I taught programming for a year at university after graduating, and my observation of the students was just the same as yours - they either got it, or they didn't. There were a small number who flew through the programming tasks, and did more than was expected. There was another small number who persisted and eventually completed them. Then there was the majority who spent painful hours struggling to write anything which approximated the requirements, seeking help at every step of the way from each other and the teachers, and ending up with long, long programs which barely achieved anything.
I've read through the thread up to here, and this is the post which really made me take notice. We all empathise less with those we feel to be inferior in some way. Most wealthy people see their wealth as a sign of personal superiority.
It is most enjoyable book I've read for a long time, and it fits the bill perferctly for you. It's short (240 pages); is broken into 12 easily digestible chapters; is stimulating, but you can doze off between chapters. Then, when you've finished you'll know a lot of eye-opening stuff about something you probably know nothing about now, but have many preconceptions. If you have any interest in history, it's a must.
You obviously didn't read the post closely enough. Please read spam carefully before responding, and, preferably, purchase said product so as to give an informed opinion.
Ever see a non-computer geek repair their computer from a Windows virus? ONE virus, once, makes Linux easier for the non-geek.
And if you're donating them to be used by kids, I guarantee they will get viruses. Heck, even senior citizens often get viruses.
Agreed about windows viruses. OTOH, I have found that the Ubuntu desktop will just "freeze" from time to time, especially when running Firefox, and requires a power cycle to restart it. On the restart it may have a hard disk problem, and require a complicated command-line sequence to fix it. So the Ubuntu option isn't perfect either.
When I worked on the Canadian Automated Air Traffic Control System (CAATS) Ada skills were at a premium, and I was recruited from Australia on $80,000, in 1998, so that's probably $150K plus in 2011. The project had nearly two hundred Ada engineers recruited from around the world, on similar, or better, salaries. Plus, it was a great project, great team, moderate pressure, and in one of the worlds most beautiful cities!
I shifted to C++ and then.Net, but I think the Ada market has kept high salaries, even while it has been shrinking, especially for those with a security clearance in the US.
Besides, I have hundreds of games, if I can get them to run on modern equipment is the big "if".
I suggest that you try the old games under Win7. I have Need For Speed - Porsche (year 2000), which ran under Win98, but not XP or Vista, and I installed it in Win7 and it ran first time, with full graphics and force-feedback steering wheel.:)
...It's over. Doing as Google did when it started will not be successful. That's what I mean with learning from them being not really a smart idea. What they did worked. Then. It probably won't work today anymore, at least in this business. It could work of course. If you just happen to be the company that hits the Next Big Thing at just the right time.
I am reminded of a site called PlanetAll which I joined in 1997. It was quite like facebook was in 2007, but cleaner and more useful. The basic idea was that you used your real name, and connected with real people who you knew from high school, college, etc. It was a very nice, and it even worked for myself and a few contacts. The site did very well and were purchased by Amazaon in 1998, but Amazon shut them down. However, if they had started in 2003, rather than 1997, they could well be synonymous with social networking. It must hurt to be them. Curiously, they were a group of Harvard graduates.
....For a more typical nostalgia filter, I turn to, say, Need for Speed before Underground on the PC. Who says Snowy Ridge from NFS High Stakes isn't difficult?.
I got one of my biggest nostalgia thrills recently when i installed NFS-Porsche on Win7 and it worked first time! It's the only computer game I really want to play, and i haven't played it since I switched to XP in 2004. It didn't work in XP or Vista. Now, I'm playing it on a beast of a machine, and it runs smooth-as-glass with all settings maxed - which I was never able to do previously. Nice.... nice... nice!
So, if anyone's got a pre-XP game which they haven't played for years, it's worth trying it in Win7!
I open a terminal window on my Mac. Do it every day for one reason or another.
It's particularly fun to go fullscreen with it and run nethack, and people actually think you're doing something very brainy and technical.
