I work for a software company that does ERP systems for some niche industries - both the writing and the implementing. All of the business logic is written in Cobol.
Of our clients, nearly all of them used to be on mainframe systems. Over the years, most of them migrated to UNIX(either HPUX, AIX, or Solaris for us). We haven't done a new mainframe implementation in years - all of our current work is on UNIX(bigger more knowledgable clients) and Windows(smaller and much less savvy clients).
We use Microfocus NetExpress on Windows or ServerExpress on UNIX and have for years. We use either Tuxedo or CICS for a TP(yes CICS does run on Windows and UNIX). Not quite as safe as a mainframe, but we've had large UNIX sites experience nothing but small amounts of scheduled downtime over the years.
Now, will.net affect us? Nope. Many ERP systems providers are hugely interested in platform independence. All new development work is being done with EJBs using IBM Websphere's Enterprise suite(which includes CICS as the TXSeries product). I don't think many companies who service large businesses ever want to be locked in to a Microsoft solution, or have to maintain parallel development efforts to support their latest technology.
Dakota means friend in at least one Sioux dialect.
The Sioux happen to be the people who inhabited the place before we built Fargo there. The only stupid thing about the name is the north and south prepended to it, especialy since there is basically no logical reason for the division(east and west Dakota would make more sense geographically and culturally).
I like native names-Denali(Great One) is much more fitting than Mt McKinley(renamed to increase voter name recognition) for instance.
Communities unfortunately don't seem to work very well for technology sites. There simply isn't enough reason for people to want to know each other. I read slashdot to check up on news, to learn things, and to get a good laugh. I don't have much interest in meeting people here face to face, or having them know who I am. That is why I almost always lurk.
I am very involved with a rock climbing related website with about 600 users, maybe 100 of which log in nearly every day. Those people have become some of my best friends. We are there to learn from each other and also for the occasional holy war(replace vi and emacs with sport and trad and the arguments are very similar). Beyond that, I've met a lot of climbing partners through the site and also learned people I had climbed with for years were the same person I was occasionally getting so angry with in the discussion forum.
There are several things that separate a forum like that and slashdot.
First, it is smaller and much more easily manageable. The usenet group rec.climbing is much bigger and a lot more of a tight-knit community than slashdot, but it is still hostile and faceless by comparison. I know most of the regular posters-I can associate a name with a face, etc. I also know a lot of the people who don't post so often. When it gets down to it, I really know probably 30% of the regular users of the site-whether I have met them in person or just through many regular interactions.
On slashdot, I don't know many people from anything aside from their posts and occasionally following links to their websites. Maybe a few dozen total. When you figure the percentage of a 100 or so people from 250K+ userid's, you get a situation more like knowing coworkers and people in the news in a large city.
Second, with a smaller community that is bound by a fairly obscure commonality like rock climbing at a specific place, you just do not attract trolls. A few show up from time to time, but there isn't really any incentive for them to be there, so they go away quickly.
Third, we do occasionally see each other. We mostly all met and became friends through the site, so I do consider it a virtual community-but it is not a pure electronic abstraction.
The only sweeping generalization you can make about the net that holds true is that you can't make a sweeping generalization. There are plenty of very community-oriented sites out there. They are just built on community and not "we're on the net, lets get lots of people here to talk"
Uhh, maybe in an affluent part of Minneapolis they won't fail.
I lived in Washington Heights in New York City last year during our blackout-which was 18 hours during 100+ heat, and a few more days of very spotty service. Its one of the poorest parts of Manhattan, and most everything in the supermarkets rotted-and *everything* in all of the small mom and pop stores that made living up there worthwhile.
All this in Manhattan-which one would assume has one of the biggest power grids in the US.
My favorite comment was in some webobjects objective c code i had to look through. The snippet was inherited from a guy who just took off and went to germany one day.
There was this awful loop that was nested about 5 levels deep, completely obfuscating variable names, seemed to serve no purpose, etc.
The only comment in sight was a one-liner before the loop that said in German "I need to get some more cigarettes".
We never did figure out what the loop did, and weeded it out of the next build.
If Johnny were downloading, say, Beethoven or Mozart
Wait, hold on a second here. Yes, Beethoven and Mozart are dead and can receive no more royalties, but the performers certainly do. Actually piracy would hurt classical musicians much more than bands like Metallica because a successful classical cd rarely sells more than a few thousand copies.
Also keep in mind that in an orchestral performance there are 50+ musicians to be paid.
Please do not pirate classical music! Help support the arts by letting musicians make a living.
