In one of my previous companies we actually tracked engineer recomendations for new hires (i.e.: how well did a person you recommend to work at the company is actually doing after a period of time X), and after about 18 months I came up on top of the list after 98% of the people I recommended ended up being described as "outstanding".
If you care how I can tell the good ones from the bad ones, read on.
It all boils down to someone being proactive in learning things, entusiastic about the field he/she is going in, being able to communicate effectively, and basically have the capability to look at things in more than one way.
In my experience the best thing during interviews is to let them talk as much as they want, you will be surprised how much you can learn from them in just a few minutes. Encourage more conversation by asking short questions along the form of "can you explain that part a little bit more for me?".
Also, to avoid the "bullshit talker", once in a while interrupt them and ask them to described how exactly (in pseudo-code) they solved a specific problem.
It's also a great idea to ask them to draw visual diagrams that explains how things work. This tells you a lot about the way they solve problems.
If you have the time, place them in front of a computer and hand then a piece of pen and paper and tell them to write a made-up documentation for a fictitious project. This will tell you how well they communicate and how well they express their ideas.
During all this, it is up to you to figure out what makes this person special from the others. Is he great at explaining things? is she great at understanding what you mean and putting it down into a design on a piece of paper? Does he come up with novel ideas to solve problems?
That's basically it. I usually refrain (unless it is a basic requirement) from asking language-specific questions (C, Java, VB, etc), since usually a smart programmer can pick just about any other language in a few weeks, and besides, usually newcomers don't start from scrach programming, there's usually an installed based of development tools and written code which can bring him/her up to speed.
We've tested both Tomcat and Resin, and decided to go with Resin for several reasons.
First of all it is very stable and very fast. And secondly, it has a very comprehensive way to do clustering, fail-over, and distributed sessions management.
In just a couple of minutes you can set it up to cluster with several copies of Resin, each residing on a separate machine, on the same machine, or even in the same VM. You can even set up a Resin container to be a backup of another Resin container in the same machine, so you get both inter-machine and intra-machine failover.
You can also do distributed sessions in several ways (with TCP messages, database storage, etc), and you can even force a user session to stay within the same Resin container out of a clustered group.
As for Web Services, we heartly recommend GLUE from The Mind Electric. It's bar-none the absolute best (in terms of speed, stability, and easy of use) Web Services toolkit available for ANY platform. It puts Microsoft's.Net to shame, and it's way easier than offerings from IBM, Sun, Bea, Borland, or the Apache/Tomcat efforts. It's so easy to use that already you can make your *existing* applications be Web-Services compliant without re-writing or re-compiling them!!! You just tell GLUE which classes and methods will be exposed as Web Services and it automatically generates WSDL and starts listening for SOAP clients!!!
As for a database, try the latest non-beta version of mySQL. It supports row-level locking, full transactional support using innoDB, and it is fast (specially considering its price). (Note that postgress is also a good alternative).
Note that like many here, I also agree that Tomcat and JBoss are great solutions to your needs, so if your boss definitelly cannot be convinced otherwise, I think you'll be fine with Tomcat at least. I only advice you to design your applications in a way that they can cluster, so that you can increase performance easily by adding more Tomcat servers to the mix.
It's a matter of perceived value, since imagine what a non-techie would say when we pay 100 bucks for a piece of silicon, "it's just sand!!!".
However to us it is not just sand, it represents computation, a way to research, play games, and surf the Internet.
Similarly, although I agree with the poster about the stupidity of the diamond tradition, I also must accept the fact that women give it a high emotional (and sometimes "bragging" and "proudness") value. Just as some men derive fun from finding out about the wonders of the latest sand-based microprocessor, so do many women derive pleassure from talking with their relatives and friends about their engagement and their diamond. A diamond to women is a symbol, sometimes of love, sometimes of money and power.
Bottom line, reality is what we perceive it to be, and if women give diamond a big value, then that is under all circunstances what it is worth.
A Question for the DVD techies here: Why can't we record using the exact same method of recording used for commercial movies?
Is this a deliverate messure by the DVD patent holders? How do the movie studios record (or test) movies? Can we get one of those drives? how much do they cost and who makes them???
