Hardly. They care about making companies happy sure; when "development" requires little skill, more people will line up for the job, pay will be less.
And, isn't that the point? Haven't we always said that programmers would automate themselves out of a job? I embrace that... I wouldn't want to be stuck programming in Assembler or C the rest of my life... I rather like other aspects a lot more... then again I'm not a hardcore programmer, I'm one of the business programmer types the GP mentioned.
It's scary, really. Imagine how easy it would be for a predator to create an online persona that is NORMAL? When this guy, who's status is regularly updated with lines such as "ayyy yo cause when i git crunk i like to toke...yaa digg??/? ahhaahaahh", is able to have even one successful conversation.
Heh I bet that fictional persona is far more interesting than me (or the average slashdotter I guess:P ) - I'm NOT able to get phone numbers or get to add "gurls":P
this older couple in their late 40s early 50s. And they were telling me that they went to a rave a few weeks ago in Toronto. It was strange. But then Torontonians would have thought it was cool anyways.
My mother is in her 40's, lives in Toronto, and goes to raves. There you have, anecdotical evidence:) (a few more and we'll have a statistic:P )
Use this experience as evidence that you need to implement a robust software testing regiment.
You're preaching to the choir:) . At my last position (with Equifax), they had a VERY stringent testing process... it was a bottleneck, but it worked, and we never had downtime or production errors like this one. Sadly it's been an uphill battle over here, and we've been through one IT boss change already in the last year and a half I've been here (an insurance company).
You've got to handle that problem at the application layer, preferably as soon as possible.
Before converting it to a double or float point or whatever you are using, you have to do some data verification. Similarily, you wouldn't want someone putting in "ABC.75" dollars, because that can't be parsed, you have to handle all those scenarios.
Actually, I had already implemented that they couldn't type anything but numbers, commas and periods in the relevant text box.
You check if there are any Comma's. If so, how many characters follow the comma. 2 would be like 1,00 (one dollar) , and 3 would be like 1,000 (one thousand dollars). In no case in English formatting should a comma be followed by any less than 3 characters, and assuming they are inputing their information properly, French users won't have any more than 2.
Similarily, you apply the exact same logic for periods, just vice versa. This will allow your program to determine which standard is being used independant of operating system OS.
I probably should do that.
Once you've nailed that, you can change comma's to decimals or what not depending on which case you are in, and then converting it to your double from there.
You should be able to test it on your own at least a few times, to make sure it works, then it SHOULD work across all OS languages.
I made a similar mistake recently... I made a (.NET) data entry software that received monetary quantities as user input, and I converted them without taking into account the Windows settings for decimals and thousands separators.
It worked fine until somebody used a different language OS... and some strange quantities were recorded, one slipped all the way through the process and a confused customer received a bill for 17.000.000 local currency (about U$ 1.000.000) . I fixed it by using the CultureInfo, etc...when converting, but it wasn't nice, messed with all of the higher ups' reports and everything ("Hey, hadn't we sold about U$ 1.000.000 more?" "No, it was an error from G in Development")
I'm sure there are better ways and good practices, but keep in mind that where I work we don't even have testing, so I guess I'm getting sloppy. If someone wants to give advice, go ahead, I'll appreciate it (or at least should:) ).
There aren't $20 cell phones, that's the subsidized price. If you were a phone company, or someone in a position to collect a monthly fee for running these netbooks, you certainly could dump them for $20 on a shelf at Wal-Mart, provided they come with a 2 year contract for whatever you're selling...
I'm not so sure... I bought a U$ 20 cell phone recently (the Nokia 1208), new, from the local carrier, without a contract or any fees of any kind and with 300 minutes of credit thrown in. Maybe they hope they'll make it up off prepaid phone cards, but they're not getting them off a contract.
Personally, I prefer a 4:3 ratio on my screens and those have become very hard to find.
Amen to that. My father and I also prefer that ratio, and he has resorted to buying secondhand 17' and 19' , but there are no larger LCDs with that ratio unfortunately.
Like many others, most of my work is maintaining legacy code (and we're talking everything from SUN's old Forté UDS to Visual Basic 6 and everything in between).
