I've been trying to hire recently, and I can say that it's hard to find good people. Not good in a particular topic, just good thinkers.
It's logical analysis and that's mostly missing. 99% of the applicants (to our java/perl shop) got into the business in 1999 after a quick nine-month certificate, and never learned how to program a computer. They don't love the art; they want a buck without having to think too much about it. They're not solving problems, they're "applying a skill," i.e., trying to slide through with old knowledge from courses.
For every good programmer, there are four hundred useless ones with "5 years experience" because anyone could be a programmer in 1999. And from what I've heard from the win32 side of the fence at my company, it's even worse there.
I was in the same boat. If a topic interests me, I eat it up with vigour. If I'm uninterested or bored with it, I can't even force myself to do it. Result in school? A mix of A+ and C-.
I went into programming because it interested me. I was lucky that it is also a very unregulated industry--you don't need a string of letters after your name; my Bachelor's does fine. This is important for people like us, because you want a career where knowledge counts but certificates don't (as much).
My advice is: never stop learning, but don't waste your time with too much school. I declined grad school because I thought I'd die from boredom; but after a few of years working I have a position where I basically get to direct my own work to what I find interesting. Businesses need self-learning, independent thinkers. Trust me, I'm trying to hire, and while there are many "trained" people, there are few with an agile mind and good judgment. We have enough drones.
Don't drop out of your undergrad--it's great fun! But try to slog through the boredom, and learn as much as possible on the way. Good luck with school, but remember to get out before you lose your mind.
Why would iBackup offer it? For some reason, software makers (myself included) have been able to get away without guaranteeing anything for a long time. We don't finish projects sometimes, and even if we do, we don't guarantee you even get what you want.
What is interesting, mind you, is that some consider this more realistic. The way Product Liability cases have been going the last 50 years, software is kind of lucky not to be included. Think of the awards for McDonalds coffee 'users;' people who eat glass and complain there was no sticker saying not to.
If we demand courts throw away the disclaimers of liability by companies like iBackup or Microsoft, it could definitely hurt open source. If they throw out Windows' disclaimers of liability the GPL's disclaimer might not be far off. What if people could sue free software authors directly? That would be scary.
It's a double-edged sword, and frankly, I don't know which way I'd like it to go. Anyone?
Europeans aren't so bad. Many of the things they're doing in modern Europe are downright sensible. Socialized medicine for example.
Please don't make the US into Yet Another Socialist Paradise.
If you like that sort of thing, move to Europe or the People's Republic of Canada.
We need at least one strong capitalist country so those of us trapped in places with socialized medicine can at least fly in and get an MRI. And as a Canadian, we rely on you to invent and produce medicines so we can loot them.
Socialism is all about looting the productive. Without a capitalist economy to loot, it's all downhill spiral. Every industry that gets nationalized will slowly bleed to death; with medicine, it's we who will bleed.
ObTopcality: software patents don't belong in capitalism; it's more like fascism.
11. Make a GUI manpage browser with scrollbars, and hyperlinks, and tables of contents for individual manpages, and the ability to quickly expand/collapse individual sections within the individual manpages, and quickly sorted/filtered browsing of the man -k / apropos database; and put this program where people know it exists and know what it is.
See tkman. It seems to do all of the above, and on my debian system, installs itself into the menus under "help".
If, when you sign up for the service from the cable company, you agree not to hook a computer to the cable feed, then it is not your right to do so.
True, but then there's no legislation required, just simple contract law. Some corporations are pushing for legislation because they do not like that it is expensive to enforce contracts with silly terms like the one you state. So they just want to outlaw it and have the state pay the price to enforce it.
In commenting on legislation outlawing the use of general purpose computers to access digital, e.g., cable, content, he comments:
I don't think their concern should trump the general preference we have for convergence
I don't think laws should be weighing a "concern" versus a "preference" at all. I'm a little concerned that a lawyer isn't framing this as an issue of rights.
I bought my computer; I bought a cable feed. In my own home, I'm going to do what I like with them, "concerns" be damned. And this isn't just a "preference", it's a right!
...because the programmer over the cube wall was constantly humming songs to herself. There's nothing more maddening than listening to someone hum while you're trying to code. Headphones were mandatory.
I dropped the headphones when I got an office. What a blessing.
Also consider yourself lucky that you have not experienced Sun at their worst yet: yes, they, too, sometimes have less than stellar service even though you pay them a bundle.
Like diagnosing a memory card failure, replacing it to have the OS panic in a few hours? And then they changed out all the RAM again. And did it again three days later.
After a few calls the replaced everything but the chassis. But that was several failures in a week!
Or when our CPUs started blowing, but they wouldn't give a new batch for all the identical severs we bought. They told us to call them as the blew. We ended up getting about 60% replaced, as they blew and caused downtime.
But they're always there in an hour to be unhelpful.
Slashdot Mirror
"Expertise in Short Supply"
I've been trying to hire recently, and I can say that it's hard to find good people. Not good in a particular topic, just good thinkers.