This is what I'd do: Create a program which must be continuously running on a close machine, and who's only output is a simple monitor. Make sure to encrypt all data with the strongest encryption you can use, then have a timer which more or less on the given date spits out the big secret on the monitor, repeating it over and over again so that people can use optical-character recognition technology to read its display. Note that you will need a damn good power suply source, rock-solid hardware, and reliable power source for the clock (in case the machine loses power and then wakes up), and extremmelly good (gold?) connections for the external monitor.
myArray.length, myVector.size(), myString.length()
on
10 Reasons We Need Java 3
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I love Java's simplicity, and wouldn't mind to keep it as it is (although I WOULD adopt the proposed changes for Java 3), but the following is what drives me nuts: Three COMPLETELLY different ways to get the length/size of things:
myArray.length
myVector.size()
myString.length()
It also drives me nuts having to convert all the time between the primitive data types and the Object data types (int/Integer, long/Long, etc).
Other than that, even with its current flaws I simply have to love Java (I guess is like being married to someone who is not perfect, but that you wouldn't change for anything in the world...)
Let's look at it from a legal point of view: Since portal sites like Yahoo are "in the open", i.e.: anyone can access them by simply typing their URL (or by clicking on a link of another sire), that would make them analogous to one walking past the street and seeing a sign for a business that says "Yahoo".
So, when the Indian ISPs block these sites asking for a payola, they are in essence placing their hands in front of people's eyes and chaining them to the sidewalk telling them "you cannot view that yahoo store or go in there", even though it is the citizen's right.
Now the question is, would this hold true in a court of law, and does India have a "freedom of expression" clause in its constitution to grant web surfers this right?
I found http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTrai ning/ a very invaluable tutorial site. It is written in big part by the actual Java developers, and explain almost anything you'd like to do with Java, going from the pretty basic to the most advanced.
Does anyone here know in what format those ads play? Does MPEG-2 support a transparent alpha channel? or do they use something else? What's used today in TV networkd?
One thing that deeply concerns me is that fact that unlike an Email address, a physical address, or a P.O.Box, one cannot simply change one's retina, fingerprint, or DNA (well, maybe in the future, but not for some time).
This means that once someone gets a hold of my biometric data, that there is nothing I can do but receive spam, sales calls, and god knows what else FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!
This obviously is not a good thing from whichever point of view one decides to look at it.
So what is my proposed solution: Everyone I give my biometric data to has the right to use it for a specific purpose I have to agree to (i.e.: track my working hours and let me in into the building) and NOTHING ELSE. A law has to be passed and heavy fines should be given to those that break this simple rule.
In other words, you use my data for ANYTHING and you have to prove that *I* gave you permission to use it for such specific purpose.
I've been getting CRC errors on both the full install and the net install, both at my work and home PCs (Win2000 and Win98). So, will this be fixed before mortal folks simply give up on the download and keep using IE???
CA's explain the universe antimatter and negative?
on
A New Kind of Science
·
· Score: 2
I was wondering: There are 256 rules in the basic CA case, however half of those are mirrors of the other (i.e.: the left side is equal to the right side) and half of each one of those are equivalent to the other half since in one case they're black and the other white while the shapes are the same.
So I was thinking, is this an insight into why we have negative and possitive charges (left and right mirror images) and antimatter (black-white equivalence)???
Scam warning on building the LCD monitor described
on
Homebrewed LCD Projectors
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Please note that the monitor suggested for the experiment (at this link), claims to have a resolution of "960(H) X RGB x 240 (V)=230400" which can be a bit misleading if you're not too tech-savy on these numbers.
Note that the horizontal resolution is NOT 960 pixels, but rather 320, since they're counting each RGB pixel as THREE pixels (very sneaky indeed).
So just be warned in case you thought this was the deal of the century.
When I mean "revolutionize" I don't mean in the special FX department. Star Wars was a new way of looking at movies, it brought an epic opera to the movies disguised as a science fiction flick.
The same was done with The Matrix. Just look at the countless copies afterwards of its visual imagery and dark characters. The same happened with Terminator, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Pulp Fiction etc. They all became classics, and I pretty much doubt TPM or AOTC will join that club.