I keep a laptop running with Ubuntu, and ssh from Win7 into it to get a console
I get a buzz from thinking that this 512MB machine is more powerful than the Vaxen I started out on in the 1980's, which had dozens of students logged on, and which I dreamed of owning when I became very rich. Plus, the console I get is full flavoured Linux, with (potentially) every software tool I could have used on the Vax - some of which might have cost 10's of thousands of dollars. I can get a compiler for every language I used then, in its latest version.
Best of all, it is often very useful, enabling me to do something I can't do in Windows
it is great you want to learn code. I learned to code before I ever got to college and I do not believe it improved my abilities that much. Coding is one of those things that changes so often you have to re-learn anyway, so you may as well get used to self-teaching. If it is Ruby on Rails you are after I would recommend Rails for Zombies. http://railsforzombies.org/
It is a quick free and great way to get going in rails.
Seconded!
When I read the OP I thought that he had answered his own question. He wants to code, just because he knows he wants to. That's enough. It's quite easy to get into coding on his own home computer, in his spare time, as a hobby. Instead of watching TV in the evenings, he writes code and enjoys it. He suggested RoR as a potential learning vehicle. Great! It's self contained, so he doesn't have to learn a whole eco-system (compared with.Net or Java). It will be a vehicle for learning HTML, CSS, JScript and SQL, and Agile development. It's also elegant and fun to work with, and has several very good introductory texts. The OP is on the right track already, and just needs a few people to say - "do what you just said, sir".
You're me three years ago - a developer with a cool idea, and not a sysadmin. I chose Appengine then, which was sticking my neck out because it was so new, but I haven't regretted it once and would STRONGLY recommend you go the same way.
....
Appengine is reasonably mature now, and is REALLY scalable. Not "oh dear, time to spin up another instance but what about the database" scalable; but "royal wedding website" scalable (yes, that was built on Appengine).
Lastly, good luck. I built a $2M business in those three years, and that decision to go with Appengine played a large part in that success.
Thankyou! When I posted I expected tons of "If you have to ask the question, then you are not qualified" comments. I also hoped, even expected, to get a few gems which would make it worthwhile taking the flak. This is one of those gems!
in house has less lag and more bandwidth then working over the web from your home. How good is your upload?
My upload is slow. I've already discovered this using skydrive for some of my documents
You have addressed one of my concerns in the in-house vs.. cloud question, namely the development experience. I am wondering whether it is better to "bit the bullet" and master the in-house sysadmin, than put up with delays for check-ins, file comparisons, debugging, etc... I think your advise is that this is a valid concern
Thankyou. One of the most knowledgable and helpful responses I've received.
It sounds like you are asking as much about your dev environment as production. I would say "yes," move it all to a hosted environment. At this stage, you don't need to be worrying about the underlying nuts and bolts.
Absolutely! That is actually the primary point of my question. The cloud as an option for development is a reasonably new idea, and I wanted some opinions on it before I committed one way or the other (in-house, or cloud), and spent a lot of time only to discover I'd got it wrong and have to redo everything.
Look at appharbor.com. Their slogan is Azure done right: you get ASP.NET 4.0 hosting, a Git repository, continuous integration and unit testing upon deployment, SQL Server instances, etc.. Basically everything you're asking for. Their backend is 'the cloud': Amazon EC2.
Their rates start at 'free', so there is no cost while you're busy getting your millions of accounts and hits. When that happens move to one of their paid tiers and go nuts.
Another one of the fine posts which have made me so glad I asked this question! Thank you for your time and expertise.
I am surprised that so few people saw that my question was mainly about the developmental infrastructure, but I really wish now that I had made that clear.
I will be putting AppHarbor up there as one of the main contenders for my infrastructure solution.
So what? He has UID 524434 so he has been around on slashdot for a quite while. That just shows he has past coding experience in Java, and quick google query shows he is coding with C# now. Java->C# is a natural progress (as the languages are similar, but C# is better) and Visual Studio 2010 and Windows environment makes a lot of sense for C#.
