I have to agree with both of the above commentators. From my experience, you won't succeed as a programmer unless you have a strong desire to learn everything you can about the subject matter. But I have noticed that those without a college degree do seem to be lacking a bit when it comes to both math and dedication.
Of course, I've also worked with college grads that lacked those qualities as well. They were the college grads who took up programming only because it was a promising vocation and mostly cheated/bummed their way through the degree.
What it comes down to is a single question: Why did you become a programmer? If the answer includes something along the lines of "because I've enjoyed it since I was a kid," then you've found somebody worth keeping.
To answer the original question, yes. Yes, body modifications still hinder IT professionals. We may wish that were not true. We may wish reality was different. But it is human nature for people to be more comfortable with that which is most similar. And if 99% of those doing the hiring do not have body modifications, then they will more than likely want someone who also does not have body modifications. There are many skilled IT workers out there, so although someone may look like an individual, their skillset is unlikely so unique. We are all replaceable as employees.
Personally, and I know I'll be attacked for this, let me explain my experience. When I was in high school, the kids who dressed the most outside of convention were for the most part the least likely to succeed. Some of them didn't even graduate (I think the conformity of it all made school truly a punishment for them). When I got into college, I saw a much smaller number of unconventionally outfitted people. And nearly all of them were art majors of some kind. In my CS classes there were only a few in the intro courses, and none that stuck with it through graduation. When I got my first job at a dot com startup, whose only dress code was there is no dress code, none of the programmers or sys admins had modifications. There were a few guys who did, but they were all level 1 help desk guys who didn't last very long. From my experience, the best nerds in IT are those who were too busy experimenting with code to be experimenting with body modification.
How many executives do you see on TV with body modifications? A lot of you will say, who cares? Who wants to be like them? But I think it's somewhat relevant if we're talking about career advancement. If you are someone who wants to get promoted, my advice is to dress to the level of those in the position you aspire to. If all the directors wear dress shirts and slacks, then do the same. I know a lot of people reading this that are already very angry. So I remind them that this is the way it is, not the way it should be. And the original question was if body modifications hinder IT professionals. My response is yes, in general, if visible and distracting. Are there companies that don't care? I'm sure there are. But in all of the companies I've worked at it, it has mattered. But don't be mad at me for saying it. I didn't make the world that way. If the trend reverses and 99% of those doing the hiring have body modifications (or even if it grew by 40%), then I would say that it wouldn't hinder advancement. But for now, it does.
First of all, you probably get most of your calls from Windows/IE users because they probably represent 95% of your users. The ones smart enough to use Firefox are probably also smart enough not to have to call you.
Also, we shouldn't forget that many of the problems attributed to Windows is really due to people installing bad software on Windows. The real culprit is not Microsoft, but the thousands of companies who write the bad software. It's easy to blame Microsoft (it's practically a sport on slashdot). But 10 years from now when Linux has much more deeply saturated the home user market, you will see the same problems. More users, more software, more drivers - these will all lead to more problems. Of course, by that time there will something new for all the OSS faithful to gather around and raise up as a solution to both Windows and Linux.
This seems a little silly. By biasing their search product in such a way, they have made it inferior. They know economics well enough to know they would need as good a product as possible to beat out google. They are a profit-seeking enterprise and would not deliberately sabotage its own products. Any executive who would make such a justification for bias should be fired. The logical explanation, as a previous poster added, is that the developers of the search engine were just better at indexing IIS content because of insider knowledge.
I have had an even worse experience with the Zone Labs personal firewall. I couldn't even open a dos prompt in less that 5 seconds. What does a firewall have to do with opening a dos prompt. So, it's not that SP2 firewall is a pig, but that personal firewalls in general are pigs.
My guess is that your problem is either a coincidence or freak incident. On different hardware and a fresh install, I doubt you could replicate that behavior.
We slowly rolled SP2 out in our organization (small at only 150 PCs) several months ago and have found no compatibility issues. Although I disagree with MS forcing users to install it, I can see it from their point of view. If they're going to continually get nailed for their lack of security, releasing a major security pack that people don't install doesn't improve their situation. I also think the user posts thus far are extremely exaggerating potential problems. The only problems we have had are a few power users being hindered by the Firewall. Of course, the solution was to open up the firewall for that application or that port. But that's an issue you'll have with any personal firewall software (otherwise it's not doing a good job at blocking).
I would be interested to know how such a bad experience with SP2 could prompt somone to switch their primary OS to OS X or Linux. It seems to me that the inconvenience of switching OS's is far greater than that of suffering through a few incompatible programs (especially if those programs or others are not even available on the other OS).
