It made undergrad a miserable slog - and how stupid do you (or me, in this case) have to be to make your undergrad years suck, just so you can work at a job you hate?
Man, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't even try to talk some sense into myself - I'd just bring a baseball bat...
On the bright side, it gave just the right air of desperate enthusiasm to my quest for Grad School admission to make me a compelling candidate, despite the fact that I was coming from a totally unrelated field.
Of course, I'm focused on Mac development now, so I may still need that bat...
The day, say, Hungary turns their incredible lead in mathematics education (to name just one) into some sort of industrial/political/social/other endeavor that can impact the US by turning something we hold as 'ours' on its head, Americans will wake up - because such a turnover would mean a big impact on our lifestyle.
Scientific breakthroughs (or, in this case, science education) take some time to push through to impact mainstream culture - the US space program got going in a big way in the early 1960's, but the huge impact it had took a long time to show up in 'public' goods, but it is still showing up there. I would expect that some of the nations who out-educate their kids will likely give us quite the ass-whomping in the next few decades in some areas, at which point we will do what we Americans always do when our asses are lit on fire - overreact, by either re-educating the youth or sending them off to conquer those uppity smarty-pants foreign geeky countries. Present circumstances notwithstanding, I'm betting we'll go with education.
I will welcome it - the best lessons are the hardest learned. For example, gas in my state (IL) just topped $3 per gallon. All my SUV-driving peers are whining like you wouldn't believe. I'm hoping gas hits $7 per gallon. We had the same problem in the early 1970's, and after OPEC shafted our oil-dependant asses, we pulled our heads out and started developing better fuel efficient vehicles - voila! 2 years of pain, 15 years of prosperity and less pollution. I look out my window and see Hummers rumbling through downtown Chicago, and I think, "Gee, I've seen this before."
Damn, not only do we ride the short bus here in the US, but we get back on it every chance we get!
Fear for our future? Nah - take a drink, watch the fireworks and wait for the idiots to drown in their own ignorance.
Question for you hardcore CS people (i.e., not 'programmers' but 'computer scientists') - would you consider it better that students take CS classes in order to better relate their 'real' profession to the benefits of CS theory (i.e., engineering, problem solving and reasoning skills) and possible application, or is this actually a problem - we are lacking Computer Scientists per se, who presumably (?) are more focused on engineering than application.
I am in an MS program now, but not to become an engineer, but to apply CS techniques and programming skill to my (current)professional domain. Do we need more 'pure' scientists? Is this 'diversity' an example of students not taking the 'science' end of CS seriously enough, IYO?
I am probably missing some of the finer points here about the nature of Comp. Scientists, since I am not one, so educate, don't assassinate...
Saw a piece on the BBC recently covering just this. Americans do a lot more private giving than public. *I* give to charity, but I don't trust my government (I am an American, born and raised) to use my tax money for charity because they are incredibly bad at it. In the US, our congress (directly elected reps. of the citizenry) are subject to lobbying - anyone in the US can directly approach our reps and ask for something, usually money, which the rep can then obligingly provide by inserting the appropriate language into the next bill to cross his/her desk. Such an amendment is then permanent (unless the President excercises the 'line item veto' - unlikely) and passes with the legislation. This is why you see funding for a public park in BuFu, Iowa inserted into a defense spending bill. Guess who does more 'lobbying - individuals or large corporations with offices in Washington, DC? Large 'charities' also lobby our congress, just like private corporations do. I would rather donate directly, rather than trusting our government (especially the present administration) to use funds appropriately. Stem cell research, anyone? (Not charity, but same concept.) Americans do give - we just don't trust our government to do it.
We also afford preferential tax treatment to charities and offer tax incentives for citizens to donate.
BTW - the US is not ultra-religious, we are just big and diverse. The fundy nut-jobs have monopolized the press recently, courtesy of their progress in national politics. These things come in cycles, especially here. Relax - it could be worse, they could have nukes... wait a minute...
Again, my point is only that Mac users are less price-sensitive than X86. Someone who was truly price-sensitive would go to X86 and buy a beige box, not an eMac or Mini.
Even the Mini is more expensive than a similarly equipped X86 box.
If price is less of a consideration for Mac users, as is my contention, then piracy is less attractive.
My point was simply that using piracy as a distribution or marketing method is not likely to help them, as Apple's core users have already demonstrated that they are less price-sensitive than X86 users. Witness - when Quark came out for the PC, some of the users went to the cheaper platform. Some did not. What does that tell you about the ones who stayed? The ones who 'needed' a Mac for a particular Mac-only software title left as the PC took off, and at this point, is there any reason to stay with Macs just for application 'X'? No - one of the biggest complaints against Macs is that there are relatively fewer software packages written for it. So why do the core users stay? They like the whole "Apple way".
PS - I did not say, nor do I believe, that Mac users are morally superior to Windows users, nor do I suggest that Macs don't have any problems with virii and such, and sure, there's piracy. Both platforms have these problems, and they are not relevant to this thread.
What is relevant is what the 'core users' of each 'system' consider a priority: lower price sensitivity in Mac users implies price incentives will be less effective, in general, for Mac users than they will be for windows users. Hence, 'free' software is less likely to entice the Mac users, in general.
