There is a key difference between long time engineers and short termers that the article hardly touches on. Learning. What we get out of school is a way of thinking and the ability to learn. We also manage to get a handful of skills which may last us a few years. The key though is that we are constantly learning, expanding our skills and knowledge. When you are 30 and trying to justify a higher salary than a recent college grad, you need to have improved your skills in the newest technology to at least their level and gained much from your experiance.
What I'm seeing a lot of here is the assumption that because you've been laid off, your career is over. When you are laid off that sure sucks, but that doesn't mean your career is over.
That said, I'm not sure everyone who graduates with a CS or EE degree should spend the next 30 years of their life doing basic engineering. Your skills are needed in managing engineers and other things as well.
More to the point, there is not that much less NEED for programmers than there was 5 years ago. Look around, most of the software in existence has major flaws. More importantly most of the needed software is for specialized tasks. Be it for small business, retail, real estate agents, or in house software for a company. Most of these specialized areas are un or underdeveloped. Also, these niche markets are going to be extremely inefficient to attack from overseas for a number of reasons.
The most likely reasons for a short career have little to do with the changing world of making software. Burnout seems to be the most likely. Foolishly thinking working 60+ hours a week for 5 years would be healthy. It isn't and you should try to find other work when you're in that position. Lack of skills / unable to stay current also seems likely. That can probably be fixed with some studying though. Finally, I think many people are in this field who just shouldn't be. They entered for easy money and don't really enjoy programming. Lots of those people will abandon a career they don't like when times are challenging.
Keep in mind, we are in a down-turn and jobs are scarce. Things will likely turn around and many of those who shouldn't be in software will have changed careers. We, as a profession, will pull through fine.
True, you can over process and there is a lot to this. However, I am a believer that we will get better at the process of designing good software. Software is not magic pixy dust that weirdos produce using a dark art. At least it shouldn't be. It should be a well ENGINEERED product which is adaptable and relatively easy for a newcomer to understand. Patterns and OO, if used properly, promote this understanding. Good process encourages good design and IDEALLY gets us closer and closer to being able to adaquately predict when a software project will become complete. For those writing to checks to have software become complete, knowing when it will be done is the holy grail. For those of us writing code, not having to work obscene hours to meet unrealistic expectations that are the result of not knowing early would be awefully nice as well.
Where I will agree with is that training, documentation, version control and testing are absolutely critical. I see establishing good ways of doing these things as key process. Buzz words are just that, but they are largely just names for good ways of going about writing software. You need good people, but you need to have them working together and in a manageable way.
I researched this for a debate several years ago. I just want to assure that there are good sources out there. What I discovered is that many people try to point out some other country where laws are differant and point at their crime rates. More often than not, these comparisions are flawed. I'll leave discovering the flaws to you. I think that what you'll find is that it just isn't clear what effects stronger gun control would have on crime. There are certaintly situations where having guns in the community reduces crimes. However, few people would dare argue giving a gun to every convict as he leaves on parole. Stick with your research, it's often contradictory and very rarely simple. If someone argues that it is simple, take their arguement with a grain of salt.
Finally, Guns don't kill people, but they sure do make it easier.
Less trustworthy are the uninstallation instructions provided by the makers.
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We could use Mercury as the basis and grand-father Pluto in. Pluto doesn't really seem to deserve it, from what I've read. However, it now has social merits to being a planet even if the scientific merit is questionable.
No, this is further evidence that our solar system is made up of 8 planets and there are also a stack of Kuiper belt objects of various sizes. Pluto, just being a rather large and well known one.
I'm very much not sure about this, but I believe the Pope suggested that it might be a possibility. I do remember that Italian headlines exaggerated things a bit as they said, "Pope says we come from monkeys!" Gotta love 'em.
As someone else who was a non-believer before college, your words certaintly struck a cord with me. I also have been infuriated by Christians (and other religious folk) who believe that without faith, there can be no solid morals. I ask these people, if you lost your faith would you rape and murder for fun? I suspect not, because there are other moral guidelines to fall back upon. Anyway, thank you for a well written response.
The thing that really got me riled up though, is that he assumes that if you are taught and accept evolution in school, you can't be religious. Personally, I think we've got a 12 billion year old universe and evolved from monkeys. I also believe that this is because God is patient and brought us into existance in a slow, elegant way.
Anyway, I just wanted to say good job with your response and there are plenty of folks out here who feel the same thing. I'm curious about your feelings with regards to evolution though.