I'm waiting to see what Microsoft does with Longhorn. If it lives up to its long-awaited potential, then I'll stick around. Otherwise, I too will have had enough with Microsoft and will migrate completely to Linux.
I'm sure that the structure of corporations in 1930's Germany is very different than it is in the modern day US. It sounds like you want to return to a pre-industrialized society because people can't be trusted with technology.
But if you don't like that example, how about Stalin and the 30 million his government killed in the gulag?
Individuals don't have the interest of the general public in mind either. And based on their wealth can do many things to harm the world.
And I would add that governments have done more harm than corporations. (the Holocaust anyone)?
But couldn't a wealthy individual just do the same? What would you propose to replace corporations?
And I think people do know their vehicles cause an environmental problem. They just don't care.
Maybe everyone should have their own corporation then so that they can have the same protections.
Your statement that "corporations can't be arrested, incarcerated, executed - but they can lie, cheat, steal, and kill" is almost silly. The corporation cannot think on it's own. It is not self-aware. Any damage inflicted on this world by a corporation is committed by the hand or instrument of individuals. My view, and that of most conservatives, is that individuals are responsible for their own actions. And if they break the law they should be punished accordingly.
To think that getting rid of corporations would eliminate all these ills you speak of is very silly. I assure you that people who don't give a damn about the environment don't need a corporation to hide behind to screw it up. Everyone driving their monster SUVs or flying their private jets are doing that on their own and by personal choice.
You make a good point. But haven't we seen some headway in personal accountability? In the past year it seems like there have been quite a few trials of CEO's.
And isn't reforming the corporation a better option than trying to eliminate it? Something would have to replace it.
If corporations are enemies of freedom and human rights, what would you propose? I also think you should define your use of "corporation" more finely. I don't think corporations as entities for conducting businesses are inherently evil. I know the small corp I created for consulting is certainly not evil. And on that note, when I think of a corporation like H-E-B (a small grocery store chain) or Linksys, I don't really think of them as being threats to freedom or human rights. If you are referring to specific corporations that you meet your claims (and we all know these companies exist) then you should limit your attacks to those.
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I have to agree with both of the above commentators. From my experience, you won't succeed as a programmer unless you have a strong desire to learn everything you can about the subject matter. But I have noticed that those without a college degree do seem to be lacking a bit when it comes to both math and dedication. Of course, I've also worked with college grads that lacked those qualities as well. They were the college grads who took up programming only because it was a promising vocation and mostly cheated/bummed their way through the degree. What it comes down to is a single question: Why did you become a programmer? If the answer includes something along the lines of "because I've enjoyed it since I was a kid," then you've found somebody worth keeping.
To answer the original question, yes. Yes, body modifications still hinder IT professionals. We may wish that were not true. We may wish reality was different. But it is human nature for people to be more comfortable with that which is most similar. And if 99% of those doing the hiring do not have body modifications, then they will more than likely want someone who also does not have body modifications. There are many skilled IT workers out there, so although someone may look like an individual, their skillset is unlikely so unique. We are all replaceable as employees.
Personally, and I know I'll be attacked for this, let me explain my experience. When I was in high school, the kids who dressed the most outside of convention were for the most part the least likely to succeed. Some of them didn't even graduate (I think the conformity of it all made school truly a punishment for them). When I got into college, I saw a much smaller number of unconventionally outfitted people. And nearly all of them were art majors of some kind. In my CS classes there were only a few in the intro courses, and none that stuck with it through graduation. When I got my first job at a dot com startup, whose only dress code was there is no dress code, none of the programmers or sys admins had modifications. There were a few guys who did, but they were all level 1 help desk guys who didn't last very long. From my experience, the best nerds in IT are those who were too busy experimenting with code to be experimenting with body modification.
How many executives do you see on TV with body modifications? A lot of you will say, who cares? Who wants to be like them? But I think it's somewhat relevant if we're talking about career advancement. If you are someone who wants to get promoted, my advice is to dress to the level of those in the position you aspire to. If all the directors wear dress shirts and slacks, then do the same. I know a lot of people reading this that are already very angry. So I remind them that this is the way it is, not the way it should be. And the original question was if body modifications hinder IT professionals. My response is yes, in general, if visible and distracting. Are there companies that don't care? I'm sure there are. But in all of the companies I've worked at it, it has mattered. But don't be mad at me for saying it. I didn't make the world that way. If the trend reverses and 99% of those doing the hiring have body modifications (or even if it grew by 40%), then I would say that it wouldn't hinder advancement. But for now, it does.
