Take that line of reasoning (which, for some inexplicable reason, has become somewhat popular on slashdot, of all places) to its logical conclusion, and you get the situation as it existed in this country at the beginning of the 19th century... "You're lucky to have a job, you ungrateful bastard - so take whatever we give you!". In fact, the labor laws that are in force today were drafted by people who saw, first-hand, how bad things got when you let that line of reasoning take over.
Re:how is that different from other companies
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NYT on EA Games
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· Score: 1
Huh? Are you implying that they should be doing push-ups in front of their computer screens? Or that they should be staring at porn instead of their computer screens? I think that's kind of the job definition, dude... my employer is pretty glad I spend my time staring at the computer screen.
Okay, now the $64,000 question... are you applying the same rigor in interviewing foreign H1B applicants as local U.S. applicants? The majority of slashdot seems to suspect that you're not (or wouldn't). Although I, too, sometimes find it hard not to pull a Jesse Jackson and assume that because Americans are underrepresented in tech that there's massive prejudice, I haven't seen any real evidence that this is the case (I have a four-year CS degree and ten years of development experience, and I've personally never been out of work). So, in your case - would a foreign worker (who might work for a little less money, might be more willing to work 12 hours a day, weekends and holidays, might be perfectly happy sitting at the folding table in the back room behind the copy machine, etc.) with some decent Linux knowledge and the potential to pick up device driver development in a reasonable amount of time have an edge against an American worker?
You know, I've always been tempted to start my own business, but I've resisted because it seems like you have to turn into an abusive employer just to stay competitive. However, with so many "take whatever your employer gives you and be thankful you have a job you jerk-off American slob" posts such as yours, it seems that Slashdot is a hotbed of potential employees who are looking forward to having their souls crushed by an overbearing PHB who reaps the reward for their lost lives. So, once I open the doors, I'll be giving you a call. Of course, I'm assuming that the advice you post above is how you run your own life, not just what you think everybody else should do... right?
Interestingly enough, you're underscoring my point, albeit in a subtle way. Re-read my post - I was pointing out the folly of trying to develop a specification so detailed that "the business" can attach a dollar figure to it before beginning development work on it... as far as design/specs themselves are concerned, I actually do beleive that doing some design work before starting coding is always useful.
Sp, how does your post underscore my point? If you couldn't assimilate the meaning of a (pretty clear) 10-line HTML blurb, you're probably not assimilating the standard 1200-page corporate "large project" spec very well, either.
I do think it's interesting that everybody who disagreed with Joel in this topic has been modded down... does Joel have mod points?
Yep, this guy's an idiot
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Joel On Software
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
After two minutes of poking around his web site I found this gem:
But for almost any kind of real business, you just have to know how long things are going to take, because developing a product costs money. You wouldn't buy a pair of jeans without knowing what the price is, so how can a responsible business decide whether to build a product without knowing how long it will take and, therefore, how much it will cost?
Of course, the time it takes to develop a specification so detailed that "the business" can decide how long it will take and, therefore, how much it will cost is three time the amount of time you'll ultimately spend "developing the product".
I'm sort of curious how this is being accomplished (blocking international web sites) - I thought that was impossible? Is there a special range of IP addresses that are only allocated to US service providers? Or are they keeping a list of every single class A, B, & C (!!) IP address within the US and filtering against those? Or are they doing something really dumb like trying to block out anything with a reverse DNS that results in "*.uk" or something?
Uhhh... does that make you Ian Clarke, the coordinator of the Freenet Project, or did you just sign his name to a letter? If you are, I'd like to shake your virtual hand.
highly skilled people (professionally as well as socially) are being fired merely for the fact that they are foreigners.
Whereas I live in a country (USA) where highly skilled (or otherwise) people are being fired merely for the fact that they're not. Never thought having been born here would ever become a handicap.
I'm way impressed (that was right, since it worked on the linux.org site). What's your background, that you were able to figure that out? Are you a math major? I won't ask you for the solution, since I'm trying to figure it out myself, but I'm curious what sort of person can do this.
