One word: SAS. The largest privately held software corporation in the world with something like 52,000 employees and net revenue of $500 mil a year. Consistently. These guys were held up on 60 minutes as one of the 5 best tech companies to work for. 35 hour work weeks for the rank and file starting in 1976 and continuing to this day I believe. Their benefits package a public company couldn't even begin to touch.
If you can stay private and still prosper it is definately in your best interest to do so.
I'm just down on Herndon and Maple and graduated in 1993 from Fresno State with a Computer Science Degree. Know Brent Aurenheimer? How about Henderson Yeung or Shigeko Seki or maybe Walter Reid? The class of 1989-1993 consisted of 50% chinese, 30% indian and maybe 20% caucasian. This lopsided class demographic is nothing new.
And you're right the job situation is weak right now in Fresno. Maybe it will pick up this year, here's hoping. As far as the cost of living and housing it has doubled in the last 3 years. My old $133k house is worth $225k today easy. The tech jobs don't pay enough to even put a roof over your head any more. We're slowly creating silicon valley real estate prices without the high paying jobs to go with it.
The Google IPO, if the pundits are correct, is good for one thing and one thing only, at least from my perspective: jumpstarting the next technology IPO boom. I really don't give a damn about Google so much as I care about being able to unload the stocks that I'm still holding from when the tech bubble burst a few years back. The companies I picked are still largely sound (INTC, SUNW, ORCL, etc) but they've taken a beating along with everyone else during the economic downturn. If Google bootstraps another round of overpricing on the Nasdaq maybe I can bail out of the whole stock market scam and still keep my shirt.
There are a few specific data structures that operate O(1). In general they are really gnarly to implement. You may want to look into Fibonacci heaps as the majority of their operations are either O(1) or O(1) amortized. There are other heap structures that are perfect for scheduling but they tend to be variations on a theme: Pairing heaps, Trinomial heaps, etc.
This is simply off the top of my head, since I have no further knowledge of the inside of Linux 2.6 kernel. I am fairly certain given the pain in designing a good data structure, let alone one with O(1) characteristics, this is a good place to start.
between the Chronicles of Narnia and the Perelandra trilogy. Personally I think Perelandra would be a more interesting story, especially in the effects department. I'm trying to image some of those alien landscapes right now...
I agree. Does anyone else see the complete absurdity in this contest? Young women have been forced to benchmark their beauty against runway goddesses, but now even that's just not good enough. Apparently mere genetics can't produce true beauty (by any definition), you need to digitize it.
I understand how you feel. The BBS and computer club days are dead and gone forever. Have you ever gotten the feeling like you spent all those years worshipping at the altar of the personal computer, and it turned out to be a false idol? I know I do from time to time. Maybe it's just best to lament it and move on.
The BINA48 was designed to be a one-machine customer relations department, capable of replacing hundreds of employees that work 800#s round-the-clock. To do this job, the BINA48 was designed to think autonomously, to communicate normally with people and to transcend the machine-human interface by attempting to empathize with customer concerns.
Their hypothetical computer has 480 Exabytes of memory and runs at 48 exaflops and they utilize this power by... sticking it behind a help desk. If she doesn't pass her BAR exam she's got a future in stand up comedy.
I remember blocks of code like that. Byte, Nibble, Antic and Analog, Creative Computing. They all had program listings, some more than others. I can't count the number of weekends or weeknights I squandered typing text adventures or arcade games "encrypted" in hex.
I still have a few issues from the early years 1978-1982 stored in boxes for nostalgia sake. Its fun rummaging through these mags to look at ads for companies long dead and gone: Sirius, Sentient, Muse, Epyx, SubLogic, etc. Tripped across a Microsoft ad where they touted Flight Sim and MASM, their sole products!! My head swam. Fun times.
Theres no questioning Apple's unique place in the personal computer industry or their history of missed opportunities. It reads like a grocery list. Apple had a full 2-3 year head start on the IBM PC as I recall, there was nobody else in their league. As you stated the problem with Apple is simply their refusal for so long to open their architecture and cross lisence their hardware. Instead of IBM PC compatibles you would have had a zillion Apple compatibles to choose from. I remember a few A2 compatibles but they were mostly bit players and overall this particular strategy was never followed through on. Fact of the matter is Apple could've been both IBM (in their dominance of desktop hardware) and Microsoft (in their dominance of desktop software) but they blew it. The Apple timeline retrospective gives some really unique viewpoints on the early days and corporate culture at Apple: http://apple.computerhistory.org/stories/
Another GSIII fan here - hailing *waaay* back from 1990 (during the ICE age). Actually I was there when GSII went away and GSIII came online on GEnie. Never got beyond level 6 but I loved the game back then and still have very fond memories of it. I'm sure its just as rich and immersive as it used to be (or far more so). Good job guys.
