When I first started programming professionally, my personal projects just stopped -- I was new, so I felt like I had to really prove myself... and this led naturally to excessive hours on work projects, and stress burnout. After some experimentation, though, I managed to sort out my work life so I could be happy, and still have some energy left over at the end of the day.
If your professional life goes anything like mine, you'll figure out a way to make sure you get enough sleep at night (that alone will give your productivity during the day a big jump, in fewer hours!), and you'll find you have more freedom to push back and control how you spend your time as you gain experience/respect. And once you're more comfortable at work, your taste for personal projects may pick up again.
Just give yourself a year or two to find a niche at work that you like, then see how you feel. Once you're more comfortable in your domain at work, it'll take less out of you during the day -- so you'll have more energy in the evenings to do what you want (this is where a social life might come in too, btw).
Really, it'll depend a lot on how your work life pans out -- if you can score super projects at work that you love (and that demand all of your creative energy during the day)... do you still really need those personal projects? Most people dream of doing what they love *and* getting paid for it. Personally, I *like* my work, but the needs of the business don't always correspond with what would be most fun for me... so I have extra energy left to use.
Reminds me of one of my favorite Far Side cartoons; there's a professor-type guy walking down the street testing his new dog language translator... and there's an angry dog saying "Hey! Hey! Hey!!" at a mailman, a lonely dog howling "Heeeyyyyy" on a hill, an excited dog saying "Hey!" as its owner offers a treat.
I have a suspicion the squirrel communication is much along the same lines.
It was kind of a pain to find out, so I figure I'll share the news... it's not particularly cheap to use ($245 - "Save $50!") unless you're just a student and not doing *any* paid work (then it's $30).
As professional IDE's can go (I'm thinking of JBuilder and suchlike), this isn't bad, but it does price it out of my range just to help out with the occasional PHP or Perl work I do.
600/20 means that what *other* people can see at 600, you can see at 20
Okay, I finally took the 10 seconds to look it up, so we can stop all the guessing.
Here's one reference among many about the standard for measuring visual acuity. You can google for "visual acuity 20/20" or something like that to get other sources. Just in case, I also searched for "acuity 40/20" and came up with nothing relevant.
I think many people just remember it backwards. The *first* number should always be 20, and refers to what you can see at 20 feet (since that's how far away the chart is). The second number is the distance "regular" people see it at. For those who are, for whatever reason, really interested in this, these are called the "Snellen fractions" (e.g., 20/30, 20/80), after the guy who invented the chart and method, Dr. Hermann Snellen.
Are there multiple standards out there, or are parent posters just getting it backwards? E.g., wouldn't 600/20 mean you can see details 600 feet away that most people only get 20 feet away. For the record, I think most posters talking about 20/15 vision are excited about excellent (not subpar) vision.
Back on topic. I have friends who've had laser eye surgery and rave about it; I tend to warn people to think carefully first - do NOT just cross your fingers and assume that your surgery will be free from complications. If you're considering the surgery purely for aesthetic reasons, to "fix" mild myopia, etc. but it isn't going to make any significant change in your life, I'd say skip it. Don't forget that you are risking your sight!
I've had vision problems for most of my life (I'm now 28), and underwent 3 fairly major eye surgeries this year, for cataracts, glaucoma, retinal detachments, etc., most recently this past Wednesday, and things are looking up now (woohoo!), but trust me, it sucks to have dicey vision. I've been able to read (and hence work) most of the time, but I couldn't drive for a while. I'm currently waiting to see how night driving will be with implanted lenses (I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though it's actually useful to have an excuse to *never* be the designated driver!). When I was a kid I was pretty athletic... and ran track through HS and college, since I sucked at any sport involving catching anything.
Summary - diminished vision really does affect your life, and can't be corrected w/ glasses... so make sure you have a valid reason (and experienced doctor) before you risk it. If you're undecided -- just wait a few years. These procedures are still getting better and safer, and more doctors are gaining experience performing them every day.
