"automatically determines a worker's interruptibility using a combination of keyboard/mouse usage, calendar information, and login state, and makes interruptibility visible"
I understand this is for coders, and how someone might think that when they don't tap away angrily they are available for interruption, but it would be safer to assume that when tapping slows or stops, there's a reason for that. And that reason might not always be that they have nothing more to do. Researching stuff, reading stuff, and just thinking about stuff might not be done in parallel with mighty mouse movements and constant tapping, but they are equally important. So my opinion about this is that it's a result based on research that just wasted money. The simplest way is generally better: just ask, or even better just agree on a time to discuss issues, it's really not rocket science.
As ever so frequently these days, US regulations seem not to be able to keep up with modern times, and when they try to, they don't seem to get it right. I fly quite frequently between Europe and the US on Lufthansa, and I have yet to see any problems arise because of them providing wifi and gsm (Well, once I saw an attendant tell a man not to skype from the restroom, but I don't think of that as a problem:) ). Your problem is not with airlines offering these services, but the people who are idiots - however, educating them by avoidance, i.e. by banning all of these services is just stupid.
"an experienced programmer, with a reasonably accurate mental model of the problem"
Well, that's one of the many things that separate programmers from coders as I designate them. I.e., the ones who know and do vs. the ones who have a limited clue at most but do it nonetheless and behave like they'd be the gods of algorithm and program development. In my book, and in my area of work, a code that gives the result but it's 2-7-whatever times slower than it could be with some actual knowledge besides tapping codewords in the correct order, that code is nothing besides a limited applicability proof of concept at best, targeted for supporting viability and then destined for disposal. That's why I never worked with coders and I don't care for the gazillions out there who think the ability to use python makes them devs or software engineers, oh my. Also, for the poster, performance issues regarding stl, well, good story, no news.
"employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings"
And I could demand that the employer go fsck themselves sideways. There's this still lingering and weird and unhealthy (speaking of:) ) thinking at companies that they are doing their employees some big favor by using their talents, capabilities and time. It's not so. It's an agreement, that until we think our treatment and our compensation is worth lending our resources. Should it become not so, then bummer, this is still a fairly big world with lots of employers in it.
Maybe this sounds a bit idealistic, but acting like a powerless workforce victim will actually get you closer to becoming one.
"search through a massive database of code snippets and deliver working code in seconds"
Thing is, I'm in the business of writing code most of which you won't find in code databases. Also, in a sense, among those that create such algorithms that are behind those like the above mentioned. However, I'd be delighted if a day would come when I could shortly describe what I want and some synthesis engine could create the code for me, even if only partially. Especially the tedious mundane parts - however, most of those we don't re-write but re-use anyway. So no, I'm not really afraid about my job becoming obsolete.
So, no displaying excessive cleavage - I can accept that, but I have to note, there's no such thing as excessive cleavage:P However, no miniskirts, minidresses or shorts? I mean come on, we're not living in the Victorian era anymore. Enough is enough. You could just hand out large sacks at the entrance and mandate wearing them.
"Are you using these "forgotten code constructs" -- and should you be?">
I honestly think sometimes these newgen coders are just crazy ass stupid. Forgotten constructs meaning recursion, multiple inheritance or evals? Seriously? Flamethrower? And this written by some "senior" developer? You just have to stop wondering why lots of current software are so idioticlally written, since if there are more than one of such ignorant preachers behind them, instead of some real programmers, it's a real wonder how any software of value can be produced anywehere.
It's bad enough such people are part of the sw industry at all, letting them spread their wisdom is a disgrace to everyone invlved.
"a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong"
No, it means that a very large chunk of the population has a different opinion about digital content consumption.Not easily dismissed.
However: "a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents" - Now, forget everything above, this whole thing is just another joke. A representative survey.
"misuse of your personal data" - Well, that's not going to happen. No insurance company will want to now your approved sensor data score before calculating your fees, copays and deductibles and they won't ever give penalties for not wearing your sensors. No lending company will want to know your score before financing your car, house, etc. and calculating your rates. No company will want to know your score before hiring you for the long or short term or estimating work capability or endurance. No airline will want to know your score to calculate how high a risk you are and calculate your ticket price or extra insurance fees. Nobody will do this, all will be well, and all this will only benefit you all. Nobody will be left behind, there'll just be some who'll never get there.
