I picked up a black MacBook and became an Apple fanboy. Nice little machine until the CPU fan died last year. Apple bought back the MacBook like this year, but I'm sitting on the fence as version 1.0 is quite ready for prime time yet.
When I worked in the video game industry in Silicon Valley, management always told us that we could get a job clearning toilets at Taco Bell if we didn't like our pay and work condiitions. One of the testers did that after discovering he could make more money, get better benefits and work a saner schedule at Taco Bell. Management stopped mentioning Taco Bell after that.
As a lead video game tester for three years, I had to teach the next generation of video game testers fresh out of high school. They like the idea of being paid to play video games, and then they learn that testing video games is not the same as playing games. Writing bug reports, going to meetings, and testing the same broken piece of shee-it game for weeks at a time is just the beginning. Most don't survive the mind-numbing crunch times of working 80 hours a week for months.
I hated learning LOGO on the Apple II in the seventh grade (circa 1983). That's when I found out I came from a "poor" family because we couldn't afford to get an Apple II (~$2,500). My parents got me a Commodore VIC-20 (~$250). The logo instructor called it toy and the entire class laughed. I hated Apple for the next 25 years.
I had an Atari 2600 with 30 cartridges as a preteen and did BASIC programming on the Commodore 64. Many years later, I got a testing job at a video game company called Accolade, which got bought out by Infrogrames, which bought Hasbro Interactive, which owned the IP rights for Atari. After the company relocated from San Jose to Sunnyvale and renamed itself Atari, I was a tester for three years and became a lead tester responsible for 10 titles for the next three years.
I also went back to school to earn my IT certifications and learn computer programming because testing video games was a dead end job financially. Made the president's honor list for graduating with a 4.0 GPA in my major while two taking two classes per semester, working 80 hours per week and occasionally teaching Sunday school. Somehow I spent the next 10 years in help desk support without doing any professional programming, making more money than I did as a tester while only working 40 hours per week.
I'm doing computer security and learning Powershell scripting in my current job. I use Python and the LAMP stack for websites at home. I'm more of a script monkey than a programmer these days. Maybe that will change as I get my security certifications and do more programming on the job.
I had two friends who decided to take a six-month vacation after getting laid off in 2001. Both had bachelor's degree but did nothing to improve themselves after five years of working in the industry. They started looking for a new job after their vacations were over, but no one wanted them because their existing job skills were out of date. Ironically, they both found jobs as drug store clerks after draining their savings account. Nearly 15 years later, they're still drug store clerks.
Because [Go]'s newer, nobody actually has X years experience in it as a requirement either.
Except for the non-technical HR department that writes the job description requiring five years of experience for a new technology that came out recently. The only people who remotely qualify are those who worked on the language before anyone even heard about it.
I would honestly consider claiming unemployment and going back to the university for a semester of object oriented programming, design patterns, and data structures.
Going back to school would disqualify you from getting unemployment benefits, at least in California, if you were "honestly" filling out the form. Most job training programs approved by the unemployment office don't offer "professional development" courses for programmers. Always seems like a Catch-22 to me.
My school ten years ago couldn't afford to renew the Microsoft site license, so everything was taught in every flavor of Java. I ended up in help desk support. I'm now doing computer security and writing PowerShell scripts to automate routine tasks. I use Python at home. Haven't touched Java since graduating from school.
I had a Nvidia GeForce 6200, Nvidia Quadro 3400, ATI Radeon 3850 and a few others that were probably AGP. The ATI Radeon 7960 was my newest card out of the bunch when it died from a dead fan. I had to install the Windows Vista driver file to get the ATI Radeon 3000-series motherboard graphics to work under Window 8.1.
Recruiters look at what you done in the last three positions and/or three years on your resume, and assume that you want to continue doing the same thing as before. So when I was out of work for two years (2009-2010), recruiters assumed that I wanted to continue being out of work. O_o
Smart recruiters will understand that you can parlay past experience into a new job. Dumb recruiters will go by the check list (i.e., five years of experience in a technology that came out six months ago).
The article does not say people will be using Java in 1,0000 years.
I recently got a new nVidia Geforce 720 video card. The back of the box promised that the video card had a 40 year lifespan for office applications or a 12 year lifespan for video games. The physical electronics may have a 12 to 40 year lifespan. The moment that the newest version of Windows doesn't have a driver, the video card is obsolete and tossed into the trash. This is why I got this new card, as a half-dozen older video cards in my junk box didn't have a Windows 8.1 driver.
I doubt any programming language will last a 1,000 years. A century maybe. But not ten times that.