And yes, I've only been a Mac owner since 1998. So? Using a system for 7 years, I *might* have learned something about it. Maybe not as much as some, but hey... if it helps, I first started using Macs in 1989-92 when I was a newspaper reporter, then assistant editor. We ran Quark. I liked them then, too, but I couldn't afford one of my own. I had to wait until I got a real job to 'switch' my personal machine.
I suggest the following:
Java. Teaches C-like syntax, but with objects, is platform-independant, so you can show them how to use Macs, X86, etc. and intorduce the idea of cross-platform development. Plus using Swing, you can share the pain of UI design up front.
After Java, they can move up to C, if they are interested, or go whole-hog into Assembler.
My $.02.
I 'switched' to Mac when they came out with OSX. I ran every version of it since on my Tangerine iBook (aka 'the toilet seat') and just got a new iMac G5. I discovered something alluded to here on/. and in other forums, but which I think bears repeating.
Mac users, the hard-core, loyal buyers (including yours truly now) are not as price-sensitive as other consumers. Yah, I have a Linux box running, I kicked the M$ habit years ago, but I will cheerfully buy Mac hardware and software until my wife pries my cold dead hand off my trak-ball.
Why you ask?
Everything 'just works', the development environment rocks, the hardware is well-designed (iBook is 8 yrs old and the screen color is still perfect) and just looks damn good. My wife made me toss all the beige boxen, and she wasn't too hot over even the coolest of the higher-end cases on NewEgg. I got the iMac, and she's happy.
Apple doesn't want M$ users who will pirate anything they can, download crapware, malware and any virus that comes along, and put off upgrading for as long as possible. They don't want the uber-hobbyists who order components online and put their own systems together. Apple doesn't want the mega-gamers, either. Yet.They want the users who are frustrated by the lack of deep quality in M$ products on the Windows platform and the (perceived) lack of end-user-orientation on Linux or *BSD.
They know their strengths - a soup-to-nuts great user experience - and they play to them. Apple's core users don't need or want Warez. We'd rather buy the best tools we can from a vendor who has shown themselves willing and able to produce quality products at reasonable price/performance point.
Having come from a community college myself, I had my own pet theory - the CC I attended was close to the University I wanted to attend. I noticed two groups of students much more represented at CC than at the University: - University students who had partied themselves out of scool and were working really hard to get back into U. - Older, returning students who were focused on learning. Also, the community college was focused only on the students. I had much better classroom experience there than at the University. As a relative of mine put it (she's a PhD and teaches at a Univ. in NY) - "You know what a University is? It's what a College turns into when it stops giving a sh*t about the students." I didn't have enough time to get better demographic data on the CC students, or I'd have loved to explore the details.
I also think, based on my own public school experience, that treating education like factory work, which is how we do it in the US, is not effective. My experience - most of the kids who acted up in school were more bored than anything else. They were not engaged or interested.
Of course, I went to school in the 'burbs - urban schools are likely a different story, from what I've heard.
Personally, I'd like to change the way we fund schools - right now, in the US, we use property taxes. So, if a lot of poor people live close together, you have low property values = low taxes = no $ for education AND crowding.
Get some standards in the schools, then fund them appropriately. And restrict the proportion of the budget to be spent on 'overhead'. Teachers and classroom facilities #1, all else after.
It worked in the late 1950's and early '60s - kids thought math and science were cool and became engineers. Now, we seem to think (stock or bond) trading or (real estate, mortgage) brokering are 'cool' - I work with some of both, and the work is dull and not in any way 'cool', but $ talks...
OK, my karma is Excellent, so I might as well lose some...
I often see stories like this - "XYZ industry needs to attract people who don't look like the ones in it now..." My own (accounting and finance) has the same 'problem'. After spending a semester doing a research project on the subject of 'minorities' in higher education, I found the following, based on stats from the US Dept. of Education. This was as of the end of the 1990's, but I doubt much has changed. 1. 'Minorities' as classified by the USDOE perform college level classes as well as 'non-minorities' EXCEPT when race is a factor in admissions (i.e., affirmative action). Where that happens, the grade differential and drop-out rates go way up. The difference was HUGE - from a 2% difference (insignificant) to something like 17% (IIRC). 2. Poverty had a huge correlation with both college grades and race. Briefly, 'minorities' were more likely to be poor, and poor students were more likely to do badly in college. There was some good data on transfers from community colleges showing students who came from poor backgrounds and went through a good community college had better academic achievement at a four year college or university, on average, when compared with students who started at the four-year institution. (EVERY racial group showed better-than-average grades coming from a CC). The problem was not race. It was lack of education caused by poverty. Poor people of any race performed equally badly in college level courses. Stats on poor 'non-minorities' were almost non-existant, however, since there were no programs set up to get them into educational institutions they were not competitive to attend. Basically, studies of race on campus were all guilty of selective sampling. A sample of racial minorities on campus included poor, under-prepared students; a sample of non-minorities, who were not subject to preferential admission for less academically qualified students, generally did not. My conclusion was, solve the education problems (that is, access to good education and a supportive home environment) facing poor kids and you are far more likely to solve the inequity problem. That, and putting students in an environment they were not ready to function in did far more harm than good.
