Nevermind the fact that you often have people (usally the smartie, in my experience) who think their way of typing, running the IDE, the keyboard, etc. is the ONLY way and that any lack of efficiency is terrible and you can develop a REALLY bad programming environment. I've been on the other end of that. A perfectly competent programmer with some amped-up developer behind me who can't stand the slight inefficiencies in the way I operate the computer (not talking about actual code, but I don't use keyboard shortcuts enough or multi-task quite well enough). That can be very stressful and... frankly... silly.
That's a good point. Slashdot should try to line Dean up for one of their famous interviews, in light of this. Then maybe we could see where he stood on geek issues like the GPL, patents, etc.
My theory after Revolutions was that the "real world" was also a Matrix construct and that the real world was fine. That the real history of the Matrix was that the machines and an upper echelon of humans reached an agreement in principleon subjugating the populace and so when they truly break free from the Matrix they'll find another layer where the skys were never "scorched".
As a fellow writer I recently retreated to an Alphasmart (http://www.alphasmart.com/). I'm much happier having the ability to JUST WRITE when that's all I want to do. No distractions.
No, I didn't think I'd get paid the same wages forever, but I didn't think I'd get 5 years of employment then back to poverty. There was a time in this country where you could make a living wage for 20, 30 years without fretting that you'd soon be thrust into poverty. That time is clearly gone and apparantly some of you think that's perfectly alright.
BS. Some steel workers got reabsorbed into other jobs, others got absorbed into perpetual unemployment, retail and lower-level manual labor jobs. The statistical income disparity in this country is proof that they didn't just shift to good, but different jobs. They shifted to worse, lower paying jobs, by and large. Same will go with IT. When we all work at Wal-Mart and Target what a great economy we'll have. But then, who will our customers be?
By the way, what industry should I be training myself for (after spending $30,000 on student loans to educate myself and working 13 hour days, basically to learn every new technology that came out for the last 6 years)? Do I need to become a biochemist now? Do I need to learn how to do nanotechnology at home? What is the cost of millions of people who already have high levels of personal debt going to be? Sounds to me like a recipe for a Depression. If you think living through a depression sounds fun then I guess you'll be in heaven pretty soon.
Actually, I just realized what I should begin training myself for. Selling apples on the street corner. That or male-prostitution. Whatever does better during the depression.
Great idea, sparky. The problem isn't that the terms of competition are unfair. The problem is that we're whiners. I vow today to begin competing. For starters, I will begin by declaring bankruptcy on my student loans, my cars and my mortgage. I will then move into a house made of bricks and dog-crap. When that is finished I will stop eating out, turn off all unnecessary services (who needs power when you live in a dog-crap and brick house?) and begin competing on a level playing field. Once a few million of us do this, won't this country be a grand place to live?
Yes, it would be a nice benefit if you could understand the question she was asking without having to reread it 4 times and include your own (sic) marks as you read it.
Many of us would like to see a return to gameplay over graphics. That's essentially the problem here. Games didn't cost as much to make when the focus was on gameplay and not on making the game as realistic as humanly possible. That's why some of us have flocked to the Gameboy Advance and dropped consoles altogether. Because we want to play fun games, not crappy games that look REALLY realistic. I know this will never happen, but how about a return to that type of gaming? Maybe a solution for some companies. There's definitely a market there. Now back to Advance Wars (which is infinitely more fun than any game I ever played on a modern console save GTA: Vice City).
Please don't take the fact that I'm on the same message board as this guy to mean that I'm "against us". I know with the Patriot act it's pretty easy to get labeled a terrorist, so I just want to cover my butt before the feds come busting down my door.
I thought Eugenia was bad. This guy makes her seems like John Dvorak. Ooh, wait. Not sure if that's good or bad. Anyway, what an insipid conclusion. "I've seen no evidence that desktop Linux distros are more secure than Windows." Yeah, great logic, Tweakhound. Lots of security advisories (I mean, geez, there's like hundreds of distros and hundreds of software packages so "Linux" has thousands and thousands of security advisories) doesn't mean the system is insecure. Generally these get fixed quickly and are harder to exploit or do damage with, in my experience. I guess, given that Tweakhound thinks that Windows XP is a great OS that Microsoft has ruined (doesn't Microsoft ALSO make the OS?) I don't know if getting the seal of approval from Tweakhound is such a great thing.
That's what my biggest wish is. If I could have anything in the world I would wish for the ability to work in a career (student loans prevent this currently) where I DIDN'T work with computers, so I would enjoy working with them when I got home.