It seems to me that even though it is highly possible that in the end all the hype will bring more money to the Star Wars franchise, that it was really the Matrix that stole the show with its grownbreaking effects and imaginative storyline the year The Phantom Menace was released.
Likewise it seems to me that the amazing camera angles effects, the easy-to-digest story, and nostalgic feeling from the comic has again stole the thunder from Attack of the Clones.
My conclussions on this is that even though Attack of the Clones as amazing special effects, there isn't really anything as revolutionary (in relative terms) to it, as compared to the original Star Wars. In other words, Lucas might indeed still have the force to make money, but the "grownbreaking" force I must say gone it is (as Yoda would have said).
I'm contemplating the following after reading the AMAZING article: If I'm a U.S. citizen, can I sue the government for not allowing me full access to the source code of the programs that handle all my data?
Like the letter sent back to Microsoft says: how will I know that the software being used to count votes or calculate my taxes is working as it should if I don't have full access to the system running it???
I figure that anyone who takes this matter to court, and ultimately to the supreme court has a good chance at winning the case, which could eventually force congress/senate to pass a bill mandating open-source software to be used for all govergment affairs.
Any lawyers here have any comments on this?
Side note: I have to admit that this letter sent from this peruvian guy to Microsoft is one of the most amazing and clear documents I have read this year. This should be published by the Free Software Foundation and send copies to all law makers in all countries of the world (for real).
I'm not too sure I agree with you on the odds of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe, but one good thing I can say about your opinion is that IF indeed we're so unique, that then more than ever we should all think about ways to extend self-awareness beings all over the universe. Who knows, maybe we're the first and only intelligent beings in this universe, so why not take on the responsibility to take such a beautiful thing and make it blosson all over the universe?
Could someone post a list of the patents IBM and Microsoft hold in regard to Web Services? I think it's time to find out what those patents are and start a new trully open and royalty-free standards race. Off the top of my head I can imagine (and bring to fruition within 6 months) several alternate ways to do what Web Services try to do today, and this time do it right (come on, WSDL is COMPLEX, and where are the standard security messures?). So, post here links to those patents, and let's teach the big guys a lesson.
I was thinking, if these satellite companies implement their smart cards using Java Cards (which are themselves dynamically reprogramable by nature), couldn't they deal better with these issues???
When something like this happens (i.e.: the code is broken), all the satellite operator has to do is send new code to the setup box which will write it on the card, then the code in the card is used to decode the incoming broadcast.
It's like assigning the card a new set of keys in a public-private cryptographic key.
HOWEVER, I think this will never be solved until satellite operators can do two-way communications with the setup boxes themselves. Who knows, maybe in the future satellite operators will require users to connect to the Internet at least once a month to update the software of the smart cards, thus giving them enough time for the new codes to be deployed far and wide. Heck, I'd actually have new codes daily!!!
For those into techno-religious wars, I used Java Cards as an example, as opposed to other types of smart cards, because Java gives a unified API and object-based execution environment for ALL cards regardless of their origin, which is exactly what's needed to help this situation out.
Assign to servers a sequential number, i.e. 100.mydomain.com, 101.mydomain.com, 102.mydomain.com, etc. Then, everytime you create a new server add then to a Palm Pilot database (you might want to write a custom app for this (hint to/. users!!!)). Then, when you want to find out where all your "Server Farm for App X" are, simple do a query for "App X" on your palm pilot and all the IDs pop up.
Advantages:
- No name collisions
- Practically infinite number of names
- Easy to locate server by any function type
- Easy to number servers on racket (100, 101, 102)
Let's be frank, any person with the most basic instint of what common sense is can tell that these stupid canadian levys are nothing more than the result of a corrupt government formed by polititians who are being paid by the record industry. And no, I'm not being sarchastic.
It's a shame as I always thought of Canada as a "decent" country. No more.
The ironic thing is that once the smuggling market for mp3 players and recordable media begins, the recording industry will be the first to call these actions "illegal". Shame shame shame. I'm canceling my summer Canadian vacations RIGHT NOW.
Slashdot Mirror
In one of my previous companies we actually tracked engineer recomendations for new hires (i.e.: how well did a person you recommend to work at the company is actually doing after a period of time X), and after about 18 months I came up on top of the list after 98% of the people I recommended ended up being described as "outstanding".
