the start, and a lot of faith. You may be coding without a client for ages, while you build a product that works. These companies are a lot more stable in rough times, once they get a few clients, but breaking even is a huge task, because they have so much invested in a product (which may sink in the marketplace).
Service or contract or even project oriented companies are easier to start up. Here, funding is less of a problem but you need solid contacts to give you projects at the start. Your margins are driven solely by how well you can deliver and close out the individual project.
In either case, you're looking at a lot more work than you would encounter being a wage slave. It takes a lot of different skills (you need to be savvy with business, have a head for numbers, worry about your presentation, and like Napoleon asked of his generals, "you need luck"). Once I sat down and figured out all this (and had friends tell me pieces), I realized that I might be able to handle the technical aspect, but definitely wouldn't have a clue handling a business. So, for now.. my plans are on hold.
Personally, I think people who start companies and have an entrepreneurial streak generally have a pretty good idea and aren't doing it just because they can't find a job..
Its very difficult to be objective and to find a "one size fits all" sort of resume guide. Even one that is written by Joel Spolsky.
Joel has some criteria that he considers more important than others.. Fine. He's doing the hiring, it is his perogative (sp?). The thing is, not all hiring managers are ticked off by the same things that Joel rants about.
I have seen resumes with a few (minor) spelling errors that wouldn't have been caught by spellcheck make it into a short list. I've also seen letter perfect ones rejected. Obviously, some managers scan through and look for work experience and qualifications. They don't notice (or care) about "having a space only AFTER the comma" (direct quote from his rant).
I also don't completely agree with his idea that "if you don't have the right qualifications, don't apply for the job". I've applied for a job asking for 4 years experience, but I only had 2 (or a bit less). I still got the job. It is a nitpick, but if you think you're close enough, it's worth giving it a shot. Obviously, asking for a DBA and getting a COBOL programmer applying isn't ideal, but some employers are flexible about years of experience and specific technologies.
Last, but not least, I don't have a domain of my own. I use my Yahoo address and check mail on it regularly. What's wrong with using a free email service anyway ?
Sorry, Mr. Spolsky. You have good points, but I wonder if your rant deserves the publicity that it is going to get with a frontpage Slashdot story. Apologies for the rant of my own :)
Thanks for pointing out the "About" tab :) yes, I noticed it. Now, maybe you can do some research and figure out how many of that laundry list of items is represented in the staff ? notice anything ? Not all the fields in there match the peoples' interests.
As for that comment about the cheer, you wouldn't be my supervisor by any chance, would you ? :)
Most, if not all of these guys seem to be from Overture. I read the resumes which are available, simply because I was interested in what their focus for research would be. Everyone who has a blurb seems to have joined from Yahoo's acquisition of Overture..
Makes me wonder, then. Was Overture such a force in the search arena ?
Interestingly, I also notice that some of their developers are just BSc guys.. W00t!:) Its not a PhD/MSc only thing like Google (ok, there are a few PhDs as "senior" scientists)
First and foremost, if I gave anyone the impression that I am disparaging the development work being done on Squid/NT, I apologize, such was not my intention in the slightest. I know that a good job is being done on it (because I occasionally evaluate it, I WANT choice in reverse proxies for Win32)
However, I still stand by my previous comments. Squid/NT is *not* as stable and not as scalable as the Unix based versions. Do I have documented statistics for this ? no, I do not. YMMV. I've run more than half a dozen reverse proxy deployments (2 of them were in the 200+ req/sec range) and this is what I've observed. I've met more than a few people who've told me that it is (hence my use of the term "myth", which it is).
Further, I prefer the flexibility that Squid offers.. If I had any choice in the matter, I definitely wouldnt push for ISA, but please stop spreading FUD of your own by implying it doesnt do its core job (of proxy and reverse proxy) as well as Squid. It gets the job done. I prefer not to hit against one of the published limitations of Squid/NT and find out ONLY after I put it into production.
thanks for listening.
Even if you have all of that money and more to burn on webservers, a reverse proxy is still a good option and sometimes a better way to spend your cash.
Back in the dot com era, I had to work with near offshelf commodity hardware for the most part. The only specialist servers I had were the webservers (and servlet containers) running (I didnt make the decision, so dont flame me :) IIS.
20-30 concurrent connections off Loadrunner, and the CPU on the webserver maxes out (mostly because of the servlet container, to be fair). So, while the highly paid CTO types were off ordering more Dell servers, I got together with the main network admin and put in 3 RedHat 7.0 Squid machines to reverse proxy. These were mere 500MHz Intel machines, with some extra RAM popped in.