As an aside, you will also disproportionately help minority students, since they are more likely to be poor in the first place, but you won't be doing it via an overtly racial-preference policy (affirmative action). I should also note, such a non-racial-preference approach is also consistent with Title VII of the civil Rights Act of 1964, so it shouldn't get anyones' hackles up. Disparate Impact was put into place for just these sorts of circumstances (IMHO, based on my reading of it - I actually saved my copy and took the trouble to Re-RTFB as I wrote this).
As far as 'minorities in gaming' - well, get more students prepared to go to college and study 'hard' disciplines (CS, Math, etc.) and you won't have to care about whether they are 'minorities' or not. The students will be there.
LUGs are great, but speaking from experience in my hometown (Chicago, IL) it is very hard to find ACTIVE LUGs, and the active ones out there are generally not focused on end-user or business-specific issues. I've met some great people and learned a lot from them, but I fear that the learning went one way - I picked up a lot of LINUX info, just listening to these people, but when the conversation went to areas I actually knew something about (small business budgeting, end-user training / interface) the interest level dropped. No surprise there - why would a computer scientist want to talk about the technology equivalent of cleaning the toilet and walking the dog? I think the problem is that there just aren't that many people 'in business' who particularly care about OSS or using 'custom' development to improve our business process. I know my current and previous employers don't. That, and let's face it - the key thing that the community offers business is the ability to solve your own problems, but those problems (facing companies) may be tricky, but they are not terribly interesting. If you doubt this, how many jokes about "writing accounting applications in COBOL" have you heard, when describing dead-end software work?
Bowling for columbine was not, in my opinion, 'anti gun'. The thing I got from the film that I think transcends anything Moore has caught hell for, is the sheer magnitude of the effect fear has on a culture. Those of you who spent adolescence in a state of hormonal turmoil whipped by abject fear, you know exactly what I mean. American media subscribe to the 'it bleeds, it leads' and as a result, despite decreasing rates of violent crime (go google it) from 1970-2000, reporting on crime went way up. Consequence - we don't let our kids play outside unless there is a fleet of adults around, because 'something bad' might happen. And it might, but it is no more likely today than it was in 1975, when I was running around outside alone. A kid today would be safer than I was, but fear doesn't let us (Americans) accept that. I'm curious what expats living in the US think.
Thanks for the reply - I appreciate it. What do you think of: 1. XML vs. flat ASCII files - I see lots of "XML is really treacherous/tricky" posts, but not having worked with it much from a planning/development side, I miss the context. 2. Scalability - i.e., I set up 200 remote sites, then need to roll up the data - bigger files, or time to go DB?
Okay, thanks for these - this was one of the most useful posts I received for my original question.
One follow-on question, why do you say "XML is your best friend and worst enemy" ? I had planned on using XML to move data into, out of, between and across program elements. I also have just started working with XML, so your comment filled me with some dread.
This was actually my first thought. Then I thought of using an XML file. Then I thought "I'm new at this - there has to be some reason NOT to do that. Post to/. and see what people with more experience think."
I like your idea - my question, does your suggestion come from field work, or are you, like me, looking for a better solution yourself, and may be, like me, unaware of the drawbacks?
Corporations are unnatural, and they could certainly use some changes, but they serve a good purpose - to encourage innovation and preserve a business. Yes, I said encourage. If I form a corporation and am moderately successful, then I get sued by XX larger corporation, or suffer a business decline and go bankrupt, I won't lose my house - my losses are limited to my equity. This provides an incentive for individuals to take risks. Getting rid of corporations and the protections therein would basically mean that only someone who could afford to take the risk of large losses would start a business on their own - meaning the rich. I think the problem is with publicly held corporations - those whose owners (shareholders) have little or nothing to do with operations and may not even understand what the company actually does. Heck, different parts of the same company might not understand what the other parts do. I had a surreal moment a few years back, when the chief investment officer of the firm I worked for explained to me that we had to make a bad investment decision now (sell an asset that had not reached full earning potential) rather than waiting 6 months and selling it for 30% more - which even with time value of money was a no-brainer. His explanation, "If we miss our Q1 analyst projections, the shareholders will fire my a$$ and replace me with someone who will hit the numbers." My reply, "...but it's a bad business decision, we're throwing money away." His answer, "Yes, but the shareholders don't understand that, even thought it's their money. That's why they gave it to us." I left shortly thereafter.
First, how "academics" view anything is not my concern. Second, I have been in business for myself, and worked for others. I made money in both modes. Third, I am a little confused - you seem to argue that creatives drive the economy (I agree) but that "you can't eat creativity or sleep under a product" and go on to talk about reducing overhead - meaning, essentially, you need businesspeople to efficiently bring a product to market. So, do we like businesspeople for helping up get our products and services to market, or do we dislike them because they exploit us?
As far as reducing sales, marketing and management as far as possible, BFOTO - why do you think companies lay off pretty much anyone they can? This is patently obvious. As for the Kearns example, how representative is his case? How good were his patents/contracts? I'll stipulate your interpretation - he got screwed. But, I suggest that his example is not typical - if creators were commonly screwed out of their work, the incentives to create would basically disappear, and I see little widespread evidence of that. One extreme case hardly makes a trend.
I stand corrected. I had seen an interview with Jobs where he talked about the visit and the "6 things he saw there" that he took, and he went to pains to say he only understood 2-3 of them at the time. I don't recall him mentioning Raskin, but that was probably my memory gone bad.
