I disagree. I work in the semiconductor industry and I think the tide has turned AGAINST outsourcing. I have *NEVER* heard an outsourcing story that ended well. The kind of outsourcing stories im hearing are "we outsourced our PCB manufacturing and the defect rate is 30%, our board costs are 1/3rd what they used to be, but our field failure rate is 10x and our QC cost is 2x and our customers are pissed." In software same deal... "the code we got back worked but was unmaintainable. We spent two years rewriting it."
What I *AM* seeing is a hell of a lot of chinese mainlanders being hired as engineers *IN THE US* depressing wages. Companies are starting to demand a LOT more for less money.
Outsourcing is based on a falicy which is that workers are fungible resources. Engineers are not fungible resources and any management that thinks they are has their heads way up their asses. The US *DOES* have a seriously bad management culture which is a far bigger threat than outsourcing IMHO.
Again, this is just one opinion from in the trenches here in southern california.
I'm not sure that directly translates... Something I'm utterly pissed about... I *REALLY* liked the life aquatic movie. So I but the movie and the soundtrack. The soundtrack sucked horribly as it seemed to literally be recorded on a boom microphone. The picture quality on the DVD is a bit shoddy, but hey its a borderline indie film.. A few months later, they release a "life aquatic studio sessions" cd with better recordings, and a new dvd with a much improved transfer.
I rarely buy dvds anymore, and if I do I wait till they've been out 6 months or a year, or until I *REALLY* want to see it. I dont just buy films I like anymore.
Discounting an older product is just good marketing. Intentionally releasing a crapier version to doubule up sales? ouch.
The problem he's solving is not one of "How do I write this?" but "How do I write this, be able to change it, and know that it still works the same?"
I *REALLY* think you miss-interpreted the problem. The author clearly states the task is to build a function which gives all prime numbers smaller than n. Furthermore, what you've described is unit testing, which sadly is not a new concept.
The thing you have to remember about methodologies is they are all bullshit. In my experience, the people who cling to methodologies are generally not clue-full.
The paper you linked to -- I just finished reading it. The "methodology" they provide has more comedic value than anything else. The steps in his methodology are counter-intuitive and therefore stupid. He wants us to iterate over each requirement, re-writing a function as the most simple program which passes the tests? What possible reason for this would we have other than an exercise in futility? Writing code we *KNOW* has no value with the intent of re-writing it later? Futile.
Perhaps you could accept this premise if the methodology scaled for larger problems -- but clearly it does not and can not. At this point I suspect you are the author of this paper.
Do you find it suspiscious that MOTU refuses to publish their SNR / DNR for their cards? I was interested in a traveler but couldn't find the specs for it ANYWHERE.
You are right, but I would like to add a management perspective (although I am not a manager), I have worked on at least one very large OSS project. When you bring money into the equation -- you have to make a judgement call about who is most important, and who deserves money the most, and that inevitably pisses people off. There really is no fair way to distribute money in an OS project. So you loose people, and the project goes slower.
The problem with the producers movie: What works in theatre *DOES NOT* work on film. Repeat it with me, WHAT WORKS IN THEATRE DOES NOT WORK ON FILM!!!
The producers movie was a fairly accurate recreation of the producers brodway production. Matthew Broderick's sniveling character just did't work on film.
I disagree. There never should have been a market for Acrobat. It is absurdly overpriced, $280 for standard, $450 for professional, and it hardly does anything!
I don't remember who said this, but I once read a slashdot post that said "Drugs, terrorism and kiddie porn are the root password to the constitution."
You hit the nail on the head my friend. Many years ago, I installed Gentoo and got it up and running *HAVING NEVER USED LINUX OR ANY TYPE OF UNIX BEFORE.* I followed the directions.
I do believe you are correct. Ozone isn't terribly good for people and it rots rubber and a number of other things. Goto the chemistry department at your local university -- you won't find a copier machine anywhere near the labs. The ozone generated by them rots the stoppers and seals and what not.
Yea, but how long did it take to *DESIGN* the architecture for that 200 lines of code? To pour over the RFCs? To ponder? I have a hunch you're one of those programmers who thinks they can accomplish any task over the weekend with enough red bull? The hell with design? The hell with anything but pounding out code?