"But Apple must ensure that both earpieces receive audio at the same time to avoid distortion, the person familiar with their development said."
So, I make a phone, shove it down your throats saying you either can buy generic crappier than crappy crap BT headphones or you can buy my fantastic BT headphones. There's only one catch: in can only play music in canon, but don't worry, I'll just need a bit to come up with a convincing selling point to convince you this is the technology of the future and all music was actually meant to be listened this way. Now go, spread the word.
Next time I'll convince you breathing is bad for you.
Actually, I think the terms used are quite adequate. With one exception, we still don't have anything that even remotely resembles AI, not even close. The tools and machine learning methods we can deploy can indeed help devs build applications, I agree with that, with good code searches, easier to use dev tools, and so on. However, as someone who doesn't as much build apps, but research, create and develop actual algorithmic solutions, all this fuss is about nothing really. Until we indeed reach a point to have something that we can call AI - which even optimistically I don't think I will live to see - which could actually create complete solutions for you after describing the problem to be solved, no real dev has anything to fear.
Those app builders, well, I can't say much about that, but I'd welcome anything that can speed up building an app around a solution to make it usable and presentable. Anything doing that, AI or not, bring it on.
So it will be a 7" tablet with a huge speaker bulging at its back:) great design choice:) So, just thinking here, if you were to release a 7" regular tablet with all Alexa functions that could connect to a bluetooth speaker, so you could put the tablet and the speaker wherever you please, now, by all means, that would be the most revolutionary product ever:)
Now the only thing left to try to decode is what the freaking hell "this time it is more premium" means. Maybe they will make a less premium, a premium, a more premium and a supremely premium version, and maybe the latter will have a 60" screen with speakers on it that you could watch from your couch.
Gee, so many possibilities for innovation here, your head just keeps spinning:P
"both states sued the FCC and in August won reinstatement of their laws that protect private ISPs from municipal competitors"
Competition at its finest, right, when the priority is to protect [i.e., give undeserved priority and undeserved advantage to] companies from municipal "competitors". Protecting companies by denying the people/communities to spend their own money to create their own services for their own benefit (which is basically, although indirectly, being done here). Dream come true, nicely done.
"However Google has been much more open with their data. Google's automated car was just past 1.3million miles before its first automated accident: a minor fender bender."
However, Google's algorithms are not Tesla's algorithms are not Volvo's algorithms are not Daimler's algorithms are not Toyota's algorithms and so on and so forth. My point is, one developer's miles driven and safety (or accident) reports have nothing to do with another's.
Also, number of accidents and/or resulting deaths don't mean much when the size of the actually deployed fleet of cars is so low. Yes, yes, I know, Tesla is churning out cars like mad, still, their numbers are close to insignificant. When they will have tens or hundreds of millions of cars out there, then their safety/accident numbers will mean something. But, they'll never ever be zero, there's just no chance, unless all cars just stand still in their garages.
My view on this issue is that until I don't see Volvo or Daimler selling cars with full autonomous driving capabilities, and until Google's car division doesn't say the algorithms are nearing applicability, I won't trust any company selling autonomy features. Why? Because Daimler has been working on this much longer and Google has been developing much longer, and until they don't say it's OK, it won't be OK, it's that simple.
"Microsoft received a small number of reports [...] a small fraction of users [...]"
F*ck it, these PR-morons never learn. When you have millions of users, no number is small, and no fraction is small, and when you say it is, you make yourself look like an idiot. And if you don't know that, then it's more than just the looks.
"[...] now doing a big chunk of the work that high-priced human talent used to do [...] people with little or no coding or software engineering background -- known in the business as "citizen developers" -- can create apps, both for use in-house and for clients."
And some people are wondering why general sw quality keeps getting lower. I have some popcorn set aside for the days when these citizen developers will "develop" with tools made by other citizen developers and we can all watch their house of cards rattle.
"The index can be used to check whether your programming skills are still up to date or to make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system."
While I think TIOBE is interesting, I'd never advise anyone to either take it too seriously, or base any of the above quoted decisions on it. Deciding on used languages based on search engine results - if you do that, I'd bet you don't advertise it during your interviews.