If you have a significant other (I'm married, so I do), sell them on getting a Mac. I bought an iBook for my wife, so I can test on my laptop (w2k), her Mac, and Linux by booting from my handy Knoppix CD.
That covers the base pretty well.
Of coures, it's always wise to generally try to avoid dicey display tricks that you know will probably give you problems... or if you absolutely *must* have that stock ticker, don't code it yourself -- find one whose creator is doing the testing for you.
Other ideas: * Eat lunch out. You don't even have to eat in a restaurant every day (which isn't particularly healthy/cheap) -- you can bring lunch and meet friends at a park. The point is to get some solid social interaction in the middle of the day.
* Take mental breaks. Don't always go from work to a game, or even ranting on/. -- take a few minutes to let the clutch slip and relax your focus. Walk around a bit, decide what to do in the evening when you get home, etc.
* Stay hydrated, and don't eat a big lunch. And get enough sleep at night. You'll get more work done while your working, and more fun done when you're taking a break. You know dehydration is a pretty common cause of sleepiness, right? Of course, not getting enough sleep is also a major cause. If you aren't fighting off sleep, you'll be able to get more involved in your work (and thus less bored), plus you'll get more done, and have more time you can spend doing other stuff without swamping your productivity.
Another smartcard slow-down problem -- where would they keep the cards? In a pocket (and possibly left at home) means it's going to be much slower (where's that darned card?), and possibly inaccessible. On a cord around the neck? That might be a bad idea -- I read an article about how doctors are now strongly discouraged from using neckties - a study found they tend to be teeming with bacteria; whenever he leans forward, it drags in... whatever he's standing next to. Plus, what's the last thing you do after washing your hands? That's right, check the mirror and straighten the tie....
If you do come up with a workable solution using a card, biometrics, whatever -- make sure they can always fall back to the simple username password solution. Many will find this quicker, and especially if you're using any newish, complex tech, you have to have a backup solution.
Note: grousing about rejected Java game clones is Offtopic and usually gets moderated that way. It happens, don't take it personally.
I'll second that. I got one of these emails from the Sun lawyers once, and I think Taco is blowing it all a bit out of proportion.
It's not even an "it happens" kind of thing -- it's simple trademark protection that every company does (or they lose their trademarks). You can't give something a name with "Java" in it unless you are Sun - it's that simple. I had a "Java Music Theory" website for a while, I got the letter (which was pretty amicable for a lawyerly notice), and I changed the name. You can still put the word "Java" all over your webpage - just don't put it in the name of your game.
So... why not just change the name and move on? It's not like the programming language used it the most important aspect of the game anyway, and by removing the game entirely you're punishing everyone else for Sun's actions.
If you tried to be funny, and whoever happened to be moderating that day didn't get it, that doesn't meant you need to put a big notice on your next post -- it means you need to proofread (to see how your post might be misread), and/or spend a little more time lurking.
You are *not* barred from moderating later on (there's no lasting effect to a single troll), and your karma will recover quickly, if you have useful comments to contribute.
Not that I'm a exactly a grizzled old-timer... but I had a few accidental trolls since I got here, and now I get mod points so often they go to waste half the time.
So don't worry about it! And please avoid spending half your post begging the mods to spare you... Thanks.
Like many a Slashdotter, his parents were once very worried and he eschews patents
We were very worried? But we didn't even know about him before the article...
Actually, I know I've seen other articles about Afghani ingenuity in "tinkering"... they've been making due for a long time with very little, so an inventive mind (especially with machines) is very useful. If something breaks, and there's no way you're going to be able to get a new one, you try to fix it. Seems like this guy really had a talent for it.
My grandfather loved tinkering as well, partly related to memories of tough times during the Great Depression (he owned an electric supplies company and had money later... but the guy still never threw ANYTHING out).
Some neat inventions: a device that would automatically close the windows when it rained, an automatic garage door opener (using a plate in the driveway), and a little train that carried concrete and such things (and children, later) around the property on sections of wooden track. His last project was a model train set he was building from scratch, with working signals and so on.