I wanted to do a Master's degree in CS, and during my interviews, they asked what would I be interested in researching... I told them I found software maintenance to be a line of study that hasn't been properly studied, and they dismissed it (mostly for it not being "sexy" enough). So it's not exactly a "hot" field of study...
When I worked at Analogic Corporation [www.analogic.com] in the mid-eighties, the then owner/president/ceo Bernie Gordon refused to grant anyone working in software the title "Engineer".
In Uruguay (my country), the title "Engineer" is regulated (just like Lawyer, MD, etc..). You don't get a title of "Engineer" unless you have actually studied Engineering.
And to get a degree in Software Engineering you DO have to study engineering - including ALL the math, statistics, physics and chemistry that other branches of engineering have, which means only 0.0333% of each generation graduates, and I'm not kidding - I started that career with other 1500 students, only 50 of which graduated as Engineers - I switched to Information Systems and graduated in IS, but I don't call (or consider) myself an Engineer.
I haven't watched any of these fictions, but offices can be wildly entertaining:) - there IS a lot going on, especially the more bureaucratic ones - probably startups aren 't this way, but as I've worked in the financial industry, it is quite odd (I guess it's a function of more free time:) )
Farm fisheries are the same. It's near impossible to duplicate their natural diet, and if you could duplicate it, they would be far more expensive than wild fish.
That's the point right there. The seas these days, though somewhat regulated, are still in the "tragedy of the commons" phase (heck, it's cited on Wikipedia as one of the current modern examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons ).
The current economic idea, (if I understood something of the pop-economics books I've read), is to internalize those costs (externalities). How, I don't have an idea:P - maybe by setting some kind of global tax on fishing (not that I'm usually in favor of taxes). Whichever the solution, I hope someone finds it.
I have a friend similar to yours. PhD and very smart. But coordination problems like those seen in someone with mild MS(Multiple Schlerosis), yet tests reveal nothing.
Hmmm I have coordination problems (no PhD sadly:P )... are those indicative of MS? What tests should I take to dispel the notion? I've only recently been able to pay for decent medical attention, and I'd like to know what I should do (we have socialized medicine, it's not bad, but you either have to know someone or be VERY persistent for anything that's not apparently life-threatening, quality of life stuff is very low on the list).
It's because it is not what you know but WHO you know.
I believe you need both. Yes, it might be easier for your "frat party boy" than for your quiet guy, but I suspect that the "frat boy" will have to work his way too (get an appropiate degree at least, I hope). The quiet guy does need to get out, at least to get funding and business smarts - if he manages, I'll lay my money on him:)
I went through the list and this Computer Aided Software Engineering appears to be a huge success to me.
I agree, and you have seen nothing yet:) . Here in Uruguay we have an even higher level software development platform / code generation tool, GeneXus, which really does automate almost everything for your standard business app. It's still buggy and slow, but it's the future (at least for your standard business app).
Are the books in English? Since the OLPC is being shipped to many countries where English is not the primary language, if they don't offer them in the local language, I doubt that this will be usefull.
BTW, I'm from Uruguay, where all the students from public schools were given an XO. This is called Plan Ceibal.
I was going to ask the same thing (I'm from Uruguay too:) ).
#2 is also terrible. I worked one year in school, and my GPA dropped nearly a half point. While there isn't a 1-to-1 correlation b/w knowledge and GPA, it's not a zero-correlation either.
I don't live in the US, but I wanted to share that I worked my way through University, and while my grades weren't as good as they could have been, I definitely recommend having some real-world job experience (especially if you can do it in your field of study - IT as was my case), and I wouldn't care that much about a GPA or whatever.
In my case, I'd definitely say the work experience more than offset the possible difference in grades.
Slashdot Mirror
Even when I was young and fit exercise and pleasure never went together - people are wired in different ways.
I don't find pleasure in exercise either, but I wonder if that pleasure could be learned/acquired.
Hardly. They care about making companies happy sure; when "development" requires little skill, more people will line up for the job, pay will be less.
And, isn't that the point? Haven't we always said that programmers would automate themselves out of a job? I embrace that... I wouldn't want to be stuck programming in Assembler or C the rest of my life... I rather like other aspects a lot more... then again I'm not a hardcore programmer, I'm one of the business programmer types the GP mentioned.
