Which is why is said waiting for it to become feasible.. right now it totally sucks.
I'm talking to the point where computers will be able to interpret (and understand to a certain degree) speech. You would say a sentence in whatever form you wanted, it would determine your intentions, then perform them.
To this end for voice recognition to be practical the computer would need to follow conversations to determine when a speaker is talking to it instead of a friend in the room.
Yes.. we are talking a LONG way off here.. and for the time being.. I`ll take buttons over touch screens and definitely current voice recognition technology.
Ehe.. didn't mean to start a flame war here.. but this guy sounds like he would prefer traditional programming over web programming.. my point was more don't do something you don't want to do as opposed to don't do web programming because it makes you less of a man.
That being said.. I hate web programming;p
I _especially_ hate interpreted languages. That "Compile" stage is there for a reason. Compiling eliminated a lot of the "overhead" of OOP processing. In a language like PHP.. the more you try to use an object oriented approach (or add any additional complexity for the purpose of maintainability).. the more you slow down execution. I also hate weakly typed languages. It's my general opinion that it's fundemental to good design to be able to say that this variable is an "X".
As for everything going web based... I've been hearing that since 1996. While I think some applications do lend themselves more to a web platform.. I think certain categories of applications are always going to want to run on (and only on) the client side.
I see this whole webapp boom a lot like Java applets and Flash. With any new technology people go nuts and try to use it for everything. Then at some point everyone calms down.. the erection subsides.. and a small subset of useful products emerges. Right now everyone is having a collective orgasms to get everything from documents to graphics programs on the web but I suspect eventually a lot of it will fade away and life will go back to normal.
I consider myself lucky. I've found a nice niche beneath the desktop. I write low level code and higher level management code for custom and very specialized hardware. If the bottom fell out of this (which I doubt.. but you never know).. I could always transition back to desktop.. but I`ll become a tech support representative before going web programmer.
Sure.. but we're talking about coming out of school here.
I totally agree with your point though. In my case it's worse.. I work with proprietary languages on proprietary hardware pretty much used solely within my company. It's awesome stuff.. and I love what I do.. but if I ever go to change jobs.. I'm relying solely on the things I mentioned in my original post.
I dunno.. I'd be careful of web work. Once you get pegged as a "web developer" it can be hard to get a traditional programming job.
That's not to say you shouldn't pursue a career in web stuff if you have an interest.. but having 5 years as a PHP developer on your resume is a hard stigma to shake if you decide you want to get into more traditional programming languages.
In other words... I'd think long and hard about taking a web programming job if it's not really what your interested in. Sure.. it means money for the short term.. but you might get stuck there.
Honestly... a general knowledge of programming is the best you can hope for.
Every shop has their own specific tool stack and custom libraries and documentation process. They are also going to need you to be very knowledgable in one or more very specific areas. There's no way you're going to be able to get yourself ready for any.. or even many jobs before hand. The important thing is that you can learn new stuff quickly.. digest existing code.. present your ideas in a digestible way to a diverse group of people (managers, other developers, testers, clients).. work in a team.. and not let your ego get in the way.
First several months at any new shop are spent learning their way of doing things.. they expect that. It's why programming shops put such a heavy emphasis on the hiring process. The company will invest a lot of money on you before you make them any.
C++, C, and Java are kinda the standard trifecta these days. I'd suggest doing a little assembler, and maybe a really messed up language like Perl just to see the "other side" (pre-emptive defense: I love Perl.. but common.. it is pretty messed up). One thing I would recommend though that I didn't see in your post is a good knowledge of technical writing. You can have the perfect answer.. but if you can put it on paper in a clear and understandable manner.. what's the point.
I've got a better reason...
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 1
Reality TV!
Seriously.. used to be that TV and commercial studios had their place producing content that your average high school kid with a video camera couldn't do.
Now with reality TV being much easier to produce, cheaper, _AND_ appealing to the type of people who buy into advertising.. the quality of your average TV program isn't much higher than youtube.
.. but unfortunately just doesn't seem to be.. these are some of the major failings I see in online advertising today:
Inconsistency! This to me is a huge one. Back in the day.. you'd be surfing your favourite site.. and you'd see the same ad over and over. Every day, there it would be. Sooner or later you'd get curious and click on it.. and the odd rare time, you would find a product that generally interested you. You don't see that any more. Now every time you visit the site.. a completely different set of random ads shows up. There is no longer that cumulative curiosity.
