Google probably has 10 to 100 times the number of servers Microsoft has, and they're all running Linux. Good luck with competing on your server farm, MS.
"...like a mystery-lover's dream vacation: a huge, mysterious old house with lots of long halls, secret bookcases, dark closets and creaky doors that, when you peer behind them, reveal wonderful secrets."
I dunno about you, but I don't want to "peer behind" any doors or closets if we're talking about a "mystery-lover's dream vacation."
As a programmer who started on the command line languages, I'd say starting with an interface centric language like VB might be a bad idea. I'll admit it is powerful, but that's a seperate issue from whether or not it is a good beginner language. It has several important beginner-friendly features.
1. Drag and drop interfaces remove the pain of being bogged down creating user interfaces. In traditional languages, this part can take up half your implementation time. 2. A great library that does 95% of the things you might need on a daily basis. In other langauges, these libraries exist, but they aren't necessarily part of the compiler or default installation of that language. 3. Hit F5 to immediately see how you're doing. Might take a little more work in other languages (such as FTP => browser => F5). 4. Auto code formatting to make all your code pretty like a pro
That said, I believe VB spoils you in certain ways that can be extremely detrimental. This is because programming in VB is nothing like programming in PHP/Perl/C++/Python/etc. Part of being a programmer is being able to pick up new languages down the road, which may be less managed than VB.NET. Going from HIGHLY managed code to unmanaged code, in my opinion, is much, MUCH more difficult than the other way around. There are many things a VB programmer may do by accident when programming in another language that could cause serious bugs or security holes simply because they are not used to covering all the bases the compiler would otherwise deal with. Additionally, the ease of the language may promote programmers to start coding without fully learning or understanding important programming principles (such as good class implementation, naming standards, common logic shortcuts, etc). This ultimately will produce a lower quality programmer in the long run.
So, yes, it is a good language for a beginner to pick up, but it also makes it harder to jump into a lower level language down the road. Of course, you want to be careful about what language you start at since if you start at assembly you'll probably kill yourself. C and C++ are traditional favorites, but only because they are the industry standard. I have programmed in many languages for many years, and I find PHP to be my favorite because it balances basic OO principles without overly complicating things (aka Java). It is also easy to learn and an easy step to or from C++. I have recommended many friends to try it as their first language and have seen positive results.
I wonder what being flagged means. Would their phone calls to other countries start getting monitored? This is the sort of thing that people should be using as an argument against wiretaps without a proper warrant.
MSN can't win the search war in its current form. MSN is not a search engine, it is a portal. Google is not a portal, it is a search engine. MSN can compete against Yahoo, another portal, but if it wants to win the search war it needs to ditch the content war and slash its MSN landing page into a minimalist design. That aint happening anytime soon, and, thus, this announcement is a bunch of balogna.
In a country where nationalistic pride makes consumers choose Japanese products first, the iPod is dominating. Sony's flash MP3 player share has actually shrunk since it was winning in 2004.
Why is this significant to US competitors? Because this is a wake up call to all of those companies trying to blame their failure to enter the market on Apple's FairPlay DRM scheme. Sorry, but iTunes has nothing to do with your failure either. Your products are way less attractive compared to the iPod, even if they have lower prices. The iPod is dominating because it is exactly what consumers are looking for at the perfect price point(s).
I don't have a blackberry, but I've been waiting all morning for this news. I was wondering if the judge was going to shut down Blackberry service. I was thinking about how the government (or legislature) would respond if RIM was given 30 days to shut down their service. And hopefully it woulda been, a first step to the patent system being overhauled.
I don't doubt a word you say if we're talking about the *current market*, but I'm not talking about today's standards.
A paradigm shift requires that certain standards change. Jobs and their requirements will adapt to this new market. It's not like there will be zero entry level IT positions left, as mentioned in TFA there will be a face-to-face industry surviving, such as consulting. And lots of people enter that industry and get training on site from their employer. Additionally, there will still be entry level programming positions if you are talking about companies like Oracle, Microsoft, or other software vendors that will never ever outsource their core business.
