http://lanyrd.com/ is a pretty good repository of conferences in general and has a good listing of technical conferences as well. As everyone mentions, it depends what your actual responsibilities are.
I believe engineers generally hold non-technical departments in contempt because of the seeming inability to understand technology and the lack of common sense exercised. Here are a few reasons I have cringed when working with non-engineers over the years:
1. Unable to detect phishing attempts
2. Installing crap software on their workstations infesting it with trojans
3. Making demands that clearly show a lack of research / thought
4. Office politics devoid of reasoning / rationale
5. Lack of transparency in decision making
While it is true that engineers generally value logic and reason (how else could we do the job others cannot do?), I believe engineers are more likely not to put up with people's bullshit to the extend everyone demands. There is a time and place for sentimentality and everyone shouldn't be catered to because they are a precious snowflake
I hope you live or die by that opinion Sonny. Like everyone else, I believe you and I make comments about coworkers and bosses to the same extent this teacher makes about her kids, so do these comments and feelings preventing us from being effective employees? Does gossiping with coworkers introduce instability within the ranks? Honestly, the teacher is reacting as humanly as the rest of do, so I think suspension is a little borderline as a simple reprimand might be enough. Reality is that people's kids suck, which is why wife and I are seriously thinking about raising cats.
If you actually read the article, it is fact less about the actually situation with the kid and is pure theoretical on "how" someone could cheat to cause it. This attention whoring troll really should drive back to where he is from and checkout the kid's controller before he goes slandering the poor kid. Jerk
Everyone has already chimed in about the merits of learning foundational programming languages like C and C++, but I wonder if the defense of "this is what the industry is" should be the main reason for getting rid of languages. I liken this to forcing US students to learn COBOL because larger companies and universities don't want to get rid of their mainframes. Though it is the responsibility of higher education to prepare individuals for the work force, it seems this move will only stagnant the talent pool and make it harder to advance to new paradigms later.
History of Vim is more necessary than you think
on
Hacking Vim 7.2
·
· Score: 1
While reading the review of the book, I thought the reviewer's comment about the history of Vim being unnecessary to be wrong. Having used Vim on various systems including RHEL, Fedora, Mac OS X, Windows (gvim), and BSD there are some differences that catch unaware users off guard. Most Linux operating systems will install Vi as a standard editor and add an alias for Vim to use Vi. This is seems all well and good, however Vi has some pain points in particular the inability to backspace / delete characters on the current line. Anyhow, I'm not sure ignorance is the best policy especially as there are so many variations out there on different OSes.
Computer science has addressed this issue with a variety of algorithms. It boils down to using mutexs (mutual exclusion). Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_exclusion) has a number of algorithms that you should evaluate. The biggest problem is that once a lock is acquired, how long do you wait before you realize that the lock will never be released?
As a LA native, it a crying shame that this is one of the measures the LA legislature is seeking to make up for state budget cuts while they sought to increase their salaries at the onset of the legislative session. http://www.la-par.org/PAR%20News%20Files/shreveporttimes_06.13.08.pdf I work at LSU and already dealing with the budget cuts from the state and now I am told they also want to tax me?! This is complete bullshit.
As modern programming languages (Python, Ruby, and Scala) are implementing Common Lisp features (closures, variable capturing) and the online availability of Practical Common Lisp, it seems now is a good time for younger people to learn CL. The icing on the cake here is that there are alternatives for Vim users to develop Lisp without using SLIME.
Please begin metamoderating news submissions in firehose if you don't find the quality of submissions to your liking, but it did bubble its way up because someone else thought it wasn't a bad idea to talk about.
I have used my Apple-branded wireless keyboard / mouse combo (Bluetooth) for a year now and can tell you how it has measured up:
1. Difficulty repairing Bluetooth connection upon changing batteries
I don't know what the deal with this is, but I end up having to reboot because it doesn't pair up with my iMac upon changing the battery.
2. Right click on mouse is a little eh.
If you train yourself to hit the far right of the mouse, then it works fine 98% of the time.
