Show this experiment to your boss the next time you are selecting a programming language for a project at work.
I totally agree that Java isn't fun. It's very restrictive and almost forces even the simplest task to be forced into a complex object oriented structure. It is definently not a language to just play around and hack stuff together.
And this isn't ground breaking news either.. most people who use java at work are well aware that it isn't much fun to code.
The reason it's chosen is that all that extra code and restrictiveness makes for some very maintainable code. Everyone (or almost everyone) adheres to a strict coding convention and general approach that makes code across projects very consistant. The fact that there is a massive standard library, in addition to a set of mature defacto 3'rd party tools also contribute to this.
And I know there are gonna be all kinds of comments and success stories about how ruby and python are _more_ maintainable and faster and more efficiant and can walk on water and will give you a BJ if you import the right library.. but imo nothing comes close to Java in the maintainability department.
The short story is a coder playing around in his spare time has a different set of priorities than a developer at work. When you're playing.. use what's fun.. when your working.. use what works.
I totally don't understand the relevance of that argument (of which I`ve seen several times).
I`m still using an old P3 box that I probably bought around the same time.. and I probably spent a lot less money on it then you spend on your PowerBook.
Point is if you don't need anything particularly processor intensive (video encoding/editing, gaming, etc.) then there is no more reason to upgrade a PC every year than there is a mac.
but Mac has no real "economy" option. Part for part, as many mac fanboys will tell you, mac hardware is around the same price as PC. The difference is that you can buy stuff that is a few months old (still very good hardware, but not the latest and greatest) and save a lot of money.
I guess you could call that the "premium pc" market.
I equate it to designer sunglasses. People will spend $300 for this years sunglasses, passing over last years (now priced at $20). I think mac appeals to this market.. people who want the absolute latest and greatest regardless of how much actual added value they are getting.
Well, as I said, I include both the hard to replace (which may not be stuff I made.. but stuff like old TV shows and such that I found after years of searching).
My irreplaceable stuff probably fits in under 200GB.. a lot of that is converted home movies.. and virtual machines (some of my hobby projects involve multiple virtual machines and virtual network environments.. which ads up).
Documents and source code and photos take up very little space.
That being said.. my "replaceable" stuff probably constitutes about 3.5TB.. I have a massive DVD collection (well over 600) of which I am gradually ripping (surprisingly just for personal use).
The point is, Terabyte drives fail, too. Keep that in mind for your data retention policy. One might even be so inclined to purchase SpinRite ahead of time to validate the drive's integrity before being placed into use and occasionally validating the drive's integrity from time to time.
Indeed, which is why I use 2 of them. Obviously this isn't fool proof.. but I figure it's reasonable enough.
In my approach.. if raid fails.. I can likely get a very recent backup of the hard to replace and irreplaceable stuff from the first (always attached) 1TB drive. If that fails (which as you said, can happen), I have one more change.. the off-site drive.. which is probably a little out of date.... and if that fails.. then I just go cry in a corner...
I decided that I have three main "categories of data":
- easily replaceable: This is stuff that is fairly easy to replace.. for instance I have ripped a huge portion of my DVD collection (for my own use). If I lost this data, it would not be a tragedy.. just a pain in the ass. - hard to replace: This is stuff that does exist "out there".. but would not be easy to replace. This includes old TV shows that you can't buy or if you can are very hard to find. - irreplaceable: Self explanatory.. this is my documents, code, photos, etc that could not be replaced if lost
I keep everything besides OS files on a file server. Raid 6 (two parity stripes).. this is the first layer.. to me this is adequate to protect "easily replaceable" stuff (which in my case constitutes a huge chunk of file space).
I backup everything in the "hard to replace" and "irreplaceable" categories to a seperate (removable but stays in the system) hard disk (so far 1TB has been enough to hold all this data). I make a secondary backup to a second removable drive and store this "off site". This secondary backup does not get updated very often.. which is the trade off I guess... but it provides a "last hope" if something crazy ever happened.. like my house burning down.
I can totally attest to this! I have always had a lot of trouble dedicating time to just "working out".. but doing a few pull ups when I get up to stretch my legs (something I do quite often) is fairly easy and seems to make a difference.
I've also found going a few rounds with a punching bag to be something I can do without feeling like it's a big hassle. (though obviously this probably won't work in an office environment)
It's a cool piece of kit, but I wouldn't use this in a production environment.
