I'm not saying the lawsuit is a bad thing (hence my "Great!" title), I'm just saying that it'll take a hell of a lot of convincing to make me use a RealNetworks product again.:^)
I usually agree with what RMS says. However, this time he's overreacting.
Gmail, for example, has a terms of service and a privacy policy detailing exactly what they can and cannot do with your information. Most other companies do as well (by law?) and it's usually pretty easy to access.
Ultimately you are giving your data to a third party, but I think it's paranoia to say that you should make sure your data never gets stored on the internet. That's like keeping your money under your mattress instead of putting it in a bank -- the bank could, theoretically, take your money and disappear, but it's not at all likely.
I'm saying he shouldn't omit his tech support background. I don't think that's the problem that's preventing him from being hired.
I think he should start doing some individual gigs while looking for a job. Get some feedback from those companies for whom he's doing projects. Often they'll be able to provide references that he can then put on his resume.
But omitting the one job you've had? Bad news, especially if you can't explain away the two years in the meantime between college and now.
If I couldn't find anyone with work experience, I would likely hire him as he at least has the degree. But even in IT, my guess is that there would be many people with at least some relevant experience and the degree, and I'd hire those people first, likely to the exclusion of the OP.
It's not personal, it's just business, as they say.
PS: If you're looking for these gigs I mentioned, try Guru.com. They don't talk down to you like a lot of other freelancing sites (*cough*Elance*cough*) and actually allow you to bid market rates and still get hired to do projects. Often (almost always?), if you do a good job for one company, they'll have more work for you as well, so it can actually let you make as much or more than a normal job, and it gives you experience running a business in the meantime. If you do particularly well, you can bypass the whole getting a job thing altogether, hire some developers of your own, and make way more than you would with a normal job.
Because that isn't performance, that's distribution.
If you're talking about cover versions as listed in the article, it's because the legal situation would be very complicated. Basically, you and/or Activision would be obligated to pay 9.1c or so for every download of the song... but if you're giving the song away for free, where are you getting the money from?
IANAL so this may be inaccurate, but this is my guess.
Them: Well, we're interested in hiring an engineer... Not so much tech support... You: Have you ever worked in fast food? I thought so! I'm not interested in working for a burger flipper, either...
If I was them:
Them: Thank you, door's to your left.
Insulting or otherwise being unprofessional to your interviewer isn't going to go well for you.
It may be different due to geographical cultural differences, but if I were interviewing someone who left a two year gap in their employment history, I'd wonder what's up and very strongly suspect they were fired and that they didn't want us to call their former employer.
The government is forcing Christian pharmacists to dispense drugs that are abortifacient, thus forcing them to be morally complicit in the termination of an unborn life.
And so the government is (rightly) telling them not to mix religion and public service. You're not giving such medications to those who do not want them.
Christian doctors who wish to practice obstetrics are forced to learn how to perform abortions.
Prove it. And even if they are forced to learn how, they never have to actually perform an abortion in their entire career if they don't want to.
Schools are teaching birth control in such a way as to all but force it upon teenagers -- at least in my school, we were taught that everyone should use birth control and that natural methods were not methods at all.
In nearly all cases, teenagers can be excused from sex ed programs by their parents. And even if they aren't, they have this thing called 'free will' that allows them to choose not to use birth control methods of which they don't approve. In addition, science has repeatedly shown that so-called 'natural family planning' is not nearly as effective as newer methods of birth control. Perhaps it should be shown in addition to other methods, but showing students actual numbers for how effective methods are is not doing them a disservice.
Remember that most Christians believe that abortion is the murder of an innocent human being...
Bullshit. Since when do you speak for "most Christians"?
For that matter, a large number of so-called birth control methods are in fact abortifacient (read the package insert for most incarnations of "The Pill") so fall in the same category.
And so, one does not have to take it if one has the belief that it would be wrong to do so.
The cloned being, even if development is stopped at the blastula level, is still a human being (that is, it has 46 chromosomes, and if it were allowed to develop, could only result in a being that all persons, even atheists, would have to admit is a human being). Thus Christians consider it morally unacceptable, even for Atheists. If embryonic testing is used to promote abortion ("I'm sorry Ms. Smith, your child has Down Syndrome. When can we schedule the abortion?"), then this also comes here.
Laws exist to prevent people from harming other people and their property. If you can prove that a being is hurt or destroyed in the process of stem cell research and testing, then there is a good reason to have a law against it. Oh wait... That's a personal belief that you're trying to force on others.
Premarital sex and gay sex... I don't think there is a lot of movement to actively ban this activity....There is a movement to actively promote this activity.
Are you stating that the government actively promotes premarital sex? Like, they're advertising that it's a fun thing to do or something? I've certainly not seen such literature...
Re:Is it ok to keep kids off the internet these da
on
Good Email For Kids?
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· Score: 1
Readable code is great. Don't use it as an excuse not to comment though. It might be perfectly obvious to you what's happening, but that doesn't mean it's obvious to someone else, and you could easily be pissing someone off without knowing it.