3. Side squeeze takes some effort and not really worth it
I have remapped my mouse such that Expose uses the middle click whereas Spaces takes the squeeze. I hardly ever use it.
4. Some people have problems with the keyboard due to size and key spacing.
I haven't had any issues with it but I know my cubemate complains about it all the time due to his sausage fingers.
5. Lacks home / end / page up / page down / delete keys.
I really had to learn some strange ways of replicating these keys with the Apple wireless keyboard. If these are a must for you, then do go with Apple wireless keyboard.
6. Lightweight
This thing is really light and if you want something stylish, then it is a double win.
This becomes powerful because now there is a way you can delete multiple lines from a file and not just empty lines. If I am cleaning up a file, I will mark lines I want to keep with some special character I don't expect to find at the beginning of the line and delete any lines that don't begin with it.
Splitting the screen into multiple windows
:sp [path to file to open in new window]
Control + W, direction key - to move between windows; direction key relative horizontal or vertical split
Control + W, equal sign - to resize windows to be same size
Control + W, underscore - to maximize current window
Word completion in Insert mode
Control + P - This will attempt to complete the word based upon the most recent word in history this matches. It will also show a list of the potential words further in the history it could use if you continue to hit Control + P
I did my undergraduate at LSU in Computer Science, where they start off everyone in C. I have enjoyed the language as I have been able to transition to newer, high-level languages easily. Whether this is because of C or the mindset you need to have with C, I think teaching them C is a good way to start.
As for materials on learning and working with C, I recommend the following books / websites:
1. C: How To Program by Deitel & Deitel (ISBN: 0-13-226119-7) (http://isbndb.com/d/book/c_a09.html)
This is the first book I learned on. The 2nd edition does a real thorough presentation of material with lots of code and visual examples of good techniques. Also, the 2nd edition did a really good job of incorporating library headers and function prototypes, which are harder to find in a book.
2. The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie (ISBN: 0-13-110362-8) (http://isbndb.com/d/book/the_c_programming_langua ge_a05.html)
This is the holy grail of C books since it was written by the original creators of the language. Despite its slim size, both Kernighan & Ritchie do a really good job with making it concise and relevant. I can guaranty that every C developer has this book on their shelf. It also has some information about interfacing with Unix/Linux OS.
3. Data structures and algorithms book in C
I am sorry, I really meant to give you the actual book title I used but it is on my shelf at home. You want to find some type of data structures and algorithm book to enforce good design techniques.
The biggest problem I have seen when people learn how to program is the fact they learn how to solve a problem only with the tools of the language. This makes them reluctant to move to other languages that don't provide solutions in the same mechanism. By having your students work in a lower-level language like C, they learn how to build the data structures taken care for you in other languages (stacks, queues, trees, graphs, etc) so they develop the mindset rather than a functional dependency.
Hope this helps and keep up the good fight!
Big corporations (Microsoft) proclaim "We need more IT workers".
Corporations bolster demand for IT workers with high paid salaries.
Young impressionable minds go to college for CS, MIS, etc.
Impressionable minds graduate looking for careers.
Corporations respond "We are sorry, but because you expect to have a high salary job, we cannot hire you" or "We don't think the quality of your education is good enough".
People like myself who went into IT (B.S. of CS), who are caught up in an expensive, if not troubled, education system because we listened to corporations, who after creating a craze, try to 180 on it, are the people who these laws are protecting. Whether faults with education or the market, we have been left out as the bastard children of incompetent parents.
I really look forward to being one of the care takers of the previous generation; I am your future.
Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete
on
Google Suggest
·
· Score: 1
What is interesting about the implementation is that it seems that Google is generating some sort of XML file which contains the computed information necessary for the Suggest service. Through this is only my premature evaluation of the code (http://www.google.com/ac.js), if it is true that it is ran off of a XML list, then the computation is not necessarily a problem and can even be extensible to other websites to incorporate the feature into their existing google search inserts.
