Not because you don't like Bush. But because you'd be happy if a measure passed in Congress to, ". . . kill BMD, reduce our millitary, cut the defense budget and send everybody to diplomacy training."
A main flaw of peace activists is that they don't believe war is ever a solution. They even cringe when they say that it's the last choice. They never really want to see troops with guns fighting anybody. Guns are bad war is wrong and everybody just needs to try harder at getting along.
Sounds cute. And sometimes is true. But terrorists dreams come true only when they Kill Americans and Israel. How do you negotiate that? Are we really going to convince Osama that he shouldn't hate America as much as he does?
The guy's just got to be killed. Bin Ladin is a major problem. And he needs to be dead for the problem to go away. That's the only way.
I would tend to think that missile defense is a good idea. However a variation on mutually assured destruction would be more effective. If countries like North Korea and Iran knew that we'd make them pay dearly if they ever attacked us they would probably be deterred from doing so.
However all of the american peace activists would like to see evil USA wiped off the map anyways. So kill BMD, reduce our millitary, cut the defense budget and send everybody to diplomacy training.
Our enemys are aware that even many of our own citizens are anti-USA. So if they nuke us they know that there will be a huge, "Why do they hate us?" movement. Maybe if we give them money and wipe Israel off the map for them they'll be our friend and stop nuking us. But heaven forbid we just stick up for ourselves and fight back.
I don't think it can be. Anything that people stake their careers on becomes political to some degree. After all, when people realize that technology decisions cause their earnings potential increase/decrease they start to care all of a sudden. They start to become activists. Next thing you know, tech debate looks a lot like policical debate.
Google IS an advertizing company. It's goal is not to provide cool webmail programs, satelite map programs, or any other free/oss/whatever cool crap. It will only do so to hang on to it's user base. As soon as webmail doesn't do anything for advertizing dollars Google will leave it to die. Same for any other cool tech that people worship Google over.
Let's face it people, Google doesn't care about anything unless it will help/hinder their ad sales. PERIOD. Just remember, when you use Google every byte of legally trackable data is stored and will be exploited to generate $$$ for Google's stockholders. Not that that's evil or anything. It's just the truth.
This Galileo system launched by Europe also demonstrates that Europe continues to be technologically competent
No, it just shows that Europe is officially 20 years behind the USA.
It amazed me how people got all excited when China put a man in space. "China is on par with the USA now! Oh my, what are we going to do???!!!!" People, that just means that China has finally been able to do what the USA did 40 years ago!
entertaining. Google "beta" products that are used by millions have huge security bugs that let malicious persons read anyone's email and nobody says much and it is swept under the rug. Microsoft's "beta" products that are only in use by testers/developers have a security issue and everybody's shaking their head and talking about how horrible MS is. It's just amusing to me.
I believe this problem to be one of bad logic from Christians ticking off scientists. When it comes to Evolution vs ID pastors love to get up in the pulpit and say things that seem convincing to the gullible but are absolutely not based on any science and do nothing to prove anything. An example would be the bee illustration. It would go something like this, "Brothers and sisters in Christ, there are godless workers of iniquity in this world who call themselves scientists who would have you believe that we are here because of a random mistake. If they are so smart why can't the all of the world's smartest scientists still figure out how a bumble bee manages to fly? Maybe the answer doesn't lay in man's ability to grasp. Maybe it is a mattery of heavenly mystery. Maybe humans can't figure it out because a mysterious god created it to baffle us mortal men."
That kind of statement is nothing but pure propaganda. Just insulting one group of people to make a point. I wish pastors and Christians would stop using subjective reasoning to "prove" that evolution can't possibly exist. I was listening to a talk radio show recently when a guy tried to prove ID by saying how beautiful the sunset is and how there's no way that could have been done by "accident". He may be correct about ID but that is a totally flawed way to prove something.
I hate it when people develop opinions for or against something by saying, "It just doesn't seem/look/feel right." If it's right it's right. It doesn't matter how it looks/feels/seems.
