I'm 58. Am I'm still learning "new" languages. In college, many years ago, I learned COBOL, Fortran, PL/I, S/370 assembler, APL, and SNOBOL. Over the years, I've added BASH shell scripting, Python, PHP, Java, JavaScript, ICON, Delphi, Turbo Pascal, Modula II, Erlang, Haskell. I'm not even bothering to mention Groovy and Scala as they are just basically Java variants. If I can learn new stuff, you can too. The hard part of programming is figuring out what is really required and attention to detail.
They will die of boredom. M-F - go to work/go home. Sat: go grocery shopping, go home. Sunday: go to church, go home. At home: surf Internet, mainly technology sites. This site is one of the "extremist" sites I go to. Damn, I'm boring.
If someone in the UK can be brought to the US for violating an US law in the UK, then I suggest that all cities pass a law stating that the maximum speed limit on all public roads in their state be set at 30 MPH. That way, for instance, the city of Dallas can ticket all highway drivers in Ft. Worth for violating the law. PROFIT!!
Agree. The head of the IT department had a grand idea: "Let's all take the afternoon off and go to the bowling alley." When response was anaemic, I was told he exploded in fury that his "kindness" was unappreciated. For me, this would have lengthened my work day and forced me to drive an extra 10 miles to get home. Not to mention that I have such bad arthritis that I can't pick up a bowling ball or even walk well any more (old fart, here).
I don't usually eat lunch when I'm at work. I occasionally get a bag of cookies and a cola around noon. Not that I could. I'm just not hungry. The thought of actually driving somewhere during lunch hour is terrifying. "At least I'm not deliberately aiming for you!" is the attitude of most drivers around here. And $4.00/gallon gas doesn't help.
I agree. I have a WiFi-only Motorola XOOM. I use is mainly at home on my WiFi. I also take it to my doctor's office and the hospital. And they have free WiFi on their premises. As do most other places that I go. I don't need to use my tablet in my actual car, so 3G is an expensive and unnecessary option for me. If I do ever need it in a no-Wifi place with any regularity, I can buy a 3G mobile WiFi hotspot device from my cell provider. Or try to tether to my cell phone.
A problem my boss talked about was a software product produced in Quebec. The technical spoke very poor English, being very fluent in French as you might expect. My boss doesn't speak French. Only English and Spanish (Mexican version). There was nobody in the office, other than in marketing, who spoke English well. Never did get the problem resolved due to this language barrier. Not their technician's fault. Not our fault. It was their marketing for selling the product in the US without bothering to tell us that support was in French only.
My point: Your support people need to fluently speak the customer's language. Not the other way around. If I want to sell software in France, I'd better learn to speak French intelligibly. Likewise for Germany, Italy, Israel, Jordan, Egypt,... . If I can't, I need to contract with somebody who can. Again, intelligibly. Not just some low cost provider who won't be a true partner with me.
My machines belong to me. The stuff on them is mine, not the company's. And I don't want any confusion about that. I have VPN access from home to the corporate LAN. We also have a Windows "work at home" server which is accessible via MS's mstsc. I use that, not the VPN/LAN. I use Linux at home and rdesktop to access that server. Once on that server, I use mstsc to access my work desktop. Why? it makes my home machine safer. My home machine is more of a "dumb terminal" which cannot be infected by or infect anything at work. Or at least it is significantly less likely. I'm not aware of any virus which can spread over an mstsc link. Which means little, given my ignorance. My home system is behind a firewall/router, so hopefully it is too much trouble to crack. I don't need "impossible", just need "harder than average" to discourage most. Running Linux and no Windows also helps.
maybe so. But that's one reason I like Linux for my desktop. It makes me a smaller target. Even though, in my heart of hearts, I believe that a "as distributed" good Linux distro is more resistant than a "standard" MS version of Windows (with no add on security, virus scanners, et al). But, in this case, both sides simply are opinion because a true test (i.e. using real hackers attacking a real user's system) is simply not possible.