I hate to shatter the illusioned author's perspective of this mature-contented game being leaked into our society as an attempt to pollute children's minds with sex, violence, and immorality, but issues such as 1.) Game ratings are on and explained to parents, 2.) Game purchases are enforced by retailors, 3.) GTA mimics/imitates what we as a society have allowed our children to absorb through all forms of media.
As I am currently working at Best Buy in Raleigh, NC in the Media Dept, I am usually found in the video game section. I have been playing video games since Atari 2600s were crack for kids, which has been a favorite past time throughout my childhood.
Especially with the Christmas season, there have been a lot of video games purchased; mostly based upon wish lists and what nots. For every customer who ventured into my department, I personally made a point to greet, talk with them, and answer any questions they had about the games they were looking for. What more, I make an EXTRA effort to inform parents buying games whether for a new or existing system that games do have ratings. I take this to the point where I show them how to see what type of material is contained within games, so that they can make the best educated choices in selected video games. 90% of parents who were looking for M-rated games felt as though blood and violence were perfectly fine for their older children and usually followed with the remark that they see it on TV all the time!
Now, it might be just me, but I enjoy playing GTA because I realize that it is just video game that allows me to release tensions that we all endure. And don't come preaching to me that you never want lop the f-ing head of the brand new black Ford Explorer with 30 day tag on when s/he cuts you off on the off ramp because they are too stupid to realize that their lane doesn't turn into Crossroads Blvd!
Along with your award winning service, Dell still offers completely uncomprehendable award winning support in explaining absolutely nothing when it comes to problems on your laptop or PC! Check out the latest snippet from a real life Dell support email fresh with helpfulness!
NOTE: The problem which I am trying have resolved is that in either Redhat 9 or Windows XP, my mouse will shoot off to one of the corners of the screen and will freeze there. As this happens in both OSes, it is my thought that something along the lines of hardware is having a problem.
Dell's first email:
"Dear Mr. Feller,
Thank you for contacting Dell eSupport and Services (ESS).
We appreciate the opportunity to assist you. I apologize for the inconvenience you may be experiencing due to issues with your system and I assure you it is our hope that you have a positive experience with our company.
Sir, according to Dell policy and procedures we donot support dual boot process so please revert back to the factory defaults of the system so that I can further troubleshoot the issue. I apologize for the inconvenience caused.
Thank you again for choosing Dell."
My first response:
"Dear Customer Service Representative,
I am unclear how the issue that the laptop is currently setup to be dual boot affects the ability of the computer to use the USB mouse, touch pad, or pencil mouse correctly. As the ability to setup the laptop to dual boot is merely a setup of hard drive's partitions and boot sector, there should be no baring whatsoever on the performance of the built-in mice.
I would appreciate some information as to how the OS setup on the laptop affects the mouse performance and if reverted back to the original Windows XP setup, what steps is Dell willing to take to return the laptop to the original factory performance if said factory configuration proves to be ineffective in restoring mouse functionality."
Sheesh, they definitely like to put the barrel of the gun to their foot before they pull the trigger.
I cannot offer the same perspective as a portion of the mass who comes to Slashdot, but I can offer the perspective of a college kid. Right now, I am a Computer Science undergrad here at LSU, and how you feel towards computers and technology is a big factor in deciding what you want to do.
There are three main computer related fields here: information systems and decision sciences, which gears people up to be more of like ITs for businesses, computer science, which gears people for understanding computing concepts, theories, and application of them, and computer engineers, who knows a solid portion of theory and application but apply that in designing hardware.
If all you want to do is to write software like a code monkey and don't care about understanding higher principles in computer theory, then take the IT solution. Go to a highly respected technical college, get a couple years experience, and then you will be ready. If you are a person like me whose wants to go beyond making a simple application for people but to advance yourself in thought as well as application of skills, then look towards going to college, getting a well-rounded education, do a couple internships, and have things a little bit better than being in a technical school.
Employers do not solely look at what you know. Trust me, if you put something infront of me that is not written in stereophonics, then I can figure it out and produce something. College attempts to well-round you. Why is it that one of the major signs of a potential hacker is to be proficent at playing a musical instrument? Doing math word problems? et cetera.