This is brilliant. Degrees mean absolutely nothing. I have a Bachelor of Cello Performance from NYU, and quite a high GPA. However, I have never once been asked about it. Now, nine months after graduation I am being paid very well as a UNIX systems administrator and part time programmer for an internet company. Money is easy to get, easy to save, and easy to lose. Nothing to lose sleep over as far as I am concerned. This program is great for people like me who have taught themselves computer science from books while riding the subway to school and work. I have done pretty well, but without knowing everything in advance it is difficult to build a curriculum for yourself, or to hold yourself accountable for what you have learned. I don't want to go baclk and get another bachelor's degree-been there, done that, and I especially don't want to be in classes with a bunch of youngsters learning to drink. This is exactly what I have been looking for, and you can bet I will be applying next year.
I got severe tendinitis in my wrists from playing cello, which pretty much ended that career. I have been born again as a programmer/unix guy.
I don't have any problems with typing at all, mostly because I never learned how to type. I can type nearly as fast as people with proper typing skills, but I have no pain in my wrists whatsoever because there is aboslutely no pattern to my typing and i use the big muscles of my arms much more than the tendons in my wrists/fingers.
Any standard keyboard works fine for me, though I do have a terrible time with those ergo keyboards. Basically, if your wrists are so destroyed that you can't type anymore-just try to forget how and you will be ok.
I think this has got to be the first comparison i have seen that doesn't focus on windows being so much easier to configure and its wonderful gui. Score one for them because the gui is irrelevant for the server, it does nothing but east resources.
I also really enjoyed the paragraph about the "subversive use of linux". I set up linux/samba on a dell where i had to blow away nt server first. my boss is still unaware that it is not an nt machine:)
I have a sprint pcs phone(the Qualcomm QCP-1960), and have been using it with my laptop. Couple of things(all prices and services are for New York City):
1. The laptop connection kit costs $99 in NYC.
2. The service is much more expensive. As opposed to $70 for 700 minutes of voice, i now pay $130 for 800 minutes of voice/data.
3. Getting connections is iffy at best, both using the minibrowser or using the phone as a modem. connections fail about 2/3s of the time, though i haven't ever had it drop once i get connected.
4. The minibrowser is totally useless aside from checking weather and sports scores. The UI is also really ambiguous(somebody port lynx to this phone please!!!)
Slashdot Mirror
I work for a software company that does ERP systems for some niche industries - both the writing and the implementing. All of the business logic is written in Cobol.
.net affect us? Nope. Many ERP systems providers are hugely interested in platform independence. All new development work is being done with EJBs using IBM Websphere's Enterprise suite(which includes CICS as the TXSeries product). I don't think many companies who service large businesses ever want to be locked in to a Microsoft solution, or have to maintain parallel development efforts to support their latest technology.
Of our clients, nearly all of them used to be on mainframe systems. Over the years, most of them migrated to UNIX(either HPUX, AIX, or Solaris for us). We haven't done a new mainframe implementation in years - all of our current work is on UNIX(bigger more knowledgable clients) and Windows(smaller and much less savvy clients).
We use Microfocus NetExpress on Windows or ServerExpress on UNIX and have for years. We use either Tuxedo or CICS for a TP(yes CICS does run on Windows and UNIX). Not quite as safe as a mainframe, but we've had large UNIX sites experience nothing but small amounts of scheduled downtime over the years.
Now, will
Dakota means friend in at least one Sioux dialect.
The Sioux happen to be the people who inhabited the place before we built Fargo there. The only stupid thing about the name is the north and south prepended to it, especialy since there is basically no logical reason for the division(east and west Dakota would make more sense geographically and culturally).
I like native names-Denali(Great One) is much more fitting than Mt McKinley(renamed to increase voter name recognition) for instance.
Yes, I have.
Communities unfortunately don't seem to work very well for technology sites. There simply isn't enough reason for people to want to know each other. I read slashdot to check up on news, to learn things, and to get a good laugh. I don't have much interest in meeting people here face to face, or having them know who I am. That is why I almost always lurk.
I am very involved with a rock climbing related website with about 600 users, maybe 100 of which log in nearly every day. Those people have become some of my best friends. We are there to learn from each other and also for the occasional holy war(replace vi and emacs with sport and trad and the arguments are very similar). Beyond that, I've met a lot of climbing partners through the site and also learned people I had climbed with for years were the same person I was occasionally getting so angry with in the discussion forum.
There are several things that separate a forum like that and slashdot.
First, it is smaller and much more easily manageable. The usenet group rec.climbing is much bigger and a lot more of a tight-knit community than slashdot, but it is still hostile and faceless by comparison. I know most of the regular posters-I can associate a name with a face, etc. I also know a lot of the people who don't post so often. When it gets down to it, I really know probably 30% of the regular users of the site-whether I have met them in person or just through many regular interactions.