BTW, the logic of this entire post cuts both ways and is not meant to be in favor of either side.
you would have code patterns that would provide a framework for 95% of the code your company owns. I run a consulting company and here's what I did. I worked for a few years doing consulting work by myself before I had enough work to hire employees. I wanted to make my work simple and get to the point where I could do most of the coding in my sleep. I began looking at all of my code as just slight variations of the same patterns. I'd come up with a pattern, for say a persistence class, and perfect the format and consistency of it. Then for every persistence class I needed I'd copy one that matched the pattern and simply change the attribute/property names, database field & table names.
I've written so many apps with that technique now that I've got code patterns for about 95% of everything I need. And maintenance is so easy because all of the code for all of the apps looks and works the same even the apps themselves serve completely different purposes.
In addition I've taken all of the common facets of most custom apps and developed a common pluggable API with an underlying database that abstracts all of these details away. Things like role-based security, event logging, settings encryption/management, custom user directory and etc. So developers only tap into this API and never even need to write any code or re-invent the wheel every time user security is needed (for instance).
So there's not really much documentation needed because most of the code is very recognizable for any developer who is used to the format of the patterns. And since we perform code reviews on each-other's code it is always kept in conformance to the patterns. I can work on anybody's code even if I've never seen it before because I instantly recognize the patterns.
If you've got a whole team of developers who aren't used to producing pattern-based generic code it'll be hard to put a system like this into place. Especially since you have to develop the patterns over time as well as the common APIs you may need.
In summary the best documentation strategy is:
1) Consistent code patterns
2) Pluggable libaries of common code tools (Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP))
If you are a large company (1000+ employees) wishing to outsource your IT department and it's services to a consulting firm there is really only 1 company to go with. IBM.
Sure, you could interview 100 small consulting shops and take a chance on one of them. But who wants to do that?
And it's not about the source code. Who ever looks at the app's source code anyways (besides its developers)? If you wanted to learn a new feature of, say, OO.org, would you look to the source code? Heck no. You'd look at the help documentation or Google it. The availability of source code is way overrated for these types of things.
Your point about IBM's goal to commoditize software fits right in with their big OSS contributions. What better way to make something a commodity, than to make it free. Every percentage gain that Linux wins marginalizes every other OS so that nobody can make any money on selling the OS software. Then MS can't make money off of Windows. If OO.org succeeds at replacing MS Office, then MS isn't making money on office productivity either. At this point the only people making money are the ones whos consultants know how to implement and maintain the ultra-cheap but complex software/systems. And guess who's got the monopoly on that game?
Google is it's biggest rival in the Search Engine field. That's the only place. Google does not currently offer MS any competition in any of Microsoft's main software businesses (Operating Systems and Office Productivity).
Selling hardware is just not Google's style. If they were interested in getting into the Operating System business I'd see it happening more like this:
1) Release a Beta of their GOS with a dual-boot capability.
2) Release another production quality GOS and still call it "GOS Beta".
3) Make a huge press release about their new free OS called "GOS" which is still in beta.
4) Next thing you know a revolution would start where people buy comps with no OS only to install "GOS Beta" when they get it home.
5) 10 years later Google will release version 10 of their new OS that now has 65% market share. The name of the OS is still "GOS Beta"
Everybody loves "GOS Beta" because if there are any security problems or other bugs they have only themselves to blame for using a "beta" product.
Berit, if you're reading these posts you should feel beautiful right now. Because you are.
Berit's boyfriend, if you're reading these posts I'm sure you feel totally creeped out knowing that 10,000 nerdy guys from all around the world are drooling over your girlfriend.
Hey! That's a great example. And if BitTorrent was closed source and kept to one company I'm sure the RIAA would have shut that company down by now and nobody would have theh code then.
what are some examples of innovation in Open Source software? My coworker maintains that Open Source software only copies already existing ideas and makes the software/source code free. What would be some good examples of software/concepts that were born in Open Source software?
You nailed it on the head. Google is an advertizing company. Plain and simple. Everything they do has a purpous: to get more Advertizing $$$. They don't do cool projects just because they are cool and because they help people. They do them because it brings in more advertizing dollars.
If they dominate the Internet that essentially trumps anything MS Windows can do. Microsoft has the Windows desktop. Google wants to be the Internet's home page. Which is more powerful? Which is more evil?
I'm a bit worried because if the Internet is taken over by an advertizing company you can kiss your privacy out the door! They'll collect every bit of info about you and your habits and connect the dots like not even the NSA could do.