You are so L33T. We wannabes wish we could be like you.
Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's
on
Computing's Lost Allure
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Totally. I did this for just under a decade. Work for 10+ hours, go home and learn some more. Read 1 giant computer book per month, reinstall constantly, tinker with OSes, try to learn every language I can. It almost drove me to early retirement. Balance is good. Having other hobbies is good. Pushing away from the computer is good. Being well rounded is good. Being a computer snob is just stupid.
The funny thing is, there are some of us who ARE English majors who know more than some computer geeks with CS degrees. Go figure. Funny how generalizations don't always work out. That's why I love these CS snobbery flameouts that happen periodically. Statements like the above show the foolishness of even worrying about the intents of others in the industry. If you enjoy the work/need the money what business is it of mine what you do? Seriously. Should it matter what your degree is in? Should it matter if you like to compile kernels in your free time? All that *should* matter is if you're good at what you do.
Shhh.... You'll disrupt the weekly "I'm a REAL hax0r" circle-jerk taking place currently. They (geeks who think they're better than other geeks) have to go through these rantings regularly. Kind of like vulcans have to go through Pon Farr. I'm a still-employed programmer with an English degree who loves computers, but doesn't spend as much time on them as I used to. I guess I don't "deserve" to be in the industry any longer by virtue of that pedigree.
My point, though, is that not everyone can do this. We can't be a nation of 300million+ project managers and CTOs. Someone has to do actual work here. There has to be (excuse the phrase) some Indians. We can't all be chiefs. So lots of people are going to be left with service jobs (or no jobs).
The question was where the software industry was headed. If the answer is "Hey, you can decide what projects get outsourced to India and what projects get outsourced to Pakistan", then you prove my point exactly. The software industry is heading out of America. You CAN move up the food chain, but the population gets thinner as you move up the chain. If you plan on sticking in software, prepare for the real possibility that you'll be gobbled up sooner rather than later.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod this up. I hate all the FreeBSD is dead stuff, but this is the funniest I've seen in a long time.
Nevermind the fact that you often have people (usally the smartie, in my experience) who think their way of typing, running the IDE, the keyboard, etc. is the ONLY way and that any lack of efficiency is terrible and you can develop a REALLY bad programming environment. I've been on the other end of that. A perfectly competent programmer with some amped-up developer behind me who can't stand the slight inefficiencies in the way I operate the computer (not talking about actual code, but I don't use keyboard shortcuts enough or multi-task quite well enough). That can be very stressful and... frankly... silly.
That's a good point. Slashdot should try to line Dean up for one of their famous interviews, in light of this. Then maybe we could see where he stood on geek issues like the GPL, patents, etc.
My theory after Revolutions was that the "real world" was also a Matrix construct and that the real world was fine. That the real history of the Matrix was that the machines and an upper echelon of humans reached an agreement in principleon subjugating the populace and so when they truly break free from the Matrix they'll find another layer where the skys were never "scorched".
Hear Hear! I love my Alphasmart.
As a fellow writer I recently retreated to an Alphasmart (http://www.alphasmart.com/). I'm much happier having the ability to JUST WRITE when that's all I want to do. No distractions.
No, I didn't think I'd get paid the same wages forever, but I didn't think I'd get 5 years of employment then back to poverty. There was a time in this country where you could make a living wage for 20, 30 years without fretting that you'd soon be thrust into poverty. That time is clearly gone and apparantly some of you think that's perfectly alright.
BS. Some steel workers got reabsorbed into other jobs, others got absorbed into perpetual unemployment, retail and lower-level manual labor jobs. The statistical income disparity in this country is proof that they didn't just shift to good, but different jobs. They shifted to worse, lower paying jobs, by and large. Same will go with IT. When we all work at Wal-Mart and Target what a great economy we'll have. But then, who will our customers be?
By the way, what industry should I be training myself for (after spending $30,000 on student loans to educate myself and working 13 hour days, basically to learn every new technology that came out for the last 6 years)? Do I need to become a biochemist now? Do I need to learn how to do nanotechnology at home? What is the cost of millions of people who already have high levels of personal debt going to be? Sounds to me like a recipe for a Depression. If you think living through a depression sounds fun then I guess you'll be in heaven pretty soon.
Actually, I just realized what I should begin training myself for. Selling apples on the street corner. That or male-prostitution. Whatever does better during the depression.
