There's some things shell scripting can do well, and there many things it can't do well - writing large complex programs that make it easy to drop in new functionality without changing existing code is one of them.
A few negative people here may have said they wouldn't hire you for not having a degree, but the fact is plenty of people still will. I can vouch for that with plenty of historical evidence. Admittedly it going to be harder in these economic times but the sooner you go for it the better.
First you need to know if you have an aptitude for it, are you better than some people you work with? half the people? or 90% of the people you work with? You'll need to be good, there's no point pursuing this course if you're not any good.
Start low and work your way up, you'll find out soon how good you are. Start on a helpdesk, and don't spend too long there. Then move on to desktop support and/or sys admin work. From there the world is your oyster (networks/dev/management) - I've pursued this course and am now a developer after 7 years of this path. I'm not great with the math side of it, but I have a colleague we call 'rainman' who does all the deep math while I just stick to good architecture and design principles. Rainman can't communicate for crap, so that's where I come in, I'm the buffer between the genius and the rest of the world. You don't need a degree for that.
If you've got a good attitude and an aptitude for technology/programming/software/problems you'll go further and earn more than most of the negative 'genius' posters on this thread, why? Because you can still have a positive social attitude, and to a profitable forward thinking company that's worth 3 brilliant socially inept techies, all of whom who will need to be lead by someone with good social skills.
This confirms what I'd already been practising for a while now through personal experience and what I'd read/heard.
When it comes to doing martial arts classes and other exercises, I typically start with some deep breathing for 1-3 mins (preferably while walking to the class), then follow with a light 50-60% warm up. I have stretched cold before exercise in the past, but it kept causing injuries (I obviously stopped doing that). Then after I finish a class I'll cool down with some stretches while my muscles are warm - which I find I can stretch much further.
I'm over 30 now and have recently re-started capoeira (so pretty hard for work me), and these high effort classes are getting much harder since I've been out of training for a few years. Getting back in to it I've found (casual observation, no science here;-) that after a combination of a deep breathing and a light warm up, my ability to train is increased substantially. I'm not exaggerating at all. We're talking the difference between having to stop constantly and feeling like passing out, and carrying on a class just at the edge of my comfort zone. Most of the article seems to back this experience up with some science, which I'm glad about:-)
Meerkats seem to have the vigilance to effort ratio about right in a demanding environment, maybe we should take some lessons from their societies and apply them the engineering world:
From wikipedia:
The alpha pair often scent-mark subordinates of the group to express their authority, and this is usually followed by the subordinates grooming the alphas and licking their faces.
I've worked for 10 years in in the UK having never been in a cubicled/officed environment, and I just started a job where I now have a cubicle. I find it isolated, unsocial and boring. Yeah I mess about more in privacy, but that's about the only benefit. I hope I don't get used to this isolation at work (I love at home alone, and that's fine - but at work I expect to interact). I suspect making friends at this new workplace might be harder because of the cubicles and isolation.
I've made countless great friends from working in an open plan environment, where you get to share your experiences more readily. Of course, there are some very annoying people who I'd prefer a divide from, but they're luckily been rare in my experience, and I'm often just rude to them:-P
But seriously, communication is key to professional success, and cubicles reduce communication.
> As long as they can get the sucker western world to subsidize the pirating in the third world
> they have it sweet.
that would be blizzard's world of warcraft finance model then?
Without wanting to directly offend anyone...
There is one thing that seems to be duly forgotten here. Policemen don't know the law, if they did they'd be lawyers and get paid far more.
The police are just there to arrest you and hand you over to the courts who deal with the real law.
I've been arrested approx 20 times (petty stuff) in my life and never once charged because of this simple fact. My uncle however, is a barrister and does know the law, hence me never being charged.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
When windows craps its pants, you know it's just not worth trying to fix it, you're going to have to re-install it and all your apps every 2 - 6 months.
My longest windows install has lasted 12 months before undeciperable error messages started being reported. The install only lasted so long becuase I was scared to install too many apps.
The law states (in the uk) that if the antagonist is aggressive and moving forward, and you fear for your safety, you can legally pre-empitely strike the first blow in self defence
Go to some decent kung-fu classes, butremember! The first rule of kung-fu classes is that you don't talk about kung-fu classes!;-)
Also living in London I got mugged for the last time two years ago, and after a paticularly violent encounter I decided to do something about it. I took up wing chun & jeet kune do .
I've found the result is that my awareness has improved overall and I find it al ot easier to avoid dangerous situations rather than having to defend myself in them. Additionally you also gain the confidence to deal with these situations calmly when they occur.