If you are relying on one server to maintain 100% uptime in a high availability (which most production environments are) situation, you are probably doing it wrong.
It's my opinion that in a ha environment, you _should_ be able to reboot a box with no loss of uptime to the system as a whole.
I would even go as far as recommending a reboot every 3 months or so to test your clustering/failover setup (because I think a lot of people set this up once, then never look at it again until they need it 2 years later). Additionally stuff like kernel updates might BREAK the way in which your box boots up. Much better to discover that right after the update than a year down the road when the box goes down because of a bad PSU. A test of your boxes ability to automatically go from power off to full availability is probably a good thing[tm]
This happens to me on about a 5 to 6 month basis... and is generally a sign that it's time for a week off.
The brain (at least mine) needs to reboot occasionally.. especially if you work in a math rich environment or other environment where you are constantly thinking rather than just hacking out code.
I find a week of staycation (don't go anywhere.. just stay at home.. sleep in, watch movies, etc..) and I`m ready to get back into it.
Well, a bug doesn't necessarily have to be discovered by someone getting killed, or even be a bug that could lead to someone getting killed
my point was more that in life critical systems, the testing and approval phases are massive, often many times the cost of the initial development, and depending on the situation, a 2 line code fix might require the entire system to be re-tested and certified.
it's a pretty easy thing to track.. most shops already have a bug tracking system.. you just need to add in a way to track how much stuff gets discovered in code reviews.. then have some intern hack out a spreadsheet in leu of getting valuable job experience.
Having worked on life critical type systems where every line of code was reviewed before making it into the product, I have to say that I've seen them add a lot of value when done properly.
They also cost a lot.
The first question I would ask in your situation is: are you doing them right?
Do bugs get discovered later after deployment? Are the bugs in areas of the code that were supposedly reviewed? If so, you might be doing it wrong.
And as much as we _hate_ the word... I have to say it...
METRICS!
If you truly want to make a decision on whether code reviews are worth it.. you need to know: - how much does it cost to conduct the reviews - how many defects are discovered in the review versus how many make it out the door (in other words, how good are you at it) - how how much more does it cost you when a bug gets discovered after deployment? In a life critical system, it costs a fucktonne.. in a desktop app.. it may not be that bad.
And I think individual personality has a lot to do with it (which is up to the parent to judge in the case of their kids). You can find cases of kids who came from very strict upbringings and grew into healthy adults, and you can find kids whos parents never even looked at them in a menacing way and had all kinds of social problems later on in life.
I tend to take the attitude that most kids arn't as fragile as new-age thinkers tend to believe. There are a few that are going to be scarred for life because of a horrific stern talking to they got when they made a mistake... but there are just as many who are going to view that as "how they were raised" and never have it negatively effect their life.
Well, like I said earlier in some thread.. I think any style of discipline can obviously be done wrong (which it sounds like it was in your case).
Punishing a kid for doing something they didn't understand is wrong doesn't accomplish much imo.. which sounds like what you described.
Though I don't know if I agree with that entitled attitude (now we're really getting into flame war area) which seems to define the current generation.
If you're living in your parents house, eating your parents food, etc.. it's my opinion that what they say should go. That was how it was when I was a kid.. and maybe it's a generational thing.. but I never had a problem with that arrangement. You lived under your parents rule.. maybe grumbling from time to time but in general things were good.. then eventually you moved out and generally had _less_ freedom when you were living at home.
That's not saying you should be lorded over with an iron fist.. but I see kids these days having outright swearing matches with their parents over not being allowed to go out somewhere... and I think we've gone _Way_ too far in the other direction.
When I was a kid and got punished.. I didn't see it as "my parents are the enemy and I can never trust them again and I`ll surely turn to this alcohol and cocaine stuff when I grow up". I saw it as "oh crap.. I did something bad and now I`m paying the consequences.. "
And I can _totally_ remember that "deer in the headlights" feeling from when i was a kid! And you know.. it set me straight. Yet I had and still have a very healthy relationship with my parents.
And yet a huge majority of people who were spanked (myself included) as kids are very thankful now as adults.
