Actually, when I first saw the line "four freedoms" I had a brief image of Sam Fisher, the protagonist of Splinter Cell, being assigned by Richard Stallman to take out Microsoft's development servers. I game way too much...
Seriously, though, the article makes its subject seem a little more of a big deal than it is, and it takes WAY too long to get to the point. Here is my much more succinct summary:
Open source is great, but it doesn't do everything. There are a couple of things you might find an alternative, less open tool for (like Java, Flash, etc). This is perfectly OK, even though some open-source advocates freak out over such thoughts. Just be discreet about it so they don't have a coronary, and enjoy your software regardless of its source.
Pretty unusual for someone entering his thirties to think that way; interesting. I think it's an unhealthy attitude, because if you run every time someone throws down with you, sooner or later there's nowhere left to go. Why race to the bottom? Stake out some territory and hold it against all comers. It's more satisfying anyway.
Take me for example. I'm 34. I really like the life I've built here, in the second bluest of blue states. I worked really hard to get to this particular spot, I went through all kinds of hell to get here what with the tech crash and the dot-com years, and there's no way I'm going to just give up and let what I've got get taken away from me.
It takes a lot more than a crappy experience or three to make me back off. What's the quote? "to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."
Someone unpleasantly said: "You chose to be exploited. If more of us had the balls to say no, this shit wouldn't happen. You must be a slave to your job. Married with children?"
That is quite simplistic.
Let me ask you a counter-question.
If you were a programmer who managed to land a good civil service slot at the beginning of the tech crash, and who found yourself employed when almost everyone else you knew had been laid off...
If you had managed to gain yourself a great spot in a place you liked, with bosses you liked, doing work you found interesting...
And, if out of the clear blue sky YOU got stuck with a project like this, with an asshole project manager like this, which threatened to wreck everything for you and destroy your happy, quiet little job...
And if you KNEW for a FACT that the project manager wasn't just screwing you, but also your boss (who you like), the agency (which you like), and the clients for the project (who you think are basically okay people)...
Would YOU just throw in the towel? Or would you fight for what you had BEFORE the asshole sleazed his way into your workplace? You seem to be implying that I just rolled over and took it. I fought this guy tooth and nail. In fact, in more than one way I ended up saving the project from certain doom. I didn't ENJOY it, mind you, and it still ended up blowing up in my face in a most unpleasant way; I mean, I lost face, I lost a LOT of status, I lost a lot of my job satisfaction...
But I've been clawing my way back to it inch by inch ever since, and I'm almost back to where I was before that project/idiot project manager fucked everything up for me. I'm almost back to where I want to be, and I've got a chance for a real promotion coming up, so things ended up sort of alright. If I'd just told them to go to hell, or quit, I wouldn't be where I am now. I'm not about to give up my career over this crap.
I bet you're young. I'm guessing... Early twenties? You sure don't sound like you're MY age... When you're older, you'll understand the value of standing your ground and protecting what you have.
I inherited a project from a consultant who had spent several months (I'm guessing six) doing mostly nothing other than whipping up some mock-ups of how the web pages should look. He read Indian newspapers a lot, pretended to be busy, and did nothing much. When he got caught, he got asked to leave and the project dropped into my lap.
A new project manager came in, a stubborn old man who was really into old style structured programming. He kept talking about "functional decomposition" as if it was completely sufficient to model an object oriented project (we had shifted to VB.Net for this one). He dragged the user meetings on for SIX MORE MONTHS. My deadline kept getting closer. First, I had six months. Then four. Then three. Then, two. By the time he got done farting around with endless meetings, I had ONE MONTH to develop, design, AND implement the ENTIRE SYSTEM. He started trying to push me.
We had vicious fights in which I would tell him his project schedule was a work of fiction. He would try to threaten me, force bizarre changes on me, he'd refuse to modify the database schema even when it was obviously insufficient to meet a design problem. I kept fighting for more time.
Over about four months (three in which I was overdue and constantly nagged/harassed), working 80-100 hour weeks, I actually got a big chunk of the system built. A month into the actual development, he left for other projects because he didn't want to get tagged with the failure of this one (I got a new manager, someone much more modern in his thinking, comfortable with OOP, etc). By the end of the four months, management was getting seriously annoyed at me (like this was all MY fault somehow) and demanded a realistic schedule. We determined it would take me 71 more days to complete at the rate I'd been going, assuming I went back to a more normal work week. I was so burned out I said I'd like to transfer to another location when the project was finished, management realized I was being fried, and they relented -- they gave the project to a team of several consultants to finish. There was a brief period in which management investigated, to see whether they should dump the blame in my lap, but everyone who looked at my code called it brilliant, so I was spared. I didn't feel too lucky, though. Actually I felt like I'd been run over by a truck.
Long story short, they redesigned the project using a framework (CSLA) and it took them nine more months. At least it got finished, and works, so I guess that's something.
This project was the worst thing that has EVER happened to me. I almost destroyed my health over that four month period. It was HORRIBLE.
In MY view, project managers can make or break a project. If you get a guy who's nuts, and thinks you can magic him up a whole system in a month, just run away. Get off that project ASAP.
I'm lucky, though; my management has since given me a more normal project to work on, and things have settled down. The project manager screwed us, fucking off to Florida and leaving us in the lurch on a few projects, so I don't have to look at HIS ugly mug, either. It all worked out, I guess.
Where I work, I'm the official department asshole because I'm the only person who argued (many, many times) against the adoption/creation of a framework. I'm one of the only permanent employees where I work, surrounded by consultants on all sides. The consultants are all pushing their own framework ideas, and stabbing each other in the back to further their own plans.
If it isn't one thing, it's another. The latest horrible idea is to create a VB.Net clone of J2EE and Struts (instead of just doing standard.net programming).
What's really nuts about it is, all the systems we create are relatively small collections of web pages which all touch the same general set of databases. All we REALLY need is a 3-tier setup, database, app server, and web server. And our projects can be pretty small.