Just applying yourself to a solid fighting technique of almost any kind teaches you so much in so many ways that you learn to find alternative routes in life, including when being mugged.
Agreed as with many posts though, the first best thing to do avoid the muggers attention, wear plain clothes, lose the white earphones, walk confidently, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
Channels, Adapters, Routers, Filters, Transformers, Splitter/Aggregator, Delayer, Bridge?
Very original.
There's some things shell scripting can do well, and there many things it can't do well - writing large complex programs that make it easy to drop in new functionality without changing existing code is one of them.
First you need to know if you have an aptitude for it, are you better than some people you work with? half the people? or 90% of the people you work with? You'll need to be good, there's no point pursuing this course if you're not any good.
Start low and work your way up, you'll find out soon how good you are. Start on a helpdesk, and don't spend too long there. Then move on to desktop support and/or sys admin work. From there the world is your oyster (networks/dev/management) - I've pursued this course and am now a developer after 7 years of this path. I'm not great with the math side of it, but I have a colleague we call 'rainman' who does all the deep math while I just stick to good architecture and design principles. Rainman can't communicate for crap, so that's where I come in, I'm the buffer between the genius and the rest of the world. You don't need a degree for that.
If you've got a good attitude and an aptitude for technology/programming/software/problems you'll go further and earn more than most of the negative 'genius' posters on this thread, why? Because you can still have a positive social attitude, and to a profitable forward thinking company that's worth 3 brilliant socially inept techies, all of whom who will need to be lead by someone with good social skills.
When it comes to doing martial arts classes and other exercises, I typically start with some deep breathing for 1-3 mins (preferably while walking to the class), then follow with a light 50-60% warm up. I have stretched cold before exercise in the past, but it kept causing injuries (I obviously stopped doing that). Then after I finish a class I'll cool down with some stretches while my muscles are warm - which I find I can stretch much further.
I'm over 30 now and have recently re-started capoeira (so pretty hard for work me), and these high effort classes are getting much harder since I've been out of training for a few years. Getting back in to it I've found (casual observation, no science here ;-) that after a combination of a deep breathing and a light warm up, my ability to train is increased substantially. I'm not exaggerating at all. We're talking the difference between having to stop constantly and feeling like passing out, and carrying on a class just at the edge of my comfort zone. Most of the article seems to back this experience up with some science, which I'm glad about :-)
From wikipedia:
I've made countless great friends from working in an open plan environment, where you get to share your experiences more readily. Of course, there are some very annoying people who I'd prefer a divide from, but they're luckily been rare in my experience, and I'm often just rude to them :-P
But seriously, communication is key to professional success, and cubicles reduce communication.
And maybe when many clients in close proximity to each other don't saturate the bandwitdh.
Well it must be. Suitably, the posted article arived 26 light days before it was sent. (By my calculations GMT+/-0)
> As long as they can get the sucker western world to subsidize the pirating in the third world > they have it sweet. that would be blizzard's world of warcraft finance model then?
Without wanting to directly offend anyone... There is one thing that seems to be duly forgotten here. Policemen don't know the law, if they did they'd be lawyers and get paid far more. The police are just there to arrest you and hand you over to the courts who deal with the real law. I've been arrested approx 20 times (petty stuff) in my life and never once charged because of this simple fact. My uncle however, is a barrister and does know the law, hence me never being charged.
You took the words right out of my mouth. When windows craps its pants, you know it's just not worth trying to fix it, you're going to have to re-install it and all your apps every 2 - 6 months. My longest windows install has lasted 12 months before undeciperable error messages started being reported. The install only lasted so long becuase I was scared to install too many apps.
The law states (in the uk) that if the antagonist is aggressive and moving forward, and you fear for your safety, you can legally pre-empitely strike the first blow in self defence
see this book
Go to some decent kung-fu classes, butremember! The first rule of kung-fu classes is that you don't talk about kung-fu classes! ;-)
Also living in London I got mugged for the last time two years ago, and after a paticularly violent encounter I decided to do something about it. I took up wing chun & jeet kune do .
I've found the result is that my awareness has improved overall and I find it al ot easier to avoid dangerous situations rather than having to defend myself in them. Additionally you also gain the confidence to deal with these situations calmly when they occur.
Just applying yourself to a solid fighting technique of almost any kind teaches you so much in so many ways that you learn to find alternative routes in life, including when being mugged.
Agreed as with many posts though, the first best thing to do avoid the muggers attention, wear plain clothes, lose the white earphones, walk confidently, etc...