If you care how I can tell the good ones from the bad ones, read on.
It all boils down to someone being proactive in learning things, entusiastic about the field he/she is going in, being able to communicate effectively, and basically have the capability to look at things in more than one way.
In my experience the best thing during interviews is to let them talk as much as they want, you will be surprised how much you can learn from them in just a few minutes. Encourage more conversation by asking short questions along the form of "can you explain that part a little bit more for me?".
Also, to avoid the "bullshit talker", once in a while interrupt them and ask them to described how exactly (in pseudo-code) they solved a specific problem.
It's also a great idea to ask them to draw visual diagrams that explains how things work. This tells you a lot about the way they solve problems.
If you have the time, place them in front of a computer and hand then a piece of pen and paper and tell them to write a made-up documentation for a fictitious project. This will tell you how well they communicate and how well they express their ideas.
During all this, it is up to you to figure out what makes this person special from the others. Is he great at explaining things? is she great at understanding what you mean and putting it down into a design on a piece of paper? Does he come up with novel ideas to solve problems?
That's basically it. I usually refrain (unless it is a basic requirement) from asking language-specific questions (C, Java, VB, etc), since usually a smart programmer can pick just about any other language in a few weeks, and besides, usually newcomers don't start from scrach programming, there's usually an installed based of development tools and written code which can bring him/her up to speed.
Those are my 2cents of wisdom.
We've tested both Tomcat and Resin, and decided to go with Resin for several reasons.
.Net to shame, and it's way easier than offerings from IBM, Sun, Bea, Borland, or the Apache/Tomcat efforts. It's so easy to use that already you can make your *existing* applications be Web-Services compliant without re-writing or re-compiling them!!! You just tell GLUE which classes and methods will be exposed as Web Services and it automatically generates WSDL and starts listening for SOAP clients!!!
First of all it is very stable and very fast. And secondly, it has a very comprehensive way to do clustering, fail-over, and distributed sessions management.
In just a couple of minutes you can set it up to cluster with several copies of Resin, each residing on a separate machine, on the same machine, or even in the same VM. You can even set up a Resin container to be a backup of another Resin container in the same machine, so you get both inter-machine and intra-machine failover.
You can also do distributed sessions in several ways (with TCP messages, database storage, etc), and you can even force a user session to stay within the same Resin container out of a clustered group.
As for Web Services, we heartly recommend GLUE from The Mind Electric. It's bar-none the absolute best (in terms of speed, stability, and easy of use) Web Services toolkit available for ANY platform. It puts Microsoft's
As for a database, try the latest non-beta version of mySQL. It supports row-level locking, full transactional support using innoDB, and it is fast (specially considering its price). (Note that postgress is also a good alternative).
Note that like many here, I also agree that Tomcat and JBoss are great solutions to your needs, so if your boss definitelly cannot be convinced otherwise, I think you'll be fine with Tomcat at least. I only advice you to design your applications in a way that they can cluster, so that you can increase performance easily by adding more Tomcat servers to the mix.
It's a matter of perceived value, since imagine what a non-techie would say when we pay 100 bucks for a piece of silicon, "it's just sand!!!".
However to us it is not just sand, it represents computation, a way to research, play games, and surf the Internet.
Similarly, although I agree with the poster about the stupidity of the diamond tradition, I also must accept the fact that women give it a high emotional (and sometimes "bragging" and "proudness") value. Just as some men derive fun from finding out about the wonders of the latest sand-based microprocessor, so do many women derive pleassure from talking with their relatives and friends about their engagement and their diamond. A diamond to women is a symbol, sometimes of love, sometimes of money and power.
Bottom line, reality is what we perceive it to be, and if women give diamond a big value, then that is under all circunstances what it is worth.
A Question for the DVD techies here: Why can't we record using the exact same method of recording used for commercial movies?
Is this a deliverate messure by the DVD patent holders? How do the movie studios record (or test) movies? Can we get one of those drives? how much do they cost and who makes them???