Instead, we're going to get this mammoth thing, so that every project will be the same size across the board. It's just nuts.
I gave up arguing about it. Whenever I fight it, I get totally mobbed by all the consultants. The last time I argued about this, they all ganged up on me.
Fuck it, I'm on salary, I'll be by my desk eating antacids and drinking peptol bismol. I'm tired of getting picked on.
"I think I've got root. Nmap says it's an NT box; it doesn't seem to have a firewall running. Looks like a law office."
"Aaahhh! Nice one! You gonna nuke it?"
"Nah, I wanna mess with 'em a little. Wanna send a nasty email to a competing law office? Maybe we can get a West Side Story brawl going."
"Hang on, your mom's gonna wanna get in on this. HONEY! GET IN HERE! JOEY'S NAILED A LAW FIRM"
(goth mother comes in)
"A law firm? You're kidding? What are they running, 2000?"
"Naw, ma, NT 4."
"Get out of here!"
"Honest! Hey, check it out, someone's trying to log on. Should I enable his account?"
"Go for it. Hey, pop up a message, let me type."
(Mother sneaks into the seat).
"BEHOLD, LAWYER, FOR I AM THE ANGEL GABRIEL AND I HAVE COME TO WARN THEE, THOU ART BILKING THY CLIENTS AND SHALL SURELY PAY! IF THOU WISHEST TO GAIN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, GIVETH THY BMW TO RICHARD STALLMAN AND DONATE YOUR TIME TO THE FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION!"
"Umm, mom, wasn't that a little over the top? Besides, he doesn't know how to respond."
"Right... Umm..."
"LAWYER! JESUS HAS INSTRUCTED ME THAT IF YOU STRIP TO YOUR UNDERWEAR, LEAN OUT THE WINDOW AND SCREAM PRAISE THE LORD ONE DOZEN TIMES, THEN QUIT YOUR JOB AS MINION OF SATAN, WE'LL FORGIVE YOU... BUT ONLY THIS ONCE."
"Yeah... MUCH better..." (rolls eyes)
Hey, the family that plays together STAYS together!
Yeah, no kidding; I've met some pretty push-push people in my time. They wanted the whole enchilada, the suit, the BMW, the trophy wife and the house... I never understood that... It didn't seem like a very happy life to me. I mean, I grew up blue-collar, and my family spent a lot of time together, we were pretty close. All these rich suits are letting their kids get raised by the "au pair". I just don't get it. It's like, why would you want that? You know?
I'm sure money's nice and all, but Jeez. I'd rather get home early and do something dirty with my wife than work late all the time and get paid more. Not that I'm married or anything (this IS slashdot! ha ha).
Wow... Things are rougher for you guys than I thought. I agree with you about the loss of institutional knowledge, that's a real problem. If a federal agency does a face-plant, I wonder how Congress will react, especially if the agency is something like the IRS, which basically pays their salaries?
I bet that nothing on Earth would motivate a congressman faster than a bounced paycheck. And I think you'd see some change mighty fast. Again, as you've pointed out, I'm an optimist when it comes to this, but really, I don't think the republicans can get away with their bullshit forever. Sooner or later, it's going to blow up in their faces, it's inevitable.
I'd like to mention that state service is VERY different from what you've experienced, at least in a "blue state". The states are hiring, for one thing, and they're generally heavily unionized. You get a solid pension guaranteed by the state constitution, which is very, very nice, and you get great benefits. After your one-year probation, you have excellent job security (you generally won't get fired unless you REALLY deserve it). And the promotion tracks are open; they're holding exams again. It's good.
Honestly, state service is nice.
I'm sorry you're having a hard time; I hope things turn around for federal employees sooner rather than later.
But, admit it: it's STILL better than a corporate job! I mean, those are just... Ewww.
An A/C said: "Good advice, but there's one item that's not humanly possible to follow. You can't do everything, and some stuff is better left to specialists (dentist, surgeon, etc.)..."
Ok, that's true, and I admit it fully. I wasn't trying to say you should do EVERYTHING, just what's within your power to do. Reading a book here and there expands your powers, which is a good thing, right?
I mean, I don't think I'd want to try my hand at self-dentistry, you know? Eeeesh. I was thinking more along the lines of putting in a new sink faucet or changing your alternator (that's a good example, by the way: doing it yourself costs 25 bucks for the part, mechanics cost a LOT more).
As far as Wal-Mart goes, is it just me, or is the whole "greeter" thing kinda creepy?
I think what's missing in corporate jobs, which allowed corporate jobs to degenerate as far as they have, is the concept of the relationship between the owner of the company and the people who do the work. Small companies like we prefer aren't just jobs, they're relationships. You're a friend of the family that owns the place. They're not going to stick it to you. As long as you take care of them, they'll take care of you too. There's TRUST.
With a corporation, there's no relationship whatsoever. It's completely impersonal. And THAT is what makes it a bad idea in general to work for a corporation. How can there be trust if you're just a line item?
Interesting note on the property taxes; yeah, I never understood why someone would want a huge, expensive house, either. I see it as being kind of like a big, fuel-inefficient SUV. Sure, you've got a big car, and it looks nice, but jeez, it's costing you 7 miles per gallon, the insurance is heavy, you can't park it anywhere... Yuck.
Come on, now, be fair. Being a federal employee under Bush is ROUGH. He wants to get rid of you guys, bring in his corporate friends. But this is hardly representative of civil service as a whole, and you're not being fair to the guys on here who need to figure out what they're going to do with their lives. If you chase them away from civil service because you're having a rough time under Bush, that's pretty messed up.
Besides, federal jobs aren't even the majority of civil service. Each of the fifty states has its own civil service organization. Some of the red states are rough on their civil servants; but most states are pretty civilized about things. When you're a state-level civil servant, you're generally in a strong union, and you've got a pretty good environment to work in. It's nice, way more friendly than federal.
