that there are more programming positions than there are people with the suitable temperament, traits, and skillsets to fill those positions. I have seen many workers, both younger and older than me, either decide they had had enough stress and would better enjoy doing something else, or have management decide for them that they weren't suited for the career. The people that truly enjoy the field and are good at it are the ones most likely to stick around.
I think you need to like learning new things, be able to approach tasks logically, and have decent puzzle solving skills to be a good programmer, no matter what language or platform you use. As a 48 year old, my contemporaries still in the industry seem to have split into two groups - those who are content to stay on the mainframe and do COBOL until retirement and those who have made the jump to newer technologies. The latter group seems to be having more fun. I personally enjoyed playing with new stuff too much to do COBOL forever and moved on to things like J2EE, JSPs, HTML, and XML a few years ago. I may not be using the absolute hottest new tools to come along, like Ruby on Rails, AJAX, Hibernate, or whatever, but I at least follow the industry and know what they are and when the company starts to adopt them, I will learn them.
One skill I have that is valued by my team is the ability to talk to either the mainframe or client-server sides of the house, understand both, and code interfaces between them. My company has been talking about "retiring the mainframe" for a decade now, but our new client-server systems always seem to require one or more interfaces back to those "obsolete" applications.
One interesting tidbit is that my group recently hired two new employees - a young guy in his early 20s, fresh out of school, for our client-server applications, and a 60ish guy to work on our mainframe applications. The two "noobies" are our youngest and our oldest team members. I wonder if those dinosaur mainframe guys will be commanding premium salaries in a few years when retirements really have depleted the ranks.
Hey, watch it with the "baby boomer" slander. Lots of us have been technologically literate all our lives. I was an early adopter of pocket calculators, VCRs, CDs, personal computers, DVDs, digital cameras, and the internet and I know perfectly well how to spot a shady retailer on the web.
I'd be willing to bet these guys never even heard of Blake's 7. After all, it was an English import that generally was only seen on PBS stations. At least give them credit for knowing about Dr. Who and ranking it fairly high.
that they release patches as new versions. I've downloaded Firefox over a dozen times myself for use on 3 computers, just to keep current on bug fixes. If they released separate patches, I'd probably only count as 1 or 2 downloads.
While the fairly constant releases of virus, worms, and other malware are extremely annoying, they do serve the purpose of building up software's "immune system". If there were no hackers writing this stuff, there would be no incentive for Microsoft or others to patch loopholes in their code. That would leave us wide open for a massive attack by a hostile power who could "batch up" enough exploits to cripple all networked computers for weeks or months.
When does the Republican anything goes, rape the environment, export our manufacturing and tech jobs, import cheap illegal immigrant labor version of capitalism stop?
You were expecting common sense laws and regulations
for business for some reason?
Well... I was thinking that there are still people who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago, mankind was created in its current form, and that the entire land mass of earth was once covered with water all at once and members of every animal species in existance were all loaded into a primitive boat.
Maybe some religious practices have evolved, sorry progressed, over time, i.e. we don't stone homosexuals or adulterers to death or burn "witches", but many of the core beliefs still seem rooted in nonsense to me.
unlike religion, science is self-correcting over the long term. If someone fudges the data and comes up with a wrong conclusion eventually someone else will discover that and get it right.
People will never hear the music unless its advertised to them; they just won't know it exists.
Some of us actively hunt for music we like instead of just reacting to whatever group the RIAA and Best Buy are promoting this week. I listen to groups you can't even find in the CD sections of your local Best Buy, Tower, Virgin, etc. If you follow the "if you like this, you might like that" links in the online music stores and search through websites devoted to whatever genre you like, you can find lots of good music that is not being advertised or promoted by anyone.
If you care about what you listen to, don't be a sheep and blindly buy whatever the major labels are pushing this week!
Please, please, George, let us have a long and graphic death scene for Jar jar! (Annie! meesa dead!) That's all I ask for episode III. You can skim over that Darth Vader stuff. We already know how that comes out anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
That must be like half the Itaniums ever sold!
that there are more programming positions than there are people with the suitable temperament, traits, and skillsets to fill those positions. I have seen many workers, both younger and older than me, either decide they had had enough stress and would better enjoy doing something else, or have management decide for them that they weren't suited for the career. The people that truly enjoy the field and are good at it are the ones most likely to stick around.
I think you need to like learning new things, be able to approach tasks logically, and have decent puzzle solving skills to be a good programmer, no matter what language or platform you use. As a 48 year old, my contemporaries still in the industry seem to have split into two groups - those who are content to stay on the mainframe and do COBOL until retirement and those who have made the jump to newer technologies. The latter group seems to be having more fun. I personally enjoyed playing with new stuff too much to do COBOL forever and moved on to things like J2EE, JSPs, HTML, and XML a few years ago. I may not be using the absolute hottest new tools to come along, like Ruby on Rails, AJAX, Hibernate, or whatever, but I at least follow the industry and know what they are and when the company starts to adopt them, I will learn them.
