Code Reviews are either a learning experience (for the inexperience code and specific technology), or an ego competition, i.e. opinion party. Otherwise they are useless, especially when releases are within months.
Tools like TracPeerReview allow once to upload their opinions and actually review offline, which the coder can take action or ignore, without wasting tie sitting in a meeting. And they are historically stored/time stamped.
You know, you're only suppose to have meetings when it's really needed. And you don't need a meeting for a code review.
just the right time allowed everything to proceed as planned
What did we learn from the Shuttle program?
a. You can't control the weather b. Schedules are just that, schedules. Don't fall in love with it. c. Timing is everything, and not a science.... yet. d. It's all about the initial conditions.
Looks like Facebook is heading into what MySpace wanted to be. Just hope they make the UI looks read-able, and we all know what they're going to do with *your* (cough: their) information.
Never underestimate corporations posting news that really isn't news but some agenda driven marketing campaign.
Remember Facebook's smear campaign? I would not be surprised if this is Google's retaliation. Corporations love to retaliate. Much like the movie studios leveraging IMDB against other studios (Kung Fu panda 2 comes to mind).
Sanger proposed this way back in the early 1950's.
And Spencer wrote about it later: Spencer, Dwain F. "Fusion Propulsion for Interstellar Missions". Annals NY Academy of Sciences 140, 407-418 (1966). . Robert Forward documented all the above in a book I have on my shelf, but for the life of me can't remember the title. Heck, I was doing solar sail research/simulations on an x86 back in the 80's and we were proposing fusion drives as a power source for sails when the vehicle was in interstellar space.
It's great for today's visionaries to talk about their theories, but we all need to remember our ideas are based on the shoulders of those before us, whether they are giants or not.
One would expect a $30 phone (on contract) would be flaky compared to a $200 phone (on contract). I notice low end android phones follow that rule (as their high end models are definitely better).
Then again a $300 phone (on contract) that can't make decent phone calls cause of it antenna design....
Looks like an audit report of any major corporation.... really.
Honestly, TB's TDP was mainly a contractor driven project.Contractors were managed as an integrated product team (IPT), which was a new concept to the agency in 2000, a carry over from 'its' successful use in DoD in the mid-90's. And over time, the IPT leds were changing hands almost every fiscal year due to the politics of business, and changing technology and hiding(hearsay?) of the issues. The latter is very important in large projects such as TB. The IRS's modernization project comes to mind.
One needs to realize that sure, there were huge cultural issues (still being worked as of 2011 last I heard), but the TB TDP/TThread programs were supposed to fix that and breakdown the silos of operations at the agency, which certain tech leads knew no way those silos could handle the brave new world of the Internet today. From that, technologies in fields of messaging, enterprise management, mining and such in 2001 were flaky, slow, and plain not reliable--BUT the TDP was to prove that the tech worked and get it running as a fully operational system. For instance, trying to use J2EE in 2001 was more of a receipt for disaster than it is today, or an high performance XML database? data standards? no such thing back then! A multi-tiered architecture was unheard of within tech ranks there.
But, the execs were convinced the tech worked as "advertised", the contractors wanted the business, but... the federal workers (analysts) wanted to evolve their silos instead since they were already in ops.
And guess what, the tech was just flat out flaky, and Internet traffic exploded (circa 2001-04). That allowed gave the old guard ammo to make the TDP looked like arse (gave it no "home"). The IPT solution? Throw more cash at it... hey that's an easy win for any contractor. Yes, there was a lack of gov't oversight due to many reasons, and then there's the congressional politics, but we've been here before (DoD GIG, B1 bomber, F15E, Space Shuttle, etc...)
So with the lack of information in this document, I suggest those to take it with a grain of salt. Just take it from a person that was there. Yes, transparency is good, but we're (actually) finding the same old problems... there's no quick answer here.
The article makes a good argument, but most of the times a generalist will get either unfocused on a specific problem cause of the lack of specialization, or more commonly, just not being understood. The latter is very, very important for a person like Aiden to be successful. And when he is successful, great things are guaranteed to happen. And that's why he's right in his argument.
