Those who are closer to well-informed and correct on any issue much less general social and political patterns generaly are an "extreme minority". Which of course does not mean that any old extreme minority is right on any particular issue or aspect of reality.
If you not only have a philosophical background but actually can do philosophy in your own life and not just in academic matters, then AS and the Fountainhead are not jokes. Most of our "culture" is a joke in comparison.
The objectivist/libertarian contingent has a lot better things to do than sit around all day and vote up AR novels. The books won because far more people than the intelligensia would like to acknolwedge have read them and were very impressed by them (whether they base their politics or any other part of their life on them is a different question). I can certainly assure you that most libertarians are not inclined to put in the necessary huge amount of effort (considering what a small minority they are) to swing the poll.
Now Battlefield Earth obvious is not worth its ranking so I think you are right about Scientologists.:-)
I am not here for socio-political drivel. I can get a dose of that all over the net and from most commentators and all too many university departments. Enough of it invades this geek space through the rantings of Katz without more of the sophmoric BS lathered on. I am a geek largely to escape such air-headed nonsence. I live where reality is NOT
"socially constructed".
The moral of the story is not that there was too much technology or that there is such a thing as too much technology. The moral of the story is that we need to be a lot smarter and more skillful in the creation and deployment of technology. Another level of moral is that we need a lot better tools and development practices. And a final moral is that we need software that is a lot smarter and that evaluates the appropriateness of a candidate solution that calls for things like changing the pitch of the rotors in a situation where that might harm its occupants.
If the current infrastructure is not up to the traffic then the parts of it that are too weak need to be redone. It is pointless to cry that it is being used too heavily and even more pointless and abhorrent to talk of attempting to slow it down.
Don't buy any CD that you cannot digitally copy. If you buy one by accident take it back to the store. Write letters indicating your policy to the distributors. Encourage others widely to do the same.
If you keep buying this krap they will keep producing it. Only buy what works for you.
But computers in all their various forms are not cars. Computers are needed in hundreds of very different environments with dozens of different interfaces and dozens more of particular requirements. Further, tbe box is basically only a home for the software that is running on it which produces orders of magnitude more diversity. There is no way the entire industry will successfully settle on only a handful of designs. The applications for computing power are changing and will continue to change much too drastically for that.
Are you implying that Postgresql does not have every single one of the things mentioned? BTW, clustering, if you mean the old-fashioned idea of storing data from multiple tables on the same data page, is a REALLY BAD IDEA that used to crash Oracle really often in the early days when they tried it. It was largely shown to be a bad idea back in the 70s. But it occassionally still rears its ugly little head.
This is FUD. Postgresql has beat the pants off of commercial dbms systems. Will it? Try it and see. Don't just assume it won't work. Mission critical apps? Do you know how to set up a test harness?
Agreed on MySql. Stored procedures are starting to be implemented directly in Java (about friggin' time!).
You should have mentioned Postgresql. This is a full powered rdbms that is open source! For all but the most heavily beat on application server environments I would put it up against Oracle or Informix any day.
MySQL, despite its advantages in certain delimited application spaces, is not a real RDBMS yet. When it gets full transaction support it will be closer. But it is playing catch up on some key RDBMS features.
They can bloody well make the damn autos drive themselves so people can do something more interesting. Driving is enough of drive without taking what out what little makes it at all bearable.
Software engineering is NOT architecture or building bridges. A large part of the problem comes from pretending it is the same kind of activity. Unlike these other domains, software requirements vary as a function of user experience and environment and technology changes over time. Attempting to build a software system as if you could really fully flesh out the design, code it once, really deeply test it and be done is a formula for utter disaster. What is needed is more seeing the process as something quite a bit more flexible. Some other whose name escapes me suggested a metaphor of software as a flower garden. You lay out the garden to please all the users of it that you have gathered requirements from. But you expect and design for going back and pruning here when things grow out of hand, shoring up and adding there, moving this piece from here to there for aesthetic reasons and so on.
This requires more than simply good factoring and component technologies. It requires tools for monitoring the health/aesthetics/conditions of living systems and for modifying them over time to increase the desirability of the system. Getting everything working just so under these scores of pages of system requirements and assumptions doesn't help when many of those assumptions are obsolete before the system even ships much less a few months down the road.