Thanks for the reply and correction - and the Raskin link. Good reading!
I disagree. "Business" is merely a mechanism by which a provider of a good or service works out how to sustainably provide same to the market in such a way that he/she/they can skim some value out of the process to survive. Like a catalyst. Creativity without such a mechanism cannot provide value to the market in a survivable way - the artists needs a studio to sell, or must create his/her own studio. What you call exploitation is one of the following: 1. Bad negotiating skills on the creative side. 2. Unwillingness of the creative to acknowledge that their skills and creativity are not so special that someone else won't provide them for the ask price. 3. Unwillingness of the creative to market his/her product themselves, and so uses a third party to market the good/service, and then gripes about the cost of their own laziness/inability to sell. If you don't like the deal, don't make it. Your employer cannot take advantage of you or your creativity unless you let them.
When I RTFA, I noticed something that struck home - the author discusses the difference between a company being held 'accountable' by customers vs. shareholders. I've frequently seen good managers make decisions they knew were bad, because the stock market is fundamentally concerned with the lowest common denominator - it doesn't matter if you can make more money for the year by taking an action that will cause earnings to miss expectations this quarter, but the markets will punish you. Your customers, however, only care about how good your product is - you have to make the best decisions you can at every step, or your product will fail. Look at large software firms who cling depserately to a shipping deadline... and ship buggy product.
Before you mod this offtopic - creatives are about doing a good job. There is a conflict doing such a job in a public vs. private firm. The article points this up, and I emphasize it. Go redundant!
A possible answer - if you are a singularly creative, producing person, hire a 'do-er' or team thereof who can take what you set up and explain and grind it out. Assuming you have the means to do that... Otherwise, try setting self-imposed limits, e.g., "I am not allowed to do (X very nice, imaginitive thing) until I implement (Y grindingly dull job done).
Works for me, but YMMV.
BTW - you may repeat great ides of the past, but hey - your timing might be better than the earlier implementation was. Think about all the stories of Steve Jobs seeing GUI, email and OO programming at Xerox PARC - he has even said, he didn't originate them, he implemented them and got them out for use when the time was right. (OK, many of the concepts were implemented by others along the way, but you get the point)
Ok, you are my manager. Here's where you can start... 1. Judge me by my work, not be how many hours I put in. You wrote the job description - if I can do the work you need in X hours, why should I hang around my cubicle for X+n hours, especially when I use 'extra' time to try and figure out better ways to do our job, which you ignore? 2. Substance trumps form. This applies to not only work, but policy enforcement. Telling me that we use XX product, and because XX cost $YY and took KK consultants ZZ years to implement, it can't suck simply tells me the management team didn't know what kind of pit they were digging. My advice, to get out of the hole - stop digging first! 3. I'll dress the way you want me to and conduct myself by your standards of 'professionalism', as long as you don't treat me like a three-year-old until I give you a reason. Then, just fire me - don't fsck with me. 4. Don't fire people for exchanging their own information - i.e., if we want to talk about salary at lunch, that is our business, period, especially if we aren't on company property. 5. Recognize the utter stupidity of office politics, and no, that jerk from Finance will not become less of a jerk if I learn to golf so I can make nice-nice with him. In fact, it will get you sued and me fired when I put a five-iron through his thorax. 6. Keep the HR group away from me. I do NOT WANT another flier about the suicide hotline, nor do I care about our new marketing effort in Outer Namibia, and as far as Frank Jones, the new VP of Operations, New York, is concerned, re: promotion, well, good for him - I'll never meet him, and I don't think he wants to hear about my promotion either. Nor do I want to know about the class offered for "all professionals" held in San Francisco, that I can't go to because I am either not high up enough, or I don't sell for a living. You expect my work to be relevant to what we do. I expect the same sense of appropriateness and relevance as you do. 7. I realize we have a fiduciary duty to our clients. If you are really worried about my taking advantage of proprietary information, by all means, call the feds. In the meantime, my wife's 401K is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS - we have no say in how it is invested, the trustee handles that. You should know that, being a large international bank. 8. Before you give me any static about how overworked any/everyone is, and how short on resources we are, how about firing that useless sack of cr@p you complain about so loudly at after-hours work functions? I know he's been here 15 years, and it would make upper management wonder "how did this bag of cr@p last so long?" when you have to justify canning the id10t, but trust me, it will be worth it. 9. Offering benefits and then implementing workplace policies that make it impossible to use them is the same as not offering them, except a whole lot more annoying. ("Gee, we would pay for your night-school classes, but we'll need you to work overtime for the next few months, then as needed after that - you're a professional, so I know you'll get the job done. What? No, we don't pay overtime or comp time, are you kidding?") Odd, how this sudden overtime need hit after I applied for tuition reimbursement... 10. Mandatory fun isn't. Please note: The above have been aggregated from several different employers, so if you happen to know who I work for, and are a member of management, read #11... 11. Respect my privacy outside of work. Unless I slander you, flaming me at work over what you think I may have implied is unprofessional - yes, that word can apply to management too!
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent and grandparent up.
I know. I did it. It was stupid.
It made undergrad a miserable slog - and how stupid do you (or me, in this case) have to be to make your undergrad years suck, just so you can work at a job you hate?
Man, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't even try to talk some sense into myself - I'd just bring a baseball bat...