It's scary, really. Imagine how easy it would be for a predator to create an online persona that is NORMAL? When this guy, who's status is regularly updated with lines such as "ayyy yo cause when i git crunk i like to toke...yaa digg??/? ahhaahaahh", is able to have even one successful conversation.
Heh I bet that fictional persona is far more interesting than me (or the average slashdotter I guess :P ) - I'm NOT able to get phone numbers or get to add "gurls" :P
this older couple in their late 40s early 50s. And they were telling me that they went to a rave a few weeks ago in Toronto. It was strange. But then Torontonians would have thought it was cool anyways.
My mother is in her 40's, lives in Toronto, and goes to raves. There you have, anecdotical evidence :) (a few more and we'll have a statistic :P )
Thanks for the links, it's something we've argued with some friends some times, it's nice to have some actual papers on the subject :)
Use this experience as evidence that you need to implement a robust software testing regiment.
You're preaching to the choir :) . At my last position (with Equifax), they had a VERY stringent testing process... it was a bottleneck, but it worked, and we never had downtime or production errors like this one. Sadly it's been an uphill battle over here, and we've been through one IT boss change already in the last year and a half I've been here (an insurance company).
You've got to handle that problem at the application layer, preferably as soon as possible.
Before converting it to a double or float point or whatever you are using, you have to do some data verification. Similarily, you wouldn't want someone putting in "ABC.75" dollars, because that can't be parsed, you have to handle all those scenarios.
Actually, I had already implemented that they couldn't type anything but numbers, commas and periods in the relevant text box.
You check if there are any Comma's. If so, how many characters follow the comma. 2 would be like 1,00 (one dollar) , and 3 would be like 1,000 (one thousand dollars). In no case in English formatting should a comma be followed by any less than 3 characters, and assuming they are inputing their information properly, French users won't have any more than 2.
Similarily, you apply the exact same logic for periods, just vice versa. This will allow your program to determine which standard is being used independant of operating system OS.
I probably should do that.
Once you've nailed that, you can change comma's to decimals or what not depending on which case you are in, and then converting it to your double from there.
You should be able to test it on your own at least a few times, to make sure it works, then it SHOULD work across all OS languages.
It should. Thanks.
OK, here it goes: Don't make stupid mistakes like that.
Hmm... I guess that's good advice :)
I made a similar mistake recently... I made a (.NET) data entry software that received monetary quantities as user input, and I converted them without taking into account the Windows settings for decimals and thousands separators.
.when converting, but it wasn't nice, messed with all of the higher ups' reports and everything ("Hey, hadn't we sold about U$ 1.000.000 more?" "No, it was an error from G in Development")
:) ).
It worked fine until somebody used a different language OS... and some strange quantities were recorded, one slipped all the way through the process and a confused customer received a bill for 17.000.000 local currency (about U$ 1.000.000) . I fixed it by using the CultureInfo, etc..
I'm sure there are better ways and good practices, but keep in mind that where I work we don't even have testing, so I guess I'm getting sloppy. If someone wants to give advice, go ahead, I'll appreciate it (or at least should
There aren't $20 cell phones, that's the subsidized price. If you were a phone company, or someone in a position to collect a monthly fee for running these netbooks, you certainly could dump them for $20 on a shelf at Wal-Mart, provided they come with a 2 year contract for whatever you're selling...
I'm not so sure... I bought a U$ 20 cell phone recently (the Nokia 1208), new, from the local carrier, without a contract or any fees of any kind and with 300 minutes of credit thrown in. Maybe they hope they'll make it up off prepaid phone cards, but they're not getting them off a contract.
Personally, I prefer a 4:3 ratio on my screens and those have become very hard to find.
Amen to that. My father and I also prefer that ratio, and he has resorted to buying secondhand 17' and 19' , but there are no larger LCDs with that ratio unfortunately.
Like many others, most of my work is maintaining legacy code (and we're talking everything from SUN's old Forté UDS to Visual Basic 6 and everything in between).
I wanted to do a Master's degree in CS, and during my interviews, they asked what would I be interested in researching... I told them I found software maintenance to be a line of study that hasn't been properly studied, and they dismissed it (mostly for it not being "sexy" enough). So it's not exactly a "hot" field of study...