You are 100% correct. I keep my Javaman handle because I've already got it, and also because I remember that phase of my career with respect and gratitude. Nevertheless I now use F#, C#, ASP.NET MVC, because I find them more enjoyable and productive. Of course I then use VS 2010. But I am a developer, not a sysadmin, and with this question I am looking for the minimal way to get my sysadmin done. Unfortunately, many have interpreted it as a question about the hosting, rather than developmental infrastructure.
I was a java developer some 10 years ago when I joined Slashdot. I have nothing but respect for the Java and LAMP world - obviously they have been proved over-and-over again.
Hey, a real joke in all this! I've had a lot of fun just with the serious side of my question (and it is a genuine question), but this was most welcome!:)
Aye.. it's like making fun of a fat person for running, or for going to the gym.
It takes a real piece of work to heckle someone for trying to improve themselves, or to learn.
I must thank you for this! I am a regular at the gym myself, and try to do exactly what you say here - encourage those who make the first effort. I know exactly what your talking about, and its relevance to my question:)
I will just pick this as one of many responders to thank for their overall support against the "this is a troll" and "timewaster" posts.
My question is perfectly serious. I have had a successful career as a professional developer, in both Windows and Unix. I have focussed on development, and let others manage the network. Now I'm on my own, I need to do the sysadmin myself, and I can see this as a big dent in productivity, especially as I am not well qualified in it, so I am doing the sensible thing of looking at alternatives, and putting the question to Slashdot.
If I'm going to move to the cloud, I'd rather do it now, than after spending 200 hours setting up domains, SqlServer, TFS, etc... and then pulling the plug on the whole thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I taught programming for a year at university after graduating, and my observation of the students was just the same as yours - they either got it, or they didn't. There were a small number who flew through the programming tasks, and did more than was expected. There was another small number who persisted and eventually completed them. Then there was the majority who spent painful hours struggling to write anything which approximated the requirements, seeking help at every step of the way from each other and the teachers, and ending up with long, long programs which barely achieved anything.
That was how I read your OP :)
It's an oxymoron to say that you should have enterprise level admin experience from a home set-up - and enterprise level is what they mostly want.
I've read through the thread up to here, and this is the post which really made me take notice. We all empathise less with those we feel to be inferior in some way. Most wealthy people see their wealth as a sign of personal superiority.
It is most enjoyable book I've read for a long time, and it fits the bill perferctly for you. It's short (240 pages); is broken into 12 easily digestible chapters; is stimulating, but you can doze off between chapters. Then, when you've finished you'll know a lot of eye-opening stuff about something you probably know nothing about now, but have many preconceptions. If you have any interest in history, it's a must.
It will take you mind off computers, completely!
You obviously didn't read the post closely enough. Please read spam carefully before responding, and, preferably, purchase said product so as to give an informed opinion.
Ever see a non-computer geek repair their computer from a Windows virus? ONE virus, once, makes Linux easier for the non-geek.
And if you're donating them to be used by kids, I guarantee they will get viruses. Heck, even senior citizens often get viruses.
Agreed about windows viruses. OTOH, I have found that the Ubuntu desktop will just "freeze" from time to time, especially when running Firefox, and requires a power cycle to restart it. On the restart it may have a hard disk problem, and require a complicated command-line sequence to fix it. So the Ubuntu option isn't perfect either.
When I worked on the Canadian Automated Air Traffic Control System (CAATS) Ada skills were at a premium, and I was recruited from Australia on $80,000, in 1998, so that's probably $150K plus in 2011. The project had nearly two hundred Ada engineers recruited from around the world, on similar, or better, salaries. Plus, it was a great project, great team, moderate pressure, and in one of the worlds most beautiful cities!