On the bright side, it gave just the right air of desperate enthusiasm to my quest for Grad School admission to make me a compelling candidate, despite the fact that I was coming from a totally unrelated field.
Of course, I'm focused on Mac development now, so I may still need that bat...
The day, say, Hungary turns their incredible lead in mathematics education (to name just one) into some sort of industrial/political/social/other endeavor that can impact the US by turning something we hold as 'ours' on its head, Americans will wake up - because such a turnover would mean a big impact on our lifestyle.
Scientific breakthroughs (or, in this case, science education) take some time to push through to impact mainstream culture - the US space program got going in a big way in the early 1960's, but the huge impact it had took a long time to show up in 'public' goods, but it is still showing up there. I would expect that some of the nations who out-educate their kids will likely give us quite the ass-whomping in the next few decades in some areas, at which point we will do what we Americans always do when our asses are lit on fire - overreact, by either re-educating the youth or sending them off to conquer those uppity smarty-pants foreign geeky countries. Present circumstances notwithstanding, I'm betting we'll go with education.
I will welcome it - the best lessons are the hardest learned. For example, gas in my state (IL) just topped $3 per gallon. All my SUV-driving peers are whining like you wouldn't believe. I'm hoping gas hits $7 per gallon. We had the same problem in the early 1970's, and after OPEC shafted our oil-dependant asses, we pulled our heads out and started developing better fuel efficient vehicles - voila! 2 years of pain, 15 years of prosperity and less pollution. I look out my window and see Hummers rumbling through downtown Chicago, and I think, "Gee, I've seen this before."
Damn, not only do we ride the short bus here in the US, but we get back on it every chance we get!
Fear for our future? Nah - take a drink, watch the fireworks and wait for the idiots to drown in their own ignorance.
Question for you hardcore CS people (i.e., not 'programmers' but 'computer scientists') - would you consider it better that students take CS classes in order to better relate their 'real' profession to the benefits of CS theory (i.e., engineering, problem solving and reasoning skills) and possible application, or is this actually a problem - we are lacking Computer Scientists per se, who presumably (?) are more focused on engineering than application.
I am in an MS program now, but not to become an engineer, but to apply CS techniques and programming skill to my (current)professional domain. Do we need more 'pure' scientists? Is this 'diversity' an example of students not taking the 'science' end of CS seriously enough, IYO?
I am probably missing some of the finer points here about the nature of Comp. Scientists, since I am not one, so educate, don't assassinate...
Saw a piece on the BBC recently covering just this. Americans do a lot more private giving than public. *I* give to charity, but I don't trust my government (I am an American, born and raised) to use my tax money for charity because they are incredibly bad at it. In the US, our congress (directly elected reps. of the citizenry) are subject to lobbying - anyone in the US can directly approach our reps and ask for something, usually money, which the rep can then obligingly provide by inserting the appropriate language into the next bill to cross his/her desk. Such an amendment is then permanent (unless the President excercises the 'line item veto' - unlikely) and passes with the legislation. This is why you see funding for a public park in BuFu, Iowa inserted into a defense spending bill. Guess who does more 'lobbying - individuals or large corporations with offices in Washington, DC? Large 'charities' also lobby our congress, just like private corporations do. I would rather donate directly, rather than trusting our government (especially the present administration) to use funds appropriately. Stem cell research, anyone? (Not charity, but same concept.) Americans do give - we just don't trust our government to do it.
We also afford preferential tax treatment to charities and offer tax incentives for citizens to donate.
BTW - the US is not ultra-religious, we are just big and diverse. The fundy nut-jobs have monopolized the press recently, courtesy of their progress in national politics. These things come in cycles, especially here. Relax - it could be worse, they could have nukes... wait a minute...
Again, my point is only that Mac users are less price-sensitive than X86. Someone who was truly price-sensitive would go to X86 and buy a beige box, not an eMac or Mini.
Even the Mini is more expensive than a similarly equipped X86 box.
If price is less of a consideration for Mac users, as is my contention, then piracy is less attractive.
"Apple's CORE USERS don't need or want Warez."
Yes, I am generalizing. Deliberately.
My point was simply that using piracy as a distribution or marketing method is not likely to help them, as Apple's core users have already demonstrated that they are less price-sensitive than X86 users. Witness - when Quark came out for the PC, some of the users went to the cheaper platform. Some did not. What does that tell you about the ones who stayed? The ones who 'needed' a Mac for a particular Mac-only software title left as the PC took off, and at this point, is there any reason to stay with Macs just for application 'X'? No - one of the biggest complaints against Macs is that there are relatively fewer software packages written for it. So why do the core users stay? They like the whole "Apple way".
PS - I did not say, nor do I believe, that Mac users are morally superior to Windows users, nor do I suggest that Macs don't have any problems with virii and such, and sure, there's piracy. Both platforms have these problems, and they are not relevant to this thread.
What is relevant is what the 'core users' of each 'system' consider a priority: lower price sensitivity in Mac users implies price incentives will be less effective, in general, for Mac users than they will be for windows users. Hence, 'free' software is less likely to entice the Mac users, in general.
And yes, I've only been a Mac owner since 1998. So? Using a system for 7 years, I *might* have learned something about it. Maybe not as much as some, but hey... if it helps, I first started using Macs in 1989-92 when I was a newspaper reporter, then assistant editor. We ran Quark. I liked them then, too, but I couldn't afford one of my own. I had to wait until I got a real job to 'switch' my personal machine.
