That rant on statistics was interesting. He's really wrong about what the problem is. He's complaining about programmers not knowing statistics, but the real problem is with people in general: People don't want to listen to your ideas, and don't care if you're right. People will defend ridiculous and wrong positions to help keep you back. Here's a snip from his statistics rant:
All of this leads to a curse since none of my colleagues have any clue about what they don't understand. I'll propose a measurement technique and they'll scoff at it. I try to show them how to properly graph a run chart and they're indignant. I question their metrics and they try to back it up with lame attempts at statistical reasoning.
I've spent a lot of time in the work force watching people consider and implement new ideas and changes. And I can sympathize with how Zed feels in that quote, and have seen it a lot. But it's not programmers and statistics. It's a people in general thing he's observing.
The problem here is people in general, and not just programmers and statistics. Often, people need to like you in order to want to use your ideas. In work environments, there's almost always other factors at play involved in whether people like your ideas. Perhaps some of these programmers feel threatened by him (gosh, perhaps physically). Perhaps they detest him and just being near him raises their blood pressure.
The point is that in the real world, it's actually somewhat rare for people to consider ideas with an open and informed mind. Most decisions are made from the gut based primarily on factors not related to the idea itself. It's not a problem with programmers or education, it's the way the world works in general.
lots of favoritism goes on in second life... a friend of mine who had a good chunk of money invested just lost his account due to some TOS violations that occurred 5 or 6 months before his account existed in the region
Sure, he's innocent. Whatever. A friend of mine works on the governance team at Linden Labs. That's the team in charge of all suspensions, bannings, and terms of service violations. I know how this team works, their level of dedication, and their commitment to fairness and following procedure.
In short, I suspect your friend is full of crap. I'd trust his story of why he was banned and his guilt level about as much as I'd trust the stories and self-professed innocence of inmates in a prison.
Definitely. What's the big problem with being a Junior Sysadmin at Google? A true hotshot should be able to move up the hierarchy quickly. Also, earlier in the rant he complains about needing money very badly, and having trouble with clients paying reliably. Sounds like a regular day job is in order, and certainly junior sysadmin at Google is a better idea than cleaning up a glory hole in Queens. I respect the work that Zed's done, and have been impressed with his approaches in the past, but jeez, what a primadonna.
It's still lame. They shouldn't trust the input of the barcode, any more than a web developer trusts their input. Perhaps the membership numbers should be more sparse and difficult to guess.
I couldn't get over Python's syntactically significant whitespace - many people would laugh at that, but for me it's just unthinkable. So Python was just ruled out for me totally because of that.
You know what bugs me worse than syntacitcally significant whitespace in Python? Ruby's "end" all over the place. I'd totally rather use syntactically significant whitespace than to have 10% of my lines of code be the single word "end". It just bugs me
Seriously, pull out the receipt, bring back the product, get a refund, and tell them where to stuff it. You don't need to put up with that kind of crap. The inconvenience to you is well worth not having to think about it a year later and knowing you let them stick it to you.
It's gotta be hard to come up with 5 year predictions that are both sensational enough to print and yet still plausible within 5 years. If you had to make a list with perfect hindsight that they could have done 5 years ago, what would you have on it?
We're getting so sheltered and pussywhipped that we won't be able to function as an independent species within a few decades
You're probably right, but it's not really a bad thing. I can sure type faster and program computers better than my grandfather could. Don't think of humans in isolation. Think of them in combination with their technology. We may be wimpier in many ways compared to our ancestors. But if you make the comparison including our current technologies then we're advancing quite rapidly. We have longer life expectancy due to medical technology and better knowledge of health and nutrition. If you think of humans in a broad sense that includes knowledge and technology, then our progress as a race is stunning. We're better in countless ways now than we were just a short time ago, and getting better faster than we ever have before.
Even DDR on easy for a half hour 4 days a week will keep you fit.
As a reminder, fit does not equal slim.