To be fair, you've got to be careful about picking which state you're going to live in. FWIW, The New England states are pretty good to their civil servants, and New Jersey is particularly nice: it requires citizenship before it'll let you do any work for it, even if you're a contractor. I think Vermont requires that contractors be based in the state if they're going to do work, so even if something gets outsourced, the job's still gonna be there. They aren't laying anybody off though. California is pretty nice to its people, too. New York is pretty nice, I'd bet it's similar to California. They're almost sister states, albeit RIVAL sisters.
I guess it's a matter of what kind of situation you can find for yourself. Don't discount the whole thing just because part of it isn't as nice as it used to be.
Anyway, you're being too hard on your situation. All is not doom and gloom. Bush will not be in office forever, you know. And, from what I've heard, whenever the democrats get back in, things swing back the other way, more worker-friendly. It's cyclic, sorta. Keep your chin up. Things'll get better in a few years.
I'll answer your points in a roundabout way, instead of the quote/counterquote standard slashdot thing (otherwise, these posts will soon be so large they'll have gravity).
First of all, well, there are a limited number of ANY kind of job. Civil Service is just one possibility out of several, the best one IF you can get it. And the fact that they're paid with taxes is irrelevant; there are a huge number of jobs (paying taxes) that aren't affected by outsourcing... By the way, you DO know that civil servants pay taxes, too, right? So that discounts their cost somewhat.
Besides, without us civil servants, you wouldn't have any SERVICES. I know, nobody thinks they NEED services, until suddenly they do, and the light bulb comes on. Highway maintenance, childcare licensing, food inspection, police departments, public education, utility regulation, oversight in hospitals, the NURSING STAFF of hospitals... Who do you think DOES all this?
WE do. And there are a HELL of a lot more of us maintaining YOUR society behind the scenes than you know about. In my union alone, there are over 50,000 of us IN MY STATE. There's another 50-100K in our sister union (slightly different realm, also civil service). Each of those is one of the good jobs you'd like to brush off. Hey, if you don't want them, fine, somebody else'll take 'em. The work's gotta be done by SOMEBODY. And the jobs ARE out there. You just have to take the test, score well, and get placed.
You should try it, you know. Most people currently working have never experienced an actual GOOD JOB. Once you experience it, you'll accept no substitutes. Good people, good bosses, a reasonable work week, good benefits, a calm working environment staffed with mature professionals... There was a time when this was the norm. Now, it's almost radical. Try it. You'll like it.
Ok, moving right along. Small companies are more likely to fail? Tell that to the Enron staff. But the real problem with large companies isn't the company failing, it's the company firing you and hiring three Indians. I'll take a small company any day. At least you know the owner, and have a chance to be friends with the guy.
As far as video games go, yeah, they're going to try and sneak in some advertising, but it'll take the form of you running into a Pepsi machine in one of the levels. I played one game in which there were Bawls vending machines all over the place. The promotion for the game was "Grab your Bawls and Run Like Hell". It was funny. Do I drink Bawls? No. I can't even FIND Bawls. I'm guessing it's some kind of malt beverage, but who knows?
In video games, the advertising is pretty much out of your way. Television is quite a different animal. There's a huge difference between having a high-pressure, brainwashing ad jammed in your face and happening to catch a glimpse of a Sprite machine while blasting aliens. It's just different.
Hopefully it'll stay that way, but who knows? I guess we'll find out. But I doubt videogames with annoying commercials will sell very well. We gamers are rather vicious when it comes to stuff like that.
Of COURSE Yourdon is a cook. He's written a book which is camoflaged as sympathetic to American IT workers... Yet, when you get into his actual IDEAS, he spouts the same nonsense the corporations are pushing (protectionism bad, outsourcing inevitable, yadda yadda yadda).
Yourdon is a corporate shill. I've never liked him. Neither should you -- or anyone else.
You want to have a nice life? You want to be happy and carefree like your buddy Phil? You want to live free, not in fear? Well, read on! I'll hook you up.
First, let's consider "the problem":
A large portion of traditional "IT" jobs are/were in corporations. But corporations' black-hearted owners (rich guys who invest in the stock market, which BY THE WAY is a VERY small segment of the population) have decided that American workers are too stubborn about silly issues like "a living wage", "time with their families", "decent benefits", "workplace safety", and "job security". Consequently, they have created the worldwide job market. Now, the rich can look to countries that don't have pesky workers-rights laws, occupational safety regulations, environmental laws, and other annoying little peccadillos they had to struggle with in First World nations. They don't have to worry about a "living wage" either, because in SOME countries, a living wage is an executive's COFFEE MONEY. And they get to have a nice, deep belly laugh at the expense of all those annoying technologists they USED to have to keep on staff.
Considering this situation, the problem should be clear: How does a smart technologist make a living and find happiness when a huge chunk of his job market has effectively gone down the toilet?
Let's begin. Let's "Work the problem".
PART 1: Filter out unsuccessful approaches to dealing with the problem, and discard them.
FIRST: Never, EVER work for a corporation, even if for some strange reason they start trying to hire Americans again. They were never great employers to begin with. They'd make you sign noncompetes, IP agreements, nondisclosures... And they expected you to work sixty to eighty hour weeks with no overtime, and pretend you were happy to do so. One place where your buddy Phil used to work actually said on orientation day that if the job wasn't the most important thing in your life INCLUDING YOUR FAMILY, you didn't belong there (TRUE STORY). Corporate jobs are worse than anything. Just say "no".
ALSO: Don't keep racking up student loan debt to get higher and higher degrees because some idiot talking head says you've got to "move up the food chain". This strategy is NOT going to work. IBM and several other corporations are already doing research and development in India with Indian Ph.Ds. There is nowhere else to go up the food chain; the ladder has ended and the hatch is welded shut. Save your money.
AND: Don't count on becoming some kind of analyst. Everybody and their mother is already calling themselves analysts. That sort of thing isn't going to last any longer than R+D did. You know who's going to be doing analysis? THE ANALYSIS TEAM AT THE INDIAN OUTSOURCING FIRM. Yep. They've already got one. Don't waste your time.