On the hepatitis card we learn (gather round, kiddies) that this disease "is found mainly in bowel movements". No helpful "poop" translation on this one -- sorry, kids!
...by people who don't have a great understanding of children.
I think this would have given me nightmares when I was a kid (check out page 2, with the thick white membrane in the throat of the Diptheria sufferer, or the backwards-bent leg of the Polio girl)... but I think the helpful translations of scientific words would have made up for it. This snippet (from the Cyclosporiasis blurb) is a fine example:
You may get this disease from eating food or swallowing water that has been contaminated with feces
(poop). About a week after you get this parasite, you may start to feel sick and have diarrhea.
Yeah, I'm sure the kid knows what "contaminated" means... come on, guys. Though I will forgive them not trying to explain "diarrhea" using small words.
Back when I was in high school, for health class I had to write a 15-page paper (longest paper I'd ever written, at the time). My father had a computer (286? 386? I don't remember) with DOS and probably Word Perfect on it... so I was typing the paper on that, my notes and books spread around me.
I got around 9-10 pages done, working all day Sunday... and hadn't bothered to save to a floppy yet. Then my little sister stopped by to see how I was doing -- and, standing next to the desk, bumped the power strip with her foot. Poof. The monitor went black. All gone. I sent her upstairs (NOW!) while I jumped around and kicked things. Of course it was my own damned fault for not saving, which only made it worse.
I can still remember that feeling vividly, more than 10 years later. My wife is working on a novel, and I back it up frequently -- to a server hundreds of miles away.
Re:Author seems to live in a vacuum
on
On PHP and Scaling
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't see any part of the article addressing how PHP can benefit the developer facing real issues of large scale web development
I always tend to think of *accessing data* as where the rubber hits the road in website scalability. Of course, PHP by itself is super-scalable (because each request processing is independant)... but what exactly are you *doing* in that PHP code? If you aren't accessing and displaying data (generally from a database), you've got a pretty unique website.
I don't see much point in discussing scalability if you're pretending these other layers don't exist... the scalability of a website based on PHP, Java, or whatever is only as good as the least scalable element... which is usually not the basic execution of the code, in the average website. That's the part that's easy to make scalable.
This isn't much of a shameless plug (since there aren't many music theory teachers on/.)... but anyway, I run a website that uses all Java on the back end -- Apache Struts/JSPs -- and Java applets (w/ AWT) on the front end.
It works... server-side, Java is great, and I use it for bigger contract projects where I can test on w2k and deploy and iSeries or Solaris. Client-side, it's not headache-free, but it's been my best option so far. The applets are limited to Java 1.1 functionality, since most users just have the bundled MS JRE. But they run fine on Mac, Linux, etc..
The cross-platform aspect was one of the biggest sells for me -- I develop mostly on win2k, deploy on a Linux server. The second big sell -- no investment in software! Eclipse, Tomcat, Struts, the JDK... all of this stuff is open source or free for me to use.
No, I'm not a pure-java nut, either... I'm using PHP for a forum I'm setting up on my site, just because open source PHP forum options are much better than what I've seen in Java.
BTW - there's another Java GUI toolkit I've been playing with lately that's a nice alternative to AWT (yes, it's bad that there are so many imperfect alternatives... you learn to deal). If you need a nice-looking, very lightweight GUI that only needs Java 1.1 to work, try Thinlets (LGPL). You can build your GUI in code, or (the better way) by parsing an XML file (the XUL model).
If Java has done anything, it is trying to stay backward compatible too long.
I'll second that... you do hear about very minor incompatibilities with very complex apps, due mostly to new bugs or old bugs fixed, but I'm still amazed at the lengths they go to keeping compatible with previous releases.
I have a bunch of applets that, until recently, still used the PRE-JAVA-1.1 EVENT MODEL. That's right, back in Java 1.0.2 when we didn't have ActionListeners and so on yet, and events were propagated up to the parent container. It was ugly, and non-scalable, and they STILL support it in the 1.4 JRE, 6-7 years later.
