Nonsense. You can easily hire top people, you just have to be willing to pay them enough. Whatever you're offering, keep doubling it and see if you're still not getting great candidates walking in the door. This is what Netflix do: They routinely offer salaries at significantly above market rate, and they have far less trouble hiring software engineers than the other Silicon Valley firms who complain about a lack of talent.
Now, you may say, "but we can't afford to offer salaries that high!" and maybe that's true, but it means that the candidates you want are out of your price range, not that they're not out there. For companies that can't pay, the solution is obvious: Encourage as many people as possible to enter STEM fields, thus increasing the pool of candidates, which in turn increases the smaller pool of elite candidates. Greater supply and equal demand causes a drop in price, and companies an now hire better talent for mediocre wages.
This equation is the only reason by tech companies have been attaching themselves to these ludicrous campaigns to teach everybody to code. Not because they really believe their some social benefit to every school kid being able to make their own smartphone app, but because they want to increase their profits by lowering their wage bill. This is hardly wild speculation, given we know for a fact that tech CEOs spent most of the 2000s illegally conspiring to lower wages via mutal non-recruitment agreements: http://pando.com/2014/01/23/th...
Seems to me his comments relate specifically to Novell's patent deal with Microsoft, not his efforts to produce free software implementations of Microsoft's stuff.
I'm always disappointed when I see the abuse heaped on de Icaza by the Slashdot crowd, simply because he doesn't quite hate Microsoft enough. The guy has spent years developing free applications, and has likely written ten times more open source code than his detractors will ever produce. If you actually read his opinions or listen to him speak, it's clear that he is committed to the ideals of free software, he just doesn't buy into the whole partisan "micro$oft sux!" attitude. I wish people would get some perspective on this issue and learn that you can disagree with someone in an informed manner without resorting to childish name-calling. That kind of behavior reflects far worse on the abusers, and confirms the wider perception of Slashdot geeks as childish and belligerent fundamentalists.
Microsoft's dominance is a fact, we (e.g. the free software community) may not like it, but we have to deal with it. De Icaza's stance is that people will use.NET and Silverlight regardless of whether they are available for Linux or not. If they're not available then it is Linux that will suffer, as it will not be able to offer as rich a user experience as Windows. So he has undertaken the job of helping produce compatible open source implementations for Linux (and other OS's). I don't imagine many people have a problem with this in concept. It's no different from what the Wine project is doing, and they don't seem to get keelhauled for being Microsoft shills every time they are mentioned on Slashdot.
His more controversial stance is that suggesting that the Microsoft technologies like.NET, Silverlight and OOXML are actually quite good, and that free software developers should make use of them to develop software, instead of just seeing them as a way to help migration away from Windows. This I have difficulty with. I support open standards, and while parts.NET are standardised, their development is hardly open in the way say HTML or C++ is open. But in truth, the free software community has failed to provide a real alternative to technologies like.NET or Silverlight. For example, where is the open standard alternative to Flash and Silverlight? Sure, a combination of SVG, JavaScript and a few other things might get you a similar level of functionality, but the end-to-end ecosystem of a coalesced product, browser plug-ins, developer tools, examples and learning material just isn't there, despite the community having had years to produce it.
Ultimately, it isn't good enough to say to users and developers, you can choose between great proprietary solutions and mediocre open ones. Free software needs to be as good as or better than non-free software if it is to succeed. If it isn't, then most people will inevitably choose the proprietary solutions and free software developers will have to clone them to keep up. So if people don't agree with Miguel de Icaza, then maybe they should concentrate less on attacking him and more on producing great open solutions that will blow Microsoft and everyone else's out of the water.
Compilation, language semantics, and runtime environment are trivial parts of modern languages. Any fool with a copy of the spec can implement the Java VM, any many have, but that never made Java truly Free or open source. The runtime library is where the real action is. A modern language is its runtime library, far more than interchangeable fluff of keywords and syntax. Hell, that's the whole key to.NET, you can write in VB.NET, C#, or whatever-you-like, but you're always using the same underlying libraries. Java code is never "cross platform", only the Java runtime is or ever can be, the same with.NET. Open sourcing the CLR doesn't mean crap, when Microsoft open source the Windows Forms libraries, now that'll be news.