That said, your example is the perfect candidate for something that can and probably will be sent overseas somewhere. QA definitely does not require face to face time in most cases (except the software vendor case). The people who manage the QA people won't be in this country either. Instead, you'd be hiring people who deal with the person who manages the offshore QA manager. Same deal with programmers.
The nature of how the US IT industry works is going to change entirely. The jobs that exist today aren't going to be here in this country in 20 years, but new types of IT jobs that can't exist today will then. But the overall benefit to the economy will drive new venture funds and produce more opportunities *in the long run*.
Think about how many jobs machines replaced in production lines. That's a paradigm shift that resulted in new types of jobs opening up with the new levels of efficiency. Sure, lots of people lost their jobs *in the short term*, but over 50 years, we can say that was a good thing for the manufacturing industry. Thanks to that revolution, the engineering industry got even larger, manufacturing companies had far less human-error introduced into their products, less work-place accidents ocurred, and the cost of the end product dropped significantly.
Your analogy is interesting, but attacking the wrong point.
I'm a programmer, so let's not mistake my view as someone who doesn't understand where you're coming from.
However, I can see how a programmer is just part of a much larger business machine. Programmers are the very bottom level implementers of what management, project managers, and software architects spend months planning in any IT organization. As the position becomes commoditized, things change. I was pointing out that in due time, the educational and skill set bar rises and the lowest common denominator changes to something that requires more skills and more education.
You don't need to work in a Chinese sweat shop to be able to design, ship, market, and sell clothes manufactured there. Think about which job requires more education: an "entry level" programmer or an "entry level" factory worker.
Only now are countries like India catching up to us. Why is it we Americans can even sit here complaining about losing entry level programming positions when some countries don't even HAVE an IT industry? That's right, it's because our educational and technological standards are much higher so we have opportunities of which other citizens may never even dreamed.
There is a big paradigm shift happening right now in the IT world, but I don't see it as a negative one. Things are changing and we Americans will be left with the jobs higher up in the food chain. Education replaces what we'd otherwise be left with learning for ourselves in a 9 to 5. It's inevitable and I stand by it when I say this is a good thing.
I'm sorry, but if we want to outsource our lowest common denominator positions, go for it.
It's kind of ridiculous.
Dude: Oh no! We've outsourced our cashier positions! Now we're only hiring management, finance, and HR positions for Americans. Me: But... isn't that a good thing? Dude: Those positions require more education! Me: But... isn't that a good thing?
Or.
Dude: I used to get paid $95k as an entry level programmer. Now my friend who just started at the same position is only making $45k... Me: So you were probably being paid more than market value. Dude: Yeah, but outsourcing is causing my position to become commoditized! Me: So you should probably educate yourself more and move up, huh? Dude: That requires work! Me: So I guess $45k aint so bad for that mentality eh? Dude: NO, but I used to make $90k! This isn't fair! Me: If your company paid everybody double their market value, they'd go under and have to lay you off. That probably isn't fair either.
--
Last time I checked, entry level programming postions aren't something you just walk in off of the street and do. It requires learning too. The IT industry, much with every other revolution, raised the minimum standards of education, training, and expectations. That's the sort of thing that keeps America competitive and able to call itself a developed nation.
Super Mario taught me eating mushrooms makes me bigger and that certain flowers will change the color of my clothes and allow me to throw fireballs. Oh, and when presented with a challenge, smoosh it by jumping on it.
A common misunderstanding is that NOT telling them your salary helps you. I believe that is wrong. First of all, many companies will immediately shut you out for not disclosing that. It can also leave a sour taste in the interviewers mouth if you continue to resist the question. Also, it might make the employer think you got paid an embarassingly low salary, which doesn't help your cause either. I mean if you were getting paid like a champ, you'd mention your salary to make sure you can get paid even more.
You make it clear - very clear - that your current salary is too low and that is a big factor in why you are looking for a new job. Sure, you might be able to fight for a raise and get it, but it's still too low. That means their offer has to be even more than what one raise might net you. You're telling them that if they low ball you, you aren't taking their offer.