PART 2: Having discarded worthless approaches, identify viable approaches to pursue.
PRIMARILY, CONCENTRATE ON IT JOBS AMERICANS STILL HAVE A SHOT AT.
Best: Civil Service. The pay is lower than the old corporate jobs were, but those are mostly gone now anyway. And the 50-60k you'll end up with is STILL about double the national average salary. You'll have REAL job security (UNION membership!), excellent benefits, and a nice, nine-to-five schedule so your family will actually be able to call you by name without referring to a cheat sheet. Your boss will actually (gasp!) be NICE to you, your working environment will be civilized, you won't have to sign any scary contracts, and in general you'll be happy. Pick your choice: federal, state, county, city. It's all good. And, generally, you've got to be a citizen of the city/state/whatever to apply for a position.
Second Best: Get a job in the IT department of a university, college, community college, or high school. This is actually very similar to civil service, although not quite as nice (for example, maybe you get a 401K instead of a full pension). Still, it's pretty good.
Lagging slightly: Academics. If you can stay in college through at lea
No. It doesn't, actually, not in most browsers. You have to remember that each browser has its own implementation of the javascript parser. You're thinking of IE, in which Javascript has always been wonky ever since Microsoft tried to push VBScript as a competitor.
Um... "having JavaScript check things"??? Nooooo, I meant having the web browser's javascript system handle the checks. Not unlike what you're suggesting, only different checks. But then, this is slashdot. Responding to the same thing I said would be a faux pas.
bottom line: if you're going to go to your online bank, you usually open up your browser, type in the URL, and go. You don't go to a magic hacker site and click a link. So this is of limited scary-scary value.
Ok, this is true, but still -- wouldn't it be easier to just set up a spoof site in the first place, and link to THAT from your site? All this popup window hopping is totally unnecessary. It may be possible, but the user can get tricked much more easily with less work. It's not Javascript's popup mechanism that's the problem, it's the ease with which users can be duped. The only cure for THAT is education.
This is why I don't really see it as much of an issue. It's not that phishing sites aren't an issue; just that this one technique is no more worrisome than all the other techniques they use. And that I think it can't really be called a vulnerability; more like a con-artist technique. Trick 'em somehow into opening a link from your site, sure, but it's still just you tricking 'em.
Is it a namespace bug? What if I have one web server that accesses stuff on another web server? So I have my one site, site A, which has one set of content. And I have another site, site B, which has another set of content and passes some info back to site A.
Currently, from site A I can open a window to site B, do a little something, get some data back, and continue with more stuff on site A.
It amounts to a question of business requirements.
If this scenario is something you want to disallow completely, then fine, strip this capability out of Javascript. Have the Javascript system check the origin of each window to make sure they're all on the same site.
But make sure nobody is using the feature, because if they are, they'll veto your change. And I think this IS being used, like for example banner ads which open up windows to other sites (but which probably get some data back from the new window and log it, or do something else).
Now what? Of course, even if you figure out you don't want to do this, what are you going to key on to figure out whether sites are on the same server? DNS address? What about load balancing, where different requests go to different servers? OK, what about trying to figure things out from the URL? That can be spoofed too. Maybe you don't think there should be ANY popup windows. But I think the people who built the browsers would disagree, because they built the capability in.
It's more complicated than "the offsite link should run in a separate namespace". Any change would involve serious trade-offs, and you will never get any consensus on the issue.
By the way, as I've said elsewhere, if they can get you to click an email link, they don't NEED all this popup magic. All they have to do is show you a spoof site. And that's not just easier, it's more reliable, too. The popup thing is dependent on too many factors. A spoof site just has to look real.
An A/C posted a reply to this, calling me "a poor dumb sod" over and over again; must've been British, or one of those sad Americans who want to sound British and start saying "arse" and "sod" instead of "ass" and "schmuck". Some of his points are worth mocking, so here goes:
He says JavaScript's security model is broken. Says who? And in which browser? Because they all have different implementations. He's just another weirdo who insists that everyone turn off JavaScript because HE can't be bothered to use a browser with a good implementation of it (read: NOT IE).
Ok, moving right along, I point out that "who's going to go to some hacking site and open a link to their bank?" A reasonable question. To which our Brit (or whatever) replied:
"A person using a hacking site that is using DNS poisoning to pretend to be Google or MSN, you poor dumb sod."
To which I REPLY:
DUH, IF the hacking site was using DNS poisoning to redirect people to it, then I don't think it would need a FUCKING POPUP to trick people; it would much more likely have a whole spoof site set up. Why would the crook bother with all this popup and DOM silliness? It would be MUCH more reliable to just code a mock page, you poor dumb schmuck (see how that works? I'm an American, so I say "Schmuck". It rolls off the tongue, say it with me: SCHMUCK! YOU'RE A SCHMUCK!).
Anyway, do you think anyone with the skill to do "DNS Poisoning" (???) is going to have to resort to a trick this cheesy? Give me a break. It'd be like a sculptor buying a piece of marble, tools, etc... And then making his sculpture out of playdough while sitting on the marble chunk. It would be DUMB, and other hackers and phishers would make fun of the guy at parties.
And, what's up with British slang, anyway? In the U.S. "sod" is preseeded grass sold in hardware stores. You buy it by the yard. It smells nice, grows fast, is easy to apply... Those are good things, I think. So... Thanks!
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, when I first saw the line "four freedoms" I had a brief image of Sam Fisher, the protagonist of Splinter Cell, being assigned by Richard Stallman to take out Microsoft's development servers. I game way too much...
Seriously, though, the article makes its subject seem a little more of a big deal than it is, and it takes WAY too long to get to the point. Here is my much more succinct summary:
Open source is great, but it doesn't do everything. There are a couple of things you might find an alternative, less open tool for (like Java, Flash, etc). This is perfectly OK, even though some open-source advocates freak out over such thoughts. Just be discreet about it so they don't have a coronary, and enjoy your software regardless of its source.