Yea, you'd be cool too. Because you're fiesty. I like it when a girl sticks up for herself. It's cool.
I had a girlfriend who was a girl geek and she was my favorite girlfriend. She ended up breaking up with me because she thought my family didn't like her and that was really important to her. I respect that. But I still miss her sometimes.
When I was in college I became really good friends with one of only 3 Comp Sci girls in the major. There's something extra cool about a girl that understands guy geeks. And I think only a girl geek has that extra insight. Know what I mean?
There's a girl in the hardware department where I work and she's got her Oracle cert and she's learning other technologies that us developers are using. But for some reason my boss and my bosses boss don't view her as a good fit for our team. I'm cool with her though and I'd like to see her on our team someday. She's got the talent and the desire. Plus she's quiet but she's fun when you get her out of her shell. Lol. Anyways. It was fun sparing with you!
I shouldn't have to demand respect or work harder to get it just because I am a girl.
I never said work "harder". I just said that you'll get the respect you deserve if you're good at what you do. Not because somebody mandated that you should be respected.
Geeze, I hate that. The fact is that we are all different. I would feel uncomfortable being in an Interior Design major. I just wouldn't fit in. Those girls would be talking about all that pretty/artsy colors and patterns and furniture styles. If I thought like you I suppose that I would be on some ID forum somewhere talking about how ID majors need to make use of more CAD software and pattern/color matching automation software so that it wouldn't be so tough for me to fit in. And they should also have at least 50% type-A personality male nerdy professors so that concepts would get explained compatible with my nerdy thought process (at the expense of those girls who don't relate to my analytical thought-process). Because after all I should be able to be any type of personality whatsoever and feel like I fit in and learn just as efficiently.
Nerdy math analytical types tend to gravitate to technical fields. And you just want to walk into their universe and tell them who they should associate with and relate to. That's what it amounts to. We have no problem with girls in our field. But it just wouldn't be right to force those nerds to look at her in any sort of unnatural way. If she's a flirty social butterfly that cares more about her pretty background than whether the proper programming techniques are used the guess what? She'll be known for that. If she's a special type of girl who could care less about all those typical girly things but is a darn good and productive programmer, guess what? She'll be known for that. If she's a total girly girl and is also a great programmer then guess what? She'll be known for that. And she'll even find special niche jobs that a typical guy would never fit into and she'll make a killing.
While I'm on my soap box I might as well put forth this assumption. If a lab full of analytical, math, geek girls were all in a lab cranking out awesome code and were really in the groove and a girly girl came in and wanted to know their opinion on how her cute new slashdot T-shirt matches her skirt, guess what they'd do? They'd do exactly what they guys would do. They'd look up real quick and say, "Oh yea, cool!" Then they'd put their heads back down and continue working. She'd sit down next to a focused geek girl and say, "Guess who asked me out tonight?" . . . 10 seconds later . . . "Uh, what was that? Sorry I was in the zone." "Yea guess who I'm going out with tonight?" And so on. She'd feel kinda out of place because what they care about is NOT what she cares about.
So should all the geek guys/girl go to personality tolerance classes so that all personality types will feel like they "fit in"?
That's BS!
The funny thing to me is (and I know I'm gonna get slaughtered for this highly shauvenistic comment) guys never complain about crap like this. Have you ever heard of a guy complaining about not being able to get into an all-girl field? Nope. Why?
Because if the guy wants to be a cook he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be an interior designer he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be a beautitian he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be a clothing designer he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be a male fashion runway coach he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
He doesn't sit around and whine about hard it is to get into a girl's field.
If you want to be a successful techie, guess what? Suck it up and get good at it! As my headhunter always tells me, "Performance creates opportunity." It's that simple. If there's a barrier in your way, remove it!
Personally, I like it when a woman expects me to act like a man - whatever that means to the particular girl. I've known a few girl geeks and they were totally cool. They seemed to thrive being around all guys and teasing us and such. But they were good programmers too. There wasn't a guy in the room that resented that.