For example, I've been from theoretical physics, to oncology and medical imaging, to aerospace/control systems, to database design and financial systems, to lingustic/taxonomic systems, to photogrammetry, cinematography and data communications.... Most problems [of today] are pattern-based, and having a "deep dive" into all many subjects allows one to identify those patterns where as a specialist cannot. In real-world terms, a specialist can get/explain a problem under controlled conditions, under his/her terms (which isn't the real world). A generalist can explain/solve the problem in the real world, but may not be able to determine the underlying properties in order to optimize it or make it better [understood]. Imagine explaining how to optimize a web service to a post-doc's experiment in order for him to rewrite his output from matlab into a good json format in order to leverage multiple computers to get his calculations right, on time, for a time critical NRT simulation. A lot gets lost in the communication.
It's nice to figure out E=mc^2, but to get a nuclear reactor working requires a larger set of interdisciplinary skills.
And 99% of the time there's no way to explain solutions to other generalists and specialists cause, a. other generalists lack of domain knowledge (from not taking as deep a dive into subjects) and b. specialists have a specific mind set and limited nomenclature in explaining things. That's why specialists are more valued in society today, they can explain their "craft" to the point a group of folks can understand it. Hence, it's typical for generalists to be less valued (i.e. none of the glory).
If (what I call) a "deep-dive generalist" is understood, a lot of progress, epiphany, and invention will likely be the outcome. Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, and Carl Sagan come to mind.
"In context, this was while hyping a cloud computing solution that at the moment is a little more than shared storage"
You know, like Google Apps, Amazon.com, Windows Azure, and stuff like basecamp and confluence... I think consumers already know cloud computing is more than shared storage, well at least the non-apple consumer....
Sure they'll pay 10-15% higher than your open job of the same position, but just be prepared if you need to go into a hostile zone (which will add an extra 10% of hazard pay).
And it's a life long obligation to keep the IP developed under wraps--it's the law... and more worse if you need to sign an NDA with the gov't (been there done that). One good thing is the people are pretty easy to work with, though it can be a high stress environment.
Jobs and Gates operated their respective companies during their high times.
Cutting corners, cheating, monopolizing, data exploitation, competition smashing, whatever you call it they were very successful bringing their companies to the forefront (in the eyes of consumers or wall street).
But it's obvious they didn't learn about process, repeatability, and [real] standards. And TFA sort of says the cultures at MS and Apple don't care anyway (which is why their companies must operate with their original founders). Creating a culture that instills process, we avoid our well known 'hit by the bus' scenario with 'star employees'/management. Though a crappy side effect is that people/talent are replaceable, creating a culture that respects process will allow a company to stay relevant, even if the CEO position becomes a revolving door (HP for example).
This is typical of intelligent folks building product--who cares if the next guy that needs to manage this has the intelligence of a 12yr old. Problem is that situation is the norm rather than the exception. Just ask IBM, GE, Oracle, Ti, Moto, Intel, Exxon, Dupont, or any defense contractor (which all deal with high tech... hardware and software).
And don't worry, Google with ultimately face the same fate. That's unless Larry ends up being another Jerry Yang.
a. have a temporary background check and polygraph (previous employer, still have connections for tours).
or
b. willing to sign an NDA (HINT: you may have already did from your last visit. Think parents...).
Also, did they show you the hideouts (i.e. must be 21yrs or over) and did you get to play drums?
TFA has tag: brag written all over it... and hopefully this post does not. FYI, I don't exist.
They need to go look at their own existing DBs--most cover of them are organized by dialects, which typically include metaphors since it maybe a way to classify the language(s) for intel reasons.
Look at the big picture: Gaga's going to make boat loads of cash from her 0.99 album, Amazon's going to give her a nice gift (more cash) for promoting their cloud service, Gaga got media headlines on this, more people are aware of Gaga (more popular) and will likely sell more stuff in the long run.
and.... Don Knuth is still... Don Knuth... Now who was he again?
Karma is only karma if everyone appreciates it. Otherwise it's religion and no one cares.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I love tools like TracPeerReview.
Code Reviews are either a learning experience (for the inexperience code and specific technology), or an ego competition, i.e. opinion party. Otherwise they are useless, especially when releases are within months.
Tools like TracPeerReview allow once to upload their opinions and actually review offline, which the coder can take action or ignore, without wasting tie sitting in a meeting. And they are historically stored/time stamped.
You know, you're only suppose to have meetings when it's really needed. And you don't need a meeting for a code review.
just the right time allowed everything to proceed as planned
What did we learn from the Shuttle program?
a. You can't control the weather
b. Schedules are just that, schedules. Don't fall in love with it.
c. Timing is everything, and not a science.... yet.
d. It's all about the initial conditions.
Looks like Facebook is heading into what MySpace wanted to be. Just hope they make the UI looks read-able, and we all know what they're going to do with *your* (cough: their) information.