Net result: they canned the orders for the servers, and just ordered a load balancer (FreeBSD based specialized device, which cost about $400, IIRC). The webservers now handled twice the load without even running hot. We stopped testing after 100 concurrent connections (because the site never got that kind of traffic anyway, it wasnt Slashdot)
My answer to the original question, if you *must* stick with Win32, then use ISA. That wasnt an option for me at the time, but subsequent gigs made me realize that ISA can get the job done. But if you have dedicated machines for reverse proxy, please DO use Squid (running on a Unix-ish OS, dont buy into the myth that the NT version runs as well, it doesnt), or use mod_proxy on Apache.
Heh, you can still find one of my log analyser tools and a sample config for Squid posted on the mailing list archives. Its ridiculously easy to setup.. just try it.
Yes, its great that people embed "remove-this" and so on into their email addresses at Slashdot and other places (like Usenet), for example to make it harder for bots to parse and detect valid email addresses..
But one wonders if tools cant easily be written to remove basic patterns of that sort ... a simple substitute (or regex, whatever) would cleanse quite a few addresses, especially on UseNet..
Why is this worth it ? playing devils advocate, if I wanted to market ThinkGeek-like toys, Slashdot readership would be squarely in my "target market". A bit of effort cleansing addresses would pay off (because presumably, a fair portion of the populace reading Slashdot have more disposable income to spend on toys and geeky appliances ? ) and thus the spam would be more "directed" ?
Along those lines, how much longer before someone just hires a highschool kid to manually "collect" addresses ? (a few bucks an hour payment, say).. all the fancy email obfuscation tricks would fly out the window then..
It all depends on the payment model for spammers (which I never could understand anyway..). Paid per email sent (with incentive to forge or do shoddy cleansing), or paid per items bought ? If its per item, then there is a good incentive to cleanse, I'd think..
Everything beyond the TOC (which I loaded onto my browser) is slashdotted. The problem with the links to the different articles is that its not part of a tree hierarchy, I cant just say "wget all pages beyond point X", nor can I make a guess and do a regex download of all URLs with "search" in them, because some articles do not conform to that pattern.
A tarball for offline browsing would be nice ? didnt see it on the page, though. Save you a part of a slashdotting, Tim.. how about it ? :)
The situation in some Asian countries runs counter to this article, at least for the mass adoption of open source.
Piracy is rampant and the cost of a Windows installation is only around 50c American. Bandwidth is expensive, so downloading a Linux ISO is also prohibitively expensive, definitely more so than buying a pirate CD off the streets.
Linux distros are pre-pressed and available for sale. However, those distros are usually 3-5 disks (3 for Mandrake,5 for Suse). A Windows install, is the price of 2 disks at most. Everyone has "heard" of Windows, not many have heard of Linux. Therefore, you go with the software that you've heard of, rather than trying out new,esoteric OS and tools. That is why Linux is limited to some corporate servers and hobbyists only.
Which one is wider used ? Windows, of course. Will that change anytime soon ? Only when there is a crackdown on pirated software.
So, legalizing eliminates the black market ? is it not possible that thrill seeking kids will just buy it from any "legal" dealer who'd sell it "under the counter" ? and if you legalize, there'd be far more dealers, and far greater chance of finding a bad guy..
What about all the people who dont qualify for drugs but want them anyway ? wont the black market evolve to handle that demand ?
Legalization may be an answer, I dont know.. but its not going to fix anything. Even what you propose is a legal solution to what is ultimately a social problem.. If people dont buy drugs, if they're conditioned to reject it (the way tobacco is, in some quarters), then maybe the problem will lessen... but it took several decades for tobacco to move from acceptable to unacceptable.. it could take as long for drugs..
- Slashdot... Hardly a surprise here..
- Freshnews.. I really like this news aggregator site, from there, I usually scan OReilly, Kuro5hin, Ars and a few other sites they feature for interesting articles and visit if the title seems interesting..
- Use Perl.. Top 10 journals, mostly
- Google news.. This replaced visits to BBC, CNN and a few others
- Freshmeat.. and a few other shareware sites from time to time
- Joel on Software.. and a few more blogs, like Scripting
- Trillian, Phoenix, Apache and a few more software sites for possible updates...
- Webmail accounts
Yeah, that's about it.. Fortunately for my productivity, I cant find a good public news server, or I'd also be on Usenet for a large portion of the dayI personally prefer Tom's eTextReader myself, have read some fairly large texts on it (Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman empire, for example). you can set background colours, it actually renders the pages like a book (double columns).. YMMV, but I read a lot of texts off the screen and I havent found anything better.. This assumes that you're using Win32, of course.