Wasn't that easier? I think it was.
Pretty unusual for someone entering his thirties to think that way; interesting. I think it's an unhealthy attitude, because if you run every time someone throws down with you, sooner or later there's nowhere left to go. Why race to the bottom? Stake out some territory and hold it against all comers. It's more satisfying anyway.
.sig-worthy!
Take me for example. I'm 34. I really like the life I've built here, in the second bluest of blue states. I worked really hard to get to this particular spot, I went through all kinds of hell to get here what with the tech crash and the dot-com years, and there's no way I'm going to just give up and let what I've got get taken away from me.
It takes a lot more than a crappy experience or three to make me back off. What's the quote? "to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."
Now, THAT's
Someone unpleasantly said: "You chose to be exploited. If more of us had the balls to say no, this shit wouldn't happen. You must be a slave to your job. Married with children?"
That is quite simplistic.
Let me ask you a counter-question.
If you were a programmer who managed to land a good civil service slot at the beginning of the tech crash, and who found yourself employed when almost everyone else you knew had been laid off...
If you had managed to gain yourself a great spot in a place you liked, with bosses you liked, doing work you found interesting...
And, if out of the clear blue sky YOU got stuck with a project like this, with an asshole project manager like this, which threatened to wreck everything for you and destroy your happy, quiet little job...
And if you KNEW for a FACT that the project manager wasn't just screwing you, but also your boss (who you like), the agency (which you like), and the clients for the project (who you think are basically okay people)...
Would YOU just throw in the towel? Or would you fight for what you had BEFORE the asshole sleazed his way into your workplace? You seem to be implying that I just rolled over and took it. I fought this guy tooth and nail. In fact, in more than one way I ended up saving the project from certain doom. I didn't ENJOY it, mind you, and it still ended up blowing up in my face in a most unpleasant way; I mean, I lost face, I lost a LOT of status, I lost a lot of my job satisfaction...
But I've been clawing my way back to it inch by inch ever since, and I'm almost back to where I was before that project/idiot project manager fucked everything up for me. I'm almost back to where I want to be, and I've got a chance for a real promotion coming up, so things ended up sort of alright. If I'd just told them to go to hell, or quit, I wouldn't be where I am now. I'm not about to give up my career over this crap.
I bet you're young. I'm guessing... Early twenties? You sure don't sound like you're MY age... When you're older, you'll understand the value of standing your ground and protecting what you have.
Let me tell you a tale of woe.
I inherited a project from a consultant who had spent several months (I'm guessing six) doing mostly nothing other than whipping up some mock-ups of how the web pages should look. He read Indian newspapers a lot, pretended to be busy, and did nothing much. When he got caught, he got asked to leave and the project dropped into my lap.
A new project manager came in, a stubborn old man who was really into old style structured programming. He kept talking about "functional decomposition" as if it was completely sufficient to model an object oriented project (we had shifted to VB.Net for this one). He dragged the user meetings on for SIX MORE MONTHS. My deadline kept getting closer. First, I had six months. Then four. Then three. Then, two. By the time he got done farting around with endless meetings, I had ONE MONTH to develop, design, AND implement the ENTIRE SYSTEM. He started trying to push me.
We had vicious fights in which I would tell him his project schedule was a work of fiction. He would try to threaten me, force bizarre changes on me, he'd refuse to modify the database schema even when it was obviously insufficient to meet a design problem. I kept fighting for more time.
Over about four months (three in which I was overdue and constantly nagged/harassed), working 80-100 hour weeks, I actually got a big chunk of the system built. A month into the actual development, he left for other projects because he didn't want to get tagged with the failure of this one (I got a new manager, someone much more modern in his thinking, comfortable with OOP, etc). By the end of the four months, management was getting seriously annoyed at me (like this was all MY fault somehow) and demanded a realistic schedule. We determined it would take me 71 more days to complete at the rate I'd been going, assuming I went back to a more normal work week. I was so burned out I said I'd like to transfer to another location when the project was finished, management realized I was being fried, and they relented -- they gave the project to a team of several consultants to finish. There was a brief period in which management investigated, to see whether they should dump the blame in my lap, but everyone who looked at my code called it brilliant, so I was spared. I didn't feel too lucky, though. Actually I felt like I'd been run over by a truck.
Long story short, they redesigned the project using a framework (CSLA) and it took them nine more months. At least it got finished, and works, so I guess that's something.
This project was the worst thing that has EVER happened to me. I almost destroyed my health over that four month period. It was HORRIBLE.
In MY view, project managers can make or break a project. If you get a guy who's nuts, and thinks you can magic him up a whole system in a month, just run away. Get off that project ASAP.
I'm lucky, though; my management has since given me a more normal project to work on, and things have settled down. The project manager screwed us, fucking off to Florida and leaving us in the lurch on a few projects, so I don't have to look at HIS ugly mug, either. It all worked out, I guess.
Where I work, I'm the official department asshole because I'm the only person who argued (many, many times) against the adoption/creation of a framework. I'm one of the only permanent employees where I work, surrounded by consultants on all sides. The consultants are all pushing their own framework ideas, and stabbing each other in the back to further their own plans.
.net programming).
If it isn't one thing, it's another. The latest horrible idea is to create a VB.Net clone of J2EE and Struts (instead of just doing standard
What's really nuts about it is, all the systems we create are relatively small collections of web pages which all touch the same general set of databases. All we REALLY need is a 3-tier setup, database, app server, and web server. And our projects can be pretty small.
Instead, we're going to get this mammoth thing, so that every project will be the same size across the board. It's just nuts.
I gave up arguing about it. Whenever I fight it, I get totally mobbed by all the consultants. The last time I argued about this, they all ganged up on me.
Fuck it, I'm on salary, I'll be by my desk eating antacids and drinking peptol bismol. I'm tired of getting picked on.
"Ok, son, whatcha got going on, there?"
