Here are some important things to consider that I've picked up in my experience in developing software for the medical industry (mission-critical software, I might add):
- Hospitals typically have a whole lot of computers on the network. They get upgraded & replaced in an order that's mainly decided by politics, so the chances that your stuff will have to run on a Win95 box are high. Same goes for NT4, 98, XP w/o SP2...
- The IT department will be reluctant to install patches, and when they do, they'll happen in stages and slowly. Don't count on them.
- HIPPA's going to lock down a lot of what you can do. Learn it, live it, love it. If you leverage it right, and have a very clear understanding of it ('cause you can bet you bottom your customers will) it can be your sales force. (It's against the law NOT to buy our software!)
- Your users are going to be completely locked out of everything on their machine that they don't need for day-to-day stuff. Install to the d: drive? No way! Map a network drive? Have you gone insane? -- You'll be calling IT to come up and enter an admin pass to do anything. And you're gonna wait on 'em. Of course, there are exceptions; some hospitals have the remote desktop setup.
So, as much as I hate to say it, I recommend that you go with.NET. The IT department is used to working with MS and all the problems that come with its products. The good thing about MS products is that they're almost always compatible with other MS products (part of Bill's evil master plan, IMHO). I haven't worked much with Java, but I think your best shot of running on every machine in the place is to go with.NET.
I got a cs degree from a small state school. I worked for 3 years for a very small company where I did a summer internship. I learned a *LOT* from the experience of working there, but there's so much that I learned in school that I use constantly to this day, despite having the attitude of "when will I ever need to know this crap?" the whole way through.
I now own a Web design company and would not ever hire a programmer without a cs degree. I believe that the self-taught skip things that they don't see as important and there are a lot of things that one doesn't realize are important untill they know them, and use them in practice. In short, experience is much more valuable when the programmer starts with a solid foundation of knowledge and practice.
As for the question of the well-know school versus the not-so-well-known one, I'd say that it doesn't matter. As long as the program covers more-or-less the same stuff as any reputable cs program, you'll be fine. Smaller schools are a plus IMHO---harder to slip through the cracks without learning anything.
Shouldn't cellphone companies be making people aware of the hazards of usage? I think they outta start by disclosing the effects of high levels of radiation emitted directly into the brain.
> Do web developers test
> pages on a T1 connection?
Some do. But that's not an excuse - they should check the file size. Anything over 35KB needs a redesign, IMHO.
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Here are some important things to consider that I've picked up in my experience in developing software for the medical industry (mission-critical software, I might add):
.NET. The IT department is used to working with MS and all the problems that come with its products. The good thing about MS products is that they're almost always compatible with other MS products (part of Bill's evil master plan, IMHO). I haven't worked much with Java, but I think your best shot of running on every machine in the place is to go with .NET.
- Hospitals typically have a whole lot of computers on the network. They get upgraded & replaced in an order that's mainly decided by politics, so the chances that your stuff will have to run on a Win95 box are high. Same goes for NT4, 98, XP w/o SP2...
- The IT department will be reluctant to install patches, and when they do, they'll happen in stages and slowly. Don't count on them.
- HIPPA's going to lock down a lot of what you can do. Learn it, live it, love it. If you leverage it right, and have a very clear understanding of it ('cause you can bet you bottom your customers will) it can be your sales force. (It's against the law NOT to buy our software!)
- Your users are going to be completely locked out of everything on their machine that they don't need for day-to-day stuff. Install to the d: drive? No way! Map a network drive? Have you gone insane? -- You'll be calling IT to come up and enter an admin pass to do anything. And you're gonna wait on 'em. Of course, there are exceptions; some hospitals have the remote desktop setup.
So, as much as I hate to say it, I recommend that you go with
Luck,
~hhlost
I got a cs degree from a small state school. I worked for 3 years for a very small company where I did a summer internship. I learned a *LOT* from the experience of working there, but there's so much that I learned in school that I use constantly to this day, despite having the attitude of "when will I ever need to know this crap?" the whole way through.
I now own a Web design company and would not ever hire a programmer without a cs degree. I believe that the self-taught skip things that they don't see as important and there are a lot of things that one doesn't realize are important untill they know them, and use them in practice. In short, experience is much more valuable when the programmer starts with a solid foundation of knowledge and practice.
As for the question of the well-know school versus the not-so-well-known one, I'd say that it doesn't matter. As long as the program covers more-or-less the same stuff as any reputable cs program, you'll be fine. Smaller schools are a plus IMHO---harder to slip through the cracks without learning anything.
~hhlost
Shouldn't cellphone companies be making people aware of the hazards of usage?
I think they outta start by disclosing the effects of high levels of radiation emitted directly into the brain.
Actually, I have a spyware free Windows box. The OS is junkware, IMO.
Hell, we could invade all the countries who might be trying to obtain them. But let's start with the ones that have oil.
> Do web developers test
> pages on a T1 connection?
Some do. But that's not an excuse - they should check the file size. Anything over 35KB needs a redesign, IMHO.