Never said they weren't. Just pointed out that you have your choice of some formats and sizes, which is better than only being able to use a tiny quicktime format.
There are other formats of trailers and more sizes to choose from at the main movie site. Real and WMA are provided in addition to quicktime. Be warned, the page is flash intensive.
Some of what you described may be fair. In many cases, severance pay is not legally mandated but done out of mutual respect and decency. At the point you intend to sue the company, I would think the proper thing to do would be to not accept the severance pay anyway. It just wouldn't seem right to use your severance package (well deserved perhaps but also something of a gentleman's arrangement / gift) to pay a lawyer so that you can sue the company.
I suspect that you do have some somewhat draconian things in there as well. Those probably cropped up when panicing lawyers and accountants got involved. Everyone who agrees not to sue reduces possible liability and increases the selling value or decreases the owners' personal devastation or might even be enough coverage to encourage more funding or more time from creditors.
By accepting a severance package, you are taking some money so that you are appeased and maybe don't totally hate the company. The company might lose a lot of that goodwill if they are jerks by adding many terms to the package, but it is likely their right to try to do so.
Finally, I would mention that despite signing away your rights, in many cases (at least here in litigatous [sp] America) one can often still sue. Many contracts conceed enough rights that the courts deem them illegal and irrelevant. But hey, there's your decision. Do you bow out gracefully, thank them for the check and harbor as little ill will as possible? Or do you refuse to be bought off and either storm off or come back with a legal team? Or, finally, do you want to take the money but feel so insulted by stupid conditions that you feel the need to ask a bunch of nerds about legal matters we don't understand?
Whatever, sorry you lost your job, good luck in your efforts to find a new one. Now
This seems like a step in the right direction to me. The industry needs to realize that technological solutions are not the way. They have instead a social problem. Glueing something shut communicates that it shouldn't be opened much more clearly than legalease and might be more effective. True, a dedicated person could still probably find a way around this solution, but seeing a label try something that is simple and sane is something of a relief.
Still, they might try and look at it as a problem with individuals who are flaunting agreements. It may well be within their abilities to create a special version for each reviewer and imbed some extra tones someplace within the tracks. Then, when mp3s are out, they just download them and check out which tones they are finding. Don't send that reviewer any more discs for a while. Anyway, I find their use of glue refreshing and need to get to work.
They worked so hard for the Linux version because many of the server admins wanted to run linux servers. Linux servers was definately going to be a requirement. The client was a logical progression.
Mercury is great. If you're java hackers, also take a look at httpunit and htmlunit. They aren't as quick and easy to use and tend not to have js support.
Brand new cards tend to be slowed a good deal by 1600x1200 with all the eye candy turned on in a new game. I think to run at that sort of resolution, you're really looking at being a generation or two of graphics cards (and probably CPUs) before something could really take advantage of it. You might be able to run an older game on it though.
I really don't think the advantage of these monitors is in gaming. I think you'll be much better gettting one of these monitors to do graphic arts or putting a whole shitload of code up on the screen at once.
Hopefully we'll see pure power overwhelm problems from OS 9 while newer games (UT2K3 for instance) will be built towards X not 9. I doubt Apple will get into the business of supporting other people's applications though.
Nothing against these guys whatsoever. Even seeing the post on slashdot, I probably wouldn't have associated them with anything like that if the post itself wasn't troll laden. So yes, I'm sure I've used their stuff and I mean no disrespect to them.
Slashdot Mirror
True. I think you have hit the nail on the head.
Have fun
That said, I'm not sure everyone who graduates with a CS or EE degree should spend the next 30 years of their life doing basic engineering. Your skills are needed in managing engineers and other things as well.
More to the point, there is not that much less NEED for programmers than there was 5 years ago. Look around, most of the software in existence has major flaws. More importantly most of the needed software is for specialized tasks. Be it for small business, retail, real estate agents, or in house software for a company. Most of these specialized areas are un or underdeveloped. Also, these niche markets are going to be extremely inefficient to attack from overseas for a number of reasons.
The most likely reasons for a short career have little to do with the changing world of making software. Burnout seems to be the most likely. Foolishly thinking working 60+ hours a week for 5 years would be healthy. It isn't and you should try to find other work when you're in that position. Lack of skills / unable to stay current also seems likely. That can probably be fixed with some studying though. Finally, I think many people are in this field who just shouldn't be. They entered for easy money and don't really enjoy programming. Lots of those people will abandon a career they don't like when times are challenging.
Keep in mind, we are in a down-turn and jobs are scarce. Things will likely turn around and many of those who shouldn't be in software will have changed careers. We, as a profession, will pull through fine.