It's logical analysis and that's mostly missing. 99% of the applicants (to our java/perl shop) got into the business in 1999 after a quick nine-month certificate, and never learned how to program a computer. They don't love the art; they want a buck without having to think too much about it. They're not solving problems, they're "applying a skill," i.e., trying to slide through with old knowledge from courses.
For every good programmer, there are four hundred useless ones with "5 years experience" because anyone could be a programmer in 1999. And from what I've heard from the win32 side of the fence at my company, it's even worse there.
Debian
Oh, you're one of the terse document designers. Try this:
I was in the same boat. If a topic interests me, I eat it up with vigour. If I'm uninterested or bored with it, I can't even force myself to do it. Result in school? A mix of A+ and C-.
I went into programming because it interested me. I was lucky that it is also a very unregulated industry--you don't need a string of letters after your name; my Bachelor's does fine. This is important for people like us, because you want a career where knowledge counts but certificates don't (as much).
My advice is: never stop learning, but don't waste your time with too much school. I declined grad school because I thought I'd die from boredom; but after a few of years working I have a position where I basically get to direct my own work to what I find interesting. Businesses need self-learning, independent thinkers. Trust me, I'm trying to hire, and while there are many "trained" people, there are few with an agile mind and good judgment. We have enough drones.
Don't drop out of your undergrad--it's great fun! But try to slog through the boredom, and learn as much as possible on the way. Good luck with school, but remember to get out before you lose your mind.
Why would iBackup offer it? For some reason, software makers (myself included) have been able to get away without guaranteeing anything for a long time. We don't finish projects sometimes, and even if we do, we don't guarantee you even get what you want.
What is interesting, mind you, is that some consider this more realistic. The way Product Liability cases have been going the last 50 years, software is kind of lucky not to be included. Think of the awards for McDonalds coffee 'users;' people who eat glass and complain there was no sticker saying not to.
If we demand courts throw away the disclaimers of liability by companies like iBackup or Microsoft, it could definitely hurt open source. If they throw out Windows' disclaimers of liability the GPL's disclaimer might not be far off. What if people could sue free software authors directly? That would be scary.
It's a double-edged sword, and frankly, I don't know which way I'd like it to go. Anyone?
Please don't make the US into Yet Another Socialist Paradise.
If you like that sort of thing, move to Europe or the People's Republic of Canada.
We need at least one strong capitalist country so those of us trapped in places with socialized medicine can at least fly in and get an MRI. And as a Canadian, we rely on you to invent and produce medicines so we can loot them.
Socialism is all about looting the productive. Without a capitalist economy to loot, it's all downhill spiral. Every industry that gets nationalized will slowly bleed to death; with medicine, it's we who will bleed.
ObTopcality: software patents don't belong in capitalism; it's more like fascism.
Yeah, it's all there, but the re-compile takes forever!
...now with two backdoors!
I'm betting that nmap binary is about to get much bigger...
Company officer claims competitor isn't as good as his product. Film at 11.
See tkman. It seems to do all of the above, and on my debian system, installs itself into the menus under "help".
True, but then there's no legislation required, just simple contract law. Some corporations are pushing for legislation because they do not like that it is expensive to enforce contracts with silly terms like the one you state. So they just want to outlaw it and have the state pay the price to enforce it.
In commenting on legislation outlawing the use of general purpose computers to access digital, e.g., cable, content, he comments:
I don't think laws should be weighing a "concern" versus a "preference" at all. I'm a little concerned that a lawyer isn't framing this as an issue of rights.
I bought my computer; I bought a cable feed. In my own home, I'm going to do what I like with them, "concerns" be damned. And this isn't just a "preference", it's a right!
Telepathy, man. That's why this tin foil hat isn't just stylish, it's also practical.
All the advanced language features of C with all the speed of an interpreted VM!
Can I get them to compile asm to java bytecode next?
... and no one has said it yet:
I, for one, welcome our new rat overlords!
And since that's best I could do. I need a shot of choline.
...because the programmer over the cube wall was constantly humming songs to herself. There's nothing more maddening than listening to someone hum while you're trying to code. Headphones were mandatory.
I dropped the headphones when I got an office. What a blessing.
I've read cases where the same laws have been used to prosecute companies no matter what they do:
A law that you can't know you're breaking in advance is no law: it's a license for prosecutors to go after anybody.
... I would submit:
Software name: nmap
Section: terrorist tools
Purpose: Enables evildoers to do evil (and OS detection).
I can only think of one place to press in my PIN on a teller, and I'm sure she'd slap me.
Like diagnosing a memory card failure, replacing it to have the OS panic in a few hours? And then they changed out all the RAM again. And did it again three days later.
After a few calls the replaced everything but the chassis. But that was several failures in a week!
Or when our CPUs started blowing, but they wouldn't give a new batch for all the identical severs we bought. They told us to call them as the blew. We ended up getting about 60% replaced, as they blew and caused downtime.
But they're always there in an hour to be unhelpful.
If none of you have seen the Win2k source code, how could you judge whether a patch was from someone who had?
My wang referencing skills are fine.