(Have cake) /\ (Eat cake) == false
I suggest the following: Java. Teaches C-like syntax, but with objects, is platform-independant, so you can show them how to use Macs, X86, etc. and intorduce the idea of cross-platform development. Plus using Swing, you can share the pain of UI design up front. After Java, they can move up to C, if they are interested, or go whole-hog into Assembler. My $.02.
I 'switched' to Mac when they came out with OSX. I ran every version of it since on my Tangerine iBook (aka 'the toilet seat') and just got a new iMac G5. I discovered something alluded to here on /. and in other forums, but which I think bears repeating.
Mac users, the hard-core, loyal buyers (including yours truly now) are not as price-sensitive as other consumers. Yah, I have a Linux box running, I kicked the M$ habit years ago, but I will cheerfully buy Mac hardware and software until my wife pries my cold dead hand off my trak-ball.
Why you ask?
Everything 'just works', the development environment rocks, the hardware is well-designed (iBook is 8 yrs old and the screen color is still perfect) and just looks damn good. My wife made me toss all the beige boxen, and she wasn't too hot over even the coolest of the higher-end cases on NewEgg. I got the iMac, and she's happy.
Apple doesn't want M$ users who will pirate anything they can, download crapware, malware and any virus that comes along, and put off upgrading for as long as possible. They don't want the uber-hobbyists who order components online and put their own systems together. Apple doesn't want the mega-gamers, either. Yet.They want the users who are frustrated by the lack of deep quality in M$ products on the Windows platform and the (perceived) lack of end-user-orientation on Linux or *BSD.
They know their strengths - a soup-to-nuts great user experience - and they play to them. Apple's core users don't need or want Warez. We'd rather buy the best tools we can from a vendor who has shown themselves willing and able to produce quality products at reasonable price/performance point.
Having come from a community college myself, I had my own pet theory - the CC I attended was close to the University I wanted to attend. I noticed two groups of students much more represented at CC than at the University:
- University students who had partied themselves out of scool and were working really hard to get back into U.
- Older, returning students who were focused on learning.
Also, the community college was focused only on the students. I had much better classroom experience there than at the University. As a relative of mine put it (she's a PhD and teaches at a Univ. in NY) - "You know what a University is? It's what a College turns into when it stops giving a sh*t about the students."
I didn't have enough time to get better demographic data on the CC students, or I'd have loved to explore the details.
I also think, based on my own public school experience, that treating education like factory work, which is how we do it in the US, is not effective. My experience - most of the kids who acted up in school were more bored than anything else. They were not engaged or interested.
Of course, I went to school in the 'burbs - urban schools are likely a different story, from what I've heard.
Personally, I'd like to change the way we fund schools - right now, in the US, we use property taxes. So, if a lot of poor people live close together, you have low property values = low taxes = no $ for education AND crowding.
Get some standards in the schools, then fund them appropriately. And restrict the proportion of the budget to be spent on 'overhead'. Teachers and classroom facilities #1, all else after.
It worked in the late 1950's and early '60s - kids thought math and science were cool and became engineers. Now, we seem to think (stock or bond) trading or (real estate, mortgage) brokering are 'cool' - I work with some of both, and the work is dull and not in any way 'cool', but $ talks...
OK, my karma is Excellent, so I might as well lose some...
I often see stories like this - "XYZ industry needs to attract people who don't look like the ones in it now..." My own (accounting and finance) has the same 'problem'. After spending a semester doing a research project on the subject of 'minorities' in higher education, I found the following, based on stats from the US Dept. of Education. This was as of the end of the 1990's, but I doubt much has changed.
1. 'Minorities' as classified by the USDOE perform college level classes as well as 'non-minorities' EXCEPT when race is a factor in admissions (i.e., affirmative action). Where that happens, the grade differential and drop-out rates go way up. The difference was HUGE - from a 2% difference (insignificant) to something like 17% (IIRC).
2. Poverty had a huge correlation with both college grades and race. Briefly, 'minorities' were more likely to be poor, and poor students were more likely to do badly in college.
There was some good data on transfers from community colleges showing students who came from poor backgrounds and went through a good community college had better academic achievement at a four year college or university, on average, when compared with students who started at the four-year institution. (EVERY racial group showed better-than-average grades coming from a CC).
The problem was not race. It was lack of education caused by poverty. Poor people of any race performed equally badly in college level courses. Stats on poor 'non-minorities' were almost non-existant, however, since there were no programs set up to get them into educational institutions they were not competitive to attend. Basically, studies of race on campus were all guilty of selective sampling. A sample of racial minorities on campus included poor, under-prepared students; a sample of non-minorities, who were not subject to preferential admission for less academically qualified students, generally did not.
My conclusion was, solve the education problems (that is, access to good education and a supportive home environment) facing poor kids and you are far more likely to solve the inequity problem. That, and putting students in an environment they were not ready to function in did far more harm than good.
As an aside, you will also disproportionately help minority students, since they are more likely to be poor in the first place, but you won't be doing it via an overtly racial-preference policy (affirmative action). I should also note, such a non-racial-preference approach is also consistent with Title VII of the civil Rights Act of 1964, so it shouldn't get anyones' hackles up. Disparate Impact was put into place for just these sorts of circumstances (IMHO, based on my reading of it - I actually saved my copy and took the trouble to Re-RTFB as I wrote this).