Yes, plenty of people use internet cafes. There are lots of reasons.
Teenagers go to internet cafes in groups, for gaming. Can't get the same experience at home (unless you have 6 computers with big monitors set up in a row).
Not everyone has a broadband internet connection at home. Not everone even has dial-up, or can afford a computer... but they want to learn more about computers, do research online (job-hunting, apartment-hunting, date-hunting, etc.), and so on. Some people aren't even using the internet - they type up documents and print them out.
Even if you have broadband at home, lots of college/grad students use wireless access points in cafes near school (not so much $$ internet-only cafes, but coffeehouses w/ free or very cheap access). Why go home just to check your email, or do some surfing before class?
Travellers. Not even just tourists -- many hotels advertise only that fancy "data port" for your computer... which is just another phone jack for you to dial out. Ethernet or wireless in hotels is spreading, but it's not everywhere yet, and business travellers often need to (or want to!) access the internet. I'm moving to Michigan from New York, and was there earlier this week looking for a place to live. When I didn't have appointments, I did work in a cafe that had free wireless access. No, not on a "locked-down computer" -- on my own laptop.
And yes, tourists. I was surprised to see another post saying tourists shouldn't be in internet cafes, since they're supposedly on vacation. Uh, the internet is not just for "work" anymore! Lots of people send emails instead of (or in addition to) postcards nowadays. Internet cafes are also invaluable for planning your travels as you go -- booking train tickets, finding hotels, meeting up with friends, telling the folks back home that you're still alive -- especially when you're in a place where your grasp of the local language may be tenuous at best. You learn how to switch the keyboard layout to "U.S. English", look for the US or Brit flag on the webpage, and you're good to go.
That's the Perl script that the browser object reports to. It's still nice and responsive. Isn't there some fraud dept of the FBI that should have shut this down already? Or are we all just chatting about this and doing nothing, and no one has even notified the ISP?
And interestingly enough, the home page purports to sell a spyware scanner. Nice.
There are a lot of great suggestions above, and you should do all that stuff... but also don't forget the basics. Keep up the basic maintenance (get some sleep, don't eat too much junk, stay hydrated), and many of these problems just go away.
Your eyes will be much more susceptible to eyestrain, feeling dry, etc. etc. if you are running short on sleep.
Sometime, yeah, you have to get through high-stress times, but too many people sacrifice sleep before anything else. This is a POOR choice. If you've slept well, you'll be much better able to deal with the stress of the deadline, you'll be significantly more productive and focussed, you'll be more self-aware (so you'll remember to take the occasional 5-minute break), etc..
Yes, your boss *thinks* he's getting more out of you if you're at the office for 20 hours at a time.. but the quality of what he's getting goes way down. The second all-nighter almost always does more damage than good.
Just my thoughts... I've worked those insane hours when I was first starting out, and I noticed that even when I don't *feel* tired (it comes in waves...), I'm just so much *smarter* when I've slept.
It doesn't have to be music -- but beeps? That could easily confuse a caller into thinking there was some error in the system.
The hold music used by the Macaroni Grill (Italian restaurant chain) -- and what they play in the bathrooms in the restaurants -- is an interesting alternative; it's a "learn Italian" CD, teaching you common phrases in Italian.
You might think it'd be annoying... but the voices are soothing (and Italian in general is a very musical language), there's some subtle music in the background, and it really worked for me.
I'm not sure what an equivalent would be for tech support, though... listening to some adenoidal geek stuttering through technical term definitions somehow wouldn't be the same.
Well, I'd check out the legal aspects of using commercially produced music like that... but that said, you want something that's relaxing but crisp, no vocals (or minimal)... possibly approachable jazz/swing?
Ever heard of Pink Martini? Some of their songs would be the perfect hold music. No specific genre (but vaguely retro), non-threatening to most.
Slashdot Mirror
When I first started programming professionally, my personal projects just stopped -- I was new, so I felt like I had to really prove myself... and this led naturally to excessive hours on work projects, and stress burnout. After some experimentation, though, I managed to sort out my work life so I could be happy, and still have some energy left over at the end of the day.
