David Boies has had a frustrating decade in tech work. He won the Microsoft antitrust case only to have it overturned. He lost representing SCO va unix, he lost representing napster and now he lost it for Oracle. He's a legal superman, but he should stay away from tech for a while. . .
1) Find a manager that is successful in your company and is generally admired. Get to know him/her and learn what they do right, what they do wrong, and what they know about the culture of the company. When you know them well and know their secrets well, find the next one.
2) Find a very successful manager that runs a similar department to yours in an excellent company reknown in your industry. Get to know them, figure out what they and their teams do right, what they do wrong, and how the culture of their company works and differs from theirs. Fix yours that way or have good enough relationships to join theirs. When your group is better than that group, find the next one.
3) Find out how your company makes money . . . really makes money -- what do they make, what do they sell, who do they sell to and how much of each thing do they sell to whom and how. Figure out how your department fits into that and how you can best fit those goals. Do those things. Figure out what doesn't make money (or worse wastes money at) -- aggressively try to eliminate those things.
4) Figure out what your team is good at and what it is bad at. Cross that with the results from #3. Focus on getting your team better at things that help the company make money and getting rid of things that make it lose money.
5) Respect people -- even those you don't like. You can learn something from _everyone_. Even if it is to just avoid making the foolish mistakes they make. Have enough respect for those people who work hard and pull things through for the company to let go those who slack off and basically leach off of their coworkers. Help those who aren't good at things, but really, really want to get there. Consider everyone's skillset as they are and reward each achievement and each step forward for people at their level.
6) Have a plan. From the details of #3, and the development of #4/5 and the examples of #1,2 figure out what goals get you closer to achieving those ideals in the the next 3, 6, and 12 months. Every quarter, reassess where you are and tune up your goals so they stay relevant and you measure your progress.
7) Measure your progress -- success or failure -- at every turn. How well do you work and how well do you create product? How good are the things you make and how good are your processes/tools for making them? Use your comparative analysis with external and internal teams to figure out how they operate as well and figure out how to measure it and improve it. Don't be a slave to numbers but don't be ignorant of them. If you pick the wrong metrics, then you learned that you need better metrics.
8) Act like the manager you wish you had. Don't be a jerk, and don't gossip. Talk to people face to face and act with integrity. Your group and peers are you community - treat them that way and build the community stronger.
9) Build your self and your group. Figure out what you all are weakest at (that matters) and get training and practice at getting better. Make it a quota to do this at least annually.
10) Manage yourself and your own stress. Have a todo list of the next top 3 most important things to do at all times -- do those next. Take care your health, sleep well, eat right and learn to leave work at the office enough to not bear the burden of your whole team's worries when you go to bed at night.
I see a lot of naysaying here, and I respectfully disagree. In general, I've been really turned off by the Head First Series (I tend to think the style is annoying), but this book is better than the rest and is probably one of the best high-level overviews of html5+javascript+css3 that I've seen in one book. note: I have nothing to do with the authors or the publisher -- I just liked this one.
For one thing, this is the book in the series that finally gets the point that Javascript is the heart of web interactivity. It doesn't shy away from plenty of Javascript code and it isn't lazy about asking you to write copious amounts of it. If you are a javascript expert, you probably won't be challenged, but you can skip the rudimentary parts and get to the modern browser features and related apis.
Secondly it gets you through a lot of topics like location-awareness (including the google maps api), 2d canvas rendering, local storage and a few other topics that aren't usually covered together but make a great overview of the current state of browser capabilities. Its not easy to get that in one place.
I've tried to get overviews elsewhere -- I have been through a bunch of the oreilly series, online documentation, master class videos etc, and I personally think this is the best basic high-level overview of basic web programming for the browser right now. Is it telling you to use backbone? Is it pushing Coffescript, Dart or the other fringe technologies? No -- just the basics, but it does a good job of it. Its not for everyone, but it is a great choice for folks who want a good, easy-going overview..
I had to put a good word in, because I really liked this one and I like to encourage good tutoral writing -- something that is increasingly hard to find these days (I'd rather see tutorials than cookbooks, blotchy docs or 1-page quickstarts of copy-paste code with a link to api docs). Tree-killing aside, I even liked that it was printed on paper - it seemed like an old-school workbook and I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoyed scribbling in its puzzles and zipping through its pages over a few days over Thanksgiving week.