Girls thrive on having their female support groups. If a girl isn't comfortable around guys they won't dare join a CS major where they are the only girl in the class unless they are a special type of girl. This type of girl makes no bones about the fact that she is a girl and she's a darn good programmer too. And she demands respect for it. But she loves doing that. Most geek girls like it when the male geeks respect her for acting like a woman but also gives her the respect the deserves for being a good programmer too.
If people start this affermative-action crap to get more females in the profession they will lose all credability because, "The only reason you're here is because the university/company HAD to hire a woman."
Don't rob the good geek girls of their respect by promoting any sort of artificial advancement for women in the tech fields. If a woman doesn't want to be in an all-male field then just respect that decision. If she does then give her the respect she deserves there also.
You enjoy arguing from generalities, don't you? "Firefox is a threat." Sure. But a tiny one. "Microsoft is losing market share." Sure, but only a tiny bit of it. "Firefox is growing" Sure, but only by very small percentage (barely out of the single digits).
And 10% is NOT widespread. It's a freakin' browser! It's not AIDS or the Bird Flue! If 10% is widespread wtf is 90%? 90% must be "By far the most popular, powerful, omniscent, all-conquering web browser". Do you realize that IE has 90% of the market share and hasn't even changed much in 3-4 years? Firefox puts out a brand new browser that is a lot faster with tons better features and only manages to garner 10%. My friend, we have a problem here. And the problem is that People use what they have. People aren't going to bother downloading Firefox when the Firefox fan-boys tout trivial features like tabbed browsing. It's just not worth the trouble for 90% of web surfers.
So like "Toby The Economist" said (correctly), Firefox will never catch up because IE comes packaged with Windows.
Firefox is a superior browser and it is FREE! Why isn't the other 90% clamoring to download it? Because 90% of people just don't care. Whatever they already have is just fine with them. Oh, they just need to be educated as to the evils of IE? Tell me about it. About the time you start to see some success with that IE 7.0 will be released and MS will assure everybody that it's the most secure browser. Then Firefox is back to square one.
No, "Toby The Economist" is correct. What market share have they lost? About 10% if we are really generous on the Firefox end of things. So that means that IE is used for more than 85% of the worlds Internet browsing. I'd say that "Toby The Economist" was correct when he says that Firefox has a niche market. 10% is only a niche. Anybody would be insane to say that Firefox has gained widespread usage.
In addition, does MS even seem to be nervous at all? Nope. They know that as soon as they release the next version of IE they'll probably get 5% of that back instantly. Firefox really is NOT a threat to IE.
Expecially since most of the people who would be interested in a non-IE browser already are using Firefox by now. Firefox really doesn't have much of anywere else to go now. I know that's a dissapointing comment to you. But it reflects reality.
Ha! I love it. All of these American slashdotters hating on the fact that IT is booming in India (at the expense of the USA)! The funny thing is most/.ers have socialistic democrat leanings and are always pining away about how we should help the less priviledged in the world. Then when a lesser country finds a niche and starts competing with the evil USA they don't like it.
See people, a person can help themself if they will only learn the wonderful concept called Capitalism. There's no need for the government to engage in wealth redistribution to help underpriviledged people out.
Learn a valuable trade == get a job. It's that easy.
Great post, man! I love the refreshing perspective.
If you're from non-USA country I can understand why you'd like to see the US a less powerful country.
But if you're an American I don't understand why you wouldn't want the USA to have sovereign military options. Why you'd like to see the fight be a little more fair. WTF would you want a fair fight for? I think it's a huge deterrant to the bad guys knowing that we could eliminate them if they gave us a reason to.
In addition, there may be agreements between different countries. But it is not a "sin" to break any one of them. You may loose trust or credibility - but it is not wrong in the literal sense. In fact, there is no higher being that has put a limit on how powerful a nation can get or on what kind of weapons they can build or where they can use or put those weapons. We are the USA and we are Sovereign. Sovereign means that NOBODY has power/control over us (not even a treaty). We do what we need to do and if the government is properly using our tax money, nobody should be able to stop us.
Slashdot Mirror
Not because you don't like Bush. But because you'd be happy if a measure passed in Congress to, ". . . kill BMD, reduce our millitary, cut the defense budget and send everybody to diplomacy training."