But this is also too strong a statement. Some software can be done more like architecture or bridge-building. But much of it cannot. Even more wisdom is needed to know the difference.
Degrees per se are not relevant to being really good at software. Knowing at least the basics of data structures, algorithms, algorithm complexity and OO or other relevant methodologies is important but formal degree programs are not the only or even the best way to learn these things. Those basics are given in a few courses. The rest of the CS degree program is often irrelevant to success at software engineering. I have known plenty of highly credentialed CS people who simply cannot design and code. And I have known people without any CS degrees who are some of the best software people around.
Whether we like it or not, software is still largely craft and art and/or we don't teach the right engineering techniques to actually succeed at it.
Please take it elsewhere. Global warming to some extent is known to have historically occured. The mechanisms and exactly how current technology plays into them and thus what the overall temperature change will be is not known and not consensus science. So please take the call to arms before the science is in elsewhere.
Are all well argued pieces that come to a firm conclusion by definition "rants" these days? It seems like an unfortunate coarsening of the language hiding more than a little cynicism to me.
Actually, many companies, especially tech companies are very dependent on one or a handfull of key techies. People are not interchangeable parts. It is not management's role to attempt to make them so. It is management's role to fan the sparks to create more vitally important people in the company.
Personally I have gone down with enough sinking ships to know that that is no fun and not helpful to anyone. If the situation is really dismal and unlikely to change I think you owe it both to yourself and to your friends on the boat to get out. If it is not too legally dangerous I would give some of these friends a broad hint that seeking a lifeboat might be a real good idea.
The decision also depends on why you are there. You are the CTO. You presumably have a dream and a vision that you wanted to see become a reality or you wouldn't be the CTO (or am I being naive?). Is the dream still worth pursuing? Will the possible move elsewhere take you closer to it or further away?
Ultimately, do whatever is best for what most moves you that is congruent with taking care of you and yours.
Post your experience/credentials, maybe a pointer to your resume and what kind of arrangement you are looking for. Some recruiters will call you. They also have an online project/situation database and search system that I have found invaluable.
Why wouldn't an e-merchant heavily encrypted detailed user info including credit card numbers? I assume by the alarm that it isn't encrypted or that the encryption is inadequate. Why?
Bullshit. First this measure is not just about schools but also about libraries. Second, censorship and clumsy automated mandate censorship at that has no place in a free country. That is supposed to be one of the values of this nation.
Many child prodigies aren't really just children after a pretty young age. Trying to keep such a one safe to be "just a child" is often deadly boring and stultifying. Kids like this have very little in common with others their own age.
I stopped being a child in many ways by the time I was 9 or 10. One of the most frustrating things in my young life was being treated like just another child. Was I adult? No. But neither was I a child psychologically or intellectually. I was somewhere uncomfortably in-between for a very long time. I remember at age 8 telling my mom, "You know, I am a lot younger than you and have a lot less experience, real-world knowledge and common sense. But I am just as smart (at least) as you are. So don't treat me like a dumb little kid who doesn't know or understand anything. I understand a lot more than you think I do. Explain to me what I don't know." She didn't really get it. It simply freaked her out. I think she expected my head to start spinning around.:-)
First make sure this fine and very curious young mind is well grounded in science(including computer science naturally) and mathematics. Bring in cutting edge stuff to whet the appetite, especially things like nanotech and molecular electronics and so on. But make very sure that the fundamentals are sound. They are the tools for mastering and appreciating the rest.
Second, make sure to expose this kid to a LOT of very bright and knowledgeable professors, teachers, scientists, engineers and a smattering of curmudgeons. Also as many other really bright kids as you can find. You won't be able to fill such a mind totally by yourself.
Third, in computers make sure the grounding in OS theory, basics and so on is there before going to something esoteric. I would recommend teaching a very high level and yet simple language first like Scheme. Then do workhorses like C, C++, Java. Throw in some smalltalk. Season with AI. Show the power of agent systems and distributed computing.
Slashdot Mirror
Those who are closer to well-informed and correct on any issue much less general social and political patterns generaly are an "extreme minority". Which of course does not mean that any old extreme minority is right on any particular issue or aspect of reality.