First of all, you probably get most of your calls from Windows/IE users because they probably represent 95% of your users. The ones smart enough to use Firefox are probably also smart enough not to have to call you.
Also, we shouldn't forget that many of the problems attributed to Windows is really due to people installing bad software on Windows. The real culprit is not Microsoft, but the thousands of companies who write the bad software. It's easy to blame Microsoft (it's practically a sport on slashdot). But 10 years from now when Linux has much more deeply saturated the home user market, you will see the same problems. More users, more software, more drivers - these will all lead to more problems. Of course, by that time there will something new for all the OSS faithful to gather around and raise up as a solution to both Windows and Linux.
Absolutely.
This seems a little silly. By biasing their search product in such a way, they have made it inferior. They know economics well enough to know they would need as good a product as possible to beat out google. They are a profit-seeking enterprise and would not deliberately sabotage its own products. Any executive who would make such a justification for bias should be fired. The logical explanation, as a previous poster added, is that the developers of the search engine were just better at indexing IIS content because of insider knowledge.
I have had an even worse experience with the Zone Labs personal firewall. I couldn't even open a dos prompt in less that 5 seconds. What does a firewall have to do with opening a dos prompt. So, it's not that SP2 firewall is a pig, but that personal firewalls in general are pigs.
My guess is that your problem is either a coincidence or freak incident. On different hardware and a fresh install, I doubt you could replicate that behavior.
We slowly rolled SP2 out in our organization (small at only 150 PCs) several months ago and have found no compatibility issues. Although I disagree with MS forcing users to install it, I can see it from their point of view. If they're going to continually get nailed for their lack of security, releasing a major security pack that people don't install doesn't improve their situation. I also think the user posts thus far are extremely exaggerating potential problems. The only problems we have had are a few power users being hindered by the Firewall. Of course, the solution was to open up the firewall for that application or that port. But that's an issue you'll have with any personal firewall software (otherwise it's not doing a good job at blocking).
I would be interested to know how such a bad experience with SP2 could prompt somone to switch their primary OS to OS X or Linux. It seems to me that the inconvenience of switching OS's is far greater than that of suffering through a few incompatible programs (especially if those programs or others are not even available on the other OS).
I'm waiting to see what Microsoft does with Longhorn. If it lives up to its long-awaited potential, then I'll stick around. Otherwise, I too will have had enough with Microsoft and will migrate completely to Linux.
I'm sure that the structure of corporations in 1930's Germany is very different than it is in the modern day US. It sounds like you want to return to a pre-industrialized society because people can't be trusted with technology. But if you don't like that example, how about Stalin and the 30 million his government killed in the gulag?
Individuals don't have the interest of the general public in mind either. And based on their wealth can do many things to harm the world. And I would add that governments have done more harm than corporations. (the Holocaust anyone)?
But couldn't a wealthy individual just do the same? What would you propose to replace corporations? And I think people do know their vehicles cause an environmental problem. They just don't care.
Maybe everyone should have their own corporation then so that they can have the same protections. Your statement that "corporations can't be arrested, incarcerated, executed - but they can lie, cheat, steal, and kill" is almost silly. The corporation cannot think on it's own. It is not self-aware. Any damage inflicted on this world by a corporation is committed by the hand or instrument of individuals. My view, and that of most conservatives, is that individuals are responsible for their own actions. And if they break the law they should be punished accordingly. To think that getting rid of corporations would eliminate all these ills you speak of is very silly. I assure you that people who don't give a damn about the environment don't need a corporation to hide behind to screw it up. Everyone driving their monster SUVs or flying their private jets are doing that on their own and by personal choice.
You make a good point. But haven't we seen some headway in personal accountability? In the past year it seems like there have been quite a few trials of CEO's. And isn't reforming the corporation a better option than trying to eliminate it? Something would have to replace it.
Really? That's interesting. Well, then let me correct my statement: I don't believe Cisco to be an evil corporation.
If corporations are enemies of freedom and human rights, what would you propose? I also think you should define your use of "corporation" more finely. I don't think corporations as entities for conducting businesses are inherently evil. I know the small corp I created for consulting is certainly not evil. And on that note, when I think of a corporation like H-E-B (a small grocery store chain) or Linksys, I don't really think of them as being threats to freedom or human rights. If you are referring to specific corporations that you meet your claims (and we all know these companies exist) then you should limit your attacks to those.