"I think I've got root. Nmap says it's an NT box; it doesn't seem to have a firewall running. Looks like a law office."
"Aaahhh! Nice one! You gonna nuke it?"
"Nah, I wanna mess with 'em a little. Wanna send a nasty email to a competing law office? Maybe we can get a West Side Story brawl going."
"Hang on, your mom's gonna wanna get in on this. HONEY! GET IN HERE! JOEY'S NAILED A LAW FIRM"
(goth mother comes in)
"A law firm? You're kidding? What are they running, 2000?"
"Naw, ma, NT 4."
"Get out of here!"
"Honest! Hey, check it out, someone's trying to log on. Should I enable his account?"
"Go for it. Hey, pop up a message, let me type."
(Mother sneaks into the seat).
"BEHOLD, LAWYER, FOR I AM THE ANGEL GABRIEL AND I HAVE COME TO WARN THEE, THOU ART BILKING THY CLIENTS AND SHALL SURELY PAY! IF THOU WISHEST TO GAIN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, GIVETH THY BMW TO RICHARD STALLMAN AND DONATE YOUR TIME TO THE FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION!"
"Umm, mom, wasn't that a little over the top? Besides, he doesn't know how to respond."
"Right... Umm..."
"LAWYER! JESUS HAS INSTRUCTED ME THAT IF YOU STRIP TO YOUR UNDERWEAR, LEAN OUT THE WINDOW AND SCREAM PRAISE THE LORD ONE DOZEN TIMES, THEN QUIT YOUR JOB AS MINION OF SATAN, WE'LL FORGIVE YOU... BUT ONLY THIS ONCE."
"Yeah... MUCH better..." (rolls eyes)
Hey, the family that plays together STAYS together!
Yeah, no kidding; I've met some pretty push-push people in my time. They wanted the whole enchilada, the suit, the BMW, the trophy wife and the house... I never understood that... It didn't seem like a very happy life to me. I mean, I grew up blue-collar, and my family spent a lot of time together, we were pretty close. All these rich suits are letting their kids get raised by the "au pair". I just don't get it. It's like, why would you want that? You know?
I'm sure money's nice and all, but Jeez. I'd rather get home early and do something dirty with my wife than work late all the time and get paid more. Not that I'm married or anything (this IS slashdot! ha ha).
As I said, I didn't consider this to be the best choice. However, it IS available, and it beats unemployment or "Wal-Mart Greeter".
Besides, college jobs don't seem that bad. Go for the small regional colleges like you mentioned.
Anyway, I'm not talking about "safe cushy jobs". I'm talking about jobs worth having, where you can still get a little respect and job security.
it's not THAT much to ask for.
(Jeff Goldblum): "Is it possible to fall in love with a computer? Oooohhhhhh yes!"
Wow... Things are rougher for you guys than I thought. I agree with you about the loss of institutional knowledge, that's a real problem. If a federal agency does a face-plant, I wonder how Congress will react, especially if the agency is something like the IRS, which basically pays their salaries?
I bet that nothing on Earth would motivate a congressman faster than a bounced paycheck. And I think you'd see some change mighty fast. Again, as you've pointed out, I'm an optimist when it comes to this, but really, I don't think the republicans can get away with their bullshit forever. Sooner or later, it's going to blow up in their faces, it's inevitable.
I'd like to mention that state service is VERY different from what you've experienced, at least in a "blue state". The states are hiring, for one thing, and they're generally heavily unionized. You get a solid pension guaranteed by the state constitution, which is very, very nice, and you get great benefits. After your one-year probation, you have excellent job security (you generally won't get fired unless you REALLY deserve it). And the promotion tracks are open; they're holding exams again. It's good.
Honestly, state service is nice.
I'm sorry you're having a hard time; I hope things turn around for federal employees sooner rather than later.
But, admit it: it's STILL better than a corporate job! I mean, those are just... Ewww.
An A/C said: "Good advice, but there's one item that's not humanly possible to follow. You can't do everything, and some stuff is better left to specialists (dentist, surgeon, etc.)..."
Ok, that's true, and I admit it fully. I wasn't trying to say you should do EVERYTHING, just what's within your power to do. Reading a book here and there expands your powers, which is a good thing, right?
I mean, I don't think I'd want to try my hand at self-dentistry, you know? Eeeesh. I was thinking more along the lines of putting in a new sink faucet or changing your alternator (that's a good example, by the way: doing it yourself costs 25 bucks for the part, mechanics cost a LOT more).
As far as Wal-Mart goes, is it just me, or is the whole "greeter" thing kinda creepy?
An A/C said: "Crazy Phil, that was friggen crazy beautiful man".
:)
Thanks!
I think what's missing in corporate jobs, which allowed corporate jobs to degenerate as far as they have, is the concept of the relationship between the owner of the company and the people who do the work. Small companies like we prefer aren't just jobs, they're relationships. You're a friend of the family that owns the place. They're not going to stick it to you. As long as you take care of them, they'll take care of you too. There's TRUST.
With a corporation, there's no relationship whatsoever. It's completely impersonal. And THAT is what makes it a bad idea in general to work for a corporation. How can there be trust if you're just a line item?
Interesting note on the property taxes; yeah, I never understood why someone would want a huge, expensive house, either. I see it as being kind of like a big, fuel-inefficient SUV. Sure, you've got a big car, and it looks nice, but jeez, it's costing you 7 miles per gallon, the insurance is heavy, you can't park it anywhere... Yuck.
Come on, now, be fair. Being a federal employee under Bush is ROUGH. He wants to get rid of you guys, bring in his corporate friends. But this is hardly representative of civil service as a whole, and you're not being fair to the guys on here who need to figure out what they're going to do with their lives. If you chase them away from civil service because you're having a rough time under Bush, that's pretty messed up.
Besides, federal jobs aren't even the majority of civil service. Each of the fifty states has its own civil service organization. Some of the red states are rough on their civil servants; but most states are pretty civilized about things. When you're a state-level civil servant, you're generally in a strong union, and you've got a pretty good environment to work in. It's nice, way more friendly than federal.