:-)
If you not only have a philosophical background but actually can do philosophy in your own life and not just in academic matters, then AS and the Fountainhead are not jokes. Most of our "culture" is a joke in comparison.
The objectivist/libertarian contingent has a lot better things to do than sit around all day and vote up AR novels. The books won because far more people than the intelligensia would like to acknolwedge have read them and were very impressed by them (whether they base their politics or any other part of their life on them is a different question). I can certainly assure you that most libertarians are not inclined to put in the necessary huge amount of effort (considering what a small minority they are) to swing the poll.
Now Battlefield Earth obvious is not worth its ranking so I think you are right about Scientologists.
I am not here for socio-political drivel. I can get a dose of that all over the net and from most commentators and all too many university departments. Enough of it invades this geek space through the rantings of Katz without more of the sophmoric BS lathered on. I am a geek largely to escape such air-headed nonsence. I live where reality is NOT
"socially constructed".
The moral of the story is not that there was too much technology or that there is such a thing as too much technology. The moral of the story is that we need to be a lot smarter and more skillful in the creation and deployment of technology. Another level of moral is that we need a lot better tools and development practices. And a final moral is that we need software that is a lot smarter and that evaluates the appropriateness of a candidate solution that calls for things like changing the pitch of the rotors in a situation where that might harm its occupants.
If the current infrastructure is not up to the traffic then the parts of it that are too weak need to be redone. It is pointless to cry that it is being used too heavily and even more pointless and abhorrent to talk of attempting to slow it down.
Don't buy any CD that you cannot digitally copy. If you buy one by accident take it back to the store. Write letters indicating your policy to the distributors. Encourage others widely to do the same.
If you keep buying this krap they will keep producing it. Only buy what works for you.
The inner link goes to PNAS which seems to cost over $100/yr. to subscribe to. Please don't post articles referencing such material.
But computers in all their various forms are not cars. Computers are needed in hundreds of very different environments with dozens of different interfaces and dozens more of particular requirements. Further, tbe box is basically only a home for the software that is running on it which produces orders of magnitude more diversity. There is no way the entire industry will successfully settle on only a handful of designs. The applications for computing power are changing and will continue to change much too drastically for that.
This isn't exactly difficult to add. Is it such a killer feature for your work?
Are you implying that Postgresql does not have every single one of the things mentioned? BTW, clustering, if you mean the old-fashioned idea of storing data from multiple tables on the same data page, is a REALLY BAD IDEA that used to crash Oracle really often in the early days when they tried it. It was largely shown to be a bad idea back in the 70s. But it occassionally still rears its ugly little head.
This is FUD. Postgresql has beat the pants off of commercial dbms systems. Will it? Try it and see. Don't just assume it won't work. Mission critical apps? Do you know how to set up a test harness?
Agreed on MySql. Stored procedures are starting to be implemented directly in Java (about friggin' time!).
You should have mentioned Postgresql. This is a full powered rdbms that is open source! For all but the most heavily beat on application server environments I would put it up against Oracle or Informix any day.
MySQL, despite its advantages in certain delimited application spaces, is not a real RDBMS yet. When it gets full transaction support it will be closer. But it is playing catch up on some key RDBMS features.
They can bloody well make the damn autos drive themselves so people can do something more interesting. Driving is enough of drive without taking what out what little makes it at all bearable.
All of the rest of us would not know of the security hole and being able to take precautions unless we join a closed group. No thanks.
There is nothing "illegitimate" about spreading any memes you wish by internet. Censorship memes will not be tolerated.
Software engineering is NOT architecture or building bridges. A large part of the problem comes from pretending it is the same kind of activity. Unlike these other domains, software requirements vary as a function of user experience and environment and technology changes over time. Attempting to build a software system as if you could really fully flesh out the design, code it once, really deeply test it and be done is a formula for utter disaster. What is needed is more seeing the process as something quite a bit more flexible. Some other whose name escapes me suggested a metaphor of software as a flower garden. You lay out the garden to please all the users of it that you have gathered requirements from. But you expect and design for going back and pruning here when things grow out of hand, shoring up and adding there, moving this piece from here to there for aesthetic reasons and so on.