My experiences do seem to back this up. I started working at my current firm just a few months ago. Whilst looking through their existing code I've been amazed at the diabolical quality of the spelling and grammar in comments, and even variable and module names. Everyday works misspelt time and again, some of it wouldn't be out of place in a child's phonetically spelled scrawlings. And it seems to be that the better the programmer is technically, the worse their grasp of everyday English. Unfortunately I tend to be fairly anal about spelling and grammar, so I guess that bodes badly for my programming ability.
I love how they weren't skeptical enough about this picture to even consider the possibility it was faked, but they're skeptical enough about the actual author saying it's "obviously faked" to conclude that it's just "likely".
Yes. In this case you've showed an accurate connection, that all three individuals are connected through their consumation of foodstuffs, with no requirement for contextual information. I'm not exactly sure why anyone would care about this particular demonstrated connection though?
Personally, I'd be far more concerned about the kind of connection through political opinion and rhetoric displayed in the parent post, but you can keep banging on that "all evil people eat food" thepry if you like.
This technology is interesting, but as long as it is reliant on sticking spiked electrodes into your brain to reach neurons, it's not going to be that useful. If/when nano-tech develops to the point where it can be used to effectively interface with large volumes of neurons, with minimal intrusion into the physical brain, then we might see some cool/frightening stuff happening.
It doesn't matter whether the price is $1 or $100, you shouldn't be buying anything from these online stores. Right now record labels are able to use their copyright ownerships to get both consumers and retailers over a barrell. The solution is to buy nothing from these stores until the music labels collapse, at which point bands can start negotiating directly with online distributors, which will mean a fairer price for everybody.
I believe the XviD team only release the source, which gets around this problem in the same way as the Lame mp3 encoder did. Of course anybody who compiles it and makes an encoder is liable to pay licence fees, perhaps that's why this article ignores XviD?
The really cool thing about XviD though is that it can be decoded by a "standard" MPEG4 decoder, which means all the modern DVD players with MPEG4 decoders built in can play XviDs by default.
Do you really think Ashcroft gives a damn about terrorism? Before 9-11 he was focused on crusading against pornography, drugs and all the other things which are against his particular view of christian morality, and that's still all he really cares about. The patriot acts were never about fighting terrorists (at least not to the DoJ), they were about implenting the kind of laws that they needed for their moralist authoritarianism, but which they couldn't have gotten passed otherwise. I suspect Bin Laden would be quite approving of the kind of fundamentalism many members of the current US administration display.
What makes me sick about this article is not Microsoft's intentions to lock down the PC architecture to its own specifications, it's that a supposedly independent journalist has written a piece which is little more than a press release for the company.
I mean: "Like a rich uncle sending a check when the cupboards are bare, Microsoft today is unveiling an ambitious plan to help computer makers develop a new generation of PCs and reinvigorate the stagnant industry." Anyone would think MS is the new Santa Claus, driven not by desire for profit and market domination, but pure hearted generosity and compassion for all the poor, poor computer manufacturers.
I believe at the time Baker wanted nothing to do with Doctor Who and since the story was "The Five Doctors" they were forced to get around it somehow. Amusingly when they did some promotional shots for the serial they were forced to use Baker's Madame Tussauds waxwork model as a stand-in.
They GPLed the source code to the engine, not the game's data files. You're still required to pay for Quake just like you have to pay for Commmander Keen just like you have to pay for Duken Nukem 3D.
Well most of the warez channels have left the network anyway. I guess they decided to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce this policy, without being faced with thousands of existing channels to shut down. Although it does seem a little weird for a network that has lost 100000 users in the past year to start kicking channels off the network.
I'm sure I remember reading a comment from Adams saying that basically, Shada was not an especially good Doctor Who story and wouldn't have been remembered if it weren't for the fact that it wasn't filmed. If you're looking for really good Douglas Adams Doctor Who, get "City of Death", its got everything; mad professors, evil aliens, british detectives and 7 Mona Lisas.
Slashdot Mirror
Nonsense. You can easily hire top people, you just have to be willing to pay them enough. Whatever you're offering, keep doubling it and see if you're still not getting great candidates walking in the door. This is what Netflix do: They routinely offer salaries at significantly above market rate, and they have far less trouble hiring software engineers than the other Silicon Valley firms who complain about a lack of talent.