One skill I have that is valued by my team is the ability to talk to either the mainframe or client-server sides of the house, understand both, and code interfaces between them. My company has been talking about "retiring the mainframe" for a decade now, but our new client-server systems always seem to require one or more interfaces back to those "obsolete" applications.
One interesting tidbit is that my group recently hired two new employees - a young guy in his early 20s, fresh out of school, for our client-server applications, and a 60ish guy to work on our mainframe applications. The two "noobies" are our youngest and our oldest team members. I wonder if those dinosaur mainframe guys will be commanding premium salaries in a few years when retirements really have depleted the ranks.
Hey, watch it with the "baby boomer" slander. Lots of us have been technologically literate all our lives. I was an early adopter of pocket calculators, VCRs, CDs, personal computers, DVDs, digital cameras, and the internet and I know perfectly well how to spot a shady retailer on the web.
Will the two-thirds of the population that live near the coasts do us in the mountains a favor and please stay where you are and drown?
Oops. Dang, that was probably the only typo on Slashdot today too!
Software that John Edwards uses?
Just watch out for that mutagenic Russian Vodka, or all hell could break loose!
Airgo Networks is already preparing a copyright infringement suit.
have a mental picture of Fat Bastard when I read the title?
I'm a big AMD fan and my last 3 desktops have used AMD chips, but I smell bovine excrement in those stats.
I'd be willing to bet these guys never even heard of Blake's 7. After all, it was an English import that generally was only seen on PBS stations. At least give them credit for knowing about Dr. Who and ranking it fairly high.
You forgot NX-01
that they release patches as new versions. I've downloaded Firefox over a dozen times myself for use on 3 computers, just to keep current on bug fixes. If they released separate patches, I'd probably only count as 1 or 2 downloads.
they'll try and deduct that $10 million from artist royalties.
I thought for sure they were going with Windows ME2!
While the fairly constant releases of virus, worms, and other malware are extremely annoying, they do serve the purpose of building up software's "immune system". If there were no hackers writing this stuff, there would be no incentive for Microsoft or others to patch loopholes in their code. That would leave us wide open for a massive attack by a hostile power who could "batch up" enough exploits to cripple all networked computers for weeks or months.
Is that "if buildings were built the way software is built, the first termite that came along would destroy civilization"
Can you assign all the blame to the foxes if the henhouse door is left open?
Tune in, turn on, drop out.
When does the Republican anything goes, rape the environment, export our manufacturing and tech jobs, import cheap illegal immigrant labor version of capitalism stop?
You were expecting common sense laws and regulations for business for some reason?
I'm into progressive/metal groups, so some of my favorite websites are:
http://www.gnosis2000.net/
http://www.gepr.net/geprfram.htm
http://www.prog4you.com/
http://www.progressiveears.com/Default.asp?bhcp=1
http://www.progarchives.com/
http://www.progressiveworld.net/main.html
Plus websites for some lesser known labels:
http://www.insideoutmusic.com/
http://www.magnacarta.net/07.html
http://www.metalblade.com/content.html
http://www.nuclearblastusa.com/home.html
Well... I was thinking that there are still people who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago, mankind was created in its current form, and that the entire land mass of earth was once covered with water all at once and members of every animal species in existance were all loaded into a primitive boat.
Maybe some religious practices have evolved, sorry progressed, over time, i.e. we don't stone homosexuals or adulterers to death or burn "witches", but many of the core beliefs still seem rooted in nonsense to me.
unlike religion, science is self-correcting over the long term. If someone fudges the data and comes up with a wrong conclusion eventually someone else will discover that and get it right.
People will never hear the music unless its advertised to them; they just won't know it exists.
Some of us actively hunt for music we like instead of just reacting to whatever group the RIAA and Best Buy are promoting this week. I listen to groups you can't even find in the CD sections of your local Best Buy, Tower, Virgin, etc. If you follow the "if you like this, you might like that" links in the online music stores and search through websites devoted to whatever genre you like, you can find lots of good music that is not being advertised or promoted by anyone.
If you care about what you listen to, don't be a sheep and blindly buy whatever the major labels are pushing this week!
I sometimes think most people are sheep, but still I doubt they will put up with this.
Please, please, George, let us have a long and graphic death scene for Jar jar! (Annie! meesa dead!) That's all I ask for episode III. You can skim over that Darth Vader stuff. We already know how that comes out anyway.