If your professional life goes anything like mine, you'll figure out a way to make sure you get enough sleep at night (that alone will give your productivity during the day a big jump, in fewer hours!), and you'll find you have more freedom to push back and control how you spend your time as you gain experience/respect. And once you're more comfortable at work, your taste for personal projects may pick up again.
Just give yourself a year or two to find a niche at work that you like, then see how you feel. Once you're more comfortable in your domain at work, it'll take less out of you during the day -- so you'll have more energy in the evenings to do what you want (this is where a social life might come in too, btw).
Really, it'll depend a lot on how your work life pans out -- if you can score super projects at work that you love (and that demand all of your creative energy during the day)... do you still really need those personal projects? Most people dream of doing what they love *and* getting paid for it. Personally, I *like* my work, but the needs of the business don't always correspond with what would be most fun for me... so I have extra energy left to use.
Good luck!
Reminds me of one of my favorite Far Side cartoons; there's a professor-type guy walking down the street testing his new dog language translator... and there's an angry dog saying "Hey! Hey! Hey!!" at a mailman, a lonely dog howling "Heeeyyyyy" on a hill, an excited dog saying "Hey!" as its owner offers a treat.
I have a suspicion the squirrel communication is much along the same lines.
It was kind of a pain to find out, so I figure I'll share the news... it's not particularly cheap to use ($245 - "Save $50!") unless you're just a student and not doing *any* paid work (then it's $30).
As professional IDE's can go (I'm thinking of JBuilder and suchlike), this isn't bad, but it does price it out of my range just to help out with the occasional PHP or Perl work I do.
600/20 means that what *other* people can see at 600, you can see at 20
Okay, I finally took the 10 seconds to look it up, so we can stop all the guessing.
Here's one reference among many about the standard for measuring visual acuity. You can google for "visual acuity 20/20" or something like that to get other sources. Just in case, I also searched for "acuity 40/20" and came up with nothing relevant.
I think many people just remember it backwards. The *first* number should always be 20, and refers to what you can see at 20 feet (since that's how far away the chart is). The second number is the distance "regular" people see it at. For those who are, for whatever reason, really interested in this, these are called the "Snellen fractions" (e.g., 20/30, 20/80), after the guy who invented the chart and method, Dr. Hermann Snellen.
Are there multiple standards out there, or are parent posters just getting it backwards? E.g., wouldn't 600/20 mean you can see details 600 feet away that most people only get 20 feet away. For the record, I think most posters talking about 20/15 vision are excited about excellent (not subpar) vision.
Back on topic. I have friends who've had laser eye surgery and rave about it; I tend to warn people to think carefully first - do NOT just cross your fingers and assume that your surgery will be free from complications. If you're considering the surgery purely for aesthetic reasons, to "fix" mild myopia, etc. but it isn't going to make any significant change in your life, I'd say skip it. Don't forget that you are risking your sight!
I've had vision problems for most of my life (I'm now 28), and underwent 3 fairly major eye surgeries this year, for cataracts, glaucoma, retinal detachments, etc., most recently this past Wednesday, and things are looking up now (woohoo!), but trust me, it sucks to have dicey vision. I've been able to read (and hence work) most of the time, but I couldn't drive for a while. I'm currently waiting to see how night driving will be with implanted lenses (I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though it's actually useful to have an excuse to *never* be the designated driver!). When I was a kid I was pretty athletic... and ran track through HS and college, since I sucked at any sport involving catching anything.
Summary - diminished vision really does affect your life, and can't be corrected w/ glasses... so make sure you have a valid reason (and experienced doctor) before you risk it. If you're undecided -- just wait a few years. These procedures are still getting better and safer, and more doctors are gaining experience performing them every day.
If you have a significant other (I'm married, so I do), sell them on getting a Mac. I bought an iBook for my wife, so I can test on my laptop (w2k), her Mac, and Linux by booting from my handy Knoppix CD.