This is what I'd do: Create a program which must be continuously running on a close machine, and who's only output is a simple monitor. Make sure to encrypt all data with the strongest encryption you can use, then have a timer which more or less on the given date spits out the big secret on the monitor, repeating it over and over again so that people can use optical-character recognition technology to read its display. Note that you will need a damn good power suply source, rock-solid hardware, and reliable power source for the clock (in case the machine loses power and then wakes up), and extremmelly good (gold?) connections for the external monitor.
Oh yeah, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In no particular order:
1. Tron
2. The Matrix
3. Star Wars (all)
4. Terminator 2
4. The Lord of the Rings (all)
5. Titanic
6. Bladerunner
I love Java's simplicity, and wouldn't mind to keep it as it is (although I WOULD adopt the proposed changes for Java 3), but the following is what drives me nuts: Three COMPLETELLY different ways to get the length/size of things:
myArray.length
myVector.size()
myString.length()
It also drives me nuts having to convert all the time between the primitive data types and the Object data types (int/Integer, long/Long, etc).
Other than that, even with its current flaws I simply have to love Java (I guess is like being married to someone who is not perfect, but that you wouldn't change for anything in the world...)
Let's look at it from a legal point of view: Since portal sites like Yahoo are "in the open", i.e.: anyone can access them by simply typing their URL (or by clicking on a link of another sire), that would make them analogous to one walking past the street and seeing a sign for a business that says "Yahoo".
So, when the Indian ISPs block these sites asking for a payola, they are in essence placing their hands in front of people's eyes and chaining them to the sidewalk telling them "you cannot view that yahoo store or go in there", even though it is the citizen's right.
Now the question is, would this hold true in a court of law, and does India have a "freedom of expression" clause in its constitution to grant web surfers this right?
I found http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTrai ning/ a very invaluable tutorial site. It is written in big part by the actual Java developers, and explain almost anything you'd like to do with Java, going from the pretty basic to the most advanced.
Gets 5 stars from me.
Does anyone here know in what format those ads play? Does MPEG-2 support a transparent alpha channel? or do they use something else? What's used today in TV networkd?
One thing that deeply concerns me is that fact that unlike an Email address, a physical address, or a P.O.Box, one cannot simply change one's retina, fingerprint, or DNA (well, maybe in the future, but not for some time).
This means that once someone gets a hold of my biometric data, that there is nothing I can do but receive spam, sales calls, and god knows what else FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!
This obviously is not a good thing from whichever point of view one decides to look at it.
So what is my proposed solution: Everyone I give my biometric data to has the right to use it for a specific purpose I have to agree to (i.e.: track my working hours and let me in into the building) and NOTHING ELSE. A law has to be passed and heavy fines should be given to those that break this simple rule.
In other words, you use my data for ANYTHING and you have to prove that *I* gave you permission to use it for such specific purpose.
I've been getting CRC errors on both the full install and the net install, both at my work and home PCs (Win2000 and Win98). So, will this be fixed before mortal folks simply give up on the download and keep using IE???
I was wondering: There are 256 rules in the basic CA case, however half of those are mirrors of the other (i.e.: the left side is equal to the right side) and half of each one of those are equivalent to the other half since in one case they're black and the other white while the shapes are the same.
So I was thinking, is this an insight into why we have negative and possitive charges (left and right mirror images) and antimatter (black-white equivalence)???
Please note that the monitor suggested for the experiment (at this link), claims to have a resolution of "960(H) X RGB x 240 (V)=230400" which can be a bit misleading if you're not too tech-savy on these numbers.
Note that the horizontal resolution is NOT 960 pixels, but rather 320, since they're counting each RGB pixel as THREE pixels (very sneaky indeed).
So just be warned in case you thought this was the deal of the century.
When I mean "revolutionize" I don't mean in the special FX department. Star Wars was a new way of looking at movies, it brought an epic opera to the movies disguised as a science fiction flick.
The same was done with The Matrix. Just look at the countless copies afterwards of its visual imagery and dark characters. The same happened with Terminator, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Pulp Fiction etc. They all became classics, and I pretty much doubt TPM or AOTC will join that club.
But can we sue the individual States at least?
It seems to me that even though it is highly possible that in the end all the hype will bring more money to the Star Wars franchise, that it was really the Matrix that stole the show with its grownbreaking effects and imaginative storyline the year The Phantom Menace was released.