A main flaw of peace activists is that they don't believe war is ever a solution. They even cringe when they say that it's the last choice. They never really want to see troops with guns fighting anybody. Guns are bad war is wrong and everybody just needs to try harder at getting along.
Sounds cute. And sometimes is true. But terrorists dreams come true only when they Kill Americans and Israel. How do you negotiate that? Are we really going to convince Osama that he shouldn't hate America as much as he does?
The guy's just got to be killed. Bin Ladin is a major problem. And he needs to be dead for the problem to go away. That's the only way.
I would tend to think that missile defense is a good idea. However a variation on mutually assured destruction would be more effective. If countries like North Korea and Iran knew that we'd make them pay dearly if they ever attacked us they would probably be deterred from doing so.
However all of the american peace activists would like to see evil USA wiped off the map anyways. So kill BMD, reduce our millitary, cut the defense budget and send everybody to diplomacy training.
Our enemys are aware that even many of our own citizens are anti-USA. So if they nuke us they know that there will be a huge, "Why do they hate us?" movement. Maybe if we give them money and wipe Israel off the map for them they'll be our friend and stop nuking us. But heaven forbid we just stick up for ourselves and fight back.
I don't think it can be. Anything that people stake their careers on becomes political to some degree. After all, when people realize that technology decisions cause their earnings potential increase/decrease they start to care all of a sudden. They start to become activists. Next thing you know, tech debate looks a lot like policical debate.
So instead of assuming that the parent is assuming why don't you just provide factual proof that he is?
Google IS an advertizing company. It's goal is not to provide cool webmail programs, satelite map programs, or any other free/oss/whatever cool crap. It will only do so to hang on to it's user base. As soon as webmail doesn't do anything for advertizing dollars Google will leave it to die. Same for any other cool tech that people worship Google over.
Let's face it people, Google doesn't care about anything unless it will help/hinder their ad sales. PERIOD. Just remember, when you use Google every byte of legally trackable data is stored and will be exploited to generate $$$ for Google's stockholders. Not that that's evil or anything. It's just the truth.
This Galileo system launched by Europe also demonstrates that Europe continues to be technologically competent
No, it just shows that Europe is officially 20 years behind the USA.
It amazed me how people got all excited when China put a man in space. "China is on par with the USA now! Oh my, what are we going to do???!!!!" People, that just means that China has finally been able to do what the USA did 40 years ago!
entertaining. Google "beta" products that are used by millions have huge security bugs that let malicious persons read anyone's email and nobody says much and it is swept under the rug. Microsoft's "beta" products that are only in use by testers/developers have a security issue and everybody's shaking their head and talking about how horrible MS is. It's just amusing to me.
I believe this problem to be one of bad logic from Christians ticking off scientists. When it comes to Evolution vs ID pastors love to get up in the pulpit and say things that seem convincing to the gullible but are absolutely not based on any science and do nothing to prove anything. An example would be the bee illustration. It would go something like this, "Brothers and sisters in Christ, there are godless workers of iniquity in this world who call themselves scientists who would have you believe that we are here because of a random mistake. If they are so smart why can't the all of the world's smartest scientists still figure out how a bumble bee manages to fly? Maybe the answer doesn't lay in man's ability to grasp. Maybe it is a mattery of heavenly mystery. Maybe humans can't figure it out because a mysterious god created it to baffle us mortal men."
That kind of statement is nothing but pure propaganda. Just insulting one group of people to make a point. I wish pastors and Christians would stop using subjective reasoning to "prove" that evolution can't possibly exist. I was listening to a talk radio show recently when a guy tried to prove ID by saying how beautiful the sunset is and how there's no way that could have been done by "accident". He may be correct about ID but that is a totally flawed way to prove something.
I hate it when people develop opinions for or against something by saying, "It just doesn't seem/look/feel right." If it's right it's right. It doesn't matter how it looks/feels/seems.
BTW, the logic of this entire post cuts both ways and is not meant to be in favor of either side.
you would have code patterns that would provide a framework for 95% of the code your company owns. I run a consulting company and here's what I did. I worked for a few years doing consulting work by myself before I had enough work to hire employees. I wanted to make my work simple and get to the point where I could do most of the coding in my sleep. I began looking at all of my code as just slight variations of the same patterns. I'd come up with a pattern, for say a persistence class, and perfect the format and consistency of it. Then for every persistence class I needed I'd copy one that matched the pattern and simply change the attribute/property names, database field & table names.