I can attest to the fail fast principle. I've worked in projects where the lead designer mandated "this system must stay up and running even when it loses its marbles (ie memory corruption detected, etc)" and that philosophy only leads to chaos and grief. Much better were systems that utilized runtime assertions - even in production - on the correctness of data passed into functions. Instead of being more crashprone (which I had expected) those code bases quickly became titanium plated. Nothing could break them. At the first sign of trouble the thing would shut down and I had no choice but to fix what ailed it.
BTW as to unit testing I've had really good luck sticking tests in tight loops and using a random number generator to pump a module to exercise all possible code paths.
This is an excellent assessment of the fate of Atari. I remember reading somewhere on the net about the ups and downs of the videogame era, the fortunes that were made and lost. The hardware (especially the Atari 2600) was extemely difficult to program for so anyone with any skill whatsoever was worth their weight in gold and was given free reign during design. There were a lot of stinker games made during that period and people lost their jobs, careers and in a number of cases their lives (to suicide) when the meltdown occurred in 1982-1984. The article specifically mentioned the ET game bombed so bad a huge pit was dug and filled with a small mountain of left over cartridges.
Now I'm wishing I'd kept that link.
Interesting. I have had similar circumstances where I dreamt the solution to a really tough programming dilemma. The brain has a way of subconsciously filtering things and grinding on them in the background.
The second most interesting place for problem solving appears to be the shower.
I am in your age neighborhood (33) and I too first took up a keyboard, back in 1978 (I think) at 8 years old. I tinkered with Applesoft Basic on an Apple ][ in 1979 or so - our first computer. That was magic. Then I played with Atari Basic on an Atari 800. Eventually I learned Pascal and then C (beginning at around 15).
In a way I feel sorry for kids today. There was so little complexity back then compared to today it was pretty easy to get started. Now you're assaulted with a million details out of the gate all vying for your attention. How do you hand a kid a developers SDK when the damn thing is never less than 50 meg in size?
Dvorak tends to be fairly levelheaded with his comments. What he's saying is *IF* SCO wins this suit the entire OS movement - not just Linux - may self destruct. It may be the death of the GPL lisence. The legal precedent will have been set, and it may not have anything to do with what you consider to be "common sense".
Take any OS "product" and chances are there is a commercial product that competes with it. Since your average company can't compete with freeware the next step is to scour their code base looking for potential IP violations. For example, Oracle may do this and discover MySql or Postgres contains technology "donated" by a former Oracle kernel engineer. I'm sure you can come up with dozens of other popular OS products and all of them could wind up embroiled in lawsuits.
This is definately a "sky is falling" scenario.
I can reaffirm this assessment 100%. It is a gross, gross error to assume the low-cost product is an easier pitch. Put crassly the rule is NEVER MARKET TO POOR PEOPLE. That is a common programmer mentality and it is dead wrong. This is the mentality that leads to the proliferation of, for example, "development tools" software companies. Because you have the skill and are so familiar with it you assume it has no value and you give your goods away (sound familiar?) Put that work in the hands of a marketer and s/he will spin it into gold. The fact is, with the right connections your 50k product will outsell your piddly $50 product like hotcakes. Your audience probably won't even notice a 50k hit on their accounts. You develop for multinational conglomerates, not mom and pop shops to develop massive wealth. If you can sell to the latter as an afterthought then fine, just don't target them outright.
This is a dead on statement. It is irritating to hear people bash decades-old "obsolete" programs in production in one statement then turn around and lament the woeful state of software stability in todays world in the next. You can't have it both ways folks. You either have rock solid stability, in which case you can *expect* businesses to stick to the product like glue - even over a period of decades - or you can pick up software with the latest flash bang (which as we're now learning will frequently flash then crash with a bang).
As has been stated you actually viewed an Omnimax movie. Growing up I remember seeing movies in three kinds of exotic venues: IMAX, Omnimax (at Expo 86 in Vancouver as mentioned previously) and a tricked out setup called CircleVision 360. Can't remember exactly where that one was. But you would stand in the center of the theater, surrounded by 8 or 10 screens. Each screen had a projector sitting between two screens opposite it. I can only imagine what the filming setup looked like - maybe a pole with a bunch of cameras sticking out of it?? One film was a stomach churning trip down the Snake river I think. Its immersion level makes IMAX look like a joke. Just when you were growing accustomed to the movie you'd suddenly realize you were missing half of it and spin around.
I assume that's why large businesses have legal departments. If you have a group of lawyers on staff you can tie lawsuits up in court for years. It eliminates the nuisance suits from small timers with shallow pockets. Of course you still have to worry about the big fish but - as you say - thats part of being in business. Either way, you do have some protection from being bled dry by a lawyer working for an hourly fee.