Relevancy! Ok.. google's adsence has made a lot of headway in this area... but automated tools (even really freaking complex ones) simply can't replace a web aster finding a product on his.her own that he/she feels visitors will want.
Slow freaking ad servers! Back in the day (cough).. the ad was hosted on the same server as the rest of the page. Users didn't have to wait for some slow overloaded ad server.
Only getting paid on "confirmed purchases". To me this is a rip of for webmasters. The few times I have bought something I saw advertised on a web page.. I didn't access it through the ad. I googled for it later when a need for such product arose. Ads don't usually have an immediate effect imo.. they are cumulative. You see a product name over and over.. and eventually decide to buy it. You see the same ad for some web host every time you visit a site.. then one day you need web hosting.. and the name pops up. Chances are you are not going to go click on the ad.. but non the less the ad was effective.
Just being freaking irritating. The latest craze is these hover over links. Every time I see one.. I feel like heating up a steel spring with a blow torch, then carefully sliding it up the webmasters nose. Stuff like this encourages people to install ad blockers. Back when ads were un-intrusive.. most people didn't bother with ad blockers. Now though.. browsing the web without some kind of blocker is an experience in pain... and unfortunately the nice ads that don't annoy users get blocked along with everything else.
The main goal of writing solid code isn't to lower resource requirements.. it's to increase maintainability.
Sure you can hack out shitty code and make up for it with more hardware to handle the mem leaks and bloat... and probably save some money in the short term. In the long term though, when you need to add something to your mess of spaghetti code.. you're going to spend much more programmer time.. which is what you were trying to save from the get go.
I`m a firm believer that a little extra time and money spent on writing good, clean code will pay off in the long run.
This sounded interesting.. but just really didn't hold my attention. Most of the stuff fell under one of two categories:
1) stuff which is cool, but that I already knew about.. 2) stuff which wasn't really all that interesting
Additionally the little blurb of info the give on each was fairly dry.... and they have (at least for my browser) added some annoying anti-"just view the print version" stuff..
Ehe.. until that last paragraph I was gonna make some snarky comment like "you must be an academic"
But yeah.. I`d love to see an environment where old ideas and new ideas are melded together with everyone working together to leverage the collective experience and knowledge of the group.. but I expect that to happen right after we get peace in the middle east, solve our energy problems, and eliminate poverty.
I like to think you need a combination of old stubborn guys deeply set in their way.. and new young go-getters fresh out of academia with all sorts of "agile methodologies".
What you said is true.. if your entire management thinks CS died with COBOL.. then you're in trouble..
On the other hand if your entire management is young go-getters with little experience in the realities of software.. all sorts of bad things happen (*cough* executable uml)
The constant struggle between the new guys to get some of the neat stuff they saw in uni into the mix and the old guys who think it's all a bunch of nonsense will in the right balance lead to a happy medium.
I tend to turn to the math when this problem presents itself.
I`m a programmer.. not a project manager.. but I can still usually put some kind of approximate number on the time it's going to take me to write from scratch (or re-write) vs. adapt/hack a lib into what I need.
Factor in deadlines, maintainability issues, support issues, sanity, the phase of the moon, the flacid length of my firehose at room temperature.. and I have my decision.
As a side note, I don`t know what specific problems your having.. but I think if JDBC has become preferable over Hibernate.. you're doing it very wrong;p
Addendum: I think the approach you described works beautifully however in environment where the students have a very serious interest in learning the right way to do things.. but we were talking about an intro course.
I totally agree with you in theory.. but I think in reality this fall apart (unfortunately).
Students will be anxious to actually make a program... and unlike yesteryear where programming tools were hard to come by... now days anyone with an internet connection can google "how to make really 1337 apps" and find a VB6 tutorial.
While your teaching binary math and boolean algebra.. they are in the back hacking together a twisted VB6 version of hangman.. with lots of goto statements and copy+paste code from the net.
By the time you get to actually writing some code.. they will have months of bad habits.. if they are even still in your class ("why do I need all this bs.. I figured out how to program by myself!")... I think sometimes the accessibility of programming info is as much a curse as it is is godsend.