On slashdot, I don't know many people from anything aside from their posts and occasionally following links to their websites. Maybe a few dozen total. When you figure the percentage of a 100 or so people from 250K+ userid's, you get a situation more like knowing coworkers and people in the news in a large city.
Second, with a smaller community that is bound by a fairly obscure commonality like rock climbing at a specific place, you just do not attract trolls. A few show up from time to time, but there isn't really any incentive for them to be there, so they go away quickly.
Third, we do occasionally see each other. We mostly all met and became friends through the site, so I do consider it a virtual community-but it is not a pure electronic abstraction.
The only sweeping generalization you can make about the net that holds true is that you can't make a sweeping generalization. There are plenty of very community-oriented sites out there. They are just built on community and not "we're on the net, lets get lots of people here to talk"
andrew
Uhh, maybe in an affluent part of Minneapolis they won't fail.
I lived in Washington Heights in New York City last year during our blackout-which was 18 hours during 100+ heat, and a few more days of very spotty service. Its one of the poorest parts of Manhattan, and most everything in the supermarkets rotted-and *everything* in all of the small mom and pop stores that made living up there worthwhile.
All this in Manhattan-which one would assume has one of the biggest power grids in the US.
My favorite comment was in some webobjects objective c code i had to look through. The snippet was inherited from a guy who just took off and went to germany one day.
There was this awful loop that was nested about 5 levels deep, completely obfuscating variable names, seemed to serve no purpose, etc.
The only comment in sight was a one-liner before the loop that said in German "I need to get some more cigarettes".
We never did figure out what the loop did, and weeded it out of the next build.
If Johnny were downloading, say, Beethoven or Mozart
Wait, hold on a second here. Yes, Beethoven and Mozart are dead and can receive no more royalties, but the performers certainly do. Actually piracy would hurt classical musicians much more than bands like Metallica because a successful classical cd rarely sells more than a few thousand copies.
Also keep in mind that in an orchestral performance there are 50+ musicians to be paid.
Please do not pirate classical music! Help support the arts by letting musicians make a living.
This is brilliant. Degrees mean absolutely nothing. I have a Bachelor of Cello Performance from NYU, and quite a high GPA. However, I have never once been asked about it. Now, nine months after graduation I am being paid very well as a UNIX systems administrator and part time programmer for an internet company. Money is easy to get, easy to save, and easy to lose. Nothing to lose sleep over as far as I am concerned. This program is great for people like me who have taught themselves computer science from books while riding the subway to school and work. I have done pretty well, but without knowing everything in advance it is difficult to build a curriculum for yourself, or to hold yourself accountable for what you have learned. I don't want to go baclk and get another bachelor's degree-been there, done that, and I especially don't want to be in classes with a bunch of youngsters learning to drink. This is exactly what I have been looking for, and you can bet I will be applying next year.
I got severe tendinitis in my wrists from playing cello, which pretty much ended that career. I have been born again as a programmer/unix guy.
I don't have any problems with typing at all, mostly because I never learned how to type. I can type nearly as fast as people with proper typing skills, but I have no pain in my wrists whatsoever because there is aboslutely no pattern to my typing and i use the big muscles of my arms much more than the tendons in my wrists/fingers.
Any standard keyboard works fine for me, though I do have a terrible time with those ergo keyboards.
Basically, if your wrists are so destroyed that you can't type anymore-just try to forget how and you will be ok.
I think this has got to be the first comparison i have seen that doesn't focus on windows being so much easier to configure and its wonderful gui. Score one for them because the gui is irrelevant for the server, it does nothing but east resources.
:)
I also really enjoyed the paragraph about the "subversive use of linux". I set up linux/samba on a dell where i had to blow away nt server first. my boss is still unaware that it is not an nt machine
Not to nitpick, but Roblimo never said anything about not using his credit card-it was the cat who reported the article.
i wanted to move to sydney, but every IT job i could find on the net said for australian residents only.
do you see many foreign(american) coders there? do you know of any companies that will hire american coders/sysadmins?
I have a sprint pcs phone(the Qualcomm QCP-1960), and have been using it with my laptop. Couple of things(all prices and services are for New York City):
1. The laptop connection kit costs $99 in NYC.
2. The service is much more expensive. As opposed to $70 for 700 minutes of voice, i now pay $130 for 800 minutes of voice/data.
3. Getting connections is iffy at best, both using the minibrowser or using the phone as a modem. connections fail about 2/3s of the time, though i haven't ever had it drop once i get connected.
4. The minibrowser is totally useless aside from checking weather and sports scores. The UI is also really ambiguous(somebody port lynx to this phone please!!!)
5. And yes, it doesn't connect above 14.4