Never underestimate corporations posting news that really isn't news but some agenda driven marketing campaign.
Remember Facebook's smear campaign? I would not be surprised if this is Google's retaliation. Corporations love to retaliate. Much like the movie studios leveraging IMDB against other studios (Kung Fu panda 2 comes to mind).
Fanboys are fans, haters hate.
Sanger proposed this way back in the early 1950's.
And Spencer wrote about it later:
Spencer, Dwain F. "Fusion Propulsion for Interstellar Missions". Annals NY Academy of Sciences 140, 407-418 (1966).
.
Robert Forward documented all the above in a book I have on my shelf, but for the life of me can't remember the title. Heck, I was doing solar sail research/simulations on an x86 back in the 80's and we were proposing fusion drives as a power source for sails when the vehicle was in interstellar space.
It's great for today's visionaries to talk about their theories, but we all need to remember our ideas are based on the shoulders of those before us, whether they are giants or not.
One could call that 'smarts' instead....
And most of it will be junk data.
Data != Information. And then there's Metcalfe's law applied to information value.
One would expect a $30 phone (on contract) would be flaky compared to a $200 phone (on contract). I notice low end android phones follow that rule (as their high end models are definitely better).
Then again a $300 phone (on contract) that can't make decent phone calls cause of it antenna design....
Looks like an audit report of any major corporation.... really.
Honestly, TB's TDP was mainly a contractor driven project.Contractors were managed as an integrated product team (IPT), which was a new concept to the agency in 2000, a carry over from 'its' successful use in DoD in the mid-90's. And over time, the IPT leds were changing hands almost every fiscal year due to the politics of business, and changing technology and hiding(hearsay?) of the issues. The latter is very important in large projects such as TB. The IRS's modernization project comes to mind.
One needs to realize that sure, there were huge cultural issues (still being worked as of 2011 last I heard), but the TB TDP/TThread programs were supposed to fix that and breakdown the silos of operations at the agency, which certain tech leads knew no way those silos could handle the brave new world of the Internet today. From that, technologies in fields of messaging, enterprise management, mining and such in 2001 were flaky, slow, and plain not reliable--BUT the TDP was to prove that the tech worked and get it running as a fully operational system. For instance, trying to use J2EE in 2001 was more of a receipt for disaster than it is today, or an high performance XML database? data standards? no such thing back then! A multi-tiered architecture was unheard of within tech ranks there.
But, the execs were convinced the tech worked as "advertised", the contractors wanted the business, but... the federal workers (analysts) wanted to evolve their silos instead since they were already in ops.
And guess what, the tech was just flat out flaky, and Internet traffic exploded (circa 2001-04). That allowed gave the old guard ammo to make the TDP looked like arse (gave it no "home"). The IPT solution? Throw more cash at it... hey that's an easy win for any contractor. Yes, there was a lack of gov't oversight due to many reasons, and then there's the congressional politics, but we've been here before (DoD GIG, B1 bomber, F15E, Space Shuttle, etc...)
So with the lack of information in this document, I suggest those to take it with a grain of salt. Just take it from a person that was there. Yes, transparency is good, but we're (actually) finding the same old problems... there's no quick answer here.
The article makes a good argument, but most of the times a generalist will get either unfocused on a specific problem cause of the lack of specialization, or more commonly, just not being understood. The latter is very, very important for a person like Aiden to be successful. And when he is successful, great things are guaranteed to happen. And that's why he's right in his argument.
For example, I've been from theoretical physics, to oncology and medical imaging, to aerospace/control systems, to database design and financial systems, to lingustic/taxonomic systems, to photogrammetry, cinematography and data communications.... Most problems [of today] are pattern-based, and having a "deep dive" into all many subjects allows one to identify those patterns where as a specialist cannot. In real-world terms, a specialist can get/explain a problem under controlled conditions, under his/her terms (which isn't the real world). A generalist can explain/solve the problem in the real world, but may not be able to determine the underlying properties in order to optimize it or make it better [understood]. Imagine explaining how to optimize a web service to a post-doc's experiment in order for him to rewrite his output from matlab into a good json format in order to leverage multiple computers to get his calculations right, on time, for a time critical NRT simulation. A lot gets lost in the communication.
It's nice to figure out E=mc^2, but to get a nuclear reactor working requires a larger set of interdisciplinary skills.