I`m dead serious. Starting with a language like Java or C++ or *.NET or anything where the programmer can make something interesting means they will focus on the end product and not the code.
Give them a language like pascal, and restrict them to cli apps.. and they won`t spend their time trying to make their app do something cool.. but instead focus on making the code look neat.
I'm of the school that thinks "debunking" involves some kind of comprehensive stats or numbers or evidence weight against strongly held opinions.
This article is basically a verbose version of the "nuh uh" argument.
It's not a bad article.. but I would hardly call this "debunking".
And I totally disagree on point #2.. maybe having _all_ your extra servers always on is bad.. but if load peaks there is no _way_ someone should be waiting while a system boots.
Mostly agree with you. I don't agree that teenagers should be inherently trusted.. especially for something where their life (and the life of others) is going to depend greatly on how responsible they are.
I think if someone feels the need to install "parental safety devices" in the car.. their kids are probably not mature enough to drive (entirely possible with the 14/16 year driving age here in Canada and in the USA).
In this day, parents seem to be afraid of "damaging" kids by not trusting them. Trust has to be earned imo.. it should not be a default.
My parents had a lot of trust in me by the time I was old enough to drive. They just gave me the keys and assumed I wasn't going to go out and do something stupid.. and surprise surprise.. I never did!
This was not a default position that I was somehow entitled to, but something I had earned through years of showing I could make responsible decisions in other areas.
I was never a saint.. I made plenty of mistakes.. but when it came to stuff where my life or someone elses was at stake.. I took things seriously. And I think if the same can't be said about a kid.. he/she shouldn't be driving.
But in all seriousness.. my desktop also acts as a small web server. Not enough traffic to justify a separate box.. but enough that it can`t be down for several hours every day. Additionally I use my computer so frequently (yes I`m a true geek... if I get up in the middle of the night I`ll often check email/see whats happening on IRC.. and I tend to shell in from work frequently) that it just doesn't make sense to shut the thing down.
Maybe if I used a laptop it would be different.. but as it stands I only reboot my computer when I upgrade my kernel (which isn't often).
What I have noticed is distro's like Gentoo boot fast because the user starts from the ground up and adds only the services they need. A default install of Debian comes with a large number of services that your average user probably doesn't need.. and probably slow the boot process.
That's not to say Gentoo is necessarily better.. I recently decided to give Debian another try after years of using Gentoo.. and this is just one of the observations I`ve made.
the last 3 years of support desk gives me the business sense
ROFLMAO!
That's probably not as insane as it sounds. Usually the guy's who really know the ins and outs of the software are the guy's who spend all day helping users get it working.
I may not have put is as bluntly, but I would be inclined to agree with the basic point you made.
I would point out that he did say "for money". I've known _many_ coding gurus relegated to help desk/support type jobs because they never got the formal education or couldn't find an entry level position with no experience. Where I live, very few companies hire entry level, so new graduates have to either move somewhere else, or if they want to stay put, take a crap job and hope to one day impress the right person and get into the role they wanted.
The really great programmers I know all found it on their own... and then later decided to pursue it as a career.
I fall into this boat (doesn't automatically make me a great programmer though).. I got into programming fairly early on, then decided some time during high school that I'd make a career out of it. I got lucky and was able to get into a nice job (thanks in large part to references I got doing volunteer work.. karama++)
So I guess to sum all that babbling up.. if the poster is a long time hobby programmer.. but has just never programmed for a company... then for all we know he could be great. Certainly the fact that he is asking these questions means he at least cares about the quality of work he will produce. Thats more than a lot of programmers out there.
On the other hand if he had no prior interest in programming.. and is just seeing this as a bigger pay cheque.. then yeah... stick with the help desk.
I dunno.. I agree there is the odd bit of bad advice (such as what you just mentioned).. but I think in general the book gives some very level headed practical advice.
That being said, I don't think I have ever found a book that didn't say _something_ I disagreed with. It's all about reading, absorbing, but not mindlessly assimilating.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why is said waiting for it to become feasible .. right now it totally sucks.
I'm talking to the point where computers will be able to interpret (and understand to a certain degree) speech. You would say a sentence in whatever form you wanted, it would determine your intentions, then perform them.
To this end for voice recognition to be practical the computer would need to follow conversations to determine when a speaker is talking to it instead of a friend in the room.