A webserver in 200 lines of code is a masterpiece of brevity. Size has *NOTHING* to do with the difficulty of a task. Is a cell phone easier to make than a brick because the phone is smaller?
Do you know that John Steibeck used to write his novels, then go through them and remove every word he thought he could? This is the origin of the term, "Steinbeckian." To quote Pascal, IIRC "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I did not have time to make it shorter."
I can't remember the quote exactly... something to the effect, "The greatest wisdom is required to use injustice justly." from "A Scanner Darkly" (the book not the movie, but the movie was good to)
I disagree heartily. Saying "it cant' be done" could equally be the response of a battle hardened veteran who isn't willing to go into a battle he has no hope of exiting.
That was what I learned about myself during the test. That *I* ignored my own good sense that the task was not reasonable, and that a true master would not have.
By no external libraries of any kind I meant, no 3rd party anything. Whatever could be reasonably expected to come with the compiler was fair game (sockets, threading symantecs, etc).
Yea, but C++ is all about the details, and no external libraries meant you had to implement *EVERYTHING*... no parsing tools (flex/yacc), no threading libraries, no file utilities. Not even simple things like path normalization.
In the "real" world you'd be a fool to implement any of those things.
You're right of course. When I went in for the interview I was extremely jazzed, maybe it was the 9 foot replica of the alien from Alien, or playing galaga on the arcade machines in the lobby. But by the time I had finished the test I had no desire to work there... add that to the fact the pay was pretty average...
Out here in Orange County, IGN Entertainment is infamous for their tests. I went in and nailed the interview. The next level to advance to was a test. The test was to implement a small web server (GET/HEAD commands basically) in C++ using *no external libraries of any kind*. They stated the test should take 3 - 4 hours. The specs were extremely vague and any attempt I made to get clarification was met with "do what you think is best".
They also mailed me the test late on a thursday evening, and were calling asking where it was the following monday morning. Problem being I was currently working 50/60 hours a week as well, and it just happened to be the weekend I was moving:(
I ask you then, how is anyone who currently *has* a job and perhaps a family supposed to complete a test like this? It seems like the most talented candidates would *HAVE* jobs and therefore find it much more difficult to complete the test. I rushed the program together because -- what choice did I have? It did not represent me well.
Looking back, the only appropriate response on my part would have been to say "Your requirements suck, and this is not a 3 to 4 hour job. Thanks but no thanks." The entire thing was a waste of their time, waste of my time. Maybe that was the test, to see if I'd tell them to fuck off.
There are some interesting theories about extended childhoods I've read as well. Namely, that young people now (myself included) aren't *EVER* reaching what we would traditionally think of as "adulthood."
The author of the paper claimed that in the past, peoples thought processes and opinions and personalities would become fixed. The author went on to claim that as a byproduct of the rate of change of the world, this fixing process is not occuring in younger people.
Slashdot Mirror
What I *AM* seeing is a hell of a lot of chinese mainlanders being hired as engineers *IN THE US* depressing wages. Companies are starting to demand a LOT more for less money.
Outsourcing is based on a falicy which is that workers are fungible resources. Engineers are not fungible resources and any management that thinks they are has their heads way up their asses. The US *DOES* have a seriously bad management culture which is a far bigger threat than outsourcing IMHO.
Again, this is just one opinion from in the trenches here in southern california.
I rarely buy dvds anymore, and if I do I wait till they've been out 6 months or a year, or until I *REALLY* want to see it. I dont just buy films I like anymore.
Discounting an older product is just good marketing. Intentionally releasing a crapier version to doubule up sales? ouch.
It's essentially a penalty for being a fan.
I *REALLY* think you miss-interpreted the problem. The author clearly states the task is to build a function which gives all prime numbers smaller than n. Furthermore, what you've described is unit testing, which sadly is not a new concept.
The paper you linked to -- I just finished reading it. The "methodology" they provide has more comedic value than anything else. The steps in his methodology are counter-intuitive and therefore stupid. He wants us to iterate over each requirement, re-writing a function as the most simple program which passes the tests? What possible reason for this would we have other than an exercise in futility? Writing code we *KNOW* has no value with the intent of re-writing it later? Futile.