When I went back to school to learn computer programming after the Dot Com bust, the community college couldn't afford to renew the Microsoft site license for a few years. All the required courses was taught in every flavor of Java. The dean taught some C/C++ programming in his Linux administration courses. After the site license got renewed, we had Visual Studio to learn C/C++ proper (as in a job skill). I haven't touched Java since I graduated from college. These days I use Python at home and PowerShell at work.
When I took "Introduction to Java" in college, two students got into trouble for having submitting identical code with one slight variation. The variable used by the first student was "x" and the variable used by the second student was "y". Being cute doesn't get you a passing grade.
To be fair, Memorial Day and Labor Day are better remembered as shopping days by most Americans. I mentioned Memorial Day in my comment because it's this coming weekend. A three-day holiday that most workers can take off because of progressive reforms in the last century.
[...] Your story doesn't support your moronic conclusion. [...]
FTFY. You're welcome!
The reason we have minimum wage laws is to prevent employers from screwing over workers on wages. I was lured into an interview for a job with a promised pay rate of $25 per hour. That's not what the employer was paying in the end. Without the minimum wage law, the employer would probably pay even less than $10 per hour.
My thread started with the OP quote: "This is a typical IT viewpoint. We have a technical problem to solve, and to hell with the users. They're just in the way of our supreme elegance anyway."
The typical IT viewpoint is typically found in a Fortune 500 company with employees. Data acquistion at a gas pump isn't a typical IT activity. The only person who is making reference to gas pumps in the context of my thread is YOU. As a professional IT technician, I can reassure you that your problem is located between the keyboard and chair.
If I wanted to read something about politics, I would read at the Politico. At least the nut jobs there know how to properly insult each other without pretending to have read the article.
This is a typical IT viewpoint. We have a technical problem to solve, and to hell with the users. They're just in the way of our supreme elegance anyway.
This is a typical user whine. Ask the user to log off at the end of the day to allow the computer to be accessible during the nightly maintenance window, it becomes a life-and-death struggle for them to log in the next morning, launch their applications, grab coffee and -- gasp! -- talk to a coworker in the hallway. And then get mad when all the systems are rebooted during a three-day holiday weekend to deploy the security patches.
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I picked up a black MacBook and became an Apple fanboy. Nice little machine until the CPU fan died last year. Apple bought back the MacBook like this year, but I'm sitting on the fence as version 1.0 is quite ready for prime time yet.
When I worked in the video game industry in Silicon Valley, management always told us that we could get a job clearning toilets at Taco Bell if we didn't like our pay and work condiitions. One of the testers did that after discovering he could make more money, get better benefits and work a saner schedule at Taco Bell. Management stopped mentioning Taco Bell after that.
As a lead video game tester for three years, I had to teach the next generation of video game testers fresh out of high school. They like the idea of being paid to play video games, and then they learn that testing video games is not the same as playing games. Writing bug reports, going to meetings, and testing the same broken piece of shee-it game for weeks at a time is just the beginning. Most don't survive the mind-numbing crunch times of working 80 hours a week for months.
I hated learning LOGO on the Apple II in the seventh grade (circa 1983). That's when I found out I came from a "poor" family because we couldn't afford to get an Apple II (~$2,500). My parents got me a Commodore VIC-20 (~$250). The logo instructor called it toy and the entire class laughed. I hated Apple for the next 25 years.
I had an Atari 2600 with 30 cartridges as a preteen and did BASIC programming on the Commodore 64. Many years later, I got a testing job at a video game company called Accolade, which got bought out by Infrogrames, which bought Hasbro Interactive, which owned the IP rights for Atari. After the company relocated from San Jose to Sunnyvale and renamed itself Atari, I was a tester for three years and became a lead tester responsible for 10 titles for the next three years.
I also went back to school to earn my IT certifications and learn computer programming because testing video games was a dead end job financially. Made the president's honor list for graduating with a 4.0 GPA in my major while two taking two classes per semester, working 80 hours per week and occasionally teaching Sunday school. Somehow I spent the next 10 years in help desk support without doing any professional programming, making more money than I did as a tester while only working 40 hours per week.
I'm doing computer security and learning Powershell scripting in my current job. I use Python and the LAMP stack for websites at home. I'm more of a script monkey than a programmer these days. Maybe that will change as I get my security certifications and do more programming on the job.
I had two friends who decided to take a six-month vacation after getting laid off in 2001. Both had bachelor's degree but did nothing to improve themselves after five years of working in the industry. They started looking for a new job after their vacations were over, but no one wanted them because their existing job skills were out of date. Ironically, they both found jobs as drug store clerks after draining their savings account. Nearly 15 years later, they're still drug store clerks.
Because [Go]'s newer, nobody actually has X years experience in it as a requirement either.
Except for the non-technical HR department that writes the job description requiring five years of experience for a new technology that came out recently. The only people who remotely qualify are those who worked on the language before anyone even heard about it.