That covers the base pretty well.
Of coures, it's always wise to generally try to avoid dicey display tricks that you know will probably give you problems... or if you absolutely *must* have that stock ticker, don't code it yourself -- find one whose creator is doing the testing for you.
Well, you've clearly found one outlet...
/. -- take a few minutes to let the clutch slip and relax your focus. Walk around a bit, decide what to do in the evening when you get home, etc.
Other ideas:
* Eat lunch out. You don't even have to eat in a restaurant every day (which isn't particularly healthy/cheap) -- you can bring lunch and meet friends at a park. The point is to get some solid social interaction in the middle of the day.
* Take mental breaks. Don't always go from work to a game, or even ranting on
* Stay hydrated, and don't eat a big lunch. And get enough sleep at night. You'll get more work done while your working, and more fun done when you're taking a break. You know dehydration is a pretty common cause of sleepiness, right? Of course, not getting enough sleep is also a major cause. If you aren't fighting off sleep, you'll be able to get more involved in your work (and thus less bored), plus you'll get more done, and have more time you can spend doing other stuff without swamping your productivity.
Another smartcard slow-down problem -- where would they keep the cards? In a pocket (and possibly left at home) means it's going to be much slower (where's that darned card?), and possibly inaccessible. On a cord around the neck? That might be a bad idea -- I read an article about how doctors are now strongly discouraged from using neckties - a study found they tend to be teeming with bacteria; whenever he leans forward, it drags in... whatever he's standing next to. Plus, what's the last thing you do after washing your hands? That's right, check the mirror and straighten the tie....
If you do come up with a workable solution using a card, biometrics, whatever -- make sure they can always fall back to the simple username password solution. Many will find this quicker, and especially if you're using any newish, complex tech, you have to have a backup solution.
Note: grousing about rejected Java game clones is Offtopic and usually gets moderated that way. It happens, don't take it personally.
I'll second that. I got one of these emails from the Sun lawyers once, and I think Taco is blowing it all a bit out of proportion.
It's not even an "it happens" kind of thing -- it's simple trademark protection that every company does (or they lose their trademarks). You can't give something a name with "Java" in it unless you are Sun - it's that simple. I had a "Java Music Theory" website for a while, I got the letter (which was pretty amicable for a lawyerly notice), and I changed the name. You can still put the word "Java" all over your webpage - just don't put it in the name of your game.
So... why not just change the name and move on? It's not like the programming language used it the most important aspect of the game anyway, and by removing the game entirely you're punishing everyone else for Sun's actions.
Just my 2 cents...
And does he have any relation to Stephen Hawking?
And perhaps more importantly, is he related to the well-known gangsta rapper, MC Hawking? Because I hear that guy gets rough when a bet goes sour.
If you tried to be funny, and whoever happened to be moderating that day didn't get it, that doesn't meant you need to put a big notice on your next post -- it means you need to proofread (to see how your post might be misread), and/or spend a little more time lurking.
You are *not* barred from moderating later on (there's no lasting effect to a single troll), and your karma will recover quickly, if you have useful comments to contribute.
Not that I'm a exactly a grizzled old-timer... but I had a few accidental trolls since I got here, and now I get mod points so often they go to waste half the time.
So don't worry about it! And please avoid spending half your post begging the mods to spare you... Thanks.
True, I did. And that's after starting my post with a grammar nitpick of my own... oh, well.
Like many a Slashdotter, his parents were once very worried and he eschews patents
We were very worried? But we didn't even know about him before the article...
Actually, I know I've seen other articles about Afghani ingenuity in "tinkering"... they've been making due for a long time with very little, so an inventive mind (especially with machines) is very useful. If something breaks, and there's no way you're going to be able to get a new one, you try to fix it. Seems like this guy really had a talent for it.
My grandfather loved tinkering as well, partly related to memories of tough times during the Great Depression (he owned an electric supplies company and had money later... but the guy still never threw ANYTHING out).