I was going to say, I was a bit surprised that they were promoting someone who presumeably wasn't in coding before into a development position, but the OP isn't quite clear on exactly what background he has.
While I agree that an education is important (enough that I am further pursuing mine), I also know that he could become a good hacker without it as well. Many people have done so, and have learned the foundation aspects through experience (and the community telling them so).
I'm still mostly working on PHP code, and I learned PHP on my own while I was still in high school. I am a much better coder today, and I do ascribe some of that to my schooling (both community college and university), but a lot of it, perhaps the majority, can be ascribed to personal experience outside of an academic environment. There's nothing like being thrown in to sink or swim.
I have to agree with the parent. Exceptions are called "exceptions" for a reason. If you have code that would be called in the normal flow of a program, it should be in a method or function of its own.
My guess is that you did not go to school and learned programming on your own, which is fine, but please, understand that in this case, you are wrong. Exceptions aren't for normal failure cases or input verification, they are for exceptions. Usually stuff that would otherwise stop your program.
There is also something to be said for code cleanliness when using exceptions... Exceptions are much like GOTO in that they can literally skip out of code and skip back in. You don't realize it but it allows you to create spaghetti code really easily, which might be easier to begin with but will ultimately make your code hard to follow when it starts to become larger.
Humans generally think "if x, than y, else z", not "var = (if x, than y, else z)".
Those of us who actually code for a living don't always "read code in English".
So people like me, then?
Personally, I like code that's readable and doesn't require extra effort to process. It saves me time in the long run. If you like to write code that's more difficult entirely so you can try to appear "smarter" than the rest of us, good for you.
I actually went on a small quest before I posted to find out whether or not I was gramatically correct there, and then just (as you said) defaulted to my horrid BASIC thinking. Alas.
I generally only use ternary when I'm outputting or concatenating something and it's a very simple test... otherwise, it's effectively an if (as in the example you posted), and can be more clearly expressed as such. Humans generally think "if x, than y, else z", not "var = (if x, than y, else z)".
Tab out everything in a code block. This should be obvious, but you'd be surprised how bad some stuff is out there. And try not to put in too many one-line ifs without brackets delimiting the code block... you can easily make the mistake of thinking something should be in the if's scope but isn't becuase there are no delimiters.
Comment. Comments are incredibly, incredibly important. They kinda go along with an overarching "don't be a douche" rule; while you may know what's going on in your own code, if it's at all complicated, tell the reader what it's doing. If you don't, someone is going to be very pissed at you later. If you want to go above and beyond, do Javadoc (or other style appropriate to your language) comments where appropriate; a lot of IDEs actually hook into them so you can highlight a method and see what it's doing.
And try looking at / working on some open source stuff as well. The big apps usually have a coding style they follow throughout and aren't that bad for a reference.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, you're saying Gmail doesn't support POP3?
I'm not saying the lawsuit is a bad thing (hence my "Great!" title), I'm just saying that it'll take a hell of a lot of convincing to make me use a RealNetworks product again. :^)
I usually agree with what RMS says. However, this time he's overreacting.
Gmail, for example, has a terms of service and a privacy policy detailing exactly what they can and cannot do with your information. Most other companies do as well (by law?) and it's usually pretty easy to access.
Ultimately you are giving your data to a third party, but I think it's paranoia to say that you should make sure your data never gets stored on the internet. That's like keeping your money under your mattress instead of putting it in a bank -- the bank could, theoretically, take your money and disappear, but it's not at all likely.
*continues to use DVD Shrink for free anyway since it has no DRM*
No.
You're missing the point.
I'm saying he shouldn't omit his tech support background. I don't think that's the problem that's preventing him from being hired.
I think he should start doing some individual gigs while looking for a job. Get some feedback from those companies for whom he's doing projects. Often they'll be able to provide references that he can then put on his resume.
But omitting the one job you've had? Bad news, especially if you can't explain away the two years in the meantime between college and now.
If I couldn't find anyone with work experience, I would likely hire him as he at least has the degree. But even in IT, my guess is that there would be many people with at least some relevant experience and the degree, and I'd hire those people first, likely to the exclusion of the OP.
It's not personal, it's just business, as they say.
PS: If you're looking for these gigs I mentioned, try Guru.com. They don't talk down to you like a lot of other freelancing sites (*cough*Elance*cough*) and actually allow you to bid market rates and still get hired to do projects. Often (almost always?), if you do a good job for one company, they'll have more work for you as well, so it can actually let you make as much or more than a normal job, and it gives you experience running a business in the meantime. If you do particularly well, you can bypass the whole getting a job thing altogether, hire some developers of your own, and make way more than you would with a normal job.
Because that isn't performance, that's distribution.
If you're talking about cover versions as listed in the article, it's because the legal situation would be very complicated. Basically, you and/or Activision would be obligated to pay 9.1c or so for every download of the song... but if you're giving the song away for free, where are you getting the money from?