Anywho, sit down and think what you want to do and how you feel towards that. Whatever will make you happy in life, do it! I am not in this field for the money; that is just a bonus for doing what I love!
Slashdot Mirror
http://lanyrd.com/ is a pretty good repository of conferences in general and has a good listing of technical conferences as well. As everyone mentions, it depends what your actual responsibilities are.
I believe engineers generally hold non-technical departments in contempt because of the seeming inability to understand technology and the lack of common sense exercised. Here are a few reasons I have cringed when working with non-engineers over the years:
While it is true that engineers generally value logic and reason (how else could we do the job others cannot do?), I believe engineers are more likely not to put up with people's bullshit to the extend everyone demands. There is a time and place for sentimentality and everyone shouldn't be catered to because they are a precious snowflake
I hope you live or die by that opinion Sonny. Like everyone else, I believe you and I make comments about coworkers and bosses to the same extent this teacher makes about her kids, so do these comments and feelings preventing us from being effective employees? Does gossiping with coworkers introduce instability within the ranks? Honestly, the teacher is reacting as humanly as the rest of do, so I think suspension is a little borderline as a simple reprimand might be enough. Reality is that people's kids suck, which is why wife and I are seriously thinking about raising cats.
If you actually read the article, it is fact less about the actually situation with the kid and is pure theoretical on "how" someone could cheat to cause it. This attention whoring troll really should drive back to where he is from and checkout the kid's controller before he goes slandering the poor kid. Jerk
Unfortunately, I am prevent from looking anything up as search engines, searching, and typing are all patented ... doh!
Everyone has already chimed in about the merits of learning foundational programming languages like C and C++, but I wonder if the defense of "this is what the industry is" should be the main reason for getting rid of languages. I liken this to forcing US students to learn COBOL because larger companies and universities don't want to get rid of their mainframes. Though it is the responsibility of higher education to prepare individuals for the work force, it seems this move will only stagnant the talent pool and make it harder to advance to new paradigms later.
While reading the review of the book, I thought the reviewer's comment about the history of Vim being unnecessary to be wrong. Having used Vim on various systems including RHEL, Fedora, Mac OS X, Windows (gvim), and BSD there are some differences that catch unaware users off guard. Most Linux operating systems will install Vi as a standard editor and add an alias for Vim to use Vi. This is seems all well and good, however Vi has some pain points in particular the inability to backspace / delete characters on the current line. Anyhow, I'm not sure ignorance is the best policy especially as there are so many variations out there on different OSes.
The sad part is that I have been alive for all of these and have purchased over 50% of them!
Source: Final Fantasy Release Info
Computer science has addressed this issue with a variety of algorithms. It boils down to using mutexs (mutual exclusion). Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_exclusion) has a number of algorithms that you should evaluate. The biggest problem is that once a lock is acquired, how long do you wait before you realize that the lock will never be released?
As a LA native, it a crying shame that this is one of the measures the LA legislature is seeking to make up for state budget cuts while they sought to increase their salaries at the onset of the legislative session. http://www.la-par.org/PAR%20News%20Files/shreveporttimes_06.13.08.pdf I work at LSU and already dealing with the budget cuts from the state and now I am told they also want to tax me?! This is complete bullshit.
As modern programming languages (Python, Ruby, and Scala) are implementing Common Lisp features (closures, variable capturing) and the online availability of Practical Common Lisp, it seems now is a good time for younger people to learn CL. The icing on the cake here is that there are alternatives for Vim users to develop Lisp without using SLIME.
If you check out Google on the topic (http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&topic=t&ncl=dDKpmSnqnsICgRMLlq0sSKB8xpL8M) you will find there are ~50 different websites covering this.
Please begin metamoderating news submissions in firehose if you don't find the quality of submissions to your liking, but it did bubble its way up because someone else thought it wasn't a bad idea to talk about.
I have used my Apple-branded wireless keyboard / mouse combo (Bluetooth) for a year now and can tell you how it has measured up:
1. Difficulty repairing Bluetooth connection upon changing batteries
I don't know what the deal with this is, but I end up having to reboot because it doesn't pair up with my iMac upon changing the battery.