For all the design kudos that apple gets, their ergonomics are truly awful.
Examples: Who puts a sharp edge where your wrists lie? The flat sheet-metal keyboard is pretty, but ridiculous for RSI users. Typing on a flat screen -- that is sure to cause all kinds of problems. Even the ads for the Ipads make everyone look contorted while using them - they are either in some crazy position or are craning their necks over to see what they are doing.
I can't believe there isn't more of an outcry about these things. These things are beautiful, but are also meant to be used by biped hominids -- ignoring ergonomics entirely is kinda crazy.
I'm so glad you are on slashdot -- you were right, and I was wrong. Ego aside, it may actually not matter because Scala manages to avoid the problems of erasure in java.
The discussion here discusses the issue and talks about how the perils of type erasure of Java don't have the same negative effects in Scala:
This isn't true at all. Scala's genetics are far more powerful than java's type erasures except in the case where you have to inherit/use an existing java class.
Odersky actually created g4j for sun before writing scala. It stands for "generics for java" and it didn't use erasure there either. Sun scrapped it for type erasure and odersky left and created scala.
Cuban is con man. I heard the sales pitches for broadcast.com when he and Mary Meeker (unethically on her part) were trying to sell that scam. His lies are thick, he relies on bullying/shaming people and he took a lot of money Yahoo could have used to help free software and be a healthier business.
He is not a typical clueless MBA, he is a con-man and should be actively avoided.
Although the gtk/gnome UIs have always been awkward and clunky, they've never been dangerous before -- With the mono infection, they're downright dangerous.
Don't get me wrong. . . I think it is an amazing technical feat, but is it really practical to require internet access for this?
I think it is time that we as a community get behind a project that allows these remote apps to be cached locally for fully disconnected use (with a desktop runtime -- something akin to Adobe Air). It would be great to visit the site once and thereafter run it local (and get updates later while connected). As long as I'm fantasizing, I think we should try to make this a standard for new desktop apps -- written like gadgets, but full blown apps.
What do you think? Are there projects out there that are working on this already?
How will reuse work if any of these things happen? I have to wonder how reusable the paper will be if the slightest, stain, or other ink-mark touches the page.
I can also imagine desperately trying to read the faint, disappearing words when someone forgot to change out the paper-tray for more indelible printing.
Electronic documents were/are the solution to this. I can hear moans from the ghost of Xerox Parc. . . after inventing the modern computer Xerox is still trying to make its money from ink.
Getting sensationalism out of the newsroom and into advertising where it belongs. (and eliminating any sense of personal or editorial responsibility when smearing someone's reputation).
Helping the government to use private billboard companies to irresponsibly violate the privacy of private citizens. Shifting the power once and for all away from non-profit-generating people.
Hyping crimes out of proportion to their real risk to society and keeping the people quaking in their boots (and consuming).
Finally getting rid of that pesky "innocent until proven guilty clause"
Punishing people who didn't give enough in campaign contributions to the party in power
Allowing us to effectively bundle advertising, racism, and fear (maybe even in one billboard!). Imagine how many security systems, bank accounts, insurance policies, guns and KKK memberships we could sell in bundled ad campaigns!
Making us look really modern. ..pushing us from the 21st centry to 1984
I can't wait until these images can be broadcast directly into the skies above our houses. I have long thought that we don't mistrust and/or hate our fellow citizens enough in the USA. I was worried that we might drop our murder rates and/or school shootings to the levels of other countries, but it looks like we are well on our way to whipping our citizenry to new heights of paranoia and aggressiveness.
I did read the summary and felt that the IMDB linkage was a real stretch.
Linkage of that kind is only useful if the user-populations for IMDB commenters and Netflix commenters are the same (at least 50%) and that most people make the same comments and ratings on both systems in the same way _most_ of the time. Chances are that if the populations are _not_ the same and that the commenters don't mostly duplicate their ratings for every movie in each place. . . In that case, you then you probably get more false positives than positive correlations.
If the ratings on imdb and netflix are nearly exactly the same for certain users, all that you have determined is a potential netflix user-id (which is probably a unique number in the dataset, not necessarily their username) to IMDB username linkages - but not a certain one.