Yes.. we are talking a LONG way off here.. and for the time being.. I`ll take buttons over touch screens and definitely current voice recognition technology.
But a smart phone has limited "hard" buttons. .. and as nice as touch screens are.. it's hard to operate them lying in bed through one half-open eye.
Personally I`m waiting for voice recognition to become practical. I think that's more the future of how we control our devices.
Ehe.. didn't mean to start a flame war here.. but this guy sounds like he would prefer traditional programming over web programming.. my point was more don't do something you don't want to do as opposed to don't do web programming because it makes you less of a man.
That being said.. I hate web programming ;p
I _especially_ hate interpreted languages. That "Compile" stage is there for a reason. Compiling eliminated a lot of the "overhead" of OOP processing. In a language like PHP.. the more you try to use an object oriented approach (or add any additional complexity for the purpose of maintainability).. the more you slow down execution. I also hate weakly typed languages. It's my general opinion that it's fundemental to good design to be able to say that this variable is an "X".
As for everything going web based... I've been hearing that since 1996. While I think some applications do lend themselves more to a web platform.. I think certain categories of applications are always going to want to run on (and only on) the client side.
I see this whole webapp boom a lot like Java applets and Flash. With any new technology people go nuts and try to use it for everything. Then at some point everyone calms down.. the erection subsides.. and a small subset of useful products emerges. Right now everyone is having a collective orgasms to get everything from documents to graphics programs on the web but I suspect eventually a lot of it will fade away and life will go back to normal.
I consider myself lucky. I've found a nice niche beneath the desktop. I write low level code and higher level management code for custom and very specialized hardware. If the bottom fell out of this (which I doubt.. but you never know).. I could always transition back to desktop.. but I`ll become a tech support representative before going web programmer.
Sure.. but we're talking about coming out of school here.
I totally agree with your point though. In my case it's worse.. I work with proprietary languages on proprietary hardware pretty much used solely within my company. It's awesome stuff.. and I love what I do.. but if I ever go to change jobs.. I'm relying solely on the things I mentioned in my original post.
I dunno.. I'd be careful of web work. Once you get pegged as a "web developer" it can be hard to get a traditional programming job.
That's not to say you shouldn't pursue a career in web stuff if you have an interest.. but having 5 years as a PHP developer on your resume is a hard stigma to shake if you decide you want to get into more traditional programming languages.
In other words... I'd think long and hard about taking a web programming job if it's not really what your interested in. Sure.. it means money for the short term.. but you might get stuck there.
Honestly... a general knowledge of programming is the best you can hope for.
Every shop has their own specific tool stack and custom libraries and documentation process. They are also going to need you to be very knowledgable in one or more very specific areas. There's no way you're going to be able to get yourself ready for any.. or even many jobs before hand. The important thing is that you can learn new stuff quickly.. digest existing code.. present your ideas in a digestible way to a diverse group of people (managers, other developers, testers, clients).. work in a team.. and not let your ego get in the way.
First several months at any new shop are spent learning their way of doing things .. they expect that. It's why programming shops put such a heavy emphasis on the hiring process. The company will invest a lot of money on you before you make them any.
C++, C, and Java are kinda the standard trifecta these days. I'd suggest doing a little assembler, and maybe a really messed up language like Perl just to see the "other side" (pre-emptive defense: I love Perl.. but common.. it is pretty messed up). One thing I would recommend though that I didn't see in your post is a good knowledge of technical writing. You can have the perfect answer.. but if you can put it on paper in a clear and understandable manner.. what's the point.
Reality TV!
Seriously.. used to be that TV and commercial studios had their place producing content that your average high school kid with a video camera couldn't do.
Now with reality TV being much easier to produce, cheaper, _AND_ appealing to the type of people who buy into advertising.. the quality of your average TV program isn't much higher than youtube.
.. but unfortunately just doesn't seem to be.. these are some of the major failings I see in online advertising today:
Inconsistency! This to me is a huge one. Back in the day.. you'd be surfing your favourite site.. and you'd see the same ad over and over. Every day, there it would be. Sooner or later you'd get curious and click on it.. and the odd rare time, you would find a product that generally interested you. You don't see that any more. Now every time you visit the site.. a completely different set of random ads shows up. There is no longer that cumulative curiosity.