Whoever throws a number out first sets the tone. If, for example, you make $55k, but want $60k, but you make them say a number first, there are scenarios where you can end up fighting an uphill battle. What if they offer you $50k? What, suddenly you're willing to disclose your old salary and tell them their offer is too low? Then all that talk about it not being "relevant" goes out the window and you look like a fool. And now you are stuck fighting your way *up* to your goal. Instead, had you made it explicitly clear your currently salary is FAR too low, told them what it is, and asked for $65k, then you place them in the position to have to fight their way down to $60k.
If you don't tell them what your salary was up front, they won't know where you are coming from and your salary request will seem like some phantom number you got from salary.com. You want credibility? If you can't justify why you should get paid what you are worth, you don't deserve the salary anyway. Tell them what you make and make them respect what you feel you should be getting.
That is the single worst advice you could follow. People jump around in the IT industry. The same people all know each other, or are friends of friends with each other. People may have met at previous jobs or even during interviews. If you think there is zero connection between your prospective employer and your current boss, that's a big assumption to make. If you think you can get away with lying, go for it. But if you get caught, you're automatically fired and burning all bridges with that company and its management. If things go really bad, it could also burn bridges with your previous employer if they find out you lied to. Yes, you COULD get away with lying, but you could also lie on your university app about what activities you were involved with. But just like with colleges, sometimes employers will run background checks on you at the last stage of the interview, and when you fail to produce that paystub, you're toast.
Slashdot Mirror
Google probably has 10 to 100 times the number of servers Microsoft has, and they're all running Linux. Good luck with competing on your server farm, MS.
Waiter! There's a hair in my lobster bisque soup!!
"...like a mystery-lover's dream vacation: a huge, mysterious old house with lots of long halls, secret bookcases, dark closets and creaky doors that, when you peer behind them, reveal wonderful secrets."
I dunno about you, but I don't want to "peer behind" any doors or closets if we're talking about a "mystery-lover's dream vacation."
As a programmer who started on the command line languages, I'd say starting with an interface centric language like VB might be a bad idea. I'll admit it is powerful, but that's a seperate issue from whether or not it is a good beginner language. It has several important beginner-friendly features.
1. Drag and drop interfaces remove the pain of being bogged down creating user interfaces. In traditional languages, this part can take up half your implementation time.
2. A great library that does 95% of the things you might need on a daily basis. In other langauges, these libraries exist, but they aren't necessarily part of the compiler or default installation of that language.
3. Hit F5 to immediately see how you're doing. Might take a little more work in other languages (such as FTP => browser => F5).
4. Auto code formatting to make all your code pretty like a pro
That said, I believe VB spoils you in certain ways that can be extremely detrimental. This is because programming in VB is nothing like programming in PHP/Perl/C++/Python/etc. Part of being a programmer is being able to pick up new languages down the road, which may be less managed than VB.NET. Going from HIGHLY managed code to unmanaged code, in my opinion, is much, MUCH more difficult than the other way around. There are many things a VB programmer may do by accident when programming in another language that could cause serious bugs or security holes simply because they are not used to covering all the bases the compiler would otherwise deal with. Additionally, the ease of the language may promote programmers to start coding without fully learning or understanding important programming principles (such as good class implementation, naming standards, common logic shortcuts, etc). This ultimately will produce a lower quality programmer in the long run.
So, yes, it is a good language for a beginner to pick up, but it also makes it harder to jump into a lower level language down the road. Of course, you want to be careful about what language you start at since if you start at assembly you'll probably kill yourself. C and C++ are traditional favorites, but only because they are the industry standard. I have programmed in many languages for many years, and I find PHP to be my favorite because it balances basic OO principles without overly complicating things (aka Java). It is also easy to learn and an easy step to or from C++. I have recommended many friends to try it as their first language and have seen positive results.
I wonder what being flagged means. Would their phone calls to other countries start getting monitored? This is the sort of thing that people should be using as an argument against wiretaps without a proper warrant.
That's not msn.com. When they put that page on the www.msn.com home page, then they can compete head to head.