This requires more than simply good factoring and component technologies. It requires tools for monitoring the health/aesthetics/conditions of living systems and for modifying them over time to increase the desirability of the system. Getting everything working just so under these scores of pages of system requirements and assumptions doesn't help when many of those assumptions are obsolete before the system even ships much less a few months down the road.
But this is also too strong a statement. Some software can be done more like architecture or bridge-building. But much of it cannot. Even more wisdom is needed to know the difference.
Degrees per se are not relevant to being really good at software. Knowing at least the basics of data structures, algorithms, algorithm complexity and OO or other relevant methodologies is important but formal degree programs are not the only or even the best way to learn these things. Those basics are given in a few courses. The rest of the CS degree program is often irrelevant to success at software engineering. I have known plenty of highly credentialed CS people who simply cannot design and code. And I have known people without any CS degrees who are some of the best software people around.
Whether we like it or not, software is still largely craft and art and/or we don't teach the right engineering techniques to actually succeed at it.
Please take it elsewhere. Global warming to some extent is known to have historically occured. The mechanisms and exactly how current technology plays into them and thus what the overall temperature change will be is not known and not consensus science. So please take the call to arms before the science is in elsewhere.
Are all well argued pieces that come to a firm conclusion by definition "rants" these days? It seems like an unfortunate coarsening of the language hiding more than a little cynicism to me.
Actually, many companies, especially tech companies are very dependent on one or a handfull of key techies. People are not interchangeable parts. It is not management's role to attempt to make them so. It is management's role to fan the sparks to create more vitally important people in the company.
Personally I have gone down with enough sinking ships to know that that is no fun and not helpful to anyone. If the situation is really dismal and unlikely to change I think you owe it both to yourself and to your friends on the boat to get out. If it is not too legally dangerous I would give some of these friends a broad hint that seeking a lifeboat might be a real good idea.
The decision also depends on why you are there. You are the CTO. You presumably have a dream and a vision that you wanted to see become a reality or you wouldn't be the CTO (or am I being naive?). Is the dream still worth pursuing? Will the possible move elsewhere take you closer to it or further away?
Ultimately, do whatever is best for what most moves you that is congruent with taking care of you and yours.
Post your experience/credentials, maybe a pointer to your resume and what kind of arrangement you are looking for. Some recruiters will call you. They also have an online project/situation database and search system that I have found invaluable.
Why wouldn't an e-merchant heavily encrypted detailed user info including credit card numbers? I assume by the alarm that it isn't encrypted or that the encryption is inadequate. Why?
Bullshit. First this measure is not just about schools but also about libraries. Second, censorship and clumsy automated mandate censorship at that has no place in a free country. That is supposed to be one of the values of this nation.
Many child prodigies aren't really just children after a pretty young age. Trying to keep such a one safe to be "just a child" is often deadly boring and stultifying. Kids like this have very little in common with others their own age.
:-)
I stopped being a child in many ways by the time I was 9 or 10. One of the most frustrating things in my young life was being treated like just another child. Was I adult? No. But neither was I a child psychologically or intellectually. I was somewhere uncomfortably in-between for a very long time. I remember at age 8 telling my mom, "You know, I am a lot younger than you and have a lot less experience, real-world knowledge and common sense. But I am just as smart (at least) as you are. So don't treat me like a dumb little kid who doesn't know or understand anything. I understand a lot more than you think I do. Explain to me what I don't know." She didn't really get it. It simply freaked her out. I think she expected my head to start spinning around.
First make sure this fine and very curious young mind is well grounded in science(including computer science naturally) and mathematics. Bring in cutting edge stuff to whet the appetite, especially things like nanotech and molecular electronics and so on. But make very sure that the fundamentals are sound. They are the tools for mastering and appreciating the rest.
Second, make sure to expose this kid to a LOT of very bright and knowledgeable professors, teachers, scientists, engineers and a smattering of curmudgeons. Also as many other really bright kids as you can find. You won't be able to fill such a mind totally by yourself.
Third, in computers make sure the grounding in OS theory, basics and so on is there before going to something esoteric. I would recommend teaching a very high level and yet simple language first like Scheme. Then do workhorses like C, C++, Java. Throw in some smalltalk. Season with AI. Show the power of agent systems and distributed computing.