And I`m not saying kids have the mental capacity of rocks.. but they arn't going to have the decision making power of an adult. Parenting requires an adult to sometimes save kids from themselves. Most kids, if the decision was _entirely_ up to them.. would never do their school work. By creating a negative re-enforcement (and an associated positive re-enforcement) to encourage a kid to do their work.. you are helping them in the long run.
I also think this style teaches long term cause and effect. You don't do school work.. get bad grade.. get punished. In short, "I do something wrong now for short term gain.. it bites me in the ass in the long run".. which I think is a very important lesson.. and one that you can try and "verbally reason with" a kid till you're blue in the face and not get across.
I would like to say that the original article is just insane though... if you are considering that kind of solution, you're doing it wrong.
That's some nice shallow thinking.. "because they use a different style of discipline, they must be unfit parents."
My parents used the style of techniques you mentioned.. time outs.. going to bed early.. etc.. in addition to spanking.
Point is the outcome is the same.. a well adjusted person. I'd propose that spanking isn't necessary, but is a viable option for negative re-enforcement. After all, it was used for many generations successfully.
Non-corporal methods can be as damaging if used improperly imo. Excessive corner time or scolding or such can be just as emotionally damaging as physical abuse.
And I don't think either is effective if used by a parent that doesn't know what he/she is doing. I'd say there are just as many mis-adjusted kids out there who were pampered as spanked.
In this debate people always assume corporal punishment means beating the daylight out of your kids.
I`m also in the same boat as mapkinase. If I didn't do homework (my parents never demanded I get straight A's.. but I had to at least be putting in reasonable effort) I'd get punished. As it turned out, this method worked very effectively.. and I did very well in school.. and now have a great job/life.
And despite what various extremist think-of-the-children types will say.. I`m not some seething bottle of rage who has flashbacks of getting yelled at and attacks people at random as a result.
The problem is that people try to think of kids as little adults when they are in fact just kids. You can't always reason with a kid.. because they don't have the same ability to weigh options that adults do (I know when I was a kid I sure didn't). A little negative re-enforcement (do something wrong.. get punished) is sometimes the best way.
And I truly believe that kids today have more problems as a result of being treated as fragile ornaments who will be screwed up for the rest of their life if you even look at them in a menacing way.
For all the griping people do.. it wasn't that bad
And it's visual design tool really was amazing.
Users didn't need to worry about arranging stuff into tables.. you could just drag your graphic where ever you wanted.. or put text anywhere.. etc.
Sure, it let a lot of garbage leak onto the Internet.. but it also let people with something interesting to contribute an easy way of doing so.
And lets face it.. was the output of a geocities website designed with the visual designer that much different than most of the myspace pages you see? (that isn't an endorsement for myspace..). If you have interesting content.. the design matters a lot less (and again.. not saying that myspace contains interesting content).
I may be stuck in my ways.. but I write good code..
And I don't necessarily think agile is a bad thing.. it just tends to be pushed heavily by people with no experience in the real world. If agile is implemented by someone who understands the realities of software, it can work.
But I definitely think executable UML has to go away.. very soon
but I've seen the opposite when it comes to age and programmers.
People have grown tired of these "young whippersnappers" fresh outa college with their executable UML and agile methodologies.
Where I am experience is huge.. especially just plain familiarity with software in the real world and not some acedemic fantasy land. Someone in their 50's with 30 years of dev experience is pure gold.. and companies will fight tooth and nail to recruit the old veterans... assuming they arn't off "consulting" for serious money.
Now obviously this doesn't apply in your case.. it's the experience not the age employers are looking at.. but I can't see a company turning you down based on age.. unless you're in your 50's and/or only plan on working for a few more years. Even though you may not have any programming background.. you are probably going to have more social and team skills then most people coming out of school. Just the ability to communicate ideas is massive... and a skill that just doesn't seem to be taught any more.
I think I'll make tacos for dinner tonight.. havn't had them in a while.
And I need to get my hair cut this weekend.. starting to look like a hippy.
Slashdot Mirror
Lots and lots of hammers...
and fire :(
Sure, but what about ~50,000 lines of python..
It's been my experience that both python and ruby are perfectly readable in small amounts, but once you scale things up, it becomes a nightmare.
(Again, cue the success stories)
Show this experiment to your boss the next time you are selecting a programming language for a project at work.