The insistence to present everything as a video instead of an article or good analytical summary is holding back technology information sharing (much like this video).
I wish these outlets would stop trying to turn the internet into TV. We left TV because it was lousy.
All they researchers are saying is that they can deduce some of your preferences based on your other preferences. Of COURSE you can do that, that was the whole point of the contest Netflix put up.
What they are _not_ saying is that they now know who you are, where you live, or anything uniquely identifying about you. So basically, you are still anonymous.
I'm starting to tire of news headlines that claim the world is on fire when someone actually just does something slightly derivative from the norm and thinks they are brilliant. The noise from these non-events mask actual brilliant achievements and make it seem that everyone is doing banal work.
But to say because you have problems with JAVA means you don't have cross-platform options, is really to extrapolate your preference to apply to all. Don't confuse your problems as the same as everyone else's.
70% of corporate development happens in Java. I wasn't confusing my problem with a universal one. . . just with 70% of corporations.
Please , please don't let Microsoft buy Atlassian. They are only trying to buy OSS and OSS-friendly companies to confuse and kill OSS.
If they really wanted to screw up the development model of a _lot_ of projects, taking Jira/Confluence/Fisheye out of the friendly-to-OSS world (or polluting their code) would cause the most pain imaginable at this point.
Oh, <insert your favored deity, market structure or believable omnipotent force> have them buy Mysql so they can kill that instead to recharge Postgresql's maintainers' batteries to help them get replication and cross database querying working, and bring us one step closer to OSS relational righteousness.
I don't want the ultimate version, I'd just like the late-2006 JDK 6 version.
You know, the "I wish I didn't regret buying a mac for Java development version". The one on the shelf next to the "Boy I'm glad I didn't donate my old Linux thinkpad since its all I have for Java 6 development" version.
My mac is great -- unfortunately I don't get to turn it on much these days.
Same old story. . . 1) Apple starts doing great 2) Profit!!! 3) Apple gets really egotistical and forgets that other developers exist. (And thinks that archaic languages like Pascal and Objective-C are the only games in town. While coming up with some platforms external developers can't code at _all_ for like the iPhone, early Newton, etc.) 4) ??? 5) Struggle for a few years and almost die! 6) Repeat
I wish they'd "Think Different" this time. Here's what I would suggest.
1) Support cross-platform development languages so developers could choose their platform (think Java) above others. 2) Support cross-platform standards for documents like Oasis/open-office formats instead of the egotistical AppleWorks, ClarisWorks, Pages hubris. That way they don't almost die when Microsoft decides not to upgrade Microsoft Office for 8 years or so. 3) Support developers that develop for their devices instead of handcuffing them with bogus languages on their main platform (languages that no-one knows or cares to know in the general industry) or worse, disable them from writing real apps like on the iPhone. 4) Make laptops that don't burn the users' genitals. 5) Be less secretive about things that aren't new features and don't need to be secrets. (Like APIs, and platform development - like JDK development). 6) Listen to the users even _after_ they get popular. It seems they score huge points with users after creating stuff the users want, then they completely ignore them for years until it is too late.
I like Apple, I don't care for the Red Sox. I want Apple to stop playing like the Red Sox.
respond by saying "You are wrong, it is an excellent idea. Your criticism is niether constructive, nor professional. I will be taking my ideas elsewhere." Then immediately leave the room, perhaps the building.
This is terrible advice. I hope no-one reading this thinks that acting so self-righteously is a good idea. Telling people off is never a good idea. Jerks don't need to be told that they are jerks -- they usually already know it -- and they'll usually take it out of your hide when you whine about their abuse (sociopaths like Bill Gates like to punish people who don't take their abuse lying down).
If you are working in a place where you are used/abused like this, you should find something better to do with your life/time, but always act as the better person and be professional the whole way out the door. Defend your ideas objectively, but nothing constructive comes out of passing abusive negativity back and forth. . . and usually the jerk in charge will get the last laugh if you fall for their bait.
Slashdot Mirror
David Boies has had a frustrating decade in tech work. He won the Microsoft antitrust case only to have it overturned. He lost representing SCO va unix, he lost representing napster and now he lost it for Oracle. He's a legal superman, but he should stay away from tech for a while. . .
