The little amount of maths that's in there is not that difficult to understand.
What? Holy shit, what books are you talking about? Definitely not TAOCP. The first half of Volume 1 is all math - specifically discrete math: the kind that's relevant to analysis of computer algorithms, but that's not studied in much detail outside of computer science. I have a master's degree in CS and consider myself pretty competent when it comes to, say, calculus, but I got lost in some of the sections on harmonic series and generating functions.
Volume 2 is _all_ math and again, not trivial math. There's 30 pages of theoretical discussion on what makes an infinite sequence random. The introduction to chapter 4 talks about number representation in base -10. There's a _LOT_ of math, and it's very difficult to understand (but it is fun to do so).
Hell, I'd go so far as to say that I was actively _discouraged_ from pursuing my interest in computers - being regularly beaten up for being such a "nerd" and all.
Some stupid millennial, who was never taught about Vietnam and who has never expressed interest in any kind of History, simply saw a picture of a naked girl and thought, "Child Porn!!!
Some millennial, who has been taught that a picture of a naked girl is the absolute worst thing that can ever exist, saw a picture of a naked girl and deleted it, as he was told he was required to do under penalty of a very heavy-handed justice system.
That is not to imply that racist people don't exist
On the contrary, I see lots of racist people in this thread alone - like all the ones who are insisting that white men only get hired because they're white men and never because they're actually qualified.
No, actually when you read diversity reports like TFA, Indians and other Asians are counted as "white" to make sure that the diversity numbers appear low.
White dudes more often than not get chosen over women and people of color more often than not because they are white.
White dudes are the only people who legally cannot be chosen just because of their race or gender. There are outreach, quota, and affirmative action programs whose explicit, specific goals are choosing non-white, non-male people in every single aspect of American culture.
More than you know. "Professional" project management is just as to blame for the joke that is modern software. My first job out of college, 25 years ago, I was working for the government. I was basically paired up with what we would call a "business owner" in today's terminology: he described what he was thinking, I'd implement something, we'd review it, he'd suggest changes, I'd implement those, sometimes rewriting entire parts of the system, he'd suggest other changes, back and forth. We were both professionals, we both knew what we were doing, we both trusted each other and - here's the part that modern project managers can't comprehend: we treated each other like professionals. If I spent a few days or even a week figuring out how, say, TCP/IP (which was sort of a newish thing back then, at least for personal computers) worked, he wouldn't insult me by demanding a daily status report, or demanding that I break down my tasks in one-hour increments, or insist that I go ask Bob who "knows that stuff". I, likewise, wouldn't insult him by bitching about the fact that he forgot a detail a month ago that was going to cause me some re-work: because neither of us were being insulted by a project manager who insisted that the product, regardless of quality, had to be finished by some arbitrary date because he knew, in his heart, that if he didn't keep his oppressive bootheel on our necks every minute of every day, that we would just sit around all day playing video games and wasting time. In essence, we respected one another and were respected by our employers.
But then came the software project managers. I don't know if a couple of guys peed in the pool for all the rest of us, but within ten years I found myself punching a card like a factory assembly worker. There was a glimmer of hope in the late 90's when "extreme programming" started to take off, which was based on this same underlying model of treating professionals like professionals rather than fast-food assembly line workers, but extreme programming became "agile" which became "scrum" which is the most offensive possible way of viewing the practice of software development as semi-skilled bricklaying.
You're not the only one who's noticed this. Although I am currently employed, and have actually never been out of work since I started working around '94 or so, I do change jobs every 3-5 years on the average. And I've had some very inexplicable rejections for positions that I was beyond qualified for. On paper, at least, I look good (I like to think I'm pretty good in person, too, but "on paper" is completely objective), yet I've been rejected from way more developer positions that I've had every single qualification they asked for (and most of the nice-to-haves) than I've been hired for. Sometimes I feel like somebody is just yanking my chain.
HTTP, telnet, SSL, or some other insecure protocol. Could I not validly say that the message was forged by a man-in-the-middle?
In the interest of pedantry, SSL is not insecure - or rather, it's the only effective defense we have against man-in-the-middle attacks. You also can't actually "transmit" over SSL; SSL just turns an insecure connection into a secure one. You have to do the actual transmitting over a higher-level protocol, like HTTP.
Yep. I just left a job that paid me to learn Salesforce Apex programming "language" after two years because I knew if I didn't get out then, I may never be able to escape Apex - until, of course, Salesforce stops being the "in thing" and nobody is hiring for those positions anywhere any more.
You might want to check out the book "The diving bell and the butterfly" - it was actually written by a locked-in syndrome patient (who dictated the whole thing by blinking out letters). He was even worse off, since he had only one good eye.
Yeah, the "culture" is "hurry up and get it done so you can get on to the next thing because if something takes more than an hour to do it's not worth doing" and it exists in every single software development organization on planet Earth. Until these things actually start costing real money to people with real power, this will continue.
Well, he's right, but unfortunately, the study of humanities in modern higher education has become a wasteland of anti-academic thinkers who viciously punish nonconformity and "ists" with an ax to grind and a debt to wring out of people whose ancestors they believe slighted their ancestors. He's describing what humanities ought to be rather than what they actually are.
Slashdot Mirror
like a cheerleader's panties
You knew different cheerleaders than I knew...
The little amount of maths that's in there is not that difficult to understand.
What? Holy shit, what books are you talking about? Definitely not TAOCP. The first half of Volume 1 is all math - specifically discrete math: the kind that's relevant to analysis of computer algorithms, but that's not studied in much detail outside of computer science. I have a master's degree in CS and consider myself pretty competent when it comes to, say, calculus, but I got lost in some of the sections on harmonic series and generating functions.
