It is true that a lot of people just don't know. I used to read several of these when I was a kid. When I was buying a new programming book (Learning Python from O'Reilly incidentally), I went to the magazine section to try to pick one up on a whim, and I could not find a single SF magazine at all. If they aren't on magazine racks it will be very hard for people who don't know about them to find out they exist and hard for people like me that try to pick one up once in a while on a whim to do so.
Re:Because you don't need more cycles in biz
on
Less Is Moore
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· Score: 1
For most office users, you are completely correct. There does remain plenty of us who do more intensive analysis and code compilation that can require more time and faster hardware is quite welcome there.
More interestingly, faster hardware can open up new applications that no one is seriously trying right now. It would go a long way to assisting with voice recognition for one thing and handwriting recognition can improve too. And those are what I can think of off hand. As better hardware is provided new things will be developed to use it.
To echo several comments I have seen, I would start by finding out what the publisher wants.
With that said, at least for technical papers LATEX is often the way to go. It is free and designed for mathematical/technical papers and books. Especially when used in conjunction with BibTex it is excellent at handling very large documents with indexes, tables of contents, and references. There are several good Latex Editors. For short pieces I personally use NotePad++. For longer pieces you may wish to consider something like Eclipse with the proper plugins which makes it more user friendly and can work with version control software which can become important on large projects, especially when you get other people involved (and there will almost always at least be an editor if not several editors and advisers on a large project).
Personally, I liked all 5 seasons of Earth: Final Conflict, though I do agree that the earlier seasons were better than the later ones.
Regardless, her passing marks a sad day.
If you want true long term storage, simple paper is probably the way to go. Invest the time and money to print it, and organize it, and (especially if you use special acid free paper) it can easily last for centuries and you never have to worry about either file format or medium becoming obsolete.
My other suggestion, is to accept that it will become unreadable after a certain amount of time, and simply make at least two copies, stored separately, and every few years (5 is probably a good number), take the time to move it to whatever medium is sota for archiving at that time. You can't forget for decades at a time, but you can forget it for years at a time and the copying should only take a couple of hours. When you change mediums you can also look at changing file formats as needed.
Alice looks like it would be a great introduction to some of the basic concepts of programming. Personally, I started playing around with GW basic when I was about 11 and moved on to Qbasic before I started more serious studies later at the end of high school and college.
Today, I would recommend starting with python. It is free, has good tools available, and it lets you start with a very simple approach. Basic/Qbasic, mentioned in the OP, was a great place to start for me, but its a bit dated now.
I agree that a good computer scientist needs to have an understanding of all of them, but you have to start somewhere.
For my two cents, I would start with imperative programming. It tends to be the simplest to understand conceptually for most people (I tell the computer to do something, it does it...). Once you have a decent grasp of imperative programming, then OO and functional will make more sense (for that matter, I have a LOT to learn when it comes to functional programming myself).
I partially disagree. At the company I work for, we have 2 IT people without degrees. There are good IT jobs which either do not require a degree at all or else will waive the requirement if you have other ways of proving that you have the skills. The other ways of having demonstrating the skills that I have seen include a portfolio of work that can be shown and technical certifications.
Personally, I hold a degree and I am currently working towards my masters, but while I was in college for my undergraduate I worked in technical support and some of my classmates worked as part-time programmers or quality assurance testers all prior to getting our degrees.
Perhaps a better question is, why would you decide not to get the degree, at least in the long run? While it is clearly not required for success, it can certainly help open doors at some companies that will absolutely demand the degree. Even at companies, like the one I work for now, that are quite open to other things substituting for a degree, the person with the degree will have a competitive advantage. They can take time, hard work, and money to get, but it is almost always worth it. in the long run.
This is not true because, (as others have pointed out), once the cost of initial development is paid, the marginal cost for it is zero. So, without further innovation and the development that it brings, closed source can race towards 0 and come very close, since *without further innovation* the remaining cost is only marketing.
As to the original posters question, I personally think this is a good thing. It forces companies to keep innovating so they always have something to sell. But, I personally am a developer on custom, highly targeted projects and get paid on salary, so I may be biased
The problem in your post is with the phrase "years of experience,". You find a lot of people that learn to do just enough to get their job done and then stop learning. They might have 15 years of experience in software development, but that matters little if most of those years were spent maintaining some program through small modifications with no real innovation, no learning, and no keeping up with more modern technologies.