1) Find a manager that is successful in your company and is generally admired. Get to know him/her and learn what they do right, what they do wrong, and what they know about the culture of the company. When you know them well and know their secrets well, find the next one.
2) Find a very successful manager that runs a similar department to yours in an excellent company reknown in your industry. Get to know them, figure out what they and their teams do right, what they do wrong, and how the culture of their company works and differs from theirs. Fix yours that way or have good enough relationships to join theirs. When your group is better than that group, find the next one.
3) Find out how your company makes money . . . really makes money -- what do they make, what do they sell, who do they sell to and how much of each thing do they sell to whom and how. Figure out how your department fits into that and how you can best fit those goals. Do those things. Figure out what doesn't make money (or worse wastes money at) -- aggressively try to eliminate those things.
4) Figure out what your team is good at and what it is bad at. Cross that with the results from #3. Focus on getting your team better at things that help the company make money and getting rid of things that make it lose money.
5) Respect people -- even those you don't like. You can learn something from _everyone_. Even if it is to just avoid making the foolish mistakes they make. Have enough respect for those people who work hard and pull things through for the company to let go those who slack off and basically leach off of their coworkers. Help those who aren't good at things, but really, really want to get there. Consider everyone's skillset as they are and reward each achievement and each step forward for people at their level.
6) Have a plan. From the details of #3, and the development of #4/5 and the examples of #1,2 figure out what goals get you closer to achieving those ideals in the the next 3, 6, and 12 months. Every quarter, reassess where you are and tune up your goals so they stay relevant and you measure your progress.
7) Measure your progress -- success or failure -- at every turn. How well do you work and how well do you create product? How good are the things you make and how good are your processes/tools for making them? Use your comparative analysis with external and internal teams to figure out how they operate as well and figure out how to measure it and improve it. Don't be a slave to numbers but don't be ignorant of them. If you pick the wrong metrics, then you learned that you need better metrics.
8) Act like the manager you wish you had. Don't be a jerk, and don't gossip. Talk to people face to face and act with integrity. Your group and peers are you community - treat them that way and build the community stronger.
9) Build your self and your group. Figure out what you all are weakest at (that matters) and get training and practice at getting better. Make it a quota to do this at least annually.
10) Manage yourself and your own stress. Have a todo list of the next top 3 most important things to do at all times -- do those next. Take care your health, sleep well, eat right and learn to leave work at the office enough to not bear the burden of your whole team's worries when you go to bed at night.
I see a lot of naysaying here, and I respectfully disagree. In general, I've been really turned off by the Head First Series (I tend to think the style is annoying), but this book is better than the rest and is probably one of the best high-level overviews of html5+javascript+css3 that I've seen in one book. note: I have nothing to do with the authors or the publisher -- I just liked this one.
For one thing, this is the book in the series that finally gets the point that Javascript is the heart of web interactivity. It doesn't shy away from plenty of Javascript code and it isn't lazy about asking you to write copious amounts of it. If you are a javascript expert, you probably won't be challenged, but you can skip the rudimentary parts and get to the modern browser features and related apis.
Secondly it gets you through a lot of topics like location-awareness (including the google maps api), 2d canvas rendering, local storage and a few other topics that aren't usually covered together but make a great overview of the current state of browser capabilities. Its not easy to get that in one place.
I've tried to get overviews elsewhere -- I have been through a bunch of the oreilly series, online documentation, master class videos etc, and I personally think this is the best basic high-level overview of basic web programming for the browser right now. Is it telling you to use backbone? Is it pushing Coffescript, Dart or the other fringe technologies? No -- just the basics, but it does a good job of it. Its not for everyone, but it is a great choice for folks who want a good, easy-going overview..
I had to put a good word in, because I really liked this one and I like to encourage good tutoral writing -- something that is increasingly hard to find these days (I'd rather see tutorials than cookbooks, blotchy docs or 1-page quickstarts of copy-paste code with a link to api docs). Tree-killing aside, I even liked that it was printed on paper - it seemed like an old-school workbook and I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoyed scribbling in its puzzles and zipping through its pages over a few days over Thanksgiving week.
mod parent up
For all the design kudos that apple gets, their ergonomics are truly awful.