Great idea, sparky. The problem isn't that the terms of competition are unfair. The problem is that we're whiners. I vow today to begin competing. For starters, I will begin by declaring bankruptcy on my student loans, my cars and my mortgage. I will then move into a house made of bricks and dog-crap. When that is finished I will stop eating out, turn off all unnecessary services (who needs power when you live in a dog-crap and brick house?) and begin competing on a level playing field. Once a few million of us do this, won't this country be a grand place to live?
Yes, it would be a nice benefit if you could understand the question she was asking without having to reread it 4 times and include your own (sic) marks as you read it.
You need to simplify your life. Then you won't need a database file system.
Many of us would like to see a return to gameplay over graphics. That's essentially the problem here. Games didn't cost as much to make when the focus was on gameplay and not on making the game as realistic as humanly possible. That's why some of us have flocked to the Gameboy Advance and dropped consoles altogether. Because we want to play fun games, not crappy games that look REALLY realistic. I know this will never happen, but how about a return to that type of gaming? Maybe a solution for some companies. There's definitely a market there. Now back to Advance Wars (which is infinitely more fun than any game I ever played on a modern console save GTA: Vice City).
Can someone PLEASE come up with a sticker that has Calvin taking a leak on SCO pronto???!!!
Who's the silly, self-aggrandizing nitwit? I was making a joke.
Please don't take the fact that I'm on the same message board as this guy to mean that I'm "against us". I know with the Patriot act it's pretty easy to get labeled a terrorist, so I just want to cover my butt before the feds come busting down my door.
Thank you. God Bless America.
I thought Eugenia was bad. This guy makes her seems like John Dvorak. Ooh, wait. Not sure if that's good or bad. Anyway, what an insipid conclusion. "I've seen no evidence that desktop Linux distros are more secure than Windows." Yeah, great logic, Tweakhound. Lots of security advisories (I mean, geez, there's like hundreds of distros and hundreds of software packages so "Linux" has thousands and thousands of security advisories) doesn't mean the system is insecure. Generally these get fixed quickly and are harder to exploit or do damage with, in my experience. I guess, given that Tweakhound thinks that Windows XP is a great OS that Microsoft has ruined (doesn't Microsoft ALSO make the OS?) I don't know if getting the seal of approval from Tweakhound is such a great thing.
That's what my biggest wish is. If I could have anything in the world I would wish for the ability to work in a career (student loans prevent this currently) where I DIDN'T work with computers, so I would enjoy working with them when I got home.
You are so L33T. We wannabes wish we could be like you.
Totally. I did this for just under a decade. Work for 10+ hours, go home and learn some more. Read 1 giant computer book per month, reinstall constantly, tinker with OSes, try to learn every language I can. It almost drove me to early retirement. Balance is good. Having other hobbies is good. Pushing away from the computer is good. Being well rounded is good. Being a computer snob is just stupid.
The funny thing is, there are some of us who ARE English majors who know more than some computer geeks with CS degrees. Go figure. Funny how generalizations don't always work out. That's why I love these CS snobbery flameouts that happen periodically. Statements like the above show the foolishness of even worrying about the intents of others in the industry. If you enjoy the work/need the money what business is it of mine what you do? Seriously. Should it matter what your degree is in? Should it matter if you like to compile kernels in your free time? All that *should* matter is if you're good at what you do.
Shhh.... You'll disrupt the weekly "I'm a REAL hax0r" circle-jerk taking place currently. They (geeks who think they're better than other geeks) have to go through these rantings regularly. Kind of like vulcans have to go through Pon Farr. I'm a still-employed programmer with an English degree who loves computers, but doesn't spend as much time on them as I used to. I guess I don't "deserve" to be in the industry any longer by virtue of that pedigree.
Hang around here a few weeks and you'll see it a few billion times.
We could always add them to the Axis of Evil.
My point, though, is that not everyone can do this. We can't be a nation of 300million+ project managers and CTOs. Someone has to do actual work here. There has to be (excuse the phrase) some Indians. We can't all be chiefs. So lots of people are going to be left with service jobs (or no jobs).
The question was where the software industry was headed. If the answer is "Hey, you can decide what projects get outsourced to India and what projects get outsourced to Pakistan", then you prove my point exactly. The software industry is heading out of America. You CAN move up the food chain, but the population gets thinner as you move up the chain. If you plan on sticking in software, prepare for the real possibility that you'll be gobbled up sooner rather than later.
Don't you get it. We'll all be in marketing then. We'll be creating the brands, and the ideas, while the other suckers actually make the products. :-)