Relevancy! Ok.. google's adsence has made a lot of headway in this area... but automated tools (even really freaking complex ones) simply can't replace a web aster finding a product on his.her own that he/she feels visitors will want.
Slow freaking ad servers! Back in the day (cough) .. the ad was hosted on the same server as the rest of the page. Users didn't have to wait for some slow overloaded ad server.
Only getting paid on "confirmed purchases". To me this is a rip of for webmasters. The few times I have bought something I saw advertised on a web page.. I didn't access it through the ad. I googled for it later when a need for such product arose. Ads don't usually have an immediate effect imo .. they are cumulative. You see a product name over and over.. and eventually decide to buy it. You see the same ad for some web host every time you visit a site.. then one day you need web hosting.. and the name pops up. Chances are you are not going to go click on the ad.. but non the less the ad was effective.
Just being freaking irritating. The latest craze is these hover over links. Every time I see one.. I feel like heating up a steel spring with a blow torch, then carefully sliding it up the webmasters nose. Stuff like this encourages people to install ad blockers. Back when ads were un-intrusive.. most people didn't bother with ad blockers. Now though.. browsing the web without some kind of blocker is an experience in pain... and unfortunately the nice ads that don't annoy users get blocked along with everything else.
Anyway, that is enough drunken 3am rambling!
The main goal of writing solid code isn't to lower resource requirements.. it's to increase maintainability.
Sure you can hack out shitty code and make up for it with more hardware to handle the mem leaks and bloat... and probably save some money in the short term. In the long term though, when you need to add something to your mess of spaghetti code.. you're going to spend much more programmer time .. which is what you were trying to save from the get go.
I`m a firm believer that a little extra time and money spent on writing good, clean code will pay off in the long run.
This sounded interesting.. but just really didn't hold my attention. Most of the stuff fell under one of two categories:
1) stuff which is cool, but that I already knew about ..
2) stuff which wasn't really all that interesting
Additionally the little blurb of info the give on each was fairly dry .. .. and they have (at least for my browser) added some annoying anti-"just view the print version" stuff..
AND GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!
Ehe.. until that last paragraph I was gonna make some snarky comment like "you must be an academic"
But yeah.. I`d love to see an environment where old ideas and new ideas are melded together with everyone working together to leverage the collective experience and knowledge of the group.. but I expect that to happen right after we get peace in the middle east, solve our energy problems, and eliminate poverty.
I like to think you need a combination of old stubborn guys deeply set in their way.. and new young go-getters fresh out of academia with all sorts of "agile methodologies".
What you said is true.. if your entire management thinks CS died with COBOL .. then you're in trouble..
On the other hand if your entire management is young go-getters with little experience in the realities of software.. all sorts of bad things happen (*cough* executable uml)
The constant struggle between the new guys to get some of the neat stuff they saw in uni into the mix and the old guys who think it's all a bunch of nonsense will in the right balance lead to a happy medium.
I tend to turn to the math when this problem presents itself.
I`m a programmer.. not a project manager.. but I can still usually put some kind of approximate number on the time it's going to take me to write from scratch (or re-write) vs. adapt/hack a lib into what I need.
Factor in deadlines, maintainability issues, support issues, sanity, the phase of the moon, the flacid length of my firehose at room temperature .. and I have my decision.
As a side note, I don`t know what specific problems your having.. but I think if JDBC has become preferable over Hibernate.. you're doing it very wrong ;p
Yeah but new programmers don`t dream of writing text authoring tools.
Addendum: I think the approach you described works beautifully however in environment where the students have a very serious interest in learning the right way to do things.. but we were talking about an intro course.
I totally agree with you in theory.. but I think in reality this fall apart (unfortunately).
Students will be anxious to actually make a program... and unlike yesteryear where programming tools were hard to come by... now days anyone with an internet connection can google "how to make really 1337 apps" and find a VB6 tutorial.
While your teaching binary math and boolean algebra.. they are in the back hacking together a twisted VB6 version of hangman.. with lots of goto statements and copy+paste code from the net.
By the time you get to actually writing some code.. they will have months of bad habits .. if they are even still in your class ("why do I need all this bs.. I figured out how to program by myself!"). .. I think sometimes the accessibility of programming info is as much a curse as it is is godsend.