IANAL so this may be inaccurate, but this is my guess.
Because clearly I'm going to hire someone with zero work experience.
What are you, high?
If I was them:
Them: Thank you, door's to your left.
Insulting or otherwise being unprofessional to your interviewer isn't going to go well for you.
It may be different due to geographical cultural differences, but if I were interviewing someone who left a two year gap in their employment history, I'd wonder what's up and very strongly suspect they were fired and that they didn't want us to call their former employer.
I like conversing with non-concussed monkeys, thank you very much.
*flings some poo*
And so the government is (rightly) telling them not to mix religion and public service. You're not giving such medications to those who do not want them.
Prove it. And even if they are forced to learn how, they never have to actually perform an abortion in their entire career if they don't want to.
In nearly all cases, teenagers can be excused from sex ed programs by their parents. And even if they aren't, they have this thing called 'free will' that allows them to choose not to use birth control methods of which they don't approve. In addition, science has repeatedly shown that so-called 'natural family planning' is not nearly as effective as newer methods of birth control. Perhaps it should be shown in addition to other methods, but showing students actual numbers for how effective methods are is not doing them a disservice.
Bullshit. Since when do you speak for "most Christians"?
And so, one does not have to take it if one has the belief that it would be wrong to do so.
Laws exist to prevent people from harming other people and their property. If you can prove that a being is hurt or destroyed in the process of stem cell research and testing, then there is a good reason to have a law against it. Oh wait... That's a personal belief that you're trying to force on others.
Are you stating that the government actively promotes premarital sex? Like, they're advertising that it's a fun thing to do or something? I've certainly not seen such literature...
Babies having babies!
So when they hired you and you never saw your overtime on your paycheck, what would you do then? Seeing as how you can't sue them...
Readable code is great. Don't use it as an excuse not to comment though. It might be perfectly obvious to you what's happening, but that doesn't mean it's obvious to someone else, and you could easily be pissing someone off without knowing it.
I was going to say, I was a bit surprised that they were promoting someone who presumeably wasn't in coding before into a development position, but the OP isn't quite clear on exactly what background he has.
While I agree that an education is important (enough that I am further pursuing mine), I also know that he could become a good hacker without it as well. Many people have done so, and have learned the foundation aspects through experience (and the community telling them so).
I'm still mostly working on PHP code, and I learned PHP on my own while I was still in high school. I am a much better coder today, and I do ascribe some of that to my schooling (both community college and university), but a lot of it, perhaps the majority, can be ascribed to personal experience outside of an academic environment. There's nothing like being thrown in to sink or swim.
More concise is not always better.
Also, I just realized what you were saying. Cancel that, I'm an idiot. Or at least tired. ;^)
I have to agree with the parent. Exceptions are called "exceptions" for a reason. If you have code that would be called in the normal flow of a program, it should be in a method or function of its own.
My guess is that you did not go to school and learned programming on your own, which is fine, but please, understand that in this case, you are wrong. Exceptions aren't for normal failure cases or input verification, they are for exceptions. Usually stuff that would otherwise stop your program.
There is also something to be said for code cleanliness when using exceptions... Exceptions are much like GOTO in that they can literally skip out of code and skip back in. You don't realize it but it allows you to create spaghetti code really easily, which might be easier to begin with but will ultimately make your code hard to follow when it starts to become larger.
So people like me, then?
Personally, I like code that's readable and doesn't require extra effort to process. It saves me time in the long run. If you like to write code that's more difficult entirely so you can try to appear "smarter" than the rest of us, good for you.
I actually went on a small quest before I posted to find out whether or not I was gramatically correct there, and then just (as you said) defaulted to my horrid BASIC thinking. Alas.
I generally only use ternary when I'm outputting or concatenating something and it's a very simple test... otherwise, it's effectively an if (as in the example you posted), and can be more clearly expressed as such. Humans generally think "if x, than y, else z", not "var = (if x, than y, else z)".
Tab out everything in a code block. This should be obvious, but you'd be surprised how bad some stuff is out there. And try not to put in too many one-line ifs without brackets delimiting the code block... you can easily make the mistake of thinking something should be in the if's scope but isn't becuase there are no delimiters.
Comment. Comments are incredibly, incredibly important. They kinda go along with an overarching "don't be a douche" rule; while you may know what's going on in your own code, if it's at all complicated, tell the reader what it's doing. If you don't, someone is going to be very pissed at you later. If you want to go above and beyond, do Javadoc (or other style appropriate to your language) comments where appropriate; a lot of IDEs actually hook into them so you can highlight a method and see what it's doing.
And try looking at / working on some open source stuff as well. The big apps usually have a coding style they follow throughout and aren't that bad for a reference.
Car engines actually have these things, called batteries, that are user-replaceable...
I think it's pretty obvious who the troll is here.
It is a very apt name.
I have to say, this is by far my favorite 404.