Experience does matter, but intensity of experience can often be far more important than years. Someone who puts in effortful study in addition to their minimum job and constantly seeks to learn more and find better ways of doing things for one year will often know more than people who just get by for 15 years.
Same here. I am no expert to evaluate which is better and the trade offs involved, but I have been quite happy with clam av on all my personal windows computers.
True enough. but the real question is what about the passenger? If it is based on "car speed" it will turn off the passengers ability to receive calls as well.
I think you have some misconceptions about recruiting. I can only speak from experience regarding the Army, but if you *Enlist* in the Army you can specify any MOS for which you are qualified and have that written into your contract. If you seek a commission then you need to agree to go in the branch based on the needs of the Army, but even there most will get their preference and virtually everyone will get one of their top 3 choices.
As to whether or not it will help you, no one can make any guarantees but it has helped everyone I know who went through it including myself. If you do get an IT related field then you get IT training and experience at the governments experience. Even if you do not get an IT field, you will receive leadership experience which can be valuable for anyone with management aspirations. Additionally, 100% of tuition is paid for while you are in the service and you can get the GI bill (pending certain qualifications on the GI Bill) which pays for college afterward so you could easily get the government to pay for a master's or second degree. I personally am working on Master's now with the vast majority of my college expenses paid for by the GI Bill.
The military is certainly not for everyone, and I myself clearly did not decide to make it a career. But, it can be an excellent career for many people and can be a very good way to get serious work experience for people straight out of school.
This is just my personal anecdote, so make of it what you will. But "First Line Tech Support" is not always reading from a script and not always a sign of incompetence. I worked in First Line Tech support as a college position in my Freshman and Sophomore years and while it was hardly deep analysis we did not use scripts and were expected to have at least a basic knowledge of the real technology (think Comptia A+ level). I was in that position for 2 years and unable to get a promotion because I was part time.
That is one way someone can get stuck at first level through no fault of their own. Another common one in smaller companies is you may have to wait for someone else to get out of the way before you can even try to get a promotion.
When I hit my junior year I agreed to go full time and was immediately promoted to second level support and to third level roughly a year after that. Unlike the Original Poster, I did get past first level before graduating college, but having that background helped more than it hurt. After that I took jobs as an analyst and then a developer and now I am a DBA.
As for practical advice, keep doing the personal projects, and try to publish something in a trade magazine/trade website. You may or may not get paid for the publication but if it is widely read it will help get your name out there. Certifications can also help. I was told point blank by one company that did make me offer that I could have gotten a higher offer if I had some on my resume. That was when I started getting them.
Also, have you considered the military? I was previously active duty, and for many people it can be a great career. Even if it is not a career for you, it can still be a great way to get a start in life. They will pay for training, the pay and benefits are not at all bad, and especially if you leave as an officer or NCO it can be a great resume builder. You may be deployed at some point, but especially if you are currently single that is not a bad thing. It is an opportunity to do something noble and significant for your country and build up some savings at the same time.
Have you thought about just using dos? Even on older hardware, if all you load is the OS itself and perhaps have edit in autoexec.bat it is up in seconds.
I am former active duty, and while I have not yet served in the National Guard(I have a newborn, I am considering joining when she is slightly older), I have served with many Guardsmen who were extremely happy that they went in. They found it fun, challenging, honorable, and the pay scale is not at all bad.
It is definitely not for everyone, but I would heartily recommend service either Active Duty or in the Guard to to many people.
It is a legit question, but the standards he sets are high:
1. Reasonably lucrative
2. No specific time requirements (which can be read as no deadlines)
3. Interesting
4. Cannot be tied to a specific office since he wants to be able to work from home or hotel room
And of course presumptively within his skill set. I have known many people in IT that have gotten moonlighting jobs with some of those criteria, but I've never known anyone to pull off all of them simultaneously.
To the poster, if you find something that meets all 4 and you need a sidekick, send me an e-mail.