To be fair, you've got to be careful about picking which state you're going to live in. FWIW, The New England states are pretty good to their civil servants, and New Jersey is particularly nice: it requires citizenship before it'll let you do any work for it, even if you're a contractor. I think Vermont requires that contractors be based in the state if they're going to do work, so even if something gets outsourced, the job's still gonna be there. They aren't laying anybody off though. California is pretty nice to its people, too. New York is pretty nice, I'd bet it's similar to California. They're almost sister states, albeit RIVAL sisters.
I guess it's a matter of what kind of situation you can find for yourself. Don't discount the whole thing just because part of it isn't as nice as it used to be.
Anyway, you're being too hard on your situation. All is not doom and gloom. Bush will not be in office forever, you know. And, from what I've heard, whenever the democrats get back in, things swing back the other way, more worker-friendly. It's cyclic, sorta. Keep your chin up. Things'll get better in a few years.
I'll answer your points in a roundabout way, instead of the quote/counterquote standard slashdot thing (otherwise, these posts will soon be so large they'll have gravity).
First of all, well, there are a limited number of ANY kind of job. Civil Service is just one possibility out of several, the best one IF you can get it. And the fact that they're paid with taxes is irrelevant; there are a huge number of jobs (paying taxes) that aren't affected by outsourcing... By the way, you DO know that civil servants pay taxes, too, right? So that discounts their cost somewhat.
Besides, without us civil servants, you wouldn't have any SERVICES. I know, nobody thinks they NEED services, until suddenly they do, and the light bulb comes on. Highway maintenance, childcare licensing, food inspection, police departments, public education, utility regulation, oversight in hospitals, the NURSING STAFF of hospitals... Who do you think DOES all this?
WE do. And there are a HELL of a lot more of us maintaining YOUR society behind the scenes than you know about. In my union alone, there are over 50,000 of us IN MY STATE. There's another 50-100K in our sister union (slightly different realm, also civil service). Each of those is one of the good jobs you'd like to brush off. Hey, if you don't want them, fine, somebody else'll take 'em. The work's gotta be done by SOMEBODY. And the jobs ARE out there. You just have to take the test, score well, and get placed.
You should try it, you know. Most people currently working have never experienced an actual GOOD JOB. Once you experience it, you'll accept no substitutes. Good people, good bosses, a reasonable work week, good benefits, a calm working environment staffed with mature professionals... There was a time when this was the norm. Now, it's almost radical. Try it. You'll like it.
Ok, moving right along. Small companies are more likely to fail? Tell that to the Enron staff. But the real problem with large companies isn't the company failing, it's the company firing you and hiring three Indians. I'll take a small company any day. At least you know the owner, and have a chance to be friends with the guy.
As far as video games go, yeah, they're going to try and sneak in some advertising, but it'll take the form of you running into a Pepsi machine in one of the levels. I played one game in which there were Bawls vending machines all over the place. The promotion for the game was "Grab your Bawls and Run Like Hell". It was funny. Do I drink Bawls? No. I can't even FIND Bawls. I'm guessing it's some kind of malt beverage, but who knows?
In video games, the advertising is pretty much out of your way. Television is quite a different animal. There's a huge difference between having a high-pressure, brainwashing ad jammed in your face and happening to catch a glimpse of a Sprite machine while blasting aliens. It's just different.
Hopefully it'll stay that way, but who knows? I guess we'll find out. But I doubt videogames with annoying commercials will sell very well. We gamers are rather vicious when it comes to stuff like that.
Brings a whole new meaning to "Hey, baby, what's your number..."
Oh... MY... GAWD! I just had the greatest idea!
Two words: "wireless webcam".
Of COURSE Yourdon is a cook. He's written a book which is camoflaged as sympathetic to American IT workers... Yet, when you get into his actual IDEAS, he spouts the same nonsense the corporations are pushing (protectionism bad, outsourcing inevitable, yadda yadda yadda).
Yourdon is a corporate shill. I've never liked him. Neither should you -- or anyone else.
You want to have a nice life? You want to be happy and carefree like your buddy Phil? You want to live free, not in fear? Well, read on! I'll hook you up.
First, let's consider "the problem":
A large portion of traditional "IT" jobs are/were in corporations. But corporations' black-hearted owners (rich guys who invest in the stock market, which BY THE WAY is a VERY small segment of the population) have decided that American workers are too stubborn about silly issues like "a living wage", "time with their families", "decent benefits", "workplace safety", and "job security". Consequently, they have created the worldwide job market. Now, the rich can look to countries that don't have pesky workers-rights laws, occupational safety regulations, environmental laws, and other annoying little peccadillos they had to struggle with in First World nations. They don't have to worry about a "living wage" either, because in SOME countries, a living wage is an executive's COFFEE MONEY. And they get to have a nice, deep belly laugh at the expense of all those annoying technologists they USED to have to keep on staff.
Considering this situation, the problem should be clear: How does a smart technologist make a living and find happiness when a huge chunk of his job market has effectively gone down the toilet?
Let's begin. Let's "Work the problem".
PART 1: Filter out unsuccessful approaches to dealing with the problem, and discard them.
FIRST: Never, EVER work for a corporation, even if for some strange reason they start trying to hire Americans again. They were never great employers to begin with. They'd make you sign noncompetes, IP agreements, nondisclosures... And they expected you to work sixty to eighty hour weeks with no overtime, and pretend you were happy to do so. One place where your buddy Phil used to work actually said on orientation day that if the job wasn't the most important thing in your life INCLUDING YOUR FAMILY, you didn't belong there (TRUE STORY). Corporate jobs are worse than anything. Just say "no".
ALSO: Don't keep racking up student loan debt to get higher and higher degrees because some idiot talking head says you've got to "move up the food chain". This strategy is NOT going to work. IBM and several other corporations are already doing research and development in India with Indian Ph.Ds. There is nowhere else to go up the food chain; the ladder has ended and the hatch is welded shut. Save your money.
