I worked for a company that made "fun" educational software. The design thinking was something like: "Video games are fun, so if we make learning like playing a video game, then children will want to learn." The presumptions were:
education without technology is always boring
video games are always an effective teaching tool
the considerable cost of producing a video game is justified by the improved preformance of students
The student will learn how to cope with "non-fun" tasks outside of the classroom
If you want to make children treat computers as a tool, then teach them to use the tool... teach them how to program!
Texas is a "right to work" state. (So are many other states.) The company can do nothing that prevents you from making a living, unless they can prove that you're materially damaging their business with your activities. So the joke's on them. They can insist that you work for them alone as part of your employment contract, however, once you leave the company, you're free to do as you please, IP agreement notwithstanding. They can no more claim ownership of work you didn't do for them than I can.
Your post is indicitive of the level of ignorance that both employers and employees have of their rights and obligations. (For example, I'll bet you and your employer think you're not entitled to overtime pay, just because you're a "salaried" employee.)
I know OOP, but it isn't natural for me, so I'm still a procedural boy, even when Object-Oriented Programming might help.
OOP is not an overnight thing. It takes quite a while to get the "feel" for it.
I have no idea what vectors and matrixes are.
So, quit making excuses... go and learn them!
I'm self-taught, my schooling is as an English major. So I have absolutely no Computer Science education behind what I do. While I try to do well, my solution to a deep and complicated problem is going to be basic compared to a guy who spent years of his life learning algorithms.
The reason people spend years of their lives learning algorithms is so that THEY can produce basic solutions to deep and complicated problems. One elegant algorhithm can save you a lot of tricky coding.
You're not the first "artsy" to ply the coding waters. Those english skills will pay off down the road. Just ask Richard P. Gabriel.
You're assuming that someone is actually enforcing any of the rules already in place for H1B visa holders. Unfortunately, I am friends with number of H1B visa holders who, on the off chance that their green card will come through, will put up with almost anything: Long hours, terrible pay ($10/hour), no benefits, etc. The companies that hire them out to large corporations pocket a lot of money. Hell, I'd love to rat out the companies that exploit them, but I'd hate to see them loose their chance of staying here.
You may be among the minority of H1B visa holders who don't want permanent residence in the US. Unfortunately, most of them see that program as a quick(er) way to a green card.
A real solution would be to (a) provide a guaranteed green card in exchange for a certain number of hard-working, law-abiding years in the US, and (b) allow visa holders to hold their own visas, and remain in the country as long as they can find work within a certain time period, say, one year. They would then be able to demand market rates for their work, because they wouldn't be forced to put up with crap.
Well, you're wasting your time writing letters to newsrooms.
The typical newsroom is innundated with press releases, letters, and reports coming across the wire. Believe me, if the reporters glance at your letter, they say to themselves, "Good point, but where's the story?" (That's why car accidents and fires are on the news and boring old town council meetings aren't.)
Slashdot Mirror
The research referenced by the article: Computers and Student Learning: Bivariate and Multivariate Evidence on the Availability and Use of Computers at Home and at School.
The BBC has a similar story from November 2004.
I worked for a company that made "fun" educational software. The design thinking was something like: "Video games are fun, so if we make learning like playing a video game, then children will want to learn." The presumptions were:
If you want to make children treat computers as a tool, then teach them to use the tool... teach them how to program!
Not in Texas.
Texas is a "right to work" state. (So are many other states.) The company can do nothing that prevents you from making a living, unless they can prove that you're materially damaging their business with your activities. So the joke's on them. They can insist that you work for them alone as part of your employment contract, however, once you leave the company, you're free to do as you please, IP agreement notwithstanding. They can no more claim ownership of work you didn't do for them than I can.
Your post is indicitive of the level of ignorance that both employers and employees have of their rights and obligations. (For example, I'll bet you and your employer think you're not entitled to overtime pay, just because you're a "salaried" employee.)
I have recently started to play with PHPDoc to create self-documenting code.
That's not quite self-documenting code. That's source code that contains documentation.
I use tools like WinMerge, Subversion (only a little, not so good at it) and ReplaceEm to maintain large codebases.
Keep practicing... it'll come to you. You might also want to look for a copy of Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion.
I know OOP, but it isn't natural for me, so I'm still a procedural boy, even when Object-Oriented Programming might help.
OOP is not an overnight thing. It takes quite a while to get the "feel" for it.
I have no idea what vectors and matrixes are.
So, quit making excuses... go and learn them!
I'm self-taught, my schooling is as an English major. So I have absolutely no Computer Science education behind what I do. While I try to do well, my solution to a deep and complicated problem is going to be basic compared to a guy who spent years of his life learning algorithms.
The reason people spend years of their lives learning algorithms is so that THEY can produce basic solutions to deep and complicated problems. One elegant algorhithm can save you a lot of tricky coding.
You're not the first "artsy" to ply the coding waters. Those english skills will pay off down the road. Just ask Richard P. Gabriel.
You're assuming that someone is actually enforcing any of the rules already in place for H1B visa holders. Unfortunately, I am friends with number of H1B visa holders who, on the off chance that their green card will come through, will put up with almost anything: Long hours, terrible pay ($10/hour), no benefits, etc. The companies that hire them out to large corporations pocket a lot of money. Hell, I'd love to rat out the companies that exploit them, but I'd hate to see them loose their chance of staying here.
You may be among the minority of H1B visa holders who don't want permanent residence in the US. Unfortunately, most of them see that program as a quick(er) way to a green card.
A real solution would be to (a) provide a guaranteed green card in exchange for a certain number of hard-working, law-abiding years in the US, and (b) allow visa holders to hold their own visas, and remain in the country as long as they can find work within a certain time period, say, one year. They would then be able to demand market rates for their work, because they wouldn't be forced to put up with crap.
The typical newsroom is innundated with press releases, letters, and reports coming across the wire. Believe me, if the reporters glance at your letter, they say to themselves, "Good point, but where's the story?" (That's why car accidents and fires are on the news and boring old town council meetings aren't.)
--Captain Obvious
You don't get on the news by writing letters. You get on the news by "making news."