No, they are not great without content. But you can have all the best content of the world if nobody will find you, and unless you want to go back to the good old days, you need your content to be indexed by the greatest search engines. It's true that one can't function without the other, but taking the stance that the engines are only there to exploit you and steal your content feels really stupid. However, I can understand they'd really like to get a share of the engines' revenue, but if you think about it, they already have higher traffic - and thus revenue - because of the traffic coming from the search engines.
"is planning reforms that would allow media outlets to request payment from search engines such as Google, for publishing snippets of their content in search results"
IMO they got that backwards. It's not the outlets that drive traffic to search engines, it's the search engines that help that traffic to reach the outlets.
If I were a search engine provider/developer, I just might happen to come up with the idea to require outlets to pay me for indexing their content in the first place.
There's nothing forcing search engines to index the idiots' contents. They should actually be either thankful that they can be found, or create a better search engine that they can control - and which noone will use.
Lots of content providers would never be found without the search engines. They should be a bit more humble and re-evaluate who's who in this relationship.
"that it's possible that someone doesn't have twitter and/or facebook?"
Well, it's possible, but whether they'd believe it or not, that's an interesting question.
It's also that someone has an account which they won't believe it's real, possibly causing problems - like my twitter acc, which I set up at the time of the Icelandic volcano eruptions 5-6 years ago to follow related news feeds and flight informations and never used it for anything else:)
"What ever happened to the principle of single responsibility? Where a tool does one thing and does it well, and you put tools together to do whatever?"
It does one thing [questionably] well, problem is that that one thing is called "everything":P
Slashdot Mirror
"automatically determines a worker's interruptibility using a combination of keyboard/mouse usage, calendar information, and login state, and makes interruptibility visible"
I understand this is for coders, and how someone might think that when they don't tap away angrily they are available for interruption, but it would be safer to assume that when tapping slows or stops, there's a reason for that. And that reason might not always be that they have nothing more to do. Researching stuff, reading stuff, and just thinking about stuff might not be done in parallel with mighty mouse movements and constant tapping, but they are equally important. So my opinion about this is that it's a result based on research that just wasted money. The simplest way is generally better: just ask, or even better just agree on a time to discuss issues, it's really not rocket science.
As ever so frequently these days, US regulations seem not to be able to keep up with modern times, and when they try to, they don't seem to get it right. I fly quite frequently between Europe and the US on Lufthansa, and I have yet to see any problems arise because of them providing wifi and gsm (Well, once I saw an attendant tell a man not to skype from the restroom, but I don't think of that as a problem :) ). Your problem is not with airlines offering these services, but the people who are idiots - however, educating them by avoidance, i.e. by banning all of these services is just stupid.
"an experienced programmer, with a reasonably accurate mental model of the problem"
Well, that's one of the many things that separate programmers from coders as I designate them. I.e., the ones who know and do vs. the ones who have a limited clue at most but do it nonetheless and behave like they'd be the gods of algorithm and program development. In my book, and in my area of work, a code that gives the result but it's 2-7-whatever times slower than it could be with some actual knowledge besides tapping codewords in the correct order, that code is nothing besides a limited applicability proof of concept at best, targeted for supporting viability and then destined for disposal. That's why I never worked with coders and I don't care for the gazillions out there who think the ability to use python makes them devs or software engineers, oh my. Also, for the poster, performance issues regarding stl, well, good story, no news.
"employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings"
:) ) thinking at companies that they are doing their employees some big favor by using their talents, capabilities and time. It's not so. It's an agreement, that until we think our treatment and our compensation is worth lending our resources. Should it become not so, then bummer, this is still a fairly big world with lots of employers in it.
And I could demand that the employer go fsck themselves sideways. There's this still lingering and weird and unhealthy (speaking of
Maybe this sounds a bit idealistic, but acting like a powerless workforce victim will actually get you closer to becoming one.
"Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee's head in with a baseball bat."
:/
Now, that's what must be a highly motivating work environment
One must wonder how their hiring process works, i.e. letting such characters through the gates, since recent reports don't paint a pretty picture.