Examples:
Who puts a sharp edge where your wrists lie?
The flat sheet-metal keyboard is pretty, but ridiculous for RSI users.
Typing on a flat screen -- that is sure to cause all kinds of problems.
Even the ads for the Ipads make everyone look contorted while using them - they are either in some crazy position or are craning their necks over to see what they are doing.
I can't believe there isn't more of an outcry about these things. These things are beautiful, but are also meant to be used by biped hominids -- ignoring ergonomics entirely is kinda crazy.
I'm so glad you are on slashdot -- you were right, and I was wrong. Ego aside, it may actually not matter because Scala manages to avoid the problems of erasure in java.
The discussion here discusses the issue and talks about how the perils of type erasure of Java don't have the same negative effects in Scala:
http://lamp.epfl.ch/~emir/bqbase/2006/10/16/erasure.html
Thanks for demanding precision in the discussion.
This isn't true at all. Scala's genetics are far more powerful than java's type erasures except in the case where you have to inherit/use an existing java class.
Odersky actually created g4j for sun before writing scala. It stands for "generics for java" and it didn't use erasure there either. Sun scrapped it for type erasure and odersky left and created scala.
I think the proper response to what he wrote is: you don't know JACK
+1
Cuban is con man. I heard the sales pitches for broadcast.com when he and Mary Meeker (unethically on her part) were trying to sell that scam. His lies are thick, he relies on bullying/shaming people and he took a lot of money Yahoo could have used to help free software and be a healthier business.
He is not a typical clueless MBA, he is a con-man and should be actively avoided.
+1 for the parent posts.
Although the gtk/gnome UIs have always been awkward and clunky, they've never been dangerous before -- With the mono infection, they're downright dangerous.
Don't get me wrong. . . I think it is an amazing technical feat, but is it really practical to require internet access for this?
I think it is time that we as a community get behind a project that allows these remote apps to be cached locally for fully disconnected use (with a desktop runtime -- something akin to Adobe Air). It would be great to visit the site once and thereafter run it local (and get updates later while connected). As long as I'm fantasizing, I think we should try to make this a standard for new desktop apps -- written like gadgets, but full blown apps.
What do you think? Are there projects out there that are working on this already?
Papers get folded, stapled, wadded up, etc. etc.
How will reuse work if any of these things happen? I have to wonder how reusable the paper will be if the slightest, stain, or other ink-mark touches the page.
I can also imagine desperately trying to read the faint, disappearing words when someone forgot to change out the paper-tray for more indelible printing.
Electronic documents were/are the solution to this. I can hear moans from the ghost of Xerox Parc. . . after inventing the modern computer Xerox is still trying to make its money from ink.
"They are doing the same thing with OpenJava."
How does that make sense? They are throwing sand in the gears of Linux by open-sourcing Java?
I got your point about opensolaris, but it only benefits the opensource community when sun open-sources java.
I hear that the only downside to this new technology is that it throws off a lot of heat.
I hate to burst your bubble, Fanbois. . .
ba-dum, bum
After years of nonsensically muttering "the network is the computer", the marketdroids finally convinced IT that they don't need a datacenter.
This is a really good idea!
I think it will be useful for:
I can't wait until these images can be broadcast directly into the skies above our houses. I have long thought that we don't mistrust and/or hate our fellow citizens enough in the USA. I was worried that we might drop our murder rates and/or school shootings to the levels of other countries, but it looks like we are well on our way to whipping our citizenry to new heights of paranoia and aggressiveness.
I did read the summary and felt that the IMDB linkage was a real stretch.
Linkage of that kind is only useful if the user-populations for IMDB commenters and Netflix commenters are the same (at least 50%) and that most people make the same comments and ratings on both systems in the same way _most_ of the time. Chances are that if the populations are _not_ the same and that the commenters don't mostly duplicate their ratings for every movie in each place. . . In that case, you then you probably get more false positives than positive correlations.
If the ratings on imdb and netflix are nearly exactly the same for certain users, all that you have determined is a potential netflix user-id (which is probably a unique number in the dataset, not necessarily their username) to IMDB username linkages - but not a certain one.
