You're assuming that they actually earned their money. It's not always the case. Paris Hilton might be an extreme example. George W. Bush is another. Ability is nothing without opportunity.
If you're holding yourself out as a programmer, you definitely have to be able to write good code. But technology work is not made up solely of programmers. I work with programmers, *NIX administrators, graphic designers, UI designers, animators, illustrators, subject-matter experts (usually with PhDs in non-technical areas), clients who are not geeks, etc. There are a lot of jobs in technology that do not require you to write any code whatsoever.
It sounds like you are the alpha nerd on your development team, but you have been forced to work with programmers who were sub-par and now you're bitter. Why is that? Maybe the people you work with are new to the industry and fresh out of school. Maybe your company pays crappy wages and can only attract the code monkeys, people with zero interpersonal skills and other deficiencies that force them to only accept lower paying contracts. But, as an AC poster, we'll never know.
Everyone has a different skill set, not all are cut out for coding. There is a place for everyone though; the cubicle down the hall, your parents basement, or even at McDonalds. Some may have a knack for novel algorithms but have trouble attracting mates - not an uncommon affliction among programmers. Don't worry, there is a place for you! As my old Comp. Architecture prof once said: "If you can't get laid, you might as well write some good code."
I would also recommend any of the newer web frameworks if you're planning on doing any sort of large-scale web development. If you like Python programming, Pylons is my current favourite. If you're a Ruby fan, Ruby-on-Rails is the one to use. PHP for web is not really the 'default' choice anymore, not among the web developers I work with anyway.
On one hand, given the fiasco of last summer in Lebanon, you could characterize the IDF as being heavy handed in its response to the terrorist activities of Hezbollah. But on the other hand, Israel is surrounded by countries that have attacked them in the past.
I am glad that the issue is so clear-cut for some, but it is certainly not a clear issue for me. If I lived in a country surrounded by enemies, where going to get groceries might get you killed, I might be quite enthusiastic about a heavy and brutal military response to idiots lobbing bombs into my hometown.
The UN Human Rights Declaration (UDHR) may be Western biased, but that's what we've got, even if it is somewhat toothless. As a reference point, it's better than nothing.
I see the merit in your point on democracy, yet I'd choose American style democracy over any flavour of monarchy from the Middle East on any day of the week (and I'm not American).
Idle comes bundled with the Windows installer. I use that all the time. It is pretty simple, a colourized text editor mostly, but it doesn't have the pokey feel of Eclipse. About my only complaint about Idle is that it doesn't have any line numbering down the left side of the window. Instead the line numbers are in the lower right corner in a box which makes me look away from my code. It might be just me though.
Very good point. Not everybody has fingerprints due to injury, disability, etc. I would imagine that there is a discrimination lawsuit in there somewhere if alternate means of service are not made available.
You are over-generalizing by condemning an entire industry on the basis of anecdotal evidence and a school assignment.
Barriers to entry have always been low for software, but as long as sufficiently painful problems can be solved by software automation you will continue to see entrepreneurs start-up technology companies.
It is too simplistic to solely blame a people for their government corruption. Ideally, they would rise up in some peaceful revolution and kick the bastards out, but in many cases, there is simply not enough support even if there is a popular will.
Often, there are foreign influences that either depose one set of thugs for another, or else prop up clearly illegitimate governments. They'll supply weapons, military advisors, training, secure loans, add an air of international legitimacy or help cover-up atrocities.
Integrity is an important part of the equation to be sure, but also add generous amounts of money, popular support, transparency, accountability, a free press...
The only remedy is education. Hopefully, the Chinese students we have in our universities will want to change their China into something better than that envisioned by the old men clinging to power.
What a load of crap and overgeneralizations. Government programs giving work to minority owned businesses are doing so to stimulate the economy, usually in ghettos where there is no cash flowing. The end result is a net increase of tax paying middle class people (who may be non-white) and all the benefits that go along with being affluent. Your painting of all minority owned businesses as incompetent borders on racist.
Quite right. The Bush administration battle plan is here. In a very morbid way, Bush and his team really lucked out with 9/11. They were looking for a single event that could catalyse their transformation of America.
Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a
new Pearl Harbor. (p.51)
A link to some interesting biased commentary (with an incorrect citation). It is remarkable how well Bush et al. have managed to transform America in under ten years; I hardly recognize it at all.
There are incompetent people in the private sector as well. The bigger the company - the more you'll find. Remember those class projects you did where 50% of the team did nothing? That's why. Just wait until you graduate, you'll see.
You might be too bright to be stimulated by the standard courses; it's not unheard of. Alternatively, you might be studying at a third-rate college or have had teachers who couldn't teach (but who were excellent researchers).