For a Palm OS device, Weasel Reader rocks..
Its been established that nature plays a lesser role than nurture in the personality of a human.. obviously, the same must apply to animals as well..
No matter even if you clone an Einstein, they're not going to pop out spouting theorems, it just doesnt work that way.. from a purely research oriented perspective, though, it might be interesting to have an Einstein clone, simply to see how he may use his innate talents along ANOTHER field of science (or maybe not even a science, he might have been a GREAT musician, for all we know)..
For any person, most things we do are not innate but rather taught.. Would Mozart have started composing from the age of 4 if he hadnt had parents who encouraged him ? I doubt it.. With a clone, the only thing you CAN get is the potential to achieve the same things as the "original" (I hate using that term, but whatever)..
So, finally, in typical Slashdot-style, let me ask.. Is this really news ? (yeah, it is, it probably helped correct a lot of peoples misconceptions about the cloning process, which is GREAT, but it should have been obvious from the start)
Just a suggestion, based on similar experience with bug tracking software and getting management approval..
Part of the problem might be that its open-source software, part of the problem might be that it (if you consider Bugzilla) written in Perl, a language that your managment may not be comfortable with..
I'd suggest you test the waters with Scarab, implemented using servlets.. that might go down better..since you obviously seem to develop using Java (based on the other open source tools you cited)
If you are sure the choice of language isnt the issue, I would HIGHLY recommend Mantis, a simple, VERY useful bug tracker written in PHP.. I use this myself, and its very small and fast to configure (only problem I have with it right now is that it can only use MySQL as a source database)..
Sometimes, the easiest way to get bug tracking software in a large org. is to install it and start using it personally (ie: for bugs related to modules that you develop).. People will gradually come to appreciate exactly how much easier it is on your system as opposed to the other thing, and there will be a creep towards an easier to use system that cant be ignored..
Sometimes, the persons in charge of decisions like this simply dont know how much easier bug tracking software can be than your present software, which is what holds them back :D
Hope this helps and good luck
I disagree with your statement that "one benchmark of a machine's ability to think intelligently is to beat a grandmaster in chess".. Simply, chess can be reduced to a series of patterns and combinations that have very little to do with intelligence per se
If a simple database search through millions or billions of records which returns matches can be termed "intelligent", then the current set of chess playing computers are indeed intelligent.. But humans play chess differently, there is a lot more intuition, and far far less brute force techniques to evaluate a particular move..
As others have noted, the Deep Blue vs Kasparov match was tailormade by the programmers to defeat ONLY Kasparov.. his past games, his playing style were all analysed in depth and preprogrammed into the machine.. if you like, call it the difference between rote learning and knowledge.. What humans do with chess now is knowledge management, computers are STILL stuck in rote learning, and from what I know, its unlikely that computers will make the step forward into true knowledge management in the near future..
Don't get me wrong, I share your excitement at another chance to see a computer vs human chess match.. but I can't understand why ppl use this as an indication of the advances made to truly intelligent computers; when in reality, its nothing of the sort; just a combination of database technology, rule evaluation and faster processors..
The main thing: testing does absolutely nothing to minimize the number of defects in a particular application.. There are lots of other things that are as important.. ie: are these defect reports being seen by the appropriate developers and are they being acted on, what types of procedures and communication actually exists between the developer and the QA persons (assuming that they are not the same folk)..
The last point isn't as bizarre as it sounds, I've seen lots of places where a QA person enters bugs, but the developers silently reject them ("its not a bug, that's how the program works")
Testing just tries to discover the presence of defects, by itself, it cannot ensure that your product works perfectly (for an application of even moderate complexity, there may be an exponential number of cases and paths to check, most test cases are written for a percentage of those only).. Because of this, if you feel that you're spending too much time testing, perhaps you need to check if your test cases are appropriate to the situation and stage of development..
Another point is that tests can be automated to some degree or the other, perhaps a scriptable tool might assist in lowering some of the drudgery associated with actually assuring the quality of your software...
rant mode = on...Excessive testing ONLY hurts if it takes people away from development at the early or even middle stages of a project and forces them to run tests on incomplete sections of code.. otherwise, there is NO such thing as too many things...
Was I the only one who saw "Red Storm Rising" and thought it was about yet another movie adaption of a Tom Clancy novel ? (might be because I read a Sum of all Fears review recently)...
Hmmm, on second thoughts, maybe it IS just me..