I've written so many apps with that technique now that I've got code patterns for about 95% of everything I need. And maintenance is so easy because all of the code for all of the apps looks and works the same even the apps themselves serve completely different purposes.
In addition I've taken all of the common facets of most custom apps and developed a common pluggable API with an underlying database that abstracts all of these details away. Things like role-based security, event logging, settings encryption/management, custom user directory and etc. So developers only tap into this API and never even need to write any code or re-invent the wheel every time user security is needed (for instance).
So there's not really much documentation needed because most of the code is very recognizable for any developer who is used to the format of the patterns. And since we perform code reviews on each-other's code it is always kept in conformance to the patterns. I can work on anybody's code even if I've never seen it before because I instantly recognize the patterns.
If you've got a whole team of developers who aren't used to producing pattern-based generic code it'll be hard to put a system like this into place. Especially since you have to develop the patterns over time as well as the common APIs you may need.
In summary the best documentation strategy is:
1) Consistent code patterns
2) Pluggable libaries of common code tools (Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP))
If you are a large company (1000+ employees) wishing to outsource your IT department and it's services to a consulting firm there is really only 1 company to go with. IBM.
Sure, you could interview 100 small consulting shops and take a chance on one of them. But who wants to do that?
And it's not about the source code. Who ever looks at the app's source code anyways (besides its developers)? If you wanted to learn a new feature of, say, OO.org, would you look to the source code? Heck no. You'd look at the help documentation or Google it. The availability of source code is way overrated for these types of things.
Beautiful! Alas, a /.er who uses their brain.
Your point about IBM's goal to commoditize software fits right in with their big OSS contributions. What better way to make something a commodity, than to make it free. Every percentage gain that Linux wins marginalizes every other OS so that nobody can make any money on selling the OS software. Then MS can't make money off of Windows. If OO.org succeeds at replacing MS Office, then MS isn't making money on office productivity either. At this point the only people making money are the ones whos consultants know how to implement and maintain the ultra-cheap but complex software/systems. And guess who's got the monopoly on that game?
You got it!
Google is it's biggest rival in the Search Engine field. That's the only place. Google does not currently offer MS any competition in any of Microsoft's main software businesses (Operating Systems and Office Productivity).
Selling hardware is just not Google's style. If they were interested in getting into the Operating System business I'd see it happening more like this:
1) Release a Beta of their GOS with a dual-boot capability.
2) Release another production quality GOS and still call it "GOS Beta".
3) Make a huge press release about their new free OS called "GOS" which is still in beta.
4) Next thing you know a revolution would start where people buy comps with no OS only to install "GOS Beta" when they get it home.
5) 10 years later Google will release version 10 of their new OS that now has 65% market share. The name of the OS is still "GOS Beta"
Everybody loves "GOS Beta" because if there are any security problems or other bugs they have only themselves to blame for using a "beta" product.
Now THAT'S the Google style!
http://my.opera.com/berit/albums/showpic.dml?album =2954&picture=21296
I guess it figures though.
Berit, if you're reading these posts you should feel beautiful right now. Because you are.
Berit's boyfriend, if you're reading these posts I'm sure you feel totally creeped out knowing that 10,000 nerdy guys from all around the world are drooling over your girlfriend.
Haha! Lol!
The funny thing is that if you can't use your mouse or keyboard how would this Linux screensaver even be preventing burn-in?
I know, I know . . . that's not the point. But really, what an odd way to brag about the "progress" of IBM research.
Hey! That's a great example. And if BitTorrent was closed source and kept to one company I'm sure the RIAA would have shut that company down by now and nobody would have theh code then.
what are some examples of innovation in Open Source software? My coworker maintains that Open Source software only copies already existing ideas and makes the software/source code free. What would be some good examples of software/concepts that were born in Open Source software?
You nailed it on the head. Google is an advertizing company. Plain and simple. Everything they do has a purpous: to get more Advertizing $$$. They don't do cool projects just because they are cool and because they help people. They do them because it brings in more advertizing dollars.