Yep. Diet's the missing component there. 30 minutes DDR enough to get your pulse up into the magic zone 4 days a week, combined with a low-fat, low-sugar, high protein balanced diet, with say protein shakes with all the vitamins you need, and you'd get to slim pretty quick. People do workouts all the time, but it's the diet part that separates the men from the boys. A couple donuts every other day, soft drinks every day, and a bunch of french fries will pretty much eliminate the slimming benefits of working out.
Anyway, I would love to have access to something like that.
You do have access to something like that: Second Life. I do a lot of work in Second Life, in fact business I do there is my primary income source. I'm honestly not understanding your reasons for hating it. You say you'd love to have access to something like that, yet your reasons you list for hating it ring pretty hollow:
1. They're "Sadville wankers", sorry this means nothing to me and it's just name-calling anyway, what's your point here?
2. "They can claim everything you produce." I didn't realize that. They have lots of content providers producing lots of things without SL interfering. I'm one of them. Unless you're producing gambling or child porn you're pretty safe. And if you just want a meeting space to collaborate, what amazing content are you going to produce that you're worried about?
If you want to just hate on SL that's fine, but you really do have access to an environment where it's possible to do business collaboration in a virtual world, right now. Perhaps it's just that you don't like it being hosted on their servers. Maybe when Raph Koster's Metaplace comes out that'll be more your speed.
Another example. Today there was a Linden Labs business meeting with 80 or so people. After the meeting, they had a huge snowball fight together-- and many of the employees built their own snowball trebuchets and whatever. Also, lots of the people made their own Christmas costumes.
Some might say "so what" or "get a first life", but those people would likely also say that real life business parties serve no purpose, also. I say it's a good thing-- a bunch of the people have some fun together, they rub elbows with people they wouldn't normally see. The company accountant might actually get to interact a little with the company lawyer or whatever-- the benefits are the same as real life get-togethers.
Take my zoo, for example, in Second Life. There's all kinds of crazy things there-- missles that lunach and drop parachuting ducks that throw snowballs at you on their way down, gophers that eat flowers, a giant elephant that juggles people, and so on. People are always in there laughing their asses off, riding the animals around a race track and generally having a good time. There's voice chat, and I can hear them laughing. The environment provides stimulus and gives the people something to do, think, and experience together. Compare that to, say, people watching a PowerPoint in a conference call. There's no comparison-- a virtual environment makes all the difference in terms of people "being" together when they're not geographically together.
The locale, sounds, environment, and general "feel" of a meeting can really impact the way the participants think. We've seen studies here before about high ceilings encouraging open creative thought, while low ceilings encourages disciplined thought. Different kinds of locations can help make the people feel more relaxed, fun, or whatever. Try having conversations with people in second life in different locales and see what you think.
There's some precedent for this. The Disney Imagineering process involves separating development into separate meetings for the "dreaming" phase and "critic" phase. In the dreamer phase, any idea is ok to present, no matter how impractical. In the critic phase, you shoot holes in ideas. Disney would hold the dreamer meetings in open, comfy places; and hold the critic meetings in more enclosed, trashy places. These ideas work in the real world.
I dunno about that. I was at a tradeshow in the late 90's at a time when the term "mp3 player" wasn't a household word yet. Rio was hyping their product, they had a cast of about a dozen teenage boys and girls wearing hipster clothing, standing on a little stage on their booth, holding the mp3 players and dancing around pretending to listen to them. In my book that counts as hyping, but then, everything was hyped in the late 90's. Perhaps it's just a matter of scale. Although the product was being promoted, it wasn't like on the cover of Happy Meals at McDonalds or anything.
Your students are far better off using tools that people used 8 years ago, than tools that no one uses today.
Our friends here may mod you into the basement for being a troll here, but you're still right. And then I'll get modded off topic.
If the goal is even partially vocational-- teaching kids how real people do real work-- then the real tools the real people use is the way to go if possible.
Your post was interesting and thought provoking to me. One thing of particular interest though:
I was making very good money...wonderful sales in 2000-2001... By 2004... 2000-2001 was a major turning point for just about everyone in the software industry. Pretty much every software developer had it good in the late 90's up to 2000 or 2001, and then things got comparatively ugly for everyone. Perhaps some of what you saw wasn't all related to the wrong language, but part of it was perhaps related to everything going sideways in the industry at that time. There's some sweeping generalizations in my comments here to be sure, but I imagine that lots of people here have stories about how things changed for them in 2000-2001. I know I sure do!