Likewise it seems to me that the amazing camera angles effects, the easy-to-digest story, and nostalgic feeling from the comic has again stole the thunder from Attack of the Clones.
My conclussions on this is that even though Attack of the Clones as amazing special effects, there isn't really anything as revolutionary (in relative terms) to it, as compared to the original Star Wars. In other words, Lucas might indeed still have the force to make money, but the "grownbreaking" force I must say gone it is (as Yoda would have said).
I'm contemplating the following after reading the AMAZING article: If I'm a U.S. citizen, can I sue the government for not allowing me full access to the source code of the programs that handle all my data?
Like the letter sent back to Microsoft says: how will I know that the software being used to count votes or calculate my taxes is working as it should if I don't have full access to the system running it???
I figure that anyone who takes this matter to court, and ultimately to the supreme court has a good chance at winning the case, which could eventually force congress/senate to pass a bill mandating open-source software to be used for all govergment affairs.
Any lawyers here have any comments on this?
Side note: I have to admit that this letter sent from this peruvian guy to Microsoft is one of the most amazing and clear documents I have read this year. This should be published by the Free Software Foundation and send copies to all law makers in all countries of the world (for real).
I'm not too sure I agree with you on the odds of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe, but one good thing I can say about your opinion is that IF indeed we're so unique, that then more than ever we should all think about ways to extend self-awareness beings all over the universe. Who knows, maybe we're the first and only intelligent beings in this universe, so why not take on the responsibility to take such a beautiful thing and make it blosson all over the universe?
We'll FINALLY be able to run our cars off garbage like that DeLorean in Back to the Future...
Could someone post a list of the patents IBM and Microsoft hold in regard to Web Services? I think it's time to find out what those patents are and start a new trully open and royalty-free standards race. Off the top of my head I can imagine (and bring to fruition within 6 months) several alternate ways to do what Web Services try to do today, and this time do it right (come on, WSDL is COMPLEX, and where are the standard security messures?). So, post here links to those patents, and let's teach the big guys a lesson.
I was thinking, if these satellite companies implement their smart cards using Java Cards (which are themselves dynamically reprogramable by nature), couldn't they deal better with these issues???
When something like this happens (i.e.: the code is broken), all the satellite operator has to do is send new code to the setup box which will write it on the card, then the code in the card is used to decode the incoming broadcast.
It's like assigning the card a new set of keys in a public-private cryptographic key.
HOWEVER, I think this will never be solved until satellite operators can do two-way communications with the setup boxes themselves. Who knows, maybe in the future satellite operators will require users to connect to the Internet at least once a month to update the software of the smart cards, thus giving them enough time for the new codes to be deployed far and wide. Heck, I'd actually have new codes daily!!!
For those into techno-religious wars, I used Java Cards as an example, as opposed to other types of smart cards, because Java gives a unified API and object-based execution environment for ALL cards regardless of their origin, which is exactly what's needed to help this situation out.
Here's a simple and very one:
/. users!!!)). Then, when you want to find out where all your "Server Farm for App X" are, simple do a query for "App X" on your palm pilot and all the IDs pop up.
Assign to servers a sequential number, i.e. 100.mydomain.com, 101.mydomain.com, 102.mydomain.com, etc. Then, everytime you create a new server add then to a Palm Pilot database (you might want to write a custom app for this (hint to
Advantages:
- No name collisions
- Practically infinite number of names
- Easy to locate server by any function type
- Easy to number servers on racket (100, 101, 102)
- Easy to find out new names (just increment!)
- Definitelly easy of use
Dissadvantages:
- Must have a PDA (which IT person doesn't?)
- Must have an app for this purpose on the PDA
- Must make sure to sync latest data to PDA
Let's be frank, any person with the most basic instint of what common sense is can tell that these stupid canadian levys are nothing more than the result of a corrupt government formed by polititians who are being paid by the record industry. And no, I'm not being sarchastic.
It's a shame as I always thought of Canada as a "decent" country. No more.
The ironic thing is that once the smuggling market for mp3 players and recordable media begins, the recording industry will be the first to call these actions "illegal". Shame shame shame. I'm canceling my summer Canadian vacations RIGHT NOW.