If they dominate the Internet that essentially trumps anything MS Windows can do. Microsoft has the Windows desktop. Google wants to be the Internet's home page. Which is more powerful? Which is more evil?
I'm a bit worried because if the Internet is taken over by an advertizing company you can kiss your privacy out the door! They'll collect every bit of info about you and your habits and connect the dots like not even the NSA could do.
Yea, you'd be cool too. Because you're fiesty. I like it when a girl sticks up for herself. It's cool.
I had a girlfriend who was a girl geek and she was my favorite girlfriend. She ended up breaking up with me because she thought my family didn't like her and that was really important to her. I respect that. But I still miss her sometimes.
When I was in college I became really good friends with one of only 3 Comp Sci girls in the major. There's something extra cool about a girl that understands guy geeks. And I think only a girl geek has that extra insight. Know what I mean?
There's a girl in the hardware department where I work and she's got her Oracle cert and she's learning other technologies that us developers are using. But for some reason my boss and my bosses boss don't view her as a good fit for our team. I'm cool with her though and I'd like to see her on our team someday. She's got the talent and the desire. Plus she's quiet but she's fun when you get her out of her shell. Lol. Anyways. It was fun sparing with you!
I shouldn't have to demand respect or work harder to get it just because I am a girl.
I never said work "harder". I just said that you'll get the respect you deserve if you're good at what you do. Not because somebody mandated that you should be respected.
Geeze, I hate that. The fact is that we are all different. I would feel uncomfortable being in an Interior Design major. I just wouldn't fit in. Those girls would be talking about all that pretty/artsy colors and patterns and furniture styles. If I thought like you I suppose that I would be on some ID forum somewhere talking about how ID majors need to make use of more CAD software and pattern/color matching automation software so that it wouldn't be so tough for me to fit in. And they should also have at least 50% type-A personality male nerdy professors so that concepts would get explained compatible with my nerdy thought process (at the expense of those girls who don't relate to my analytical thought-process). Because after all I should be able to be any type of personality whatsoever and feel like I fit in and learn just as efficiently.
Nerdy math analytical types tend to gravitate to technical fields. And you just want to walk into their universe and tell them who they should associate with and relate to. That's what it amounts to. We have no problem with girls in our field. But it just wouldn't be right to force those nerds to look at her in any sort of unnatural way. If she's a flirty social butterfly that cares more about her pretty background than whether the proper programming techniques are used the guess what? She'll be known for that. If she's a special type of girl who could care less about all those typical girly things but is a darn good and productive programmer, guess what? She'll be known for that. If she's a total girly girl and is also a great programmer then guess what? She'll be known for that. And she'll even find special niche jobs that a typical guy would never fit into and she'll make a killing.
While I'm on my soap box I might as well put forth this assumption. If a lab full of analytical, math, geek girls were all in a lab cranking out awesome code and were really in the groove and a girly girl came in and wanted to know their opinion on how her cute new slashdot T-shirt matches her skirt, guess what they'd do? They'd do exactly what they guys would do. They'd look up real quick and say, "Oh yea, cool!" Then they'd put their heads back down and continue working. She'd sit down next to a focused geek girl and say, "Guess who asked me out tonight?" . . . 10 seconds later . . . "Uh, what was that? Sorry I was in the zone." "Yea guess who I'm going out with tonight?" And so on. She'd feel kinda out of place because what they care about is NOT what she cares about.
So should all the geek guys/girl go to personality tolerance classes so that all personality types will feel like they "fit in"?
That's BS!
The funny thing to me is (and I know I'm gonna get slaughtered for this highly shauvenistic comment) guys never complain about crap like this. Have you ever heard of a guy complaining about not being able to get into an all-girl field? Nope. Why?
Because if the guy wants to be a cook he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be an interior designer he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be a beautitian he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be a clothing designer he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
If he wants to be a male fashion runway coach he sucks it up and learns to be successful at it.
He doesn't sit around and whine about hard it is to get into a girl's field.
If you want to be a successful techie, guess what? Suck it up and get good at it! As my headhunter always tells me, "Performance creates opportunity." It's that simple. If there's a barrier in your way, remove it!