AND: Don't count on becoming some kind of analyst. Everybody and their mother is already calling themselves analysts. That sort of thing isn't going to last any longer than R+D did. You know who's going to be doing analysis? THE ANALYSIS TEAM AT THE INDIAN OUTSOURCING FIRM. Yep. They've already got one. Don't waste your time.
PART 2: Having discarded worthless approaches, identify viable approaches to pursue.
PRIMARILY, CONCENTRATE ON IT JOBS AMERICANS STILL HAVE A SHOT AT.
Best: Civil Service. The pay is lower than the old corporate jobs were, but those are mostly gone now anyway. And the 50-60k you'll end up with is STILL about double the national average salary. You'll have REAL job security (UNION membership!), excellent benefits, and a nice, nine-to-five schedule so your family will actually be able to call you by name without referring to a cheat sheet. Your boss will actually (gasp!) be NICE to you, your working environment will be civilized, you won't have to sign any scary contracts, and in general you'll be happy. Pick your choice: federal, state, county, city. It's all good. And, generally, you've got to be a citizen of the city/state/whatever to apply for a position.
Second Best: Get a job in the IT department of a university, college, community college, or high school. This is actually very similar to civil service, although not quite as nice (for example, maybe you get a 401K instead of a full pension). Still, it's pretty good.
Lagging slightly: Academics. If you can stay in college through at lea
I mean, my GOD. It's almost like NetBSD. Next thing you know, there'll be Linux vibrators!
Hmm...
Suddenly I want to be a sysadmin!
No. It doesn't, actually, not in most browsers. You have to remember that each browser has its own implementation of the javascript parser. You're thinking of IE, in which Javascript has always been wonky ever since Microsoft tried to push VBScript as a competitor.
Um... "having JavaScript check things"??? Nooooo, I meant having the web browser's javascript system handle the checks. Not unlike what you're suggesting, only different checks. But then, this is slashdot. Responding to the same thing I said would be a faux pas.
bottom line: if you're going to go to your online bank, you usually open up your browser, type in the URL, and go. You don't go to a magic hacker site and click a link. So this is of limited scary-scary value.
Ok, this is true, but still -- wouldn't it be easier to just set up a spoof site in the first place, and link to THAT from your site? All this popup window hopping is totally unnecessary. It may be possible, but the user can get tricked much more easily with less work. It's not Javascript's popup mechanism that's the problem, it's the ease with which users can be duped. The only cure for THAT is education.
This is why I don't really see it as much of an issue. It's not that phishing sites aren't an issue; just that this one technique is no more worrisome than all the other techniques they use. And that I think it can't really be called a vulnerability; more like a con-artist technique. Trick 'em somehow into opening a link from your site, sure, but it's still just you tricking 'em.
See what I mean?
Is it a namespace bug? What if I have one web server that accesses stuff on another web server? So I have my one site, site A, which has one set of content. And I have another site, site B, which has another set of content and passes some info back to site A.
Currently, from site A I can open a window to site B, do a little something, get some data back, and continue with more stuff on site A.
It amounts to a question of business requirements.
If this scenario is something you want to disallow completely, then fine, strip this capability out of Javascript. Have the Javascript system check the origin of each window to make sure they're all on the same site.
But make sure nobody is using the feature, because if they are, they'll veto your change. And I think this IS being used, like for example banner ads which open up windows to other sites (but which probably get some data back from the new window and log it, or do something else).
Now what? Of course, even if you figure out you don't want to do this, what are you going to key on to figure out whether sites are on the same server? DNS address? What about load balancing, where different requests go to different servers? OK, what about trying to figure things out from the URL? That can be spoofed too. Maybe you don't think there should be ANY popup windows. But I think the people who built the browsers would disagree, because they built the capability in.
It's more complicated than "the offsite link should run in a separate namespace". Any change would involve serious trade-offs, and you will never get any consensus on the issue.
By the way, as I've said elsewhere, if they can get you to click an email link, they don't NEED all this popup magic. All they have to do is show you a spoof site. And that's not just easier, it's more reliable, too. The popup thing is dependent on too many factors. A spoof site just has to look real.
An A/C posted a reply to this, calling me "a poor dumb sod" over and over again; must've been British, or one of those sad Americans who want to sound British and start saying "arse" and "sod" instead of "ass" and "schmuck". Some of his points are worth mocking, so here goes:
He says JavaScript's security model is broken. Says who? And in which browser? Because they all have different implementations. He's just another weirdo who insists that everyone turn off JavaScript because HE can't be bothered to use a browser with a good implementation of it (read: NOT IE).
Ok, moving right along, I point out that "who's going to go to some hacking site and open a link to their bank?" A reasonable question. To which our Brit (or whatever) replied:
"A person using a hacking site that is using DNS poisoning to pretend to be Google or MSN, you poor dumb sod."
To which I REPLY:
DUH, IF the hacking site was using DNS poisoning to redirect people to it, then I don't think it would need a FUCKING POPUP to trick people; it would much more likely have a whole spoof site set up. Why would the crook bother with all this popup and DOM silliness? It would be MUCH more reliable to just code a mock page, you poor dumb schmuck (see how that works? I'm an American, so I say "Schmuck". It rolls off the tongue, say it with me: SCHMUCK! YOU'RE A SCHMUCK!).
Anyway, do you think anyone with the skill to do "DNS Poisoning" (???) is going to have to resort to a trick this cheesy? Give me a break. It'd be like a sculptor buying a piece of marble, tools, etc... And then making his sculpture out of playdough while sitting on the marble chunk. It would be DUMB, and other hackers and phishers would make fun of the guy at parties.
And, what's up with British slang, anyway? In the U.S. "sod" is preseeded grass sold in hardware stores. You buy it by the yard. It smells nice, grows fast, is easy to apply... Those are good things, I think. So... Thanks!