Teaching "Concepts, not Software" makes a lot of sense in most cases, I agree. But if you've got kids in a media class, and you have half a chance to get their hands on Photoshop (even version 7!) then jump on it! Teach those kids Photoshop! Forget arguments about open source versus evil corporate overlords for a moment. If a kid wants to have a career in any kind of media, when he's talking to a prospective employer and they ask him if he's good with Photoshop, which is a better answer:
1. "Uh, well, I've used gimp and it's just like Photoshop, I know concepts not software"
- or -
2. "Yes, I'm very good with Photoshop, here's some samples of my work. I did this with Photoshop 7, if that's important to you"
My point is there's certain kinds of software where using the industry standard tool or at least having experience with it is vital. Photoshop is one of those.
What programming language went from highly desirable to unwanted legacy in just 3 years? Either you and I have a different idea of the threshold for "highly desirable" or "unwanted legacy", or I'm about to learn something really interesting. I'm thinking of all the languages I've been familiar with over the years and none seem to fit this description.
Slashdot Mirror
You sir are 100% correct. I suspect many people don't know the truth you are laying out here, and suffer because of it.
That rant on statistics was interesting. He's really wrong about what the problem is. He's complaining about programmers not knowing statistics, but the real problem is with people in general: People don't want to listen to your ideas, and don't care if you're right. People will defend ridiculous and wrong positions to help keep you back. Here's a snip from his statistics rant:
I've spent a lot of time in the work force watching people consider and implement new ideas and changes. And I can sympathize with how Zed feels in that quote, and have seen it a lot. But it's not programmers and statistics. It's a people in general thing he's observing.
The problem here is people in general, and not just programmers and statistics. Often, people need to like you in order to want to use your ideas. In work environments, there's almost always other factors at play involved in whether people like your ideas. Perhaps some of these programmers feel threatened by him (gosh, perhaps physically). Perhaps they detest him and just being near him raises their blood pressure.
The point is that in the real world, it's actually somewhat rare for people to consider ideas with an open and informed mind. Most decisions are made from the gut based primarily on factors not related to the idea itself. It's not a problem with programmers or education, it's the way the world works in general.
Sure, he's innocent. Whatever. A friend of mine works on the governance team at Linden Labs. That's the team in charge of all suspensions, bannings, and terms of service violations. I know how this team works, their level of dedication, and their commitment to fairness and following procedure.
In short, I suspect your friend is full of crap. I'd trust his story of why he was banned and his guilt level about as much as I'd trust the stories and self-professed innocence of inmates in a prison.
That is insightful. The interest was compounding.
Definitely. What's the big problem with being a Junior Sysadmin at Google? A true hotshot should be able to move up the hierarchy quickly. Also, earlier in the rant he complains about needing money very badly, and having trouble with clients paying reliably. Sounds like a regular day job is in order, and certainly junior sysadmin at Google is a better idea than cleaning up a glory hole in Queens. I respect the work that Zed's done, and have been impressed with his approaches in the past, but jeez, what a primadonna.
It's still lame. They shouldn't trust the input of the barcode, any more than a web developer trusts their input. Perhaps the membership numbers should be more sparse and difficult to guess.
Seriously, pull out the receipt, bring back the product, get a refund, and tell them where to stuff it. You don't need to put up with that kind of crap. The inconvenience to you is well worth not having to think about it a year later and knowing you let them stick it to you.
Wow, this was more interesting and thought-provoking than 90% of the articles I've read on Slashdot in the last week, and it's just a post!
It's gotta be hard to come up with 5 year predictions that are both sensational enough to print and yet still plausible within 5 years. If you had to make a list with perfect hindsight that they could have done 5 years ago, what would you have on it?