MSN can't win the search war in its current form. MSN is not a search engine, it is a portal. Google is not a portal, it is a search engine. MSN can compete against Yahoo, another portal, but if it wants to win the search war it needs to ditch the content war and slash its MSN landing page into a minimalist design. That aint happening anytime soon, and, thus, this announcement is a bunch of balogna.
In a country where nationalistic pride makes consumers choose Japanese products first, the iPod is dominating. Sony's flash MP3 player share has actually shrunk since it was winning in 2004.
Why is this significant to US competitors? Because this is a wake up call to all of those companies trying to blame their failure to enter the market on Apple's FairPlay DRM scheme. Sorry, but iTunes has nothing to do with your failure either. Your products are way less attractive compared to the iPod, even if they have lower prices. The iPod is dominating because it is exactly what consumers are looking for at the perfect price point(s).
Let's see if they figure it out now.
I don't have a blackberry, but I've been waiting all morning for this news. I was wondering if the judge was going to shut down Blackberry service. I was thinking about how the government (or legislature) would respond if RIM was given 30 days to shut down their service. And hopefully it woulda been, a first step to the patent system being overhauled.
Oh well. This is probably the better outcome.
I challenge that. Show me one job that gives training on site any more.
I have a friend who was just hired by IBM as a IT business consultant straight out of college (she has an EE degree).
She's getting paid, on-site training for the first year.
I don't doubt a word you say if we're talking about the *current market*, but I'm not talking about today's standards.
A paradigm shift requires that certain standards change. Jobs and their requirements will adapt to this new market. It's not like there will be zero entry level IT positions left, as mentioned in TFA there will be a face-to-face industry surviving, such as consulting. And lots of people enter that industry and get training on site from their employer. Additionally, there will still be entry level programming positions if you are talking about companies like Oracle, Microsoft, or other software vendors that will never ever outsource their core business.
That said, your example is the perfect candidate for something that can and probably will be sent overseas somewhere. QA definitely does not require face to face time in most cases (except the software vendor case). The people who manage the QA people won't be in this country either. Instead, you'd be hiring people who deal with the person who manages the offshore QA manager. Same deal with programmers.
The nature of how the US IT industry works is going to change entirely. The jobs that exist today aren't going to be here in this country in 20 years, but new types of IT jobs that can't exist today will then. But the overall benefit to the economy will drive new venture funds and produce more opportunities *in the long run*.
Think about how many jobs machines replaced in production lines. That's a paradigm shift that resulted in new types of jobs opening up with the new levels of efficiency. Sure, lots of people lost their jobs *in the short term*, but over 50 years, we can say that was a good thing for the manufacturing industry. Thanks to that revolution, the engineering industry got even larger, manufacturing companies had far less human-error introduced into their products, less work-place accidents ocurred, and the cost of the end product dropped significantly.
Welcome to the Dot Com Bubble 2.0
Everybody but Google is joining the party.
Your analogy is interesting, but attacking the wrong point.
I'm a programmer, so let's not mistake my view as someone who doesn't understand where you're coming from.
However, I can see how a programmer is just part of a much larger business machine. Programmers are the very bottom level implementers of what management, project managers, and software architects spend months planning in any IT organization. As the position becomes commoditized, things change. I was pointing out that in due time, the educational and skill set bar rises and the lowest common denominator changes to something that requires more skills and more education.
You don't need to work in a Chinese sweat shop to be able to design, ship, market, and sell clothes manufactured there. Think about which job requires more education: an "entry level" programmer or an "entry level" factory worker.
Only now are countries like India catching up to us. Why is it we Americans can even sit here complaining about losing entry level programming positions when some countries don't even HAVE an IT industry? That's right, it's because our educational and technological standards are much higher so we have opportunities of which other citizens may never even dreamed.
There is a big paradigm shift happening right now in the IT world, but I don't see it as a negative one. Things are changing and we Americans will be left with the jobs higher up in the food chain. Education replaces what we'd otherwise be left with learning for ourselves in a 9 to 5. It's inevitable and I stand by it when I say this is a good thing.
I'm sorry, but if we want to outsource our lowest common denominator positions, go for it.
It's kind of ridiculous.