2. Right click on mouse is a little eh.
If you train yourself to hit the far right of the mouse, then it works fine 98% of the time.
3. Side squeeze takes some effort and not really worth it
I have remapped my mouse such that Expose uses the middle click whereas Spaces takes the squeeze. I hardly ever use it.
4. Some people have problems with the keyboard due to size and key spacing.
I haven't had any issues with it but I know my cubemate complains about it all the time due to his sausage fingers.
5. Lacks home / end / page up / page down / delete keys.
I really had to learn some strange ways of replicating these keys with the Apple wireless keyboard. If these are a must for you, then do go with Apple wireless keyboard.
6. Lightweight
This thing is really light and if you want something stylish, then it is a double win.
:%g:^\s*$:d
This becomes powerful because now there is a way you can delete multiple lines from a file and not just empty lines. If I am cleaning up a file, I will mark lines I want to keep with some special character I don't expect to find at the beginning of the line and delete any lines that don't begin with it.
Splitting the screen into multiple windows
:sp [path to file to open in new window]
Control + W, direction key - to move between windows; direction key relative horizontal or vertical split
Control + W, equal sign - to resize windows to be same size
Control + W, underscore - to maximize current window
Word completion in Insert mode
Control + P - This will attempt to complete the word based upon the most recent word in history this matches. It will also show a list of the potential words further in the history it could use if you continue to hit Control + P
I did my undergraduate at LSU in Computer Science, where they start off everyone in C. I have enjoyed the language as I have been able to transition to newer, high-level languages easily. Whether this is because of C or the mindset you need to have with C, I think teaching them C is a good way to start. As for materials on learning and working with C, I recommend the following books / websites: 1. C: How To Program by Deitel & Deitel (ISBN: 0-13-226119-7) (http://isbndb.com/d/book/c_a09.html) This is the first book I learned on. The 2nd edition does a real thorough presentation of material with lots of code and visual examples of good techniques. Also, the 2nd edition did a really good job of incorporating library headers and function prototypes, which are harder to find in a book. 2. The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie (ISBN: 0-13-110362-8) (http://isbndb.com/d/book/the_c_programming_langua ge_a05.html)
This is the holy grail of C books since it was written by the original creators of the language. Despite its slim size, both Kernighan & Ritchie do a really good job with making it concise and relevant. I can guaranty that every C developer has this book on their shelf. It also has some information about interfacing with Unix/Linux OS.
3. Data structures and algorithms book in C
I am sorry, I really meant to give you the actual book title I used but it is on my shelf at home. You want to find some type of data structures and algorithm book to enforce good design techniques.
The biggest problem I have seen when people learn how to program is the fact they learn how to solve a problem only with the tools of the language. This makes them reluctant to move to other languages that don't provide solutions in the same mechanism. By having your students work in a lower-level language like C, they learn how to build the data structures taken care for you in other languages (stacks, queues, trees, graphs, etc) so they develop the mindset rather than a functional dependency.
Hope this helps and keep up the good fight!
People like myself who went into IT (B.S. of CS), who are caught up in an expensive, if not troubled, education system because we listened to corporations, who after creating a craze, try to 180 on it, are the people who these laws are protecting. Whether faults with education or the market, we have been left out as the bastard children of incompetent parents.
I really look forward to being one of the care takers of the previous generation; I am your future.
What is interesting about the implementation is that it seems that Google is generating some sort of XML file which contains the computed information necessary for the Suggest service. Through this is only my premature evaluation of the code (http://www.google.com/ac.js), if it is true that it is ran off of a XML list, then the computation is not necessarily a problem and can even be extensible to other websites to incorporate the feature into their existing google search inserts.