I totally agree that Java isn't fun. It's very restrictive and almost forces even the simplest task to be forced into a complex object oriented structure. It is definently not a language to just play around and hack stuff together.
And this isn't ground breaking news either.. most people who use java at work are well aware that it isn't much fun to code.
The reason it's chosen is that all that extra code and restrictiveness makes for some very maintainable code. Everyone (or almost everyone) adheres to a strict coding convention and general approach that makes code across projects very consistant. The fact that there is a massive standard library, in addition to a set of mature defacto 3'rd party tools also contribute to this.
And I know there are gonna be all kinds of comments and success stories about how ruby and python are _more_ maintainable and faster and more efficiant and can walk on water and will give you a BJ if you import the right library.. but imo nothing comes close to Java in the maintainability department.
The short story is a coder playing around in his spare time has a different set of priorities than a developer at work. When you're playing.. use what's fun.. when your working.. use what works.
I totally don't understand the relevance of that argument (of which I`ve seen several times).
I`m still using an old P3 box that I probably bought around the same time.. and I probably spent a lot less money on it then you spend on your PowerBook.
Point is if you don't need anything particularly processor intensive (video encoding/editing, gaming, etc.) then there is no more reason to upgrade a PC every year than there is a mac.
but Mac has no real "economy" option. Part for part, as many mac fanboys will tell you, mac hardware is around the same price as PC. The difference is that you can buy stuff that is a few months old (still very good hardware, but not the latest and greatest) and save a lot of money.
I guess you could call that the "premium pc" market.
I equate it to designer sunglasses. People will spend $300 for this years sunglasses, passing over last years (now priced at $20). I think mac appeals to this market.. people who want the absolute latest and greatest regardless of how much actual added value they are getting.
Well, as I said, I include both the hard to replace (which may not be stuff I made.. but stuff like old TV shows and such that I found after years of searching).
My irreplaceable stuff probably fits in under 200GB.. a lot of that is converted home movies .. and virtual machines (some of my hobby projects involve multiple virtual machines and virtual network environments.. which ads up).
Documents and source code and photos take up very little space.
That being said.. my "replaceable" stuff probably constitutes about 3.5TB .. I have a massive DVD collection (well over 600) of which I am gradually ripping (surprisingly just for personal use).
The point is, Terabyte drives fail, too. Keep that in mind for your data retention policy. One might even be so inclined to purchase SpinRite ahead of time to validate the drive's integrity before being placed into use and occasionally validating the drive's integrity from time to time.
Indeed, which is why I use 2 of them. Obviously this isn't fool proof.. but I figure it's reasonable enough.
In my approach.. if raid fails.. I can likely get a very recent backup of the hard to replace and irreplaceable stuff from the first (always attached) 1TB drive. If that fails (which as you said, can happen), I have one more change.. the off-site drive.. which is probably a little out of date.. .. and if that fails.. then I just go cry in a corner...
I decided that I have three main "categories of data":
- easily replaceable: This is stuff that is fairly easy to replace.. for instance I have ripped a huge portion of my DVD collection (for my own use). If I lost this data, it would not be a tragedy .. just a pain in the ass.
- hard to replace: This is stuff that does exist "out there".. but would not be easy to replace. This includes old TV shows that you can't buy or if you can are very hard to find.
- irreplaceable: Self explanatory.. this is my documents, code, photos, etc that could not be replaced if lost
I keep everything besides OS files on a file server. Raid 6 (two parity stripes).. this is the first layer..
to me this is adequate to protect "easily replaceable" stuff (which in my case constitutes a huge chunk of file space).
I backup everything in the "hard to replace" and "irreplaceable" categories to a seperate (removable but stays in the system) hard disk (so far 1TB has been enough to hold all this data). I make a
secondary backup to a second removable drive and store this "off site". This secondary backup does not get updated very often.. which is the trade off I guess... but it provides a "last hope" if something
crazy ever happened.. like my house burning down.
Oh.. and backups are encrypted!
I can totally attest to this! I have always had a lot of trouble dedicating time to just "working out" .. but doing a few pull ups when I get up to stretch my legs (something I do quite often) is fairly easy and seems to make a difference.
I've also found going a few rounds with a punching bag to be something I can do without feeling like it's a big hassle. (though obviously this probably won't work in an office environment)
It's a cool piece of kit, but I wouldn't use this in a production environment.