Some neat inventions: a device that would automatically close the windows when it rained, an automatic garage door opener (using a plate in the driveway), and a little train that carried concrete and such things (and children, later) around the property on sections of wooden track. His last project was a model train set he was building from scratch, with working signals and so on.
On the hepatitis card we learn (gather round, kiddies) that this disease "is found mainly in bowel movements". No helpful "poop" translation on this one -- sorry, kids!
I think this would have given me nightmares when I was a kid (check out page 2, with the thick white membrane in the throat of the Diptheria sufferer, or the backwards-bent leg of the Polio girl)... but I think the helpful translations of scientific words would have made up for it. This snippet (from the Cyclosporiasis blurb) is a fine example:
Yeah, I'm sure the kid knows what "contaminated" means... come on, guys. Though I will forgive them not trying to explain "diarrhea" using small words.
Back when I was in high school, for health class I had to write a 15-page paper (longest paper I'd ever written, at the time). My father had a computer (286? 386? I don't remember) with DOS and probably Word Perfect on it... so I was typing the paper on that, my notes and books spread around me.
I got around 9-10 pages done, working all day Sunday... and hadn't bothered to save to a floppy yet. Then my little sister stopped by to see how I was doing -- and, standing next to the desk, bumped the power strip with her foot. Poof. The monitor went black. All gone. I sent her upstairs (NOW!) while I jumped around and kicked things. Of course it was my own damned fault for not saving, which only made it worse.
I can still remember that feeling vividly, more than 10 years later. My wife is working on a novel, and I back it up frequently -- to a server hundreds of miles away.
I don't see any part of the article addressing how PHP can benefit the developer facing real issues of large scale web development
I always tend to think of *accessing data* as where the rubber hits the road in website scalability. Of course, PHP by itself is super-scalable (because each request processing is independant)... but what exactly are you *doing* in that PHP code? If you aren't accessing and displaying data (generally from a database), you've got a pretty unique website.
I don't see much point in discussing scalability if you're pretending these other layers don't exist... the scalability of a website based on PHP, Java, or whatever is only as good as the least scalable element... which is usually not the basic execution of the code, in the average website. That's the part that's easy to make scalable.
This isn't much of a shameless plug (since there aren't many music theory teachers on /.)... but anyway, I run a website that uses all Java on the back end -- Apache Struts/JSPs -- and Java applets (w/ AWT) on the front end.
It works... server-side, Java is great, and I use it for bigger contract projects where I can test on w2k and deploy and iSeries or Solaris. Client-side, it's not headache-free, but it's been my best option so far. The applets are limited to Java 1.1 functionality, since most users just have the bundled MS JRE. But they run fine on Mac, Linux, etc..
The cross-platform aspect was one of the biggest sells for me -- I develop mostly on win2k, deploy on a Linux server. The second big sell -- no investment in software! Eclipse, Tomcat, Struts, the JDK... all of this stuff is open source or free for me to use.
No, I'm not a pure-java nut, either... I'm using PHP for a forum I'm setting up on my site, just because open source PHP forum options are much better than what I've seen in Java.
BTW - there's another Java GUI toolkit I've been playing with lately that's a nice alternative to AWT (yes, it's bad that there are so many imperfect alternatives... you learn to deal). If you need a nice-looking, very lightweight GUI that only needs Java 1.1 to work, try Thinlets (LGPL). You can build your GUI in code, or (the better way) by parsing an XML file (the XUL model).
If Java has done anything, it is trying to stay backward compatible too long.
I'll second that... you do hear about very minor incompatibilities with very complex apps, due mostly to new bugs or old bugs fixed, but I'm still amazed at the lengths they go to keeping compatible with previous releases.
I have a bunch of applets that, until recently, still used the PRE-JAVA-1.1 EVENT MODEL. That's right, back in Java 1.0.2 when we didn't have ActionListeners and so on yet, and events were propagated up to the parent container. It was ugly, and non-scalable, and they STILL support it in the 1.4 JRE, 6-7 years later.
Yes, plenty of people use internet cafes. There are lots of reasons.