Dude: Oh no! We've outsourced our cashier positions! Now we're only hiring management, finance, and HR positions for Americans.
Me: But... isn't that a good thing?
Dude: Those positions require more education!
Me: But... isn't that a good thing?
Or.
Dude: I used to get paid $95k as an entry level programmer. Now my friend who just started at the same position is only making $45k...
Me: So you were probably being paid more than market value.
Dude: Yeah, but outsourcing is causing my position to become commoditized!
Me: So you should probably educate yourself more and move up, huh?
Dude: That requires work!
Me: So I guess $45k aint so bad for that mentality eh?
Dude: NO, but I used to make $90k! This isn't fair!
Me: If your company paid everybody double their market value, they'd go under and have to lay you off. That probably isn't fair either.
--
Last time I checked, entry level programming postions aren't something you just walk in off of the street and do. It requires learning too. The IT industry, much with every other revolution, raised the minimum standards of education, training, and expectations. That's the sort of thing that keeps America competitive and able to call itself a developed nation.
student: Did you know the brain emits an electric field?
Fred Gilbert: WHAT? WE NEED TO START BANNING BRAINS
I was gonna make an April Fools jab, but then I realized owning a room full of 30 year old tin boxes is no laughing matter.
I, for one, welcome our new Brilliant overlord.
So THAT is why they decided to call it the "Phantom" console.
Super Mario taught me eating mushrooms makes me bigger and that certain flowers will change the color of my clothes and allow me to throw fireballs. Oh, and when presented with a challenge, smoosh it by jumping on it.
I've only seen two types of sites that consistently give me security warnings about ActiveX (SP2).
So... Exactly why is it I need it again?
Sorry to rain on your parade, but IE's "corpse" has over 40 billion dollars of reserved capital ensuring otherwise.
"In the early days, we admit, we focused more on the power and stability than on the security."
Might wanna focus a little harder, man. =O
A common misunderstanding is that NOT telling them your salary helps you. I believe that is wrong. First of all, many companies will immediately shut you out for not disclosing that. It can also leave a sour taste in the interviewers mouth if you continue to resist the question. Also, it might make the employer think you got paid an embarassingly low salary, which doesn't help your cause either. I mean if you were getting paid like a champ, you'd mention your salary to make sure you can get paid even more.
You make it clear - very clear - that your current salary is too low and that is a big factor in why you are looking for a new job. Sure, you might be able to fight for a raise and get it, but it's still too low. That means their offer has to be even more than what one raise might net you. You're telling them that if they low ball you, you aren't taking their offer.
Whoever throws a number out first sets the tone. If, for example, you make $55k, but want $60k, but you make them say a number first, there are scenarios where you can end up fighting an uphill battle. What if they offer you $50k? What, suddenly you're willing to disclose your old salary and tell them their offer is too low? Then all that talk about it not being "relevant" goes out the window and you look like a fool. And now you are stuck fighting your way *up* to your goal. Instead, had you made it explicitly clear your currently salary is FAR too low, told them what it is, and asked for $65k, then you place them in the position to have to fight their way down to $60k.
If you don't tell them what your salary was up front, they won't know where you are coming from and your salary request will seem like some phantom number you got from salary.com. You want credibility? If you can't justify why you should get paid what you are worth, you don't deserve the salary anyway. Tell them what you make and make them respect what you feel you should be getting.
That is the single worst advice you could follow. People jump around in the IT industry. The same people all know each other, or are friends of friends with each other. People may have met at previous jobs or even during interviews. If you think there is zero connection between your prospective employer and your current boss, that's a big assumption to make. If you think you can get away with lying, go for it. But if you get caught, you're automatically fired and burning all bridges with that company and its management. If things go really bad, it could also burn bridges with your previous employer if they find out you lied to. Yes, you COULD get away with lying, but you could also lie on your university app about what activities you were involved with. But just like with colleges, sometimes employers will run background checks on you at the last stage of the interview, and when you fail to produce that paystub, you're toast.
It might not be BY google as a bunch of people have already repeated corrected, but this seems like a very logical company google would buy.