Where I will agree with is that training, documentation, version control and testing are absolutely critical. I see establishing good ways of doing these things as key process. Buzz words are just that, but they are largely just names for good ways of going about writing software. You need good people, but you need to have them working together and in a manageable way.
Finally, Guns don't kill people, but they sure do make it easier.
You may have Solaris apps or need to test against a sparc. That or you just can't find a TiBook with ->4gigs- of RAM.
Damn, that's a fine a movie
Excactly how is offering a solution to companies and helping them implement it "no good"?
Cool, link toads. Do they eat the spiders that made the web?
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Follow the on screen instructions.
That or you can email them for help at support@permissionedmedia.com .
marketing@permissionedmedia.com
We could use Mercury as the basis and grand-father Pluto in. Pluto doesn't really seem to deserve it, from what I've read. However, it now has social merits to being a planet even if the scientific merit is questionable.
They've named asteriods, so it might stay named even though it won't be a 10th planet.
No, this is further evidence that our solar system is made up of 8 planets and there are also a stack of Kuiper belt objects of various sizes. Pluto, just being a rather large and well known one.
I'm very much not sure about this, but I believe the Pope suggested that it might be a possibility. I do remember that Italian headlines exaggerated things a bit as they said, "Pope says we come from monkeys!" Gotta love 'em.
The thing that really got me riled up though, is that he assumes that if you are taught and accept evolution in school, you can't be religious. Personally, I think we've got a 12 billion year old universe and evolved from monkeys. I also believe that this is because God is patient and brought us into existance in a slow, elegant way.
Anyway, I just wanted to say good job with your response and there are plenty of folks out here who feel the same thing. I'm curious about your feelings with regards to evolution though.
Never said they weren't. Just pointed out that you have your choice of some formats and sizes, which is better than only being able to use a tiny quicktime format.
There are other formats of trailers and more sizes to choose from at the main movie site. Real and WMA are provided in addition to quicktime. Be warned, the page is flash intensive.
I suspect that you do have some somewhat draconian things in there as well. Those probably cropped up when panicing lawyers and accountants got involved. Everyone who agrees not to sue reduces possible liability and increases the selling value or decreases the owners' personal devastation or might even be enough coverage to encourage more funding or more time from creditors.
By accepting a severance package, you are taking some money so that you are appeased and maybe don't totally hate the company. The company might lose a lot of that goodwill if they are jerks by adding many terms to the package, but it is likely their right to try to do so.
Finally, I would mention that despite signing away your rights, in many cases (at least here in litigatous [sp] America) one can often still sue. Many contracts conceed enough rights that the courts deem them illegal and irrelevant. But hey, there's your decision. Do you bow out gracefully, thank them for the check and harbor as little ill will as possible? Or do you refuse to be bought off and either storm off or come back with a legal team? Or, finally, do you want to take the money but feel so insulted by stupid conditions that you feel the need to ask a bunch of nerds about legal matters we don't understand?
Whatever, sorry you lost your job, good luck in your efforts to find a new one.
Now
Still, they might try and look at it as a problem with individuals who are flaunting agreements. It may well be within their abilities to create a special version for each reviewer and imbed some extra tones someplace within the tracks. Then, when mp3s are out, they just download them and check out which tones they are finding. Don't send that reviewer any more discs for a while. Anyway, I find their use of glue refreshing and need to get to work.
They worked so hard for the Linux version because many of the server admins wanted to run linux servers. Linux servers was definately going to be a requirement. The client was a logical progression.
Mercury is great. If you're java hackers, also take a look at httpunit and htmlunit. They aren't as quick and easy to use and tend not to have js support.
Brand new cards tend to be slowed a good deal by 1600x1200 with all the eye candy turned on in a new game. I think to run at that sort of resolution, you're really looking at being a generation or two of graphics cards (and probably CPUs) before something could really take advantage of it. You might be able to run an older game on it though.
I really don't think the advantage of these monitors is in gaming. I think you'll be much better gettting one of these monitors to do graphic arts or putting a whole shitload of code up on the screen at once.
Hopefully we'll see pure power overwhelm problems from OS 9 while newer games (UT2K3 for instance) will be built towards X not 9. I doubt Apple will get into the business of supporting other people's applications though.
Nothing against these guys whatsoever. Even seeing the post on slashdot, I probably wouldn't have associated them with anything like that if the post itself wasn't troll laden. So yes, I'm sure I've used their stuff and I mean no disrespect to them.