Though I personally prefer my Linux/KDE to my Mac Mini, I have a friend who __used to be__ a Windows partisan. Until he was forced to get a Mac laptop. Now he is in love with the Mac instead of Windows. It is a nice system. And nowhere near as vulnerable as an average Windows system.
NO, NO, NO. BP does not owe anybody anything. The residents of the states owe BP for the oil that their land is illegally impeding from being delivered to Europe via a non standard shipping method!
Yes, I've heard of Clojure. I have even read this book and enjoyed it. But I am a bit of a dilettante when it comes to programming languages. I've read a good number of the books from Pragmatic and like them. I especially like that they are PDF and DRM-free. Of course, each book is unique in that it is water marked on each page with my name.
I've not used the language myself for anything other than "playing around". I also like Groovy and Scala, which are also JVM based languages which makes it easy to inter-operate with them.
Yes. Patents apply to some of the z architecture. You cannot make "something" (either hardware or software) which implement the patented architecture, regardless of how you implement it.
Every company which is in business to make a profit can turn "evil". Especially when they become "owned" by people who care only about money, with no sense of ethics. Good is defined as "anything which increases my store of money". Bad is defined as "anything which decreases my store of money". IOW, most people are simply greedy and selfish.
Very true. Hum, my ISP does a lot of restrictions to try to stop problems such as spam and botnets. So, why is it that they only support Windows? It would be more consistent to support everything except Windows.
I am a Linux-only user. And I somewhat agree with you. If somebody has a requirement that only Windows succeeds in fulfilling, then use Windows. As a person who desires to run Linux, I make sure that my purchases are supported by Linux. If a vendor decides to not support Linux (and proprietary software on Linux is OK by me), then they lose my business. Whether that is of relevance to them is up to them. It is not up to me. I've never understood any "fanboyz" of any flavor (Linux, *BSD, Windows, or MAC). Use what does the job.
Oh, and "Linux" did not "fail". The vendor decided to not support Linux. The vendor decided not to publish the tech details so that others could support their hardware. Nobody "failed". The vendor did exactly as they desired: To lock their customers into their software. And the vendor decided to only support Windows as a simple economic decision.
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I'm 58. Am I'm still learning "new" languages. In college, many years ago, I learned COBOL, Fortran, PL/I, S/370 assembler, APL, and SNOBOL. Over the years, I've added BASH shell scripting, Python, PHP, Java, JavaScript, ICON, Delphi, Turbo Pascal, Modula II, Erlang, Haskell. I'm not even bothering to mention Groovy and Scala as they are just basically Java variants. If I can learn new stuff, you can too. The hard part of programming is figuring out what is really required and attention to detail.
They will die of boredom. M-F - go to work/go home. Sat: go grocery shopping, go home. Sunday: go to church, go home. At home: surf Internet, mainly technology sites. This site is one of the "extremist" sites I go to. Damn, I'm boring.
If someone in the UK can be brought to the US for violating an US law in the UK, then I suggest that all cities pass a law stating that the maximum speed limit on all public roads in their state be set at 30 MPH. That way, for instance, the city of Dallas can ticket all highway drivers in Ft. Worth for violating the law. PROFIT!!
Perhaps "pillage" would be a more exact word.
Agree. The head of the IT department had a grand idea: "Let's all take the afternoon off and go to the bowling alley." When response was anaemic, I was told he exploded in fury that his "kindness" was unappreciated. For me, this would have lengthened my work day and forced me to drive an extra 10 miles to get home. Not to mention that I have such bad arthritis that I can't pick up a bowling ball or even walk well any more (old fart, here).
I don't usually eat lunch when I'm at work. I occasionally get a bag of cookies and a cola around noon. Not that I could. I'm just not hungry. The thought of actually driving somewhere during lunch hour is terrifying. "At least I'm not deliberately aiming for you!" is the attitude of most drivers around here. And $4.00/gallon gas doesn't help.