.. like pascal!
WAIT WAIT.. this isn't a troll!!
I`m dead serious. Starting with a language like Java or C++ or *.NET or anything where the programmer can make something interesting means they will focus on the end product and not the code.
Give them a language like pascal, and restrict them to cli apps.. and they won`t spend their time trying to make their app do something cool.. but instead focus on making the code look neat.
I'm of the school that thinks "debunking" involves some kind of comprehensive stats or numbers or evidence weight against strongly held opinions.
This article is basically a verbose version of the "nuh uh" argument.
It's not a bad article.. but I would hardly call this "debunking".
And I totally disagree on point #2 .. maybe having _all_ your extra servers always on is bad.. but if load peaks there is no _way_ someone should be waiting while a system boots.
Mostly agree with you. I don't agree that teenagers should be inherently trusted.. especially for something where their life (and the life of others) is going to depend greatly on how responsible they are.
I think if someone feels the need to install "parental safety devices" in the car.. their kids are probably not mature enough to drive (entirely possible with the 14/16 year driving age here in Canada and in the USA).
In this day, parents seem to be afraid of "damaging" kids by not trusting them. Trust has to be earned imo.. it should not be a default.
My parents had a lot of trust in me by the time I was old enough to drive. They just gave me the keys and assumed I wasn't going to go out and do something stupid.. and surprise surprise.. I never did!
This was not a default position that I was somehow entitled to, but something I had earned through years of showing I could make responsible decisions in other areas.
I was never a saint.. I made plenty of mistakes.. but when it came to stuff where my life or someone elses was at stake.. I took things seriously. And I think if the same can't be said about a kid.. he/she shouldn't be driving.
I'm curing cancer!
But in all seriousness.. my desktop also acts as a small web server. Not enough traffic to justify a separate box.. but enough that it can`t be down for several hours every day. Additionally I use my computer so frequently (yes I`m a true geek... if I get up in the middle of the night I`ll often check email/see whats happening on IRC.. and I tend to shell in from work frequently) that it just doesn't make sense to shut the thing down.
I agree...
Maybe if I used a laptop it would be different.. but as it stands I only reboot my computer when I upgrade my kernel (which isn't often).
What I have noticed is distro's like Gentoo boot fast because the user starts from the ground up and adds only the services they need. A default install of Debian comes with a large number of services that your average user probably doesn't need.. and probably slow the boot process.
That's not to say Gentoo is necessarily better.. I recently decided to give Debian another try after years of using Gentoo.. and this is just one of the observations I`ve made.
the last 3 years of support desk gives me the business sense
ROFLMAO!
That's probably not as insane as it sounds. Usually the guy's who really know the ins and outs of the software are the guy's who spend all day helping users get it working.
I may not have put is as bluntly, but I would be inclined to agree with the basic point you made.
I would point out that he did say "for money". I've known _many_ coding gurus relegated to help desk/support type jobs because they never got the formal education or couldn't find an entry level position with no experience. Where I live, very few companies hire entry level, so new graduates have to either move somewhere else, or if they want to stay put, take a crap job and hope to one day impress the right person and get into the role they wanted.
The really great programmers I know all found it on their own... and then later decided to pursue it as a career.
I fall into this boat (doesn't automatically make me a great programmer though).. I got into programming fairly early on, then decided some time during high school that I'd make a career out of it. I got lucky and was able to get into a nice job (thanks in large part to references I got doing volunteer work.. karama++)
So I guess to sum all that babbling up.. if the poster is a long time hobby programmer.. but has just never programmed for a company... then for all we know he could be great. Certainly the fact that he is asking these questions means he at least cares about the quality of work he will produce. Thats more than a lot of programmers out there.
On the other hand if he had no prior interest in programming.. and is just seeing this as a bigger pay cheque.. then yeah... stick with the help desk.
I totally agree, except for number 4. I have _never_ found a marketing type with any kind of grasp (or desire to grasp) basic reality.
Yeah.. I'm bitter
I dunno.. I agree there is the odd bit of bad advice (such as what you just mentioned).. but I think in general the book gives some very level headed practical advice.
That being said, I don't think I have ever found a book that didn't say _something_ I disagreed with. It's all about reading, absorbing, but not mindlessly assimilating.