And 99% of the time there's no way to explain solutions to other generalists and specialists cause, a. other generalists lack of domain knowledge (from not taking as deep a dive into subjects) and b. specialists have a specific mind set and limited nomenclature in explaining things. That's why specialists are more valued in society today, they can explain their "craft" to the point a group of folks can understand it. Hence, it's typical for generalists to be less valued (i.e. none of the glory).
If (what I call) a "deep-dive generalist" is understood, a lot of progress, epiphany, and invention will likely be the outcome. Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, and Carl Sagan come to mind.
Stress kills.
Common knowledge I believe...
Why under 20?
I'm sure there's plenty of 45yr olds that are out of a job and have some real spanking new ideas.
On reason it's harder for older folks if they have responsibilities (kids, house, car, family, etc...) where as 20yr olds can just forget everyone.
"Is an intellectual somebody who has memorized a lot of information?"
Yes. (at least in the western world). Is the person useful is questionable.
somebody who is adept at learning... is a smart person that uses his intellect. There's a difference. And a smart person is always useful.
"In context, this was while hyping a cloud computing solution that at the moment is a little more than shared storage" You know, like Google Apps, Amazon.com, Windows Azure, and stuff like basecamp and confluence... I think consumers already know cloud computing is more than shared storage, well at least the non-apple consumer....
Wow, the Windows NT vs. Windows 95 strategy I see.
I've been evaluating Amazon Cloud Drive and it's very much like Google Docs but a bit more generic file-wise. That maybe an option for you.
FYI, "IBM, Google, Apple" (and tech in general) benefit form Physics, Chemistry, Physiology/medicine, literature and peace. Not the other way around.
Sure they'll pay 10-15% higher than your open job of the same position, but just be prepared if you need to go into a hostile zone (which will add an extra 10% of hazard pay). And it's a life long obligation to keep the IP developed under wraps--it's the law... and more worse if you need to sign an NDA with the gov't (been there done that). One good thing is the people are pretty easy to work with, though it can be a high stress environment.
Putting under the Apache Foundation would allow oracle to still leverage it, make closed changes/plugins without legal issues.
They easy saw TDF was going to steer OpenOffice (now the LibreOffice fork) into a GPLv3-ish license, which would be at Oracle's disadvantage.
Smart move by oracle, decent for the OSS community, tolerable for the F/OSS community, but still not sure if it's a smart move for the end user.
Jobs and Gates operated their respective companies during their high times.
Cutting corners, cheating, monopolizing, data exploitation, competition smashing, whatever you call it they were very successful bringing their companies to the forefront (in the eyes of consumers or wall street).
But it's obvious they didn't learn about process, repeatability, and [real] standards. And TFA sort of says the cultures at MS and Apple don't care anyway (which is why their companies must operate with their original founders). Creating a culture that instills process, we avoid our well known 'hit by the bus' scenario with 'star employees'/management. Though a crappy side effect is that people/talent are replaceable, creating a culture that respects process will allow a company to stay relevant, even if the CEO position becomes a revolving door (HP for example).
This is typical of intelligent folks building product--who cares if the next guy that needs to manage this has the intelligence of a 12yr old. Problem is that situation is the norm rather than the exception. Just ask IBM, GE, Oracle, Ti, Moto, Intel, Exxon, Dupont, or any defense contractor (which all deal with high tech... hardware and software).
And don't worry, Google with ultimately face the same fate. That's unless Larry ends up being another Jerry Yang.
a. have a temporary background check and polygraph (previous employer, still have connections for tours).
or
b. willing to sign an NDA (HINT: you may have already did from your last visit. Think parents...).
Also, did they show you the hideouts (i.e. must be 21yrs or over) and did you get to play drums?
TFA has tag: brag written all over it... and hopefully this post does not. FYI, I don't exist.
They need to go look at their own existing DBs--most cover of them are organized by dialects, which typically include metaphors since it maybe a way to classify the language(s) for intel reasons.
Look at the big picture:
Gaga's going to make boat loads of cash from her 0.99 album, Amazon's going to give her a nice gift (more cash) for promoting their cloud service, Gaga got media headlines on this, more people are aware of Gaga (more popular) and will likely sell more stuff in the long run.
and.... Don Knuth is still... Don Knuth... Now who was he again?
Karma is only karma if everyone appreciates it. Otherwise it's religion and no one cares.
Sounds like the current US housing market.
In the end, it's about acquiring wealth and the tried and true scams will always work on any monetary system.
Filter Bubble == Entertainment (or some form of).
Nuff said. Another TED buzz in the making debunked...