If you are relying on one server to maintain 100% uptime in a high availability (which most production environments are) situation, you are probably doing it wrong.
It's my opinion that in a ha environment, you _should_ be able to reboot a box with no loss of uptime to the system as a whole.
I would even go as far as recommending a reboot every 3 months or so to test your clustering/failover setup (because I think a lot of people set this up once, then never look at it again until they need it 2 years later). Additionally stuff like kernel updates might BREAK the way in which your box boots up. Much better to discover that right after the update than a year down the road when the box goes down because of a bad PSU. A test of your boxes ability to automatically go from power off to full availability is probably a good thing[tm]
Totally agree..
Or failing that, music I am familiar with such that I don't even hear the words.
I've found having Pink Floyd on low in the background has a very positive effect on my productivity.Especially the stuff from division bell and echos
Actually I would recommend the opposite.
This happens to me on about a 5 to 6 month basis... and is generally a sign that it's time for a week off.
The brain (at least mine) needs to reboot occasionally.. especially if you work in a math rich environment or other environment where you are constantly thinking rather than just hacking out code.
I find a week of staycation (don't go anywhere.. just stay at home.. sleep in, watch movies, etc..) and I`m ready to get back into it.
Well, a bug doesn't necessarily have to be discovered by someone getting killed, or even be a bug that could lead to someone getting killed
my point was more that in life critical systems, the testing and approval phases are massive, often many times the cost of the initial development, and depending on the situation, a 2 line code fix might require the entire system to be re-tested and certified.
I happen to be Canadian you insensitive clod!
Oh calm down..
it's a pretty easy thing to track.. most shops already have a bug tracking system.. you just need to add in a way to track how much stuff gets discovered in code reviews.. then have some intern hack out a spreadsheet in leu of getting valuable job experience.
Having worked on life critical type systems where every line of code was reviewed before making it into the product, I have to say that I've seen them add a lot of value when done properly.
They also cost a lot.
The first question I would ask in your situation is: are you doing them right?
Do bugs get discovered later after deployment? Are the bugs in areas of the code that were supposedly reviewed? If so, you might be doing it wrong.
And as much as we _hate_ the word... I have to say it...
METRICS!
If you truly want to make a decision on whether code reviews are worth it.. you need to know:
- how much does it cost to conduct the reviews
- how many defects are discovered in the review versus how many make it out the door (in other words, how good are you at it)
- how how much more does it cost you when a bug gets discovered after deployment? In a life critical system, it costs a fucktonne.. in a desktop app.. it may not be that bad.
Once you know these, the picture should be clear
I don't necessarily agree with that..
And I think individual personality has a lot to do with it (which is up to the parent to judge in the case of their kids). You can find cases of kids who came from very strict upbringings and grew into healthy adults, and you can find kids whos parents never even looked at them in a menacing way and had all kinds of social problems later on in life.
I tend to take the attitude that most kids arn't as fragile as new-age thinkers tend to believe. There are a few that are going to be scarred for life because of a horrific stern talking to they got when they made a mistake... but there are just as many who are going to view that as "how they were raised" and never have it negatively effect their life.
Well, like I said earlier in some thread.. I think any style of discipline can obviously be done wrong (which it sounds like it was in your case).
Punishing a kid for doing something they didn't understand is wrong doesn't accomplish much imo.. which sounds like what you described.
Though I don't know if I agree with that entitled attitude (now we're really getting into flame war area) which seems to define the current generation.
If you're living in your parents house, eating your parents food, etc.. it's my opinion that what they say should go. That was how it was when I was a kid.. and maybe it's a generational thing.. but I never had a problem with that arrangement. You lived under your parents rule.. maybe grumbling from time to time but in general things were good.. then eventually you moved out and generally had _less_ freedom when you were living at home.
That's not saying you should be lorded over with an iron fist .. but I see kids these days having outright swearing matches with their parents over not being allowed to go out somewhere... and I think we've gone _Way_ too far in the other direction.
Bleh.. here comes the fragile ornament stuff.
When I was a kid and got punished.. I didn't see it as "my parents are the enemy and I can never trust them again and I`ll surely turn to this alcohol and cocaine stuff when I grow up". I saw it as "oh crap.. I did something bad and now I`m paying the consequences.. "
And I can _totally_ remember that "deer in the headlights" feeling from when i was a kid! And you know.. it set me straight. Yet I had and still have a very healthy relationship with my parents.