As far as 'minorities in gaming' - well, get more students prepared to go to college and study 'hard' disciplines (CS, Math, etc.) and you won't have to care about whether they are 'minorities' or not. The students will be there.
My $0.02. Let the BBQ begin...
Try this - http://www.smallbizgeeks.com/phpBB2/ They are pretty active and there are good forums, some of which may interest you.
LUGs are great, but speaking from experience in my hometown (Chicago, IL) it is very hard to find ACTIVE LUGs, and the active ones out there are generally not focused on end-user or business-specific issues. I've met some great people and learned a lot from them, but I fear that the learning went one way - I picked up a lot of LINUX info, just listening to these people, but when the conversation went to areas I actually knew something about (small business budgeting, end-user training / interface) the interest level dropped. No surprise there - why would a computer scientist want to talk about the technology equivalent of cleaning the toilet and walking the dog? I think the problem is that there just aren't that many people 'in business' who particularly care about OSS or using 'custom' development to improve our business process. I know my current and previous employers don't. That, and let's face it - the key thing that the community offers business is the ability to solve your own problems, but those problems (facing companies) may be tricky, but they are not terribly interesting. If you doubt this, how many jokes about "writing accounting applications in COBOL" have you heard, when describing dead-end software work?
Bowling for columbine was not, in my opinion, 'anti gun'. The thing I got from the film that I think transcends anything Moore has caught hell for, is the sheer magnitude of the effect fear has on a culture. Those of you who spent adolescence in a state of hormonal turmoil whipped by abject fear, you know exactly what I mean. American media subscribe to the 'it bleeds, it leads' and as a result, despite decreasing rates of violent crime (go google it) from 1970-2000, reporting on crime went way up. Consequence - we don't let our kids play outside unless there is a fleet of adults around, because 'something bad' might happen. And it might, but it is no more likely today than it was in 1975, when I was running around outside alone. A kid today would be safer than I was, but fear doesn't let us (Americans) accept that. I'm curious what expats living in the US think.
Thanks for the reply - I appreciate it.
What do you think of:
1. XML vs. flat ASCII files - I see lots of "XML is really treacherous/tricky" posts, but not having worked with it much from a planning/development side, I miss the context.
2. Scalability - i.e., I set up 200 remote sites, then need to roll up the data - bigger files, or time to go DB?
Okay, thanks for these - this was one of the most useful posts I received for my original question.
One follow-on question, why do you say "XML is your best friend and worst enemy" ? I had planned on using XML to move data into, out of, between and across program elements. I also have just started working with XML, so your comment filled me with some dread.
Thanks for your insight -
This was actually my first thought. Then I thought of using an XML file. Then I thought "I'm new at this - there has to be some reason NOT to do that. Post to /. and see what people with more experience think."
I like your idea - my question, does your suggestion come from field work, or are you, like me, looking for a better solution yourself, and may be, like me, unaware of the drawbacks?
Thanks for the reply, BTW.
Corporations are unnatural, and they could certainly use some changes, but they serve a good purpose - to encourage innovation and preserve a business.
Yes, I said encourage. If I form a corporation and am moderately successful, then I get sued by XX larger corporation, or suffer a business decline and go bankrupt, I won't lose my house - my losses are limited to my equity. This provides an incentive for individuals to take risks. Getting rid of corporations and the protections therein would basically mean that only someone who could afford to take the risk of large losses would start a business on their own - meaning the rich.
I think the problem is with publicly held corporations - those whose owners (shareholders) have little or nothing to do with operations and may not even understand what the company actually does. Heck, different parts of the same company might not understand what the other parts do.
I had a surreal moment a few years back, when the chief investment officer of the firm I worked for explained to me that we had to make a bad investment decision now (sell an asset that had not reached full earning potential) rather than waiting 6 months and selling it for 30% more - which even with time value of money was a no-brainer.
His explanation, "If we miss our Q1 analyst projections, the shareholders will fire my a$$ and replace me with someone who will hit the numbers."
My reply, "...but it's a bad business decision, we're throwing money away."
His answer, "Yes, but the shareholders don't understand that, even thought it's their money. That's why they gave it to us."
I left shortly thereafter.
First, how "academics" view anything is not my concern.
Second, I have been in business for myself, and worked for others. I made money in both modes.
Third, I am a little confused - you seem to argue that creatives drive the economy (I agree) but that "you can't eat creativity or sleep under a product" and go on to talk about reducing overhead - meaning, essentially, you need businesspeople to efficiently bring a product to market. So, do we like businesspeople for helping up get our products and services to market, or do we dislike them because they exploit us?
As far as reducing sales, marketing and management as far as possible, BFOTO - why do you think companies lay off pretty much anyone they can? This is patently obvious.
As for the Kearns example, how representative is his case? How good were his patents/contracts? I'll stipulate your interpretation - he got screwed. But, I suggest that his example is not typical - if creators were commonly screwed out of their work, the incentives to create would basically disappear, and I see little widespread evidence of that. One extreme case hardly makes a trend.