You do have access to something like that: Second Life. I do a lot of work in Second Life, in fact business I do there is my primary income source. I'm honestly not understanding your reasons for hating it. You say you'd love to have access to something like that, yet your reasons you list for hating it ring pretty hollow:
1. They're "Sadville wankers", sorry this means nothing to me and it's just name-calling anyway, what's your point here?
2. "They can claim everything you produce." I didn't realize that. They have lots of content providers producing lots of things without SL interfering. I'm one of them. Unless you're producing gambling or child porn you're pretty safe. And if you just want a meeting space to collaborate, what amazing content are you going to produce that you're worried about?
If you want to just hate on SL that's fine, but you really do have access to an environment where it's possible to do business collaboration in a virtual world, right now. Perhaps it's just that you don't like it being hosted on their servers. Maybe when Raph Koster's Metaplace comes out that'll be more your speed.
Another example. Today there was a Linden Labs business meeting with 80 or so people. After the meeting, they had a huge snowball fight together-- and many of the employees built their own snowball trebuchets and whatever. Also, lots of the people made their own Christmas costumes.
Some might say "so what" or "get a first life", but those people would likely also say that real life business parties serve no purpose, also. I say it's a good thing-- a bunch of the people have some fun together, they rub elbows with people they wouldn't normally see. The company accountant might actually get to interact a little with the company lawyer or whatever-- the benefits are the same as real life get-togethers.
Take my zoo, for example, in Second Life. There's all kinds of crazy things there-- missles that lunach and drop parachuting ducks that throw snowballs at you on their way down, gophers that eat flowers, a giant elephant that juggles people, and so on. People are always in there laughing their asses off, riding the animals around a race track and generally having a good time. There's voice chat, and I can hear them laughing. The environment provides stimulus and gives the people something to do, think, and experience together. Compare that to, say, people watching a PowerPoint in a conference call. There's no comparison-- a virtual environment makes all the difference in terms of people "being" together when they're not geographically together.
The locale, sounds, environment, and general "feel" of a meeting can really impact the way the participants think. We've seen studies here before about high ceilings encouraging open creative thought, while low ceilings encourages disciplined thought. Different kinds of locations can help make the people feel more relaxed, fun, or whatever. Try having conversations with people in second life in different locales and see what you think.
There's some precedent for this. The Disney Imagineering process involves separating development into separate meetings for the "dreaming" phase and "critic" phase. In the dreamer phase, any idea is ok to present, no matter how impractical. In the critic phase, you shoot holes in ideas. Disney would hold the dreamer meetings in open, comfy places; and hold the critic meetings in more enclosed, trashy places. These ideas work in the real world.
I dunno about that. I was at a tradeshow in the late 90's at a time when the term "mp3 player" wasn't a household word yet. Rio was hyping their product, they had a cast of about a dozen teenage boys and girls wearing hipster clothing, standing on a little stage on their booth, holding the mp3 players and dancing around pretending to listen to them. In my book that counts as hyping, but then, everything was hyped in the late 90's. Perhaps it's just a matter of scale. Although the product was being promoted, it wasn't like on the cover of Happy Meals at McDonalds or anything.
If the goal is even partially vocational-- teaching kids how real people do real work-- then the real tools the real people use is the way to go if possible.
Teaching "Concepts, not Software" makes a lot of sense in most cases, I agree. But if you've got kids in a media class, and you have half a chance to get their hands on Photoshop (even version 7!) then jump on it! Teach those kids Photoshop! Forget arguments about open source versus evil corporate overlords for a moment. If a kid wants to have a career in any kind of media, when he's talking to a prospective employer and they ask him if he's good with Photoshop, which is a better answer:
1. "Uh, well, I've used gimp and it's just like Photoshop, I know concepts not software"- or - 2. "Yes, I'm very good with Photoshop, here's some samples of my work. I did this with Photoshop 7, if that's important to you"
My point is there's certain kinds of software where using the industry standard tool or at least having experience with it is vital. Photoshop is one of those.
What programming language went from highly desirable to unwanted legacy in just 3 years? Either you and I have a different idea of the threshold for "highly desirable" or "unwanted legacy", or I'm about to learn something really interesting. I'm thinking of all the languages I've been familiar with over the years and none seem to fit this description.