I shifted to C++ and then .Net, but I think the Ada market has kept high salaries, even while it has been shrinking, especially for those with a security clearance in the US.
Besides, I have hundreds of games, if I can get them to run on modern equipment is the big "if".
I suggest that you try the old games under Win7. I have Need For Speed - Porsche (year 2000), which ran under Win98, but not XP or Vista, and I installed it in Win7 and it ran first time, with full graphics and force-feedback steering wheel. :)
...It's over. Doing as Google did when it started will not be successful. That's what I mean with learning from them being not really a smart idea. What they did worked. Then. It probably won't work today anymore, at least in this business. It could work of course. If you just happen to be the company that hits the Next Big Thing at just the right time.
I am reminded of a site called PlanetAll which I joined in 1997. It was quite like facebook was in 2007, but cleaner and more useful. The basic idea was that you used your real name, and connected with real people who you knew from high school, college, etc. It was a very nice, and it even worked for myself and a few contacts. The site did very well and were purchased by Amazaon in 1998, but Amazon shut them down. However, if they had started in 2003, rather than 1997, they could well be synonymous with social networking. It must hurt to be them. Curiously, they were a group of Harvard graduates.
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-12-09/
Great writing! Thanks. I think that's the only post that long that I have read to the end.
....For a more typical nostalgia filter, I turn to, say, Need for Speed before Underground on the PC. Who says Snowy Ridge from NFS High Stakes isn't difficult?.
I got one of my biggest nostalgia thrills recently when i installed NFS-Porsche on Win7 and it worked first time! It's the only computer game I really want to play, and i haven't played it since I switched to XP in 2004. It didn't work in XP or Vista. Now, I'm playing it on a beast of a machine, and it runs smooth-as-glass with all settings maxed - which I was never able to do previously. Nice.... nice... nice!
So, if anyone's got a pre-XP game which they haven't played for years, it's worth trying it in Win7!
I open a terminal window on my Mac. Do it every day for one reason or another.
It's particularly fun to go fullscreen with it and run nethack, and people actually think you're doing something very brainy and technical.
I keep a laptop running with Ubuntu, and ssh from Win7 into it to get a console
I get a buzz from thinking that this 512MB machine is more powerful than the Vaxen I started out on in the 1980's, which had dozens of students logged on, and which I dreamed of owning when I became very rich. Plus, the console I get is full flavoured Linux, with (potentially) every software tool I could have used on the Vax - some of which might have cost 10's of thousands of dollars. I can get a compiler for every language I used then, in its latest version.
Best of all, it is often very useful, enabling me to do something I can't do in Windows
it is great you want to learn code. I learned to code before I ever got to college and I do not believe it improved my abilities that much. Coding is one of those things that changes so often you have to re-learn anyway, so you may as well get used to self-teaching. If it is Ruby on Rails you are after I would recommend Rails for Zombies. http://railsforzombies.org/
It is a quick free and great way to get going in rails.
Seconded!
When I read the OP I thought that he had answered his own question. He wants to code, just because he knows he wants to. That's enough. It's quite easy to get into coding on his own home computer, in his spare time, as a hobby. Instead of watching TV in the evenings, he writes code and enjoys it. He suggested RoR as a potential learning vehicle. Great! It's self contained, so he doesn't have to learn a whole eco-system (compared with .Net or Java). It will be a vehicle for learning HTML, CSS, JScript and SQL, and Agile development. It's also elegant and fun to work with, and has several very good introductory texts. The OP is on the right track already, and just needs a few people to say - "do what you just said, sir".
I saw it coming - I skipped Silverlight entirely, and adopted HTML 5 in 2007. They laughed at me, but look who's laughing now!
You're me three years ago - a developer with a cool idea, and not a sysadmin. I chose Appengine then, which was sticking my neck out because it was so new, but I haven't regretted it once and would STRONGLY recommend you go the same way.