I hate to shatter the illusioned author's perspective of this mature-contented game being leaked into our society as an attempt to pollute children's minds with sex, violence, and immorality, but issues such as 1.) Game ratings are on and explained to parents, 2.) Game purchases are enforced by retailors, 3.) GTA mimics/imitates what we as a society have allowed our children to absorb through all forms of media. As I am currently working at Best Buy in Raleigh, NC in the Media Dept, I am usually found in the video game section. I have been playing video games since Atari 2600s were crack for kids, which has been a favorite past time throughout my childhood. Especially with the Christmas season, there have been a lot of video games purchased; mostly based upon wish lists and what nots. For every customer who ventured into my department, I personally made a point to greet, talk with them, and answer any questions they had about the games they were looking for. What more, I make an EXTRA effort to inform parents buying games whether for a new or existing system that games do have ratings. I take this to the point where I show them how to see what type of material is contained within games, so that they can make the best educated choices in selected video games. 90% of parents who were looking for M-rated games felt as though blood and violence were perfectly fine for their older children and usually followed with the remark that they see it on TV all the time! Now, it might be just me, but I enjoy playing GTA because I realize that it is just video game that allows me to release tensions that we all endure. And don't come preaching to me that you never want lop the f-ing head of the brand new black Ford Explorer with 30 day tag on when s/he cuts you off on the off ramp because they are too stupid to realize that their lane doesn't turn into Crossroads Blvd!
Along with your award winning service, Dell still offers completely uncomprehendable award winning support in explaining absolutely nothing when it comes to problems on your laptop or PC! Check out the latest snippet from a real life Dell support email fresh with helpfulness! NOTE: The problem which I am trying have resolved is that in either Redhat 9 or Windows XP, my mouse will shoot off to one of the corners of the screen and will freeze there. As this happens in both OSes, it is my thought that something along the lines of hardware is having a problem. Dell's first email: "Dear Mr. Feller, Thank you for contacting Dell eSupport and Services (ESS). We appreciate the opportunity to assist you. I apologize for the inconvenience you may be experiencing due to issues with your system and I assure you it is our hope that you have a positive experience with our company. Sir, according to Dell policy and procedures we donot support dual boot process so please revert back to the factory defaults of the system so that I can further troubleshoot the issue. I apologize for the inconvenience caused. Thank you again for choosing Dell." My first response: "Dear Customer Service Representative, I am unclear how the issue that the laptop is currently setup to be dual boot affects the ability of the computer to use the USB mouse, touch pad, or pencil mouse correctly. As the ability to setup the laptop to dual boot is merely a setup of hard drive's partitions and boot sector, there should be no baring whatsoever on the performance of the built-in mice. I would appreciate some information as to how the OS setup on the laptop affects the mouse performance and if reverted back to the original Windows XP setup, what steps is Dell willing to take to return the laptop to the original factory performance if said factory configuration proves to be ineffective in restoring mouse functionality." Sheesh, they definitely like to put the barrel of the gun to their foot before they pull the trigger.
I cannot offer the same perspective as a portion of the mass who comes to Slashdot, but I can offer the perspective of a college kid. Right now, I am a Computer Science undergrad here at LSU, and how you feel towards computers and technology is a big factor in deciding what you want to do.
There are three main computer related fields here: information systems and decision sciences, which gears people up to be more of like ITs for businesses, computer science, which gears people for understanding computing concepts, theories, and application of them, and computer engineers, who knows a solid portion of theory and application but apply that in designing hardware.
If all you want to do is to write software like a code monkey and don't care about understanding higher principles in computer theory, then take the IT solution. Go to a highly respected technical college, get a couple years experience, and then you will be ready. If you are a person like me whose wants to go beyond making a simple application for people but to advance yourself in thought as well as application of skills, then look towards going to college, getting a well-rounded education, do a couple internships, and have things a little bit better than being in a technical school.
Employers do not solely look at what you know. Trust me, if you put something infront of me that is not written in stereophonics, then I can figure it out and produce something. College attempts to well-round you. Why is it that one of the major signs of a potential hacker is to be proficent at playing a musical instrument? Doing math word problems? et cetera.
Anywho, sit down and think what you want to do and how you feel towards that. Whatever will make you happy in life, do it! I am not in this field for the money; that is just a bonus for doing what I love!