As for my 2 cents on achieving it(or coming close), you may want to keep all 4 as goals, but be willing to accept something that does not meet all of them. There are plenty of technical training institutes that need teachers and that meets criteria 1 and 3 (4 as well if you limit yourself to online classes), and plenty of places that hire people on for special projects, but most of those will have deadlines and many will need you to come into their office at least occasionally.
Also, have you considered something like the National Gaurd as a Commo officer? They pay reasonably well, are very interesting and very different from your day job, and while they do require a time and space commitment, Federal Law will help protect that time from other demands to a degree.
Agreed, this won't prove anything since the reward for winning is too small the cover realistic expenses much less motivate them to go beyond their normal operations.
I agree. As someone who has been in and out of IT throughout my career and is currently a DBA, I do not believe that unions would be wise for this field. The professional organization idea has slightly more merit, but that is something that should be considered very carefully and set up loosely if at all.
Perhaps it is nothing but cultural differences, but at least from my stand point in my culture, I do think that educational institutions should encourage their students to work hard and when necessary work for long times.
Society as a whole and the individuals benefit from the greater productivity that comes from working more. Obviously there does need to be a balance, but amoungst all those professionals I know that can be considered successful (acknowledging that the word is both loaded and very subjective...) that balance point requires far more than 40 hours per week at the job.
That is certainly one way to look at it. However, another way to look at it is that it is not the government's responsibility nor is it in the government's capability to do more than set very low minimums on the quality of life. Beyond that, it is up to the individual to decide what trade offs they want to make. I for one am quite willing to sacrifice a large portion of my "personal" or "leisure" time in order to try to excel at my job, and I have at time reaped rewards for it.
The jobs that lead anywhere tend to require significant study far beyond 9 to 5. In my current field as a DBA, I spend a substantial amount of time learning related material away from the office so that I can always ensure I will excel. My friends in more purely management roles do very similar things, though they study market trends and management styles (and golf) while I review the latest versions of software and study information theory and complexity theory.
The people that are willing to stay where they are or expect to advance by pure seniority can work 9 to 5 and do nothing at home, those who want to move up faster or even just be the best at our jobs often have to spend a lot of time outside the normal business time to get there.
Slashdot Mirror
It is true that a lot of people just don't know. I used to read several of these when I was a kid. When I was buying a new programming book (Learning Python from O'Reilly incidentally), I went to the magazine section to try to pick one up on a whim, and I could not find a single SF magazine at all. If they aren't on magazine racks it will be very hard for people who don't know about them to find out they exist and hard for people like me that try to pick one up once in a while on a whim to do so.
For most office users, you are completely correct. There does remain plenty of us who do more intensive analysis and code compilation that can require more time and faster hardware is quite welcome there.
More interestingly, faster hardware can open up new applications that no one is seriously trying right now. It would go a long way to assisting with voice recognition for one thing and handwriting recognition can improve too. And those are what I can think of off hand. As better hardware is provided new things will be developed to use it.
I have to agree. Keyboarding was the most useful class I took in all of middle school.
To echo several comments I have seen, I would start by finding out what the publisher wants.
With that said, at least for technical papers LATEX is often the way to go. It is free and designed for mathematical/technical papers and books. Especially when used in conjunction with BibTex it is excellent at handling very large documents with indexes, tables of contents, and references. There are several good Latex Editors. For short pieces I personally use NotePad++. For longer pieces you may wish to consider something like Eclipse with the proper plugins which makes it more user friendly and can work with version control software which can become important on large projects, especially when you get other people involved (and there will almost always at least be an editor if not several editors and advisers on a large project).
Personally, I liked all 5 seasons of Earth: Final Conflict, though I do agree that the earlier seasons were better than the later ones. Regardless, her passing marks a sad day.
If you want true long term storage, simple paper is probably the way to go. Invest the time and money to print it, and organize it, and (especially if you use special acid free paper) it can easily last for centuries and you never have to worry about either file format or medium becoming obsolete.
My other suggestion, is to accept that it will become unreadable after a certain amount of time, and simply make at least two copies, stored separately, and every few years (5 is probably a good number), take the time to move it to whatever medium is sota for archiving at that time. You can't forget for decades at a time, but you can forget it for years at a time and the copying should only take a couple of hours. When you change mediums you can also look at changing file formats as needed.