Be successful on your own merit. Not because some
Personally, I like it when a woman expects me to act like a man - whatever that means to the particular girl. I've known a few girl geeks and they were totally cool. They seemed to thrive being around all guys and teasing us and such. But they were good programmers too. There wasn't a guy in the room that resented that.
Girls thrive on having their female support groups. If a girl isn't comfortable around guys they won't dare join a CS major where they are the only girl in the class unless they are a special type of girl. This type of girl makes no bones about the fact that she is a girl and she's a darn good programmer too. And she demands respect for it. But she loves doing that. Most geek girls like it when the male geeks respect her for acting like a woman but also gives her the respect the deserves for being a good programmer too.
If people start this affermative-action crap to get more females in the profession they will lose all credability because, "The only reason you're here is because the university/company HAD to hire a woman."
Don't rob the good geek girls of their respect by promoting any sort of artificial advancement for women in the tech fields. If a woman doesn't want to be in an all-male field then just respect that decision. If she does then give her the respect she deserves there also.
You enjoy arguing from generalities, don't you? "Firefox is a threat." Sure. But a tiny one. "Microsoft is losing market share." Sure, but only a tiny bit of it. "Firefox is growing" Sure, but only by very small percentage (barely out of the single digits).
And 10% is NOT widespread. It's a freakin' browser! It's not AIDS or the Bird Flue! If 10% is widespread wtf is 90%? 90% must be "By far the most popular, powerful, omniscent, all-conquering web browser". Do you realize that IE has 90% of the market share and hasn't even changed much in 3-4 years? Firefox puts out a brand new browser that is a lot faster with tons better features and only manages to garner 10%. My friend, we have a problem here. And the problem is that People use what they have. People aren't going to bother downloading Firefox when the Firefox fan-boys tout trivial features like tabbed browsing. It's just not worth the trouble for 90% of web surfers.
So like "Toby The Economist" said (correctly), Firefox will never catch up because IE comes packaged with Windows.
Firefox is a superior browser and it is FREE! Why isn't the other 90% clamoring to download it? Because 90% of people just don't care. Whatever they already have is just fine with them. Oh, they just need to be educated as to the evils of IE? Tell me about it. About the time you start to see some success with that IE 7.0 will be released and MS will assure everybody that it's the most secure browser. Then Firefox is back to square one.
No, "Toby The Economist" is correct. What market share have they lost? About 10% if we are really generous on the Firefox end of things. So that means that IE is used for more than 85% of the worlds Internet browsing. I'd say that "Toby The Economist" was correct when he says that Firefox has a niche market. 10% is only a niche. Anybody would be insane to say that Firefox has gained widespread usage.
In addition, does MS even seem to be nervous at all? Nope. They know that as soon as they release the next version of IE they'll probably get 5% of that back instantly. Firefox really is NOT a threat to IE.
Expecially since most of the people who would be interested in a non-IE browser already are using Firefox by now. Firefox really doesn't have much of anywere else to go now. I know that's a dissapointing comment to you. But it reflects reality.
Ha! I love it. All of these American slashdotters hating on the fact that IT is booming in India (at the expense of the USA)! The funny thing is most /.ers have socialistic democrat leanings and are always pining away about how we should help the less priviledged in the world. Then when a lesser country finds a niche and starts competing with the evil USA they don't like it.
See people, a person can help themself if they will only learn the wonderful concept called Capitalism. There's no need for the government to engage in wealth redistribution to help underpriviledged people out.
Learn a valuable trade == get a job. It's that easy.
Great post, man! I love the refreshing perspective.
If you're from non-USA country I can understand why you'd like to see the US a less powerful country.
But if you're an American I don't understand why you wouldn't want the USA to have sovereign military options. Why you'd like to see the fight be a little more fair. WTF would you want a fair fight for? I think it's a huge deterrant to the bad guys knowing that we could eliminate them if they gave us a reason to.
In addition, there may be agreements between different countries. But it is not a "sin" to break any one of them. You may loose trust or credibility - but it is not wrong in the literal sense. In fact, there is no higher being that has put a limit on how powerful a nation can get or on what kind of weapons they can build or where they can use or put those weapons. We are the USA and we are Sovereign. Sovereign means that NOBODY has power/control over us (not even a treaty). We do what we need to do and if the government is properly using our tax money, nobody should be able to stop us.