Actually this is tagged funny but it is largely true. Supercharged teams are the stuff of legend and the subject of intense study and invariably they are composed of individuals several cuts above the average. When you have the right team members and it gels - look out. You won't need navalgazing sessions for it to happen. For developers this could mean a massive explosion of quality code beyond what could be generated by a group 3x the size. The trick isn't necessarily in "fostering" those teams as much as identifying them when they happen. And a lot of times they come about merely by happenstance.
Slashdot Mirror
One word: SAS. The largest privately held software corporation in the world with something like 52,000 employees and net revenue of $500 mil a year. Consistently. These guys were held up on 60 minutes as one of the 5 best tech companies to work for. 35 hour work weeks for the rank and file starting in 1976 and continuing to this day I believe. Their benefits package a public company couldn't even begin to touch. If you can stay private and still prosper it is definately in your best interest to do so.
I'm just down on Herndon and Maple and graduated in 1993 from Fresno State with a Computer Science Degree. Know Brent Aurenheimer? How about Henderson Yeung or Shigeko Seki or maybe Walter Reid? The class of 1989-1993 consisted of 50% chinese, 30% indian and maybe 20% caucasian. This lopsided class demographic is nothing new. And you're right the job situation is weak right now in Fresno. Maybe it will pick up this year, here's hoping. As far as the cost of living and housing it has doubled in the last 3 years. My old $133k house is worth $225k today easy. The tech jobs don't pay enough to even put a roof over your head any more. We're slowly creating silicon valley real estate prices without the high paying jobs to go with it.
The Google IPO, if the pundits are correct, is good for one thing and one thing only, at least from my perspective: jumpstarting the next technology IPO boom. I really don't give a damn about Google so much as I care about being able to unload the stocks that I'm still holding from when the tech bubble burst a few years back. The companies I picked are still largely sound (INTC, SUNW, ORCL, etc) but they've taken a beating along with everyone else during the economic downturn. If Google bootstraps another round of overpricing on the Nasdaq maybe I can bail out of the whole stock market scam and still keep my shirt.
This is simply off the top of my head, since I have no further knowledge of the inside of Linux 2.6 kernel. I am fairly certain given the pain in designing a good data structure, let alone one with O(1) characteristics, this is a good place to start.
between the Chronicles of Narnia and the Perelandra trilogy. Personally I think Perelandra would be a more interesting story, especially in the effects department. I'm trying to image some of those alien landscapes right now...
I was under the impression that Warner Bros (or some studio) had the rights to FILM the Hobbit but the estate still held the rights to DISTRIBUTE it.
I agree. Does anyone else see the complete absurdity in this contest? Young women have been forced to benchmark their beauty against runway goddesses, but now even that's just not good enough. Apparently mere genetics can't produce true beauty (by any definition), you need to digitize it.
Uh I think you meant hemi cuda or challenger, or maybe LS6 chevelle. You might as well have said monza or pinto ;-)
By the way does your name refer to The Wonderful World of Eamon?
I understand how you feel. The BBS and computer club days are dead and gone forever. Have you ever gotten the feeling like you spent all those years worshipping at the altar of the personal computer, and it turned out to be a false idol? I know I do from time to time. Maybe it's just best to lament it and move on.
Their hypothetical computer has 480 Exabytes of memory and runs at 48 exaflops and they utilize this power by... sticking it behind a help desk. If she doesn't pass her BAR exam she's got a future in stand up comedy.
I still have a few issues from the early years 1978-1982 stored in boxes for nostalgia sake. Its fun rummaging through these mags to look at ads for companies long dead and gone: Sirius, Sentient, Muse, Epyx, SubLogic, etc. Tripped across a Microsoft ad where they touted Flight Sim and MASM, their sole products!! My head swam. Fun times.
Theres no questioning Apple's unique place in the personal computer industry or their history of missed opportunities. It reads like a grocery list. Apple had a full 2-3 year head start on the IBM PC as I recall, there was nobody else in their league. As you stated the problem with Apple is simply their refusal for so long to open their architecture and cross lisence their hardware. Instead of IBM PC compatibles you would have had a zillion Apple compatibles to choose from. I remember a few A2 compatibles but they were mostly bit players and overall this particular strategy was never followed through on. Fact of the matter is Apple could've been both IBM (in their dominance of desktop hardware) and Microsoft (in their dominance of desktop software) but they blew it. The Apple timeline retrospective gives some really unique viewpoints on the early days and corporate culture at Apple: http://apple.computerhistory.org/stories/
Another GSIII fan here - hailing *waaay* back from 1990 (during the ICE age). Actually I was there when GSII went away and GSIII came online on GEnie. Never got beyond level 6 but I loved the game back then and still have very fond memories of it. I'm sure its just as rich and immersive as it used to be (or far more so). Good job guys.