Alice looks like it would be a great introduction to some of the basic concepts of programming. Personally, I started playing around with GW basic when I was about 11 and moved on to Qbasic before I started more serious studies later at the end of high school and college.
Today, I would recommend starting with python. It is free, has good tools available, and it lets you start with a very simple approach. Basic/Qbasic, mentioned in the OP, was a great place to start for me, but its a bit dated now.
I agree that a good computer scientist needs to have an understanding of all of them, but you have to start somewhere.
For my two cents, I would start with imperative programming. It tends to be the simplest to understand conceptually for most people (I tell the computer to do something, it does it...). Once you have a decent grasp of imperative programming, then OO and functional will make more sense (for that matter, I have a LOT to learn when it comes to functional programming myself).
I partially disagree. At the company I work for, we have 2 IT people without degrees. There are good IT jobs which either do not require a degree at all or else will waive the requirement if you have other ways of proving that you have the skills. The other ways of having demonstrating the skills that I have seen include a portfolio of work that can be shown and technical certifications.
Personally, I hold a degree and I am currently working towards my masters, but while I was in college for my undergraduate I worked in technical support and some of my classmates worked as part-time programmers or quality assurance testers all prior to getting our degrees.
Perhaps a better question is, why would you decide not to get the degree, at least in the long run? While it is clearly not required for success, it can certainly help open doors at some companies that will absolutely demand the degree. Even at companies, like the one I work for now, that are quite open to other things substituting for a degree, the person with the degree will have a competitive advantage. They can take time, hard work, and money to get, but it is almost always worth it. in the long run.
This is not true because, (as others have pointed out), once the cost of initial development is paid, the marginal cost for it is zero. So, without further innovation and the development that it brings, closed source can race towards 0 and come very close, since *without further innovation* the remaining cost is only marketing.
As to the original posters question, I personally think this is a good thing. It forces companies to keep innovating so they always have something to sell. But, I personally am a developer on custom, highly targeted projects and get paid on salary, so I may be biased
The problem in your post is with the phrase "years of experience,". You find a lot of people that learn to do just enough to get their job done and then stop learning. They might have 15 years of experience in software development, but that matters little if most of those years were spent maintaining some program through small modifications with no real innovation, no learning, and no keeping up with more modern technologies.
Experience does matter, but intensity of experience can often be far more important than years. Someone who puts in effortful study in addition to their minimum job and constantly seeks to learn more and find better ways of doing things for one year will often know more than people who just get by for 15 years.
We use Pidgin and have no complaints.
This is a sad commentary on our society and a horrible end to a wonderful tradition.
Same here. I am no expert to evaluate which is better and the trade offs involved, but I have been quite happy with clam av on all my personal windows computers.
True enough. but the real question is what about the passenger? If it is based on "car speed" it will turn off the passengers ability to receive calls as well.
I think you have some misconceptions about recruiting. I can only speak from experience regarding the Army, but if you *Enlist* in the Army you can specify any MOS for which you are qualified and have that written into your contract. If you seek a commission then you need to agree to go in the branch based on the needs of the Army, but even there most will get their preference and virtually everyone will get one of their top 3 choices.
As to whether or not it will help you, no one can make any guarantees but it has helped everyone I know who went through it including myself. If you do get an IT related field then you get IT training and experience at the governments experience. Even if you do not get an IT field, you will receive leadership experience which can be valuable for anyone with management aspirations. Additionally, 100% of tuition is paid for while you are in the service and you can get the GI bill (pending certain qualifications on the GI Bill) which pays for college afterward so you could easily get the government to pay for a master's or second degree. I personally am working on Master's now with the vast majority of my college expenses paid for by the GI Bill.
The military is certainly not for everyone, and I myself clearly did not decide to make it a career. But, it can be an excellent career for many people and can be a very good way to get serious work experience for people straight out of school.
This is just my personal anecdote, so make of it what you will. But "First Line Tech Support" is not always reading from a script and not always a sign of incompetence. I worked in First Line Tech support as a college position in my Freshman and Sophomore years and while it was hardly deep analysis we did not use scripts and were expected to have at least a basic knowledge of the real technology (think Comptia A+ level). I was in that position for 2 years and unable to get a promotion because I was part time.