"search through a massive database of code snippets and deliver working code in seconds"
Thing is, I'm in the business of writing code most of which you won't find in code databases. Also, in a sense, among those that create such algorithms that are behind those like the above mentioned. However, I'd be delighted if a day would come when I could shortly describe what I want and some synthesis engine could create the code for me, even if only partially. Especially the tedious mundane parts - however, most of those we don't re-write but re-use anyway. So no, I'm not really afraid about my job becoming obsolete.
So, no displaying excessive cleavage - I can accept that, but I have to note, there's no such thing as excessive cleavage :P However, no miniskirts, minidresses or shorts? I mean come on, we're not living in the Victorian era anymore. Enough is enough. You could just hand out large sacks at the entrance and mandate wearing them.
"Are you using these "forgotten code constructs" -- and should you be?">
I honestly think sometimes these newgen coders are just crazy ass stupid. Forgotten constructs meaning recursion, multiple inheritance or evals? Seriously? Flamethrower? And this written by some "senior" developer? You just have to stop wondering why lots of current software are so idioticlally written, since if there are more than one of such ignorant preachers behind them, instead of some real programmers, it's a real wonder how any software of value can be produced anywehere.
It's bad enough such people are part of the sw industry at all, letting them spread their wisdom is a disgrace to everyone invlved.
"a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong"
No, it means that a very large chunk of the population has a different opinion about digital content consumption.Not easily dismissed.
However: "a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents" - Now, forget everything above, this whole thing is just another joke. A representative survey.
Funny.
"misuse of your personal data" - Well, that's not going to happen. No insurance company will want to now your approved sensor data score before calculating your fees, copays and deductibles and they won't ever give penalties for not wearing your sensors. No lending company will want to know your score before financing your car, house, etc. and calculating your rates. No company will want to know your score before hiring you for the long or short term or estimating work capability or endurance. No airline will want to know your score to calculate how high a risk you are and calculate your ticket price or extra insurance fees. Nobody will do this, all will be well, and all this will only benefit you all. Nobody will be left behind, there'll just be some who'll never get there.
"But Apple must ensure that both earpieces receive audio at the same time to avoid distortion, the person familiar with their development said."
So, I make a phone, shove it down your throats saying you either can buy generic crappier than crappy crap BT headphones or you can buy my fantastic BT headphones. There's only one catch: in can only play music in canon, but don't worry, I'll just need a bit to come up with a convincing selling point to convince you this is the technology of the future and all music was actually meant to be listened this way. Now go, spread the word.
Next time I'll convince you breathing is bad for you.
Actually, I think the terms used are quite adequate. With one exception, we still don't have anything that even remotely resembles AI, not even close. The tools and machine learning methods we can deploy can indeed help devs build applications, I agree with that, with good code searches, easier to use dev tools, and so on. However, as someone who doesn't as much build apps, but research, create and develop actual algorithmic solutions, all this fuss is about nothing really. Until we indeed reach a point to have something that we can call AI - which even optimistically I don't think I will live to see - which could actually create complete solutions for you after describing the problem to be solved, no real dev has anything to fear.
Those app builders, well, I can't say much about that, but I'd welcome anything that can speed up building an app around a solution to make it usable and presentable. Anything doing that, AI or not, bring it on.
So it will be a 7" tablet with a huge speaker bulging at its back :) great design choice :) So, just thinking here, if you were to release a 7" regular tablet with all Alexa functions that could connect to a bluetooth speaker, so you could put the tablet and the speaker wherever you please, now, by all means, that would be the most revolutionary product ever :)
:P
Now the only thing left to try to decode is what the freaking hell "this time it is more premium" means. Maybe they will make a less premium, a premium, a more premium and a supremely premium version, and maybe the latter will have a 60" screen with speakers on it that you could watch from your couch.
Gee, so many possibilities for innovation here, your head just keeps spinning
I'll say that again: crap article, stupid statistics, idiotic conclusions. "And that's all I've got to say about that."
"both states sued the FCC and in August won reinstatement of their laws that protect private ISPs from municipal competitors"
Competition at its finest, right, when the priority is to protect [i.e., give undeserved priority and undeserved advantage to] companies from municipal "competitors". Protecting companies by denying the people/communities to spend their own money to create their own services for their own benefit (which is basically, although indirectly, being done here). Dream come true, nicely done.