Teenagers go to internet cafes in groups, for gaming. Can't get the same experience at home (unless you have 6 computers with big monitors set up in a row).
Not everyone has a broadband internet connection at home. Not everone even has dial-up, or can afford a computer... but they want to learn more about computers, do research online (job-hunting, apartment-hunting, date-hunting, etc.), and so on. Some people aren't even using the internet - they type up documents and print them out.
Even if you have broadband at home, lots of college/grad students use wireless access points in cafes near school (not so much $$ internet-only cafes, but coffeehouses w/ free or very cheap access). Why go home just to check your email, or do some surfing before class?
Travellers. Not even just tourists -- many hotels advertise only that fancy "data port" for your computer... which is just another phone jack for you to dial out. Ethernet or wireless in hotels is spreading, but it's not everywhere yet, and business travellers often need to (or want to!) access the internet. I'm moving to Michigan from New York, and was there earlier this week looking for a place to live. When I didn't have appointments, I did work in a cafe that had free wireless access. No, not on a "locked-down computer" -- on my own laptop.
And yes, tourists. I was surprised to see another post saying tourists shouldn't be in internet cafes, since they're supposedly on vacation. Uh, the internet is not just for "work" anymore! Lots of people send emails instead of (or in addition to) postcards nowadays. Internet cafes are also invaluable for planning your travels as you go -- booking train tickets, finding hotels, meeting up with friends, telling the folks back home that you're still alive -- especially when you're in a place where your grasp of the local language may be tenuous at best. You learn how to switch the keyboard layout to "U.S. English", look for the US or Brit flag on the webpage, and you're good to go.
is why the heck the site that COLLECTS the stolen usernames and passwords is still online!?
It's in the advisory: http://www.refestltd.com/cgi-bin/yes.pl
That's the Perl script that the browser object reports to. It's still nice and responsive. Isn't there some fraud dept of the FBI that should have shut this down already? Or are we all just chatting about this and doing nothing, and no one has even notified the ISP?
And interestingly enough, the home page purports to sell a spyware scanner. Nice.
There are a lot of great suggestions above, and you should do all that stuff... but also don't forget the basics. Keep up the basic maintenance (get some sleep, don't eat too much junk, stay hydrated), and many of these problems just go away.
Your eyes will be much more susceptible to eyestrain, feeling dry, etc. etc. if you are running short on sleep.
Sometime, yeah, you have to get through high-stress times, but too many people sacrifice sleep before anything else. This is a POOR choice. If you've slept well, you'll be much better able to deal with the stress of the deadline, you'll be significantly more productive and focussed, you'll be more self-aware (so you'll remember to take the occasional 5-minute break), etc..
Yes, your boss *thinks* he's getting more out of you if you're at the office for 20 hours at a time.. but the quality of what he's getting goes way down. The second all-nighter almost always does more damage than good.
Just my thoughts... I've worked those insane hours when I was first starting out, and I noticed that even when I don't *feel* tired (it comes in waves...), I'm just so much *smarter* when I've slept.
I think you mean "Cone itchy-wah! Itchy Nissan..."
It doesn't have to be music -- but beeps? That could easily confuse a caller into thinking there was some error in the system.
The hold music used by the Macaroni Grill (Italian restaurant chain) -- and what they play in the bathrooms in the restaurants -- is an interesting alternative; it's a "learn Italian" CD, teaching you common phrases in Italian.
You might think it'd be annoying... but the voices are soothing (and Italian in general is a very musical language), there's some subtle music in the background, and it really worked for me.
I'm not sure what an equivalent would be for tech support, though... listening to some adenoidal geek stuttering through technical term definitions somehow wouldn't be the same.
Well, I'd check out the legal aspects of using commercially produced music like that... but that said, you want something that's relaxing but crisp, no vocals (or minimal)... possibly approachable jazz/swing?
Ever heard of Pink Martini? Some of their songs would be the perfect hold music. No specific genre (but vaguely retro), non-threatening to most.