Perhaps you could accept this premise if the methodology scaled for larger problems -- but clearly it does not and can not. At this point I suspect you are the author of this paper.
Do you find it suspiscious that MOTU refuses to publish their SNR / DNR for their cards? I was interested in a traveler but couldn't find the specs for it ANYWHERE.
WWII Humor, gotta love it :)
(perhaps Penn Jilette?) "The future will be a lot like now but with better special effects."
You are right, but I would like to add a management perspective (although I am not a manager), I have worked on at least one very large OSS project. When you bring money into the equation -- you have to make a judgement call about who is most important, and who deserves money the most, and that inevitably pisses people off. There really is no fair way to distribute money in an OS project. So you loose people, and the project goes slower.
There's no explaining that piece of crap :)
The producers movie was a fairly accurate recreation of the producers brodway production. Matthew Broderick's sniveling character just did't work on film.
I disagree. There never should have been a market for Acrobat. It is absurdly overpriced, $280 for standard, $450 for professional, and it hardly does anything!
I don't remember who said this, but I once read a slashdot post that said "Drugs, terrorism and kiddie porn are the root password to the constitution."
You hit the nail on the head my friend. Many years ago, I installed Gentoo and got it up and running *HAVING NEVER USED LINUX OR ANY TYPE OF UNIX BEFORE.* I followed the directions.
I do believe you are correct. Ozone isn't terribly good for people and it rots rubber and a number of other things. Goto the chemistry department at your local university -- you won't find a copier machine anywhere near the labs. The ozone generated by them rots the stoppers and seals and what not.
A webserver in 200 lines of code is a masterpiece of brevity. Size has *NOTHING* to do with the difficulty of a task. Is a cell phone easier to make than a brick because the phone is smaller?
Do you know that John Steibeck used to write his novels, then go through them and remove every word he thought he could? This is the origin of the term, "Steinbeckian." To quote Pascal, IIRC "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I did not have time to make it shorter."
I can't remember the quote exactly... something to the effect, "The greatest wisdom is required to use injustice justly." from "A Scanner Darkly" (the book not the movie, but the movie was good to)
That was what I learned about myself during the test. That *I* ignored my own good sense that the task was not reasonable, and that a true master would not have.
Still a hell of a lot of work.
In the "real" world you'd be a fool to implement any of those things.
You're right of course. When I went in for the interview I was extremely jazzed, maybe it was the 9 foot replica of the alien from Alien, or playing galaga on the arcade machines in the lobby. But by the time I had finished the test I had no desire to work there ... add that to the fact the pay was pretty average...
Out here in Orange County, IGN Entertainment is infamous for their tests. I went in and nailed the interview. The next level to advance to was a test. The test was to implement a small web server (GET/HEAD commands basically) in C++ using *no external libraries of any kind*. They stated the test should take 3 - 4 hours. The specs were extremely vague and any attempt I made to get clarification was met with "do what you think is best".
They also mailed me the test late on a thursday evening, and were calling asking where it was the following monday morning. Problem being I was currently working 50/60 hours a week as well, and it just happened to be the weekend I was moving :(
I ask you then, how is anyone who currently *has* a job and perhaps a family supposed to complete a test like this? It seems like the most talented candidates would *HAVE* jobs and therefore find it much more difficult to complete the test. I rushed the program together because -- what choice did I have? It did not represent me well.
Looking back, the only appropriate response on my part would have been to say "Your requirements suck, and this is not a 3 to 4 hour job. Thanks but no thanks." The entire thing was a waste of their time, waste of my time. Maybe that was the test, to see if I'd tell them to fuck off.
Dude, look at *ANY* product on amazon. They all have that ref shit on them.
Shut the fuck up please. *THERE IS NO* referral link, and I did not suggest drugs.
The author of the paper claimed that in the past, peoples thought processes and opinions and personalities would become fixed. The author went on to claim that as a byproduct of the rate of change of the world, this fixing process is not occuring in younger people.