"However Google has been much more open with their data. Google's automated car was just past 1.3million miles before its first automated accident: a minor fender bender."
However, Google's algorithms are not Tesla's algorithms are not Volvo's algorithms are not Daimler's algorithms are not Toyota's algorithms and so on and so forth. My point is, one developer's miles driven and safety (or accident) reports have nothing to do with another's.
Also, number of accidents and/or resulting deaths don't mean much when the size of the actually deployed fleet of cars is so low. Yes, yes, I know, Tesla is churning out cars like mad, still, their numbers are close to insignificant. When they will have tens or hundreds of millions of cars out there, then their safety/accident numbers will mean something. But, they'll never ever be zero, there's just no chance, unless all cars just stand still in their garages.
My view on this issue is that until I don't see Volvo or Daimler selling cars with full autonomous driving capabilities, and until Google's car division doesn't say the algorithms are nearing applicability, I won't trust any company selling autonomy features. Why? Because Daimler has been working on this much longer and Google has been developing much longer, and until they don't say it's OK, it won't be OK, it's that simple.
"Twitter [...] a media company"
:))
It's always really nice to begin your day with a good laugh and, well, this just made my day
Nah, playing it with one hand is nothing compared to the challenge of eating a hamburger with one (the other) hand, as he suggested on stage :)
"Microsoft received a small number of reports [...] a small fraction of users [...]"
F*ck it, these PR-morons never learn. When you have millions of users, no number is small, and no fraction is small, and when you say it is, you make yourself look like an idiot. And if you don't know that, then it's more than just the looks.
"[...] now doing a big chunk of the work that high-priced human talent used to do [...] people with little or no coding or software engineering background -- known in the business as "citizen developers" -- can create apps, both for use in-house and for clients."
And some people are wondering why general sw quality keeps getting lower. I have some popcorn set aside for the days when these citizen developers will "develop" with tools made by other citizen developers and we can all watch their house of cards rattle.
Here, a good source for getting goosebumps, some are genuinely proud of this feat, e.g.: "QuickBase prides itself in the extent to which business users can build applications all by themselves. "92% of QuickBase citizen developers have no coding background"" (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2016/05/16/citizen-developers-low-code-is-now-enterprise-class/#4a654381ecfb)
"The index can be used to check whether your programming skills are still up to date or to make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system."
While I think TIOBE is interesting, I'd never advise anyone to either take it too seriously, or base any of the above quoted decisions on it. Deciding on used languages based on search engine results - if you do that, I'd bet you don't advertise it during your interviews.
No, they are not great without content. But you can have all the best content of the world if nobody will find you, and unless you want to go back to the good old days, you need your content to be indexed by the greatest search engines. It's true that one can't function without the other, but taking the stance that the engines are only there to exploit you and steal your content feels really stupid. However, I can understand they'd really like to get a share of the engines' revenue, but if you think about it, they already have higher traffic - and thus revenue - because of the traffic coming from the search engines.
"is planning reforms that would allow media outlets to request payment from search engines such as Google, for publishing snippets of their content in search results"
IMO they got that backwards. It's not the outlets that drive traffic to search engines, it's the search engines that help that traffic to reach the outlets.
If I were a search engine provider/developer, I just might happen to come up with the idea to require outlets to pay me for indexing their content in the first place.
There's nothing forcing search engines to index the idiots' contents. They should actually be either thankful that they can be found, or create a better search engine that they can control - and which noone will use.
Lots of content providers would never be found without the search engines. They should be a bit more humble and re-evaluate who's who in this relationship.
"that it's possible that someone doesn't have twitter and/or facebook?"
:)
Well, it's possible, but whether they'd believe it or not, that's an interesting question.
It's also that someone has an account which they won't believe it's real, possibly causing problems - like my twitter acc, which I set up at the time of the Icelandic volcano eruptions 5-6 years ago to follow related news feeds and flight informations and never used it for anything else
"What ever happened to the principle of single responsibility? Where a tool does one thing and does it well, and you put tools together to do whatever?"
:P
It does one thing [questionably] well, problem is that that one thing is called "everything"