And yet a huge majority of people who were spanked (myself included) as kids are very thankful now as adults.
And I`m not saying kids have the mental capacity of rocks.. but they arn't going to have the decision making power of an adult. Parenting requires an adult to sometimes save kids from themselves. Most kids, if the decision was _entirely_ up to them.. would never do their school work. By creating a negative re-enforcement (and an associated positive re-enforcement) to encourage a kid to do their work.. you are helping them in the long run.
I also think this style teaches long term cause and effect. You don't do school work.. get bad grade.. get punished. In short, "I do something wrong now for short term gain.. it bites me in the ass in the long run" .. which I think is a very important lesson.. and one that you can try and "verbally reason with" a kid till you're blue in the face and not get across.
I would like to say that the original article is just insane though... if you are considering that kind of solution, you're doing it wrong.
That's some nice shallow thinking.. "because they use a different style of discipline, they must be unfit parents."
My parents used the style of techniques you mentioned.. time outs.. going to bed early.. etc.. in addition to spanking.
Point is the outcome is the same.. a well adjusted person. I'd propose that spanking isn't necessary, but is a viable option for negative re-enforcement. After all, it was used for many generations successfully.
Non-corporal methods can be as damaging if used improperly imo. Excessive corner time or scolding or such can be just as emotionally damaging as physical abuse.
And I don't think either is effective if used by a parent that doesn't know what he/she is doing. I'd say there are just as many mis-adjusted kids out there who were pampered as spanked.
In this debate people always assume corporal punishment means beating the daylight out of your kids.
I`m also in the same boat as mapkinase. If I didn't do homework (my parents never demanded I get straight A's .. but I had to at least be putting in reasonable effort) I'd get punished. As it turned out, this method worked very effectively.. and I did very well in school.. and now have a great job/life.
And despite what various extremist think-of-the-children types will say.. I`m not some seething bottle of rage who has flashbacks of getting yelled at and attacks people at random as a result.
The problem is that people try to think of kids as little adults when they are in fact just kids. You can't always reason with a kid.. because they don't have the same ability to weigh options that adults do (I know when I was a kid I sure didn't). A little negative re-enforcement (do something wrong.. get punished) is sometimes the best way.
And I truly believe that kids today have more problems as a result of being treated as fragile ornaments who will be screwed up for the rest of their life if you even look at them in a menacing way.
For all the griping people do.. it wasn't that bad
And it's visual design tool really was amazing.
Users didn't need to worry about arranging stuff into tables.. you could just drag your graphic where ever you wanted .. or put text anywhere.. etc.
Sure, it let a lot of garbage leak onto the Internet.. but it also let people with something interesting to contribute an easy way of doing so.
And lets face it.. was the output of a geocities website designed with the visual designer that much different than most of the myspace pages you see? (that isn't an endorsement for myspace..). If you have interesting content.. the design matters a lot less (and again.. not saying that myspace contains interesting content).
Oh calm down ;p
I may be stuck in my ways.. but I write good code..
And I don't necessarily think agile is a bad thing.. it just tends to be pushed heavily by people with no experience in the real world. If agile is implemented by someone who understands the realities of software, it can work.
But I definitely think executable UML has to go away.. very soon
but I've seen the opposite when it comes to age and programmers.
People have grown tired of these "young whippersnappers" fresh outa college with their executable UML and agile methodologies.
Where I am experience is huge.. especially just plain familiarity with software in the real world and not some acedemic fantasy land. Someone in their 50's with 30 years of dev experience is pure gold .. and companies will fight tooth and nail to recruit the old veterans... assuming they arn't off "consulting" for serious money.
Now obviously this doesn't apply in your case.. it's the experience not the age employers are looking at.. but I can't see a company turning you down based on age.. unless you're in your 50's and/or only plan on working for a few more years. Even though you may not have any programming background.. you are probably going to have more social and team skills then most people coming out of school. Just the ability to communicate ideas is massive... and a skill that just doesn't seem to be taught any more.
I think I'll make tacos for dinner tonight.. havn't had them in a while.
And I need to get my hair cut this weekend.. starting to look like a hippy.