I would honestly consider claiming unemployment and going back to the university for a semester of object oriented programming, design patterns, and data structures.
Going back to school would disqualify you from getting unemployment benefits, at least in California, if you were "honestly" filling out the form. Most job training programs approved by the unemployment office don't offer "professional development" courses for programmers. Always seems like a Catch-22 to me.
My school ten years ago couldn't afford to renew the Microsoft site license, so everything was taught in every flavor of Java. I ended up in help desk support. I'm now doing computer security and writing PowerShell scripts to automate routine tasks. I use Python at home. Haven't touched Java since graduating from school.
I had a Nvidia GeForce 6200, Nvidia Quadro 3400, ATI Radeon 3850 and a few others that were probably AGP. The ATI Radeon 7960 was my newest card out of the bunch when it died from a dead fan. I had to install the Windows Vista driver file to get the ATI Radeon 3000-series motherboard graphics to work under Window 8.1.
Recruiters look at what you done in the last three positions and/or three years on your resume, and assume that you want to continue doing the same thing as before. So when I was out of work for two years (2009-2010), recruiters assumed that I wanted to continue being out of work. O_o
Smart recruiters will understand that you can parlay past experience into a new job. Dumb recruiters will go by the check list (i.e., five years of experience in a technology that came out six months ago).
The article does not say people will be using Java in 1,0000 years.
I recently got a new nVidia Geforce 720 video card. The back of the box promised that the video card had a 40 year lifespan for office applications or a 12 year lifespan for video games. The physical electronics may have a 12 to 40 year lifespan. The moment that the newest version of Windows doesn't have a driver, the video card is obsolete and tossed into the trash. This is why I got this new card, as a half-dozen older video cards in my junk box didn't have a Windows 8.1 driver.
I doubt any programming language will last a 1,000 years. A century maybe. But not ten times that.
Get a good edit -- any good editor -- and worry about problems that actually matter. This one was solved in about 1927.
Let's see... 1927... had the first working TV. I guess you can't edit something without seeing it first.
When I went back to school to learn computer programming after the Dot Com bust, the community college couldn't afford to renew the Microsoft site license for a few years. All the required courses was taught in every flavor of Java. The dean taught some C/C++ programming in his Linux administration courses. After the site license got renewed, we had Visual Studio to learn C/C++ proper (as in a job skill). I haven't touched Java since I graduated from college. These days I use Python at home and PowerShell at work.
When I took "Introduction to Java" in college, two students got into trouble for having submitting identical code with one slight variation. The variable used by the first student was "x" and the variable used by the second student was "y". Being cute doesn't get you a passing grade.
After a decade in help desk IT, I'm currently working in computer security and writing scripts to automate routine tasks.
To be fair, Memorial Day and Labor Day are better remembered as shopping days by most Americans. I mentioned Memorial Day in my comment because it's this coming weekend. A three-day holiday that most workers can take off because of progressive reforms in the last century.
[...] Your story doesn't support your moronic conclusion. [...]
FTFY. You're welcome!
The reason we have minimum wage laws is to prevent employers from screwing over workers on wages. I was lured into an interview for a job with a promised pay rate of $25 per hour. That's not what the employer was paying in the end. Without the minimum wage law, the employer would probably pay even less than $10 per hour.
The only problem here is your lack of comprehension of the point that I was trying to make.
My thread started with the OP quote: "This is a typical IT viewpoint. We have a technical problem to solve, and to hell with the users. They're just in the way of our supreme elegance anyway."
The typical IT viewpoint is typically found in a Fortune 500 company with employees. Data acquistion at a gas pump isn't a typical IT activity. The only person who is making reference to gas pumps in the context of my thread is YOU. As a professional IT technician, I can reassure you that your problem is located between the keyboard and chair.
If I wanted to read something about politics, I would read at the Politico. At least the nut jobs there know how to properly insult each other without pretending to have read the article.
The 'users' in this thread are employees at a company, not customers at a gas station.
Unfortunately, in all the Silicon Valley companies I worked for in the last 20 years, no one ever got fired for not obeying corporate IT policies.
This is a typical IT viewpoint. We have a technical problem to solve, and to hell with the users. They're just in the way of our supreme elegance anyway.
This is a typical user whine. Ask the user to log off at the end of the day to allow the computer to be accessible during the nightly maintenance window, it becomes a life-and-death struggle for them to log in the next morning, launch their applications, grab coffee and -- gasp! -- talk to a coworker in the hallway. And then get mad when all the systems are rebooted during a three-day holiday weekend to deploy the security patches.
All the pissing matches about IP access for gas stations were covered in a past post.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/01/23/1856201/us-gas-stations-vulnerable-to-internet-attacks/