Volume 2 is _all_ math and again, not trivial math. There's 30 pages of theoretical discussion on what makes an infinite sequence random. The introduction to chapter 4 talks about number representation in base -10. There's a _LOT_ of math, and it's very difficult to understand (but it is fun to do so).
Hell, I'd go so far as to say that I was actively _discouraged_ from pursuing my interest in computers - being regularly beaten up for being such a "nerd" and all.
Acronym "SJW" used, dickhead detected.
SJW apologist found, douchebag detected.
Some stupid millennial, who was never taught about Vietnam and who has never expressed interest in any kind of History, simply saw a picture of a naked girl and thought, "Child Porn!!!
Some millennial, who has been taught that a picture of a naked girl is the absolute worst thing that can ever exist, saw a picture of a naked girl and deleted it, as he was told he was required to do under penalty of a very heavy-handed justice system.
It also depends on how your define "nude". Topless men appear so often (including on regular TV) that you couldn't do a comparison if you tried.
My rule is if something cares about the Bechtel test it's going to be stupid and boring and I'm not watching it.
Yep, 99% of feminists give the rest a bad name.
But the beer is awesome.
That is not to imply that racist people don't exist
On the contrary, I see lots of racist people in this thread alone - like all the ones who are insisting that white men only get hired because they're white men and never because they're actually qualified.
Hiring Indians might be good for diversity
No, actually when you read diversity reports like TFA, Indians and other Asians are counted as "white" to make sure that the diversity numbers appear low.
White dudes more often than not get chosen over women and people of color more often than not because they are white.
White dudes are the only people who legally cannot be chosen just because of their race or gender. There are outreach, quota, and affirmative action programs whose explicit, specific goals are choosing non-white, non-male people in every single aspect of American culture.
You let this happen
More than you know. "Professional" project management is just as to blame for the joke that is modern software. My first job out of college, 25 years ago, I was working for the government. I was basically paired up with what we would call a "business owner" in today's terminology: he described what he was thinking, I'd implement something, we'd review it, he'd suggest changes, I'd implement those, sometimes rewriting entire parts of the system, he'd suggest other changes, back and forth. We were both professionals, we both knew what we were doing, we both trusted each other and - here's the part that modern project managers can't comprehend: we treated each other like professionals. If I spent a few days or even a week figuring out how, say, TCP/IP (which was sort of a newish thing back then, at least for personal computers) worked, he wouldn't insult me by demanding a daily status report, or demanding that I break down my tasks in one-hour increments, or insist that I go ask Bob who "knows that stuff". I, likewise, wouldn't insult him by bitching about the fact that he forgot a detail a month ago that was going to cause me some re-work: because neither of us were being insulted by a project manager who insisted that the product, regardless of quality, had to be finished by some arbitrary date because he knew, in his heart, that if he didn't keep his oppressive bootheel on our necks every minute of every day, that we would just sit around all day playing video games and wasting time. In essence, we respected one another and were respected by our employers.
But then came the software project managers. I don't know if a couple of guys peed in the pool for all the rest of us, but within ten years I found myself punching a card like a factory assembly worker. There was a glimmer of hope in the late 90's when "extreme programming" started to take off, which was based on this same underlying model of treating professionals like professionals rather than fast-food assembly line workers, but extreme programming became "agile" which became "scrum" which is the most offensive possible way of viewing the practice of software development as semi-skilled bricklaying.
it's easy (relatively, anyway)
I see what you did there.
Wow, you out-pedantic'ed me. You are correct.
Too much focus on New Technology ... Too much focus on older technology
So... you want somebody who hasn't worked on new technology OR old technology?
You don't honestly think that any of those developers that TFA refers to are US citizens, do you?
You're not the only one who's noticed this. Although I am currently employed, and have actually never been out of work since I started working around '94 or so, I do change jobs every 3-5 years on the average. And I've had some very inexplicable rejections for positions that I was beyond qualified for. On paper, at least, I look good (I like to think I'm pretty good in person, too, but "on paper" is completely objective), yet I've been rejected from way more developer positions that I've had every single qualification they asked for (and most of the nice-to-haves) than I've been hired for. Sometimes I feel like somebody is just yanking my chain.
HTTP, telnet, SSL, or some other insecure protocol. Could I not validly say that the message was forged by a man-in-the-middle?
In the interest of pedantry, SSL is not insecure - or rather, it's the only effective defense we have against man-in-the-middle attacks. You also can't actually "transmit" over SSL; SSL just turns an insecure connection into a secure one. You have to do the actual transmitting over a higher-level protocol, like HTTP.
to lure us away from Tor
Run it as a hidden service inside of Tor. Problem solved.
Yep. I just left a job that paid me to learn Salesforce Apex programming "language" after two years because I knew if I didn't get out then, I may never be able to escape Apex - until, of course, Salesforce stops being the "in thing" and nobody is hiring for those positions anywhere any more.
You might want to check out the book "The diving bell and the butterfly" - it was actually written by a locked-in syndrome patient (who dictated the whole thing by blinking out letters). He was even worse off, since he had only one good eye.
Yeah, the "culture" is "hurry up and get it done so you can get on to the next thing because if something takes more than an hour to do it's not worth doing" and it exists in every single software development organization on planet Earth. Until these things actually start costing real money to people with real power, this will continue.
Well, he's right, but unfortunately, the study of humanities in modern higher education has become a wasteland of anti-academic thinkers who viciously punish nonconformity and "ists" with an ax to grind and a debt to wring out of people whose ancestors they believe slighted their ancestors. He's describing what humanities ought to be rather than what they actually are.
So, they'll be sponsoring Iron Man 4 you mean?