Ummm... no he doesn't. I have all three volumes (purchased this year) and there's no mention of ipv6 anywhere in them... although the code samples probably apply to ipv6, I don't see any reference to, say, an ipv6 header, or ipv6 routing schemes or how "security is built into ipv6" as all of the datasheets promise but don't dive into. Am I missing something?
The day people start calling in and canceling our accounts and orders because the company has moved 'operations' or 'development' overseas
Actually, I think you mean the day that the pussy yes-men who started the offshoring "effort" in the first place have the guts to start reporting this fact up to the CEO. In other words, never. "Sorry, sir... a lot of people keep cancelling. Must be because we're not cost competitive enough - try offshoring more jobs and see if that helps!"
Re:Finally something to address this....
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Are You Annoying?
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· Score: 1
I find your attitude annoying - you should check out this article about annoying programmer attitudes that was posted on ComputerWorld.
Re:Finally something to address this....
on
Are You Annoying?
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· Score: 1
Ummm... let me get this straight. You're saying that the programmers who know what they're doing are driving away the idiots who don't? That's sort of a goal of mine...
It looks like you can't make commercial products with these
Where did you see this? I looked all over the site (since I suspected this would be the "catch") and never found this issue addressed positively or negatively. I sort of suspected that these tools would be tied to some "special" version of the C standard library or something that has some legalese licensing restriction on redistribution.
Wow... this is the first time I've heard this complaint about CS majors (disclaimer - IAACSM). Usually the complaint is the other way around - "They know all about how computers work, but they have no idea how to use the VB IDE". Or, more specifically, "they understand the theory, but they don't set the theory aside and throw together some crap to get some silly project 'out the door' as quickly as possible."
Slashdot Mirror
Take that line of reasoning (which, for some inexplicable reason, has become somewhat popular on slashdot, of all places) to its logical conclusion, and you get the situation as it existed in this country at the beginning of the 19th century... "You're lucky to have a job, you ungrateful bastard - so take whatever we give you!". In fact, the labor laws that are in force today were drafted by people who saw, first-hand, how bad things got when you let that line of reasoning take over.
Huh? Are you implying that they should be doing push-ups in front of their computer screens? Or that they should be staring at porn instead of their computer screens? I think that's kind of the job definition, dude... my employer is pretty glad I spend my time staring at the computer screen.
Okay, now the $64,000 question... are you applying the same rigor in interviewing foreign H1B applicants as local U.S. applicants? The majority of slashdot seems to suspect that you're not (or wouldn't). Although I, too, sometimes find it hard not to pull a Jesse Jackson and assume that because Americans are underrepresented in tech that there's massive prejudice, I haven't seen any real evidence that this is the case (I have a four-year CS degree and ten years of development experience, and I've personally never been out of work). So, in your case - would a foreign worker (who might work for a little less money, might be more willing to work 12 hours a day, weekends and holidays, might be perfectly happy sitting at the folding table in the back room behind the copy machine, etc.) with some decent Linux knowledge and the potential to pick up device driver development in a reasonable amount of time have an edge against an American worker?
You know, I've always been tempted to start my own business, but I've resisted because it seems like you have to turn into an abusive employer just to stay competitive. However, with so many "take whatever your employer gives you and be thankful you have a job you jerk-off American slob" posts such as yours, it seems that Slashdot is a hotbed of potential employees who are looking forward to having their souls crushed by an overbearing PHB who reaps the reward for their lost lives. So, once I open the doors, I'll be giving you a call. Of course, I'm assuming that the advice you post above is how you run your own life, not just what you think everybody else should do... right?
Interestingly enough, you're underscoring my point, albeit in a subtle way. Re-read my post - I was pointing out the folly of trying to develop a specification so detailed that "the business" can attach a dollar figure to it before beginning development work on it... as far as design/specs themselves are concerned, I actually do beleive that doing some design work before starting coding is always useful.