Now, you may say, "but we can't afford to offer salaries that high!" and maybe that's true, but it means that the candidates you want are out of your price range, not that they're not out there. For companies that can't pay, the solution is obvious: Encourage as many people as possible to enter STEM fields, thus increasing the pool of candidates, which in turn increases the smaller pool of elite candidates. Greater supply and equal demand causes a drop in price, and companies an now hire better talent for mediocre wages.
This equation is the only reason by tech companies have been attaching themselves to these ludicrous campaigns to teach everybody to code. Not because they really believe their some social benefit to every school kid being able to make their own smartphone app, but because they want to increase their profits by lowering their wage bill. This is hardly wild speculation, given we know for a fact that tech CEOs spent most of the 2000s illegally conspiring to lower wages via mutal non-recruitment agreements: http://pando.com/2014/01/23/th...
It's been superceded by Web Components: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webcomponents/raw-file/tip/explainer/index.html
That's why it's dead.
2011: Year of the Windows desktop?
I don't know if you're trolling or just unfamiliar with Windows development, but there are apps originally for Windows 1.0 and compiled in 1992 that still run on modern Windows.
Maybe he's from the future and thinks they're using ASP.NET 4?
Seems to me his comments relate specifically to Novell's patent deal with Microsoft, not his efforts to produce free software implementations of Microsoft's stuff.
.NET and Silverlight regardless of whether they are available for Linux or not. If they're not available then it is Linux that will suffer, as it will not be able to offer as rich a user experience as Windows. So he has undertaken the job of helping produce compatible open source implementations for Linux (and other OS's). I don't imagine many people have a problem with this in concept. It's no different from what the Wine project is doing, and they don't seem to get keelhauled for being Microsoft shills every time they are mentioned on Slashdot.
.NET, Silverlight and OOXML are actually quite good, and that free software developers should make use of them to develop software, instead of just seeing them as a way to help migration away from Windows. This I have difficulty with. I support open standards, and while parts .NET are standardised, their development is hardly open in the way say HTML or C++ is open. But in truth, the free software community has failed to provide a real alternative to technologies like .NET or Silverlight. For example, where is the open standard alternative to Flash and Silverlight? Sure, a combination of SVG, JavaScript and a few other things might get you a similar level of functionality, but the end-to-end ecosystem of a coalesced product, browser plug-ins, developer tools, examples and learning material just isn't there, despite the community having had years to produce it.
I'm always disappointed when I see the abuse heaped on de Icaza by the Slashdot crowd, simply because he doesn't quite hate Microsoft enough. The guy has spent years developing free applications, and has likely written ten times more open source code than his detractors will ever produce. If you actually read his opinions or listen to him speak, it's clear that he is committed to the ideals of free software, he just doesn't buy into the whole partisan "micro$oft sux!" attitude. I wish people would get some perspective on this issue and learn that you can disagree with someone in an informed manner without resorting to childish name-calling. That kind of behavior reflects far worse on the abusers, and confirms the wider perception of Slashdot geeks as childish and belligerent fundamentalists.
Microsoft's dominance is a fact, we (e.g. the free software community) may not like it, but we have to deal with it. De Icaza's stance is that people will use
His more controversial stance is that suggesting that the Microsoft technologies like
Ultimately, it isn't good enough to say to users and developers, you can choose between great proprietary solutions and mediocre open ones. Free software needs to be as good as or better than non-free software if it is to succeed. If it isn't, then most people will inevitably choose the proprietary solutions and free software developers will have to clone them to keep up. So if people don't agree with Miguel de Icaza, then maybe they should concentrate less on attacking him and more on producing great open solutions that will blow Microsoft and everyone else's out of the water.
I hear Duke Nukem Forever will be made using carbon nanotubes.
Compilation, language semantics, and runtime environment are trivial parts of modern languages. Any fool with a copy of the spec can implement the Java VM, any many have, but that never made Java truly Free or open source. The runtime library is where the real action is. A modern language is its runtime library, far more than interchangeable fluff of keywords and syntax. Hell, that's the whole key to .NET, you can write in VB.NET, C#, or whatever-you-like, but you're always using the same underlying libraries. Java code is never "cross platform", only the Java runtime is or ever can be, the same with .NET. Open sourcing the CLR doesn't mean crap, when Microsoft open source the Windows Forms libraries, now that'll be news.