I stand corrected. I had seen an interview with Jobs where he talked about the visit and the "6 things he saw there" that he took, and he went to pains to say he only understood 2-3 of them at the time. I don't recall him mentioning Raskin, but that was probably my memory gone bad. Thanks for the reply and correction - and the Raskin link. Good reading!
I disagree. "Business" is merely a mechanism by which a provider of a good or service works out how to sustainably provide same to the market in such a way that he/she/they can skim some value out of the process to survive. Like a catalyst. Creativity without such a mechanism cannot provide value to the market in a survivable way - the artists needs a studio to sell, or must create his/her own studio. What you call exploitation is one of the following:
1. Bad negotiating skills on the creative side.
2. Unwillingness of the creative to acknowledge that their skills and creativity are not so special that someone else won't provide them for the ask price.
3. Unwillingness of the creative to market his/her product themselves, and so uses a third party to market the good/service, and then gripes about the cost of their own laziness/inability to sell.
If you don't like the deal, don't make it. Your employer cannot take advantage of you or your creativity unless you let them.
When I RTFA, I noticed something that struck home - the author discusses the difference between a company being held 'accountable' by customers vs. shareholders. I've frequently seen good managers make decisions they knew were bad, because the stock market is fundamentally concerned with the lowest common denominator - it doesn't matter if you can make more money for the year by taking an action that will cause earnings to miss expectations this quarter, but the markets will punish you. Your customers, however, only care about how good your product is - you have to make the best decisions you can at every step, or your product will fail. Look at large software firms who cling depserately to a shipping deadline... and ship buggy product. Before you mod this offtopic - creatives are about doing a good job. There is a conflict doing such a job in a public vs. private firm. The article points this up, and I emphasize it. Go redundant!
A possible answer - if you are a singularly creative, producing person, hire a 'do-er' or team thereof who can take what you set up and explain and grind it out. Assuming you have the means to do that... Otherwise, try setting self-imposed limits, e.g., "I am not allowed to do (X very nice, imaginitive thing) until I implement (Y grindingly dull job done).
Works for me, but YMMV.
BTW - you may repeat great ides of the past, but hey - your timing might be better than the earlier implementation was. Think about all the stories of Steve Jobs seeing GUI, email and OO programming at Xerox PARC - he has even said, he didn't originate them, he implemented them and got them out for use when the time was right. (OK, many of the concepts were implemented by others along the way, but you get the point)
Cheers!
Ok, you are my manager. Here's where you can start...
1. Judge me by my work, not be how many hours I put in. You wrote the job description - if I can do the work you need in X hours, why should I hang around my cubicle for X+n hours, especially when I use 'extra' time to try and figure out better ways to do our job, which you ignore?
2. Substance trumps form. This applies to not only work, but policy enforcement. Telling me that we use XX product, and because XX cost $YY and took KK consultants ZZ years to implement, it can't suck simply tells me the management team didn't know what kind of pit they were digging. My advice, to get out of the hole - stop digging first!
3. I'll dress the way you want me to and conduct myself by your standards of 'professionalism', as long as you don't treat me like a three-year-old until I give you a reason. Then, just fire me - don't fsck with me.
4. Don't fire people for exchanging their own information - i.e., if we want to talk about salary at lunch, that is our business, period, especially if we aren't on company property.
5. Recognize the utter stupidity of office politics, and no, that jerk from Finance will not become less of a jerk if I learn to golf so I can make nice-nice with him. In fact, it will get you sued and me fired when I put a five-iron through his thorax.
6. Keep the HR group away from me. I do NOT WANT another flier about the suicide hotline, nor do I care about our new marketing effort in Outer Namibia, and as far as Frank Jones, the new VP of Operations, New York, is concerned, re: promotion, well, good for him - I'll never meet him, and I don't think he wants to hear about my promotion either. Nor do I want to know about the class offered for "all professionals" held in San Francisco, that I can't go to because I am either not high up enough, or I don't sell for a living. You expect my work to be relevant to what we do. I expect the same sense of appropriateness and relevance as you do.
7. I realize we have a fiduciary duty to our clients. If you are really worried about my taking advantage of proprietary information, by all means, call the feds. In the meantime, my wife's 401K is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS - we have no say in how it is invested, the trustee handles that. You should know that, being a large international bank.
8. Before you give me any static about how overworked any/everyone is, and how short on resources we are, how about firing that useless sack of cr@p you complain about so loudly at after-hours work functions? I know he's been here 15 years, and it would make upper management wonder "how did this bag of cr@p last so long?" when you have to justify canning the id10t, but trust me, it will be worth it.
9. Offering benefits and then implementing workplace policies that make it impossible to use them is the same as not offering them, except a whole lot more annoying. ("Gee, we would pay for your night-school classes, but we'll need you to work overtime for the next few months, then as needed after that - you're a professional, so I know you'll get the job done. What? No, we don't pay overtime or comp time, are you kidding?") Odd, how this sudden overtime need hit after I applied for tuition reimbursement...
10. Mandatory fun isn't.
Please note: The above have been aggregated from several different employers, so if you happen to know who I work for, and are a member of management, read #11...
11. Respect my privacy outside of work. Unless I slander you, flaming me at work over what you think I may have implied is unprofessional - yes, that word can apply to management too!
Listen to the podcast commentary for the last three episodes from last season, you should be fine.