Well there I go. I stand corrected.
BTW as to unit testing I've had really good luck sticking tests in tight loops and using a random number generator to pump a module to exercise all possible code paths.
This is an excellent assessment of the fate of Atari. I remember reading somewhere on the net about the ups and downs of the videogame era, the fortunes that were made and lost. The hardware (especially the Atari 2600) was extemely difficult to program for so anyone with any skill whatsoever was worth their weight in gold and was given free reign during design. There were a lot of stinker games made during that period and people lost their jobs, careers and in a number of cases their lives (to suicide) when the meltdown occurred in 1982-1984. The article specifically mentioned the ET game bombed so bad a huge pit was dug and filled with a small mountain of left over cartridges. Now I'm wishing I'd kept that link.
Not everyone, that's the funniest thing I've read here in months.
Interesting. I have had similar circumstances where I dreamt the solution to a really tough programming dilemma. The brain has a way of subconsciously filtering things and grinding on them in the background. The second most interesting place for problem solving appears to be the shower.
I am in your age neighborhood (33) and I too first took up a keyboard, back in 1978 (I think) at 8 years old. I tinkered with Applesoft Basic on an Apple ][ in 1979 or so - our first computer. That was magic. Then I played with Atari Basic on an Atari 800. Eventually I learned Pascal and then C (beginning at around 15). In a way I feel sorry for kids today. There was so little complexity back then compared to today it was pretty easy to get started. Now you're assaulted with a million details out of the gate all vying for your attention. How do you hand a kid a developers SDK when the damn thing is never less than 50 meg in size?
Dvorak tends to be fairly levelheaded with his comments. What he's saying is *IF* SCO wins this suit the entire OS movement - not just Linux - may self destruct. It may be the death of the GPL lisence. The legal precedent will have been set, and it may not have anything to do with what you consider to be "common sense". Take any OS "product" and chances are there is a commercial product that competes with it. Since your average company can't compete with freeware the next step is to scour their code base looking for potential IP violations. For example, Oracle may do this and discover MySql or Postgres contains technology "donated" by a former Oracle kernel engineer. I'm sure you can come up with dozens of other popular OS products and all of them could wind up embroiled in lawsuits. This is definately a "sky is falling" scenario.
I can reaffirm this assessment 100%. It is a gross, gross error to assume the low-cost product is an easier pitch. Put crassly the rule is NEVER MARKET TO POOR PEOPLE. That is a common programmer mentality and it is dead wrong. This is the mentality that leads to the proliferation of, for example, "development tools" software companies. Because you have the skill and are so familiar with it you assume it has no value and you give your goods away (sound familiar?) Put that work in the hands of a marketer and s/he will spin it into gold. The fact is, with the right connections your 50k product will outsell your piddly $50 product like hotcakes. Your audience probably won't even notice a 50k hit on their accounts. You develop for multinational conglomerates, not mom and pop shops to develop massive wealth. If you can sell to the latter as an afterthought then fine, just don't target them outright.
This is a dead on statement. It is irritating to hear people bash decades-old "obsolete" programs in production in one statement then turn around and lament the woeful state of software stability in todays world in the next. You can't have it both ways folks. You either have rock solid stability, in which case you can *expect* businesses to stick to the product like glue - even over a period of decades - or you can pick up software with the latest flash bang (which as we're now learning will frequently flash then crash with a bang).
As has been stated you actually viewed an Omnimax movie. Growing up I remember seeing movies in three kinds of exotic venues: IMAX, Omnimax (at Expo 86 in Vancouver as mentioned previously) and a tricked out setup called CircleVision 360. Can't remember exactly where that one was. But you would stand in the center of the theater, surrounded by 8 or 10 screens. Each screen had a projector sitting between two screens opposite it. I can only imagine what the filming setup looked like - maybe a pole with a bunch of cameras sticking out of it?? One film was a stomach churning trip down the Snake river I think. Its immersion level makes IMAX look like a joke. Just when you were growing accustomed to the movie you'd suddenly realize you were missing half of it and spin around.
I assume that's why large businesses have legal departments. If you have a group of lawyers on staff you can tie lawsuits up in court for years. It eliminates the nuisance suits from small timers with shallow pockets. Of course you still have to worry about the big fish but - as you say - thats part of being in business. Either way, you do have some protection from being bled dry by a lawyer working for an hourly fee.
Actually this is tagged funny but it is largely true. Supercharged teams are the stuff of legend and the subject of intense study and invariably they are composed of individuals several cuts above the average. When you have the right team members and it gels - look out. You won't need navalgazing sessions for it to happen. For developers this could mean a massive explosion of quality code beyond what could be generated by a group 3x the size. The trick isn't necessarily in "fostering" those teams as much as identifying them when they happen. And a lot of times they come about merely by happenstance.