That is one way someone can get stuck at first level through no fault of their own. Another common one in smaller companies is you may have to wait for someone else to get out of the way before you can even try to get a promotion.
When I hit my junior year I agreed to go full time and was immediately promoted to second level support and to third level roughly a year after that. Unlike the Original Poster, I did get past first level before graduating college, but having that background helped more than it hurt. After that I took jobs as an analyst and then a developer and now I am a DBA.
As for practical advice, keep doing the personal projects, and try to publish something in a trade magazine/trade website. You may or may not get paid for the publication but if it is widely read it will help get your name out there. Certifications can also help. I was told point blank by one company that did make me offer that I could have gotten a higher offer if I had some on my resume. That was when I started getting them.
Also, have you considered the military? I was previously active duty, and for many people it can be a great career. Even if it is not a career for you, it can still be a great way to get a start in life. They will pay for training, the pay and benefits are not at all bad, and especially if you leave as an officer or NCO it can be a great resume builder. You may be deployed at some point, but especially if you are currently single that is not a bad thing. It is an opportunity to do something noble and significant for your country and build up some savings at the same time.
Have you thought about just using dos? Even on older hardware, if all you load is the OS itself and perhaps have edit in autoexec.bat it is up in seconds.
I am former active duty, and while I have not yet served in the National Guard(I have a newborn, I am considering joining when she is slightly older), I have served with many Guardsmen who were extremely happy that they went in. They found it fun, challenging, honorable, and the pay scale is not at all bad. It is definitely not for everyone, but I would heartily recommend service either Active Duty or in the Guard to to many people.
It is a legit question, but the standards he sets are high:
1. Reasonably lucrative
2. No specific time requirements (which can be read as no deadlines)
3. Interesting
4. Cannot be tied to a specific office since he wants to be able to work from home or hotel room
And of course presumptively within his skill set. I have known many people in IT that have gotten moonlighting jobs with some of those criteria, but I've never known anyone to pull off all of them simultaneously.
To the poster, if you find something that meets all 4 and you need a sidekick, send me an e-mail.
As for my 2 cents on achieving it(or coming close), you may want to keep all 4 as goals, but be willing to accept something that does not meet all of them. There are plenty of technical training institutes that need teachers and that meets criteria 1 and 3 (4 as well if you limit yourself to online classes), and plenty of places that hire people on for special projects, but most of those will have deadlines and many will need you to come into their office at least occasionally.
Also, have you considered something like the National Gaurd as a Commo officer? They pay reasonably well, are very interesting and very different from your day job, and while they do require a time and space commitment, Federal Law will help protect that time from other demands to a degree.
Agreed, this won't prove anything since the reward for winning is too small the cover realistic expenses much less motivate them to go beyond their normal operations.
I agree. As someone who has been in and out of IT throughout my career and is currently a DBA, I do not believe that unions would be wise for this field. The professional organization idea has slightly more merit, but that is something that should be considered very carefully and set up loosely if at all.
Perhaps it is nothing but cultural differences, but at least from my stand point in my culture, I do think that educational institutions should encourage their students to work hard and when necessary work for long times.
Society as a whole and the individuals benefit from the greater productivity that comes from working more. Obviously there does need to be a balance, but amoungst all those professionals I know that can be considered successful (acknowledging that the word is both loaded and very subjective...) that balance point requires far more than 40 hours per week at the job.
That is certainly one way to look at it. However, another way to look at it is that it is not the government's responsibility nor is it in the government's capability to do more than set very low minimums on the quality of life. Beyond that, it is up to the individual to decide what trade offs they want to make. I for one am quite willing to sacrifice a large portion of my "personal" or "leisure" time in order to try to excel at my job, and I have at time reaped rewards for it.
The jobs that lead anywhere tend to require significant study far beyond 9 to 5. In my current field as a DBA, I spend a substantial amount of time learning related material away from the office so that I can always ensure I will excel. My friends in more purely management roles do very similar things, though they study market trends and management styles (and golf) while I review the latest versions of software and study information theory and complexity theory.
The people that are willing to stay where they are or expect to advance by pure seniority can work 9 to 5 and do nothing at home, those who want to move up faster or even just be the best at our jobs often have to spend a lot of time outside the normal business time to get there.