Appengine is reasonably mature now, and is REALLY scalable. Not "oh dear, time to spin up another instance but what about the database" scalable; but "royal wedding website" scalable (yes, that was built on Appengine).
Lastly, good luck. I built a $2M business in those three years, and that decision to go with Appengine played a large part in that success.
Thankyou! When I posted I expected tons of "If you have to ask the question, then you are not qualified" comments. I also hoped, even expected, to get a few gems which would make it worthwhile taking the flak. This is one of those gems!
in house has less lag and more bandwidth then working over the web from your home. How good is your upload?
My upload is slow. I've already discovered this using skydrive for some of my documents
You have addressed one of my concerns in the in-house vs.. cloud question, namely the development experience. I am wondering whether it is better to "bit the bullet" and master the in-house sysadmin, than put up with delays for check-ins, file comparisons, debugging, etc... I think your advise is that this is a valid concern
Absolutely! That is actually the primary point of my question. The cloud as an option for development is a reasonably new idea, and I wanted some opinions on it before I committed one way or the other (in-house, or cloud), and spent a lot of time only to discover I'd got it wrong and have to redo everything.
Look at appharbor.com. Their slogan is Azure done right: you get ASP.NET 4.0 hosting, a Git repository, continuous integration and unit testing upon deployment, SQL Server instances, etc.. Basically everything you're asking for. Their backend is 'the cloud': Amazon EC2.
Their rates start at 'free', so there is no cost while you're busy getting your millions of accounts and hits. When that happens move to one of their paid tiers and go nuts.
Another one of the fine posts which have made me so glad I asked this question! Thank you for your time and expertise.
I am surprised that so few people saw that my question was mainly about the developmental infrastructure, but I really wish now that I had made that clear.
I will be putting AppHarbor up there as one of the main contenders for my infrastructure solution.
So what? He has UID 524434 so he has been around on slashdot for a quite while. That just shows he has past coding experience in Java, and quick google query shows he is coding with C# now. Java->C# is a natural progress (as the languages are similar, but C# is better) and Visual Studio 2010 and Windows environment makes a lot of sense for C#.
You are 100% correct. I keep my Javaman handle because I've already got it, and also because I remember that phase of my career with respect and gratitude. Nevertheless I now use F#, C#, ASP.NET MVC, because I find them more enjoyable and productive. Of course I then use VS 2010. But I am a developer, not a sysadmin, and with this question I am looking for the minimal way to get my sysadmin done. Unfortunately, many have interpreted it as a question about the hosting, rather than developmental infrastructure.
Or his username could be referring to this "Java Man": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Man ;)
Close :) It is a palendrome... I mean a pun.
I was a java developer some 10 years ago when I joined Slashdot. I have nothing but respect for the Java and LAMP world - obviously they have been proved over-and-over again.
kernel.org runs on Windows
Hey, a real joke in all this! I've had a lot of fun just with the serious side of my question (and it is a genuine question), but this was most welcome! :)
Aye.. it's like making fun of a fat person for running, or for going to the gym. It takes a real piece of work to heckle someone for trying to improve themselves, or to learn.
I must thank you for this! I am a regular at the gym myself, and try to do exactly what you say here - encourage those who make the first effort. I know exactly what your talking about, and its relevance to my question :)
I will just pick this as one of many responders to thank for their overall support against the "this is a troll" and "timewaster" posts.
My question is perfectly serious. I have had a successful career as a professional developer, in both Windows and Unix. I have focussed on development, and let others manage the network. Now I'm on my own, I need to do the sysadmin myself, and I can see this as a big dent in productivity, especially as I am not well qualified in it, so I am doing the sensible thing of looking at alternatives, and putting the question to Slashdot.
If I'm going to move to the cloud, I'd rather do it now, than after spending 200 hours setting up domains, SqlServer, TFS, etc... and then pulling the plug on the whole thing.
I've had a great day with this, and your post has just capped it off for me! Thankyou!