My experiences do seem to back this up. I started working at my current firm just a few months ago. Whilst looking through their existing code I've been amazed at the diabolical quality of the spelling and grammar in comments, and even variable and module names. Everyday works misspelt time and again, some of it wouldn't be out of place in a child's phonetically spelled scrawlings. And it seems to be that the better the programmer is technically, the worse their grasp of everyday English. Unfortunately I tend to be fairly anal about spelling and grammar, so I guess that bodes badly for my programming ability.
I love how they weren't skeptical enough about this picture to even consider the possibility it was faked, but they're skeptical enough about the actual author saying it's "obviously faked" to conclude that it's just "likely".
Just in case slashdot gets slashdotted, here is google's cache of slashdot
Yes. In this case you've showed an accurate connection, that all three individuals are connected through their consumation of foodstuffs, with no requirement for contextual information. I'm not exactly sure why anyone would care about this particular demonstrated connection though?
Personally, I'd be far more concerned about the kind of connection through political opinion and rhetoric displayed in the parent post, but you can keep banging on that "all evil people eat food" thepry if you like.
This technology is interesting, but as long as it is reliant on sticking spiked electrodes into your brain to reach neurons, it's not going to be that useful. If/when nano-tech develops to the point where it can be used to effectively interface with large volumes of neurons, with minimal intrusion into the physical brain, then we might see some cool/frightening stuff happening.
It doesn't matter whether the price is $1 or $100, you shouldn't be buying anything from these online stores. Right now record labels are able to use their copyright ownerships to get both consumers and retailers over a barrell. The solution is to buy nothing from these stores until the music labels collapse, at which point bands can start negotiating directly with online distributors, which will mean a fairer price for everybody.
I believe the XviD team only release the source, which gets around this problem in the same way as the Lame mp3 encoder did. Of course anybody who compiles it and makes an encoder is liable to pay licence fees, perhaps that's why this article ignores XviD?
The really cool thing about XviD though is that it can be decoded by a "standard" MPEG4 decoder, which means all the modern DVD players with MPEG4 decoders built in can play XviDs by default.
It's evolution, baby!
Do you really think Ashcroft gives a damn about terrorism? Before 9-11 he was focused on crusading against pornography, drugs and all the other things which are against his particular view of christian morality, and that's still all he really cares about. The patriot acts were never about fighting terrorists (at least not to the DoJ), they were about implenting the kind of laws that they needed for their moralist authoritarianism, but which they couldn't have gotten passed otherwise. I suspect Bin Laden would be quite approving of the kind of fundamentalism many members of the current US administration display.
As NTK would say: Life imitates The Onion.
What makes me sick about this article is not Microsoft's intentions to lock down the PC architecture to its own specifications, it's that a supposedly independent journalist has written a piece which is little more than a press release for the company.
I mean: "Like a rich uncle sending a check when the cupboards are bare, Microsoft today is unveiling an ambitious plan to help computer makers develop a new generation of PCs and reinvigorate the stagnant industry." Anyone would think MS is the new Santa Claus, driven not by desire for profit and market domination, but pure hearted generosity and compassion for all the poor, poor computer manufacturers.
I believe at the time Baker wanted nothing to do with Doctor Who and since the story was "The Five Doctors" they were forced to get around it somehow. Amusingly when they did some promotional shots for the serial they were forced to use Baker's Madame Tussauds waxwork model as a stand-in.
They GPLed the source code to the engine, not the game's data files. You're still required to pay for Quake just like you have to pay for Commmander Keen just like you have to pay for Duken Nukem 3D.
Well most of the warez channels have left the network anyway. I guess they decided to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce this policy, without being faced with thousands of existing channels to shut down. Although it does seem a little weird for a network that has lost 100000 users in the past year to start kicking channels off the network.
Thanks.
Thanky ou Captain Obvious
I'm sure I remember reading a comment from Adams saying that basically, Shada was not an especially good Doctor Who story and wouldn't have been remembered if it weren't for the fact that it wasn't filmed. If you're looking for really good Douglas Adams Doctor Who, get "City of Death", its got everything; mad professors, evil aliens, british detectives and 7 Mona Lisas.