I agree. I have a WiFi-only Motorola XOOM. I use is mainly at home on my WiFi. I also take it to my doctor's office and the hospital. And they have free WiFi on their premises. As do most other places that I go. I don't need to use my tablet in my actual car, so 3G is an expensive and unnecessary option for me. If I do ever need it in a no-Wifi place with any regularity, I can buy a 3G mobile WiFi hotspot device from my cell provider. Or try to tether to my cell phone.
Remember the Coke vs. Coke Zero ads? OK, that was "in fun" and not serious.
My point: Your support people need to fluently speak the customer's language. Not the other way around. If I want to sell software in France, I'd better learn to speak French intelligibly. Likewise for Germany, Italy, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, ... . If I can't, I need to contract with somebody who can. Again, intelligibly. Not just some low cost provider who won't be a true partner with me.
Same here. I deliberately did NOT go with ATT. I guess I should have gone with Sprint or Verizon.
My machines belong to me. The stuff on them is mine, not the company's. And I don't want any confusion about that. I have VPN access from home to the corporate LAN. We also have a Windows "work at home" server which is accessible via MS's mstsc. I use that, not the VPN/LAN. I use Linux at home and rdesktop to access that server. Once on that server, I use mstsc to access my work desktop. Why? it makes my home machine safer. My home machine is more of a "dumb terminal" which cannot be infected by or infect anything at work. Or at least it is significantly less likely. I'm not aware of any virus which can spread over an mstsc link. Which means little, given my ignorance. My home system is behind a firewall/router, so hopefully it is too much trouble to crack. I don't need "impossible", just need "harder than average" to discourage most. Running Linux and no Windows also helps.
maybe so. But that's one reason I like Linux for my desktop. It makes me a smaller target. Even though, in my heart of hearts, I believe that a "as distributed" good Linux distro is more resistant than a "standard" MS version of Windows (with no add on security, virus scanners, et al). But, in this case, both sides simply are opinion because a true test (i.e. using real hackers attacking a real user's system) is simply not possible.
Though I personally prefer my Linux/KDE to my Mac Mini, I have a friend who __used to be__ a Windows partisan. Until he was forced to get a Mac laptop. Now he is in love with the Mac instead of Windows. It is a nice system. And nowhere near as vulnerable as an average Windows system.
Which is why I like sudo /sbin/halt . On Linux, of course. That says: "I'm god and you're dead!"
I agree with you. In the extreme, it might lead to gas pedals sticking in computer controlled cars. Oh, wait, that's already been done.
did you mean "bullish projection" or "bullshit projection"???
NO, NO, NO. BP does not owe anybody anything. The residents of the states owe BP for the oil that their land is illegally impeding from being delivered to Europe via a non standard shipping method!
I f you don't like Java's multithreading, give Erlang a look. An interesting functional programming language.
Yes, I've heard of Clojure. I have even read this book and enjoyed it. But I am a bit of a dilettante when it comes to programming languages. I've read a good number of the books from Pragmatic and like them. I especially like that they are PDF and DRM-free. Of course, each book is unique in that it is water marked on each page with my name. I've not used the language myself for anything other than "playing around". I also like Groovy and Scala, which are also JVM based languages which makes it easy to inter-operate with them.
Wait a minute! Doesn't the US Government have a "business method" patent on this?
Yes. Patents apply to some of the z architecture. You cannot make "something" (either hardware or software) which implement the patented architecture, regardless of how you implement it.
Every company which is in business to make a profit can turn "evil". Especially when they become "owned" by people who care only about money, with no sense of ethics. Good is defined as "anything which increases my store of money". Bad is defined as "anything which decreases my store of money". IOW, most people are simply greedy and selfish.
I get such things (docx and xlsx) from our CEO's executive assistant. I don't think our CEO even knows what a computer is.
Very true. Hum, my ISP does a lot of restrictions to try to stop problems such as spam and botnets. So, why is it that they only support Windows? It would be more consistent to support everything except Windows.
Oh, and "Linux" did not "fail". The vendor decided to not support Linux. The vendor decided not to publish the tech details so that others could support their hardware. Nobody "failed". The vendor did exactly as they desired: To lock their customers into their software. And the vendor decided to only support Windows as a simple economic decision.