The insistence to present everything as a video instead of an article or good analytical summary is holding back technology information sharing (much like this video).
I wish these outlets would stop trying to turn the internet into TV. We left TV because it was lousy.
This is total hyperbole.
All they researchers are saying is that they can deduce some of your preferences based on your other preferences. Of COURSE you can do that, that was the whole point of the contest Netflix put up.
What they are _not_ saying is that they now know who you are, where you live, or anything uniquely identifying about you. So basically, you are still anonymous.
I'm starting to tire of news headlines that claim the world is on fire when someone actually just does something slightly derivative from the norm and thinks they are brilliant. The noise from these non-events mask actual brilliant achievements and make it seem that everyone is doing banal work.
People marked it a troll because Slashdot doesn't have an option to mark the posting "not notable".
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Non-news at 11. . .
But to say because you have problems with JAVA means you don't have cross-platform options, is really to extrapolate your preference to apply to all. Don't confuse your problems as the same as everyone else's.
70% of corporate development happens in Java. I wasn't confusing my problem with a universal one. . . just with 70% of corporations.
Please , please don't let Microsoft buy Atlassian. They are only trying to buy OSS and OSS-friendly companies to confuse and kill OSS.
If they really wanted to screw up the development model of a _lot_ of projects, taking Jira/Confluence/Fisheye out of the friendly-to-OSS world (or polluting their code) would cause the most pain imaginable at this point.
Oh, <insert your favored deity, market structure or believable omnipotent force> have them buy Mysql so they can kill that instead to recharge Postgresql's maintainers' batteries to help them get replication and cross database querying working, and bring us one step closer to OSS relational righteousness.
I don't want the ultimate version, I'd just like the late-2006 JDK 6 version.
You know, the "I wish I didn't regret buying a mac for Java development version". The one on the shelf next to the "Boy I'm glad I didn't donate my old Linux thinkpad since its all I have for Java 6 development" version.
My mac is great -- unfortunately I don't get to turn it on much these days.
Same old story. . .
1) Apple starts doing great
2) Profit!!!
3) Apple gets really egotistical and forgets that other developers exist. (And thinks that archaic languages like Pascal and Objective-C are the only games in town. While coming up with some platforms external developers can't code at _all_ for like the iPhone, early Newton, etc.)
4) ???
5) Struggle for a few years and almost die!
6) Repeat
I wish they'd "Think Different" this time. Here's what I would suggest.
1) Support cross-platform development languages so developers could choose their platform (think Java) above others.
2) Support cross-platform standards for documents like Oasis/open-office formats instead of the egotistical AppleWorks, ClarisWorks, Pages hubris. That way they don't almost die when Microsoft decides not to upgrade Microsoft Office for 8 years or so.
3) Support developers that develop for their devices instead of handcuffing them with bogus languages on their main platform (languages that no-one knows or cares to know in the general industry) or worse, disable them from writing real apps like on the iPhone.
4) Make laptops that don't burn the users' genitals.
5) Be less secretive about things that aren't new features and don't need to be secrets. (Like APIs, and platform development - like JDK development).
6) Listen to the users even _after_ they get popular. It seems they score huge points with users after creating stuff the users want, then they completely ignore them for years until it is too late.
I like Apple, I don't care for the Red Sox. I want Apple to stop playing like the Red Sox.
The also have a lot of properties like mapquest.
They are sitting on a web2.0 goldmine -- they just don't know what to do with it.
respond by saying "You are wrong, it is an excellent idea. Your criticism is niether constructive, nor professional. I will be taking my ideas elsewhere." Then immediately leave the room, perhaps the building.
This is terrible advice. I hope no-one reading this thinks that acting so self-righteously is a good idea. Telling people off is never a good idea. Jerks don't need to be told that they are jerks -- they usually already know it -- and they'll usually take it out of your hide when you whine about their abuse (sociopaths like Bill Gates like to punish people who don't take their abuse lying down).
If you are working in a place where you are used/abused like this, you should find something better to do with your life/time, but always act as the better person and be professional the whole way out the door. Defend your ideas objectively, but nothing constructive comes out of passing abusive negativity back and forth. . . and usually the jerk in charge will get the last laugh if you fall for their bait.