Sp, how does your post underscore my point? If you couldn't assimilate the meaning of a (pretty clear) 10-line HTML blurb, you're probably not assimilating the standard 1200-page corporate "large project" spec very well, either.
I do think it's interesting that everybody who disagreed with Joel in this topic has been modded down... does Joel have mod points?
After two minutes of poking around his web site I found this gem:
But for almost any kind of real business, you just have to know how long things are going to take, because developing a product costs money. You wouldn't buy a pair of jeans without knowing what the price is, so how can a responsible business decide whether to build a product without knowing how long it will take and, therefore, how much it will cost?
Of course, the time it takes to develop a specification so detailed that "the business" can decide how long it will take and, therefore, how much it will cost is three time the amount of time you'll ultimately spend "developing the product".
the only way to troubleshoot other open-source programs is to do what Norris did: search the Web and post queries to the open-source community.
Or, ummm.... read the source code, maybe?
I'm sort of curious how this is being accomplished (blocking international web sites) - I thought that was impossible? Is there a special range of IP addresses that are only allocated to US service providers? Or are they keeping a list of every single class A, B, & C (!!) IP address within the US and filtering against those? Or are they doing something really dumb like trying to block out anything with a reverse DNS that results in "*.uk" or something?
Why be different than any other management?
Damn, dude... attach a warning or something next time - I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what "BLPTTNNQEWR" was an abbreviation for...
And along the way, we become a third-world country until the market shifts back our way (20 years or so). That's exactly what we're concerned about.
Ummm... is that safe for work?
What are (were?) the "CyberAngel spammers"? I missed that one.
Uhhh... does that make you Ian Clarke, the coordinator of the Freenet Project, or did you just sign his name to a letter? If you are, I'd like to shake your virtual hand.
Whereas I live in a country (USA) where highly skilled (or otherwise) people are being fired merely for the fact that they're not. Never thought having been born here would ever become a handicap.
I'm way impressed (that was right, since it worked on the linux.org site). What's your background, that you were able to figure that out? Are you a math major? I won't ask you for the solution, since I'm trying to figure it out myself, but I'm curious what sort of person can do this.
Ummm... no he doesn't. I have all three volumes (purchased this year) and there's no mention of ipv6 anywhere in them... although the code samples probably apply to ipv6, I don't see any reference to, say, an ipv6 header, or ipv6 routing schemes or how "security is built into ipv6" as all of the datasheets promise but don't dive into. Am I missing something?
Like trite pre-digested crap Err... isn't that redundant? I haven't double-checked, but I beleive that all of my crap tends to be pre-digested...
The day people start calling in and canceling our accounts and orders because the company has moved 'operations' or 'development' overseas
Actually, I think you mean the day that the pussy yes-men who started the offshoring "effort" in the first place have the guts to start reporting this fact up to the CEO. In other words, never. "Sorry, sir... a lot of people keep cancelling. Must be because we're not cost competitive enough - try offshoring more jobs and see if that helps!"
I find your attitude annoying - you should check out this article about annoying programmer attitudes that was posted on ComputerWorld.
Ummm... let me get this straight. You're saying that the programmers who know what they're doing are driving away the idiots who don't? That's sort of a goal of mine...
It looks like you can't make commercial products with these
Where did you see this? I looked all over the site (since I suspected this would be the "catch") and never found this issue addressed positively or negatively. I sort of suspected that these tools would be tied to some "special" version of the C standard library or something that has some legalese licensing restriction on redistribution.
Your begging the question as to the proper use of you're language.
Which begs the question as to its proper usage...
Wow... this is the first time I've heard this complaint about CS majors (disclaimer - IAACSM). Usually the complaint is the other way around - "They know all about how computers work, but they have no idea how to use the VB IDE". Or, more specifically, "they understand the theory, but they don't set the theory aside and throw together some crap to get some silly project 'out the door' as quickly as possible."