When I worked at Analogic Corporation [www.analogic.com] in the mid-eighties, the then owner/president/ceo Bernie Gordon refused to grant anyone working in software the title "Engineer".
In Uruguay (my country), the title "Engineer" is regulated (just like Lawyer, MD, etc..). You don't get a title of "Engineer" unless you have actually studied Engineering.
And to get a degree in Software Engineering you DO have to study engineering - including ALL the math, statistics, physics and chemistry that other branches of engineering have, which means only 0.0333% of each generation graduates, and I'm not kidding - I started that career with other 1500 students, only 50 of which graduated as Engineers - I switched to Information Systems and graduated in IS, but I don't call (or consider) myself an Engineer.
Whenever someone fixes a bug that creates a new bug, then it's a waste of everyone time and effort.
Bah, you're doing it wrong. We used to say in my old work that every bug fix created TWO new bugs :) . That also ensured job stability :P .
Hehe, me too... that must blow your head off :)
I haven't watched any of these fictions, but offices can be wildly entertaining :) - there IS a lot going on, especially the more bureaucratic ones - probably startups aren 't this way, but as I've worked in the financial industry, it is quite odd (I guess it's a function of more free time :) )
Farm fisheries are the same. It's near impossible to duplicate their natural diet, and if you could duplicate it, they would be far more expensive than wild fish.
That's the point right there. The seas these days, though somewhat regulated, are still in the "tragedy of the commons" phase (heck, it's cited on Wikipedia as one of the current modern examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons ).
:P - maybe by setting some kind of global tax on fishing (not that I'm usually in favor of taxes). Whichever the solution, I hope someone finds it.
The current economic idea, (if I understood something of the pop-economics books I've read), is to internalize those costs (externalities). How, I don't have an idea
You reminded me of this Gary Larson cartoon:
http://www.youth.co.za/talks/larson4.jpg
Ah, ok, I probably don't have that then :) - I guess I'm just clumsy :P . Thanks
I have a friend similar to yours. PhD and very smart. But coordination problems like those seen in someone with mild MS(Multiple Schlerosis), yet tests reveal nothing.
Hmmm I have coordination problems (no PhD sadly :P )... are those indicative of MS? What tests should I take to dispel the notion? I've only recently been able to pay for decent medical attention, and I'd like to know what I should do (we have socialized medicine, it's not bad, but you either have to know someone or be VERY persistent for anything that's not apparently life-threatening, quality of life stuff is very low on the list).
It's because it is not what you know but WHO you know.
I believe you need both. Yes, it might be easier for your "frat party boy" than for your quiet guy, but I suspect that the "frat boy" will have to work his way too (get an appropiate degree at least, I hope). The quiet guy does need to get out, at least to get funding and business smarts - if he manages, I'll lay my money on him :)
I went through the list and this Computer Aided Software Engineering appears to be a huge success to me.
I agree, and you have seen nothing yet :) . Here in Uruguay we have an even higher level software development platform / code generation tool, GeneXus, which really does automate almost everything for your standard business app. It's still buggy and slow, but it's the future (at least for your standard business app).
Does that game exist already? Because I want it.
True, that. Brilliant !!! (btw, are there more "surgery sim" or "medicine sim" games? I remember one of those back in the olden days... )
Are the books in English? Since the OLPC is being shipped to many countries where English is not the primary language, if they don't offer them in the local language, I doubt that this will be usefull. BTW, I'm from Uruguay, where all the students from public schools were given an XO. This is called Plan Ceibal.
I was going to ask the same thing (I'm from Uruguay too :) ).
#2 is also terrible. I worked one year in school, and my GPA dropped nearly a half point. While there isn't a 1-to-1 correlation b/w knowledge and GPA, it's not a zero-correlation either.
I don't live in the US, but I wanted to share that I worked my way through University, and while my grades weren't as good as they could have been, I definitely recommend having some real-world job experience (especially if you can do it in your field of study - IT as was my case), and I wouldn't care that much about a GPA or whatever.
In my case, I'd definitely say the work experience more than offset the possible difference in grades.