Quite right. Take a look at the course catalog and decide if the courses are applicable to your vocation.
That being said, I do feel that everyone working in IT should have some knowledge of programming (even if it is just the knowledge that they hate it). This means learning at least one programming language and a course in data structures. If your minor offers you the ability to get an introduction both the hardware and software side of things, plus theory, I'd say go for it.
From the comments, it seems that few have access to the SSRN papers via university subscription. The following are snippets of the paper which I feel are important. Much of the paper is a discussion of the econometric models the authors built. I never studied econometrics so I can't comment on those. No doubt those are important; I would be interested to hear what others thought about those models.
"Overall, we reach two main conclusions. First, although there is some evidence that use of touch-screen voting is correlated with the change in the Republican vote share in a county, caution is needed in interpreting these patterns. While this evidence would appear superficially consistent with voting manipulation, more direct tests for systematic voting irregularities show no evidence that the Republican gains are correlated with local incentives to raise the Republican vote share. We stress that our empirical strategy is intended to test for systematic voting irregularities, and cannot detect voting irregularities in only in one or two counties. Second, touch-screen voting can affect election outcomes indirectly by affecting the relative turnout of different voter groups. The evidence suggests that touch-screen voting reduces overall turnout, with a larger effect in counties with more Hispanic residents. The fact that touch-screen voting seems to have been adopted more quickly in counties with more Hispanics (particularly in swing states) may point to systematic effort to influence election outcomes, though regardless of intention the overall effect on election outcome was small."(p.4)
The authors investigate "whether voting technology has a differential impact on the turnout rates of different subgroups..[and if] certain subgroups of voters---for example, minorities---are more or less likely to turn out when balloting is conducted with touch screen machinery, or if their vote is more or less likely to be counted as valid, there could be an effect on election outcomes."(p.15)
They discuss some possible causes for a differential in use:
"First, it is possible that electronic machines are
perceived as confusing or intimidating by subgroups that have limited familiarity with computers and ATM machines, or have limited English proficiency. Second, some minorities, especially African-American, may be particularly suspicious of this new controversial technology, given the many allegations surrounding DRE technology and the many historical episodes of disenfranchisement of African-American voters. Third it is possible that the probability of making mistakes while voting is affected by the technology. Although proponents of electronic voting argue that it should increase the overall fraction of valid votes, it is possible that the opposite is true..."(p.15)
Finally, they reach some conclusions on the use of electronic voting and its adoption in strategic states:
"Overall, we draw three conclusions. First, DRE adoption is significantly negatively related to turnout rates, with an effect that is larger in counties with a larger share of Hispanic residents. Second, the net effect on electoral outcomes is small. Our analysis suggests that the relative effect on Hispanic turnout explains at most a 0.03 percentage point increase in the Republican vote share, or about 14% of the overall difference in Republican vote shares between DRE and non-DRE counties. Third, DRE adoption appears to have been more likely in counties with a larger share of Hispanic residents, particularly in swing states, although not in states controlled by a Republican governor. Thus, evidence for the hypothesis of strategic DRE adoption is mixed."(p.20)
The future of music is free. If you are an artist, give away your MP3s online at your web site. If users want to, they can buy CDs or higher quality MP3s online. You make your money not in the distribution of the music, but in the merchandising. Sell rights to advertisers and movie producers. Sell your brand to poster manufacturers. Then go out and sell-out your concerts and charge your fans an arm and a leg for tickets and t-shirts. Independent artists have the most to gain from this trend and large music publishers have the most to lose.
Slashdot Mirror
In other news, Lorem Ipsum was elected Prime Minister of Canada today by a landslide margin.
Don't forget the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. A rare honor indeed.
http://presidentialmemorial.wordpress.com/
You're assuming that they actually earned their money. It's not always the case. Paris Hilton might be an extreme example. George W. Bush is another. Ability is nothing without opportunity.
You and that dude with the "pubic API" should get together.
If you're holding yourself out as a programmer, you definitely have to be able to write good code. But technology work is not made up solely of programmers. I work with programmers, *NIX administrators, graphic designers, UI designers, animators, illustrators, subject-matter experts (usually with PhDs in non-technical areas), clients who are not geeks, etc. There are a lot of jobs in technology that do not require you to write any code whatsoever.
It sounds like you are the alpha nerd on your development team, but you have been forced to work with programmers who were sub-par and now you're bitter. Why is that? Maybe the people you work with are new to the industry and fresh out of school. Maybe your company pays crappy wages and can only attract the code monkeys, people with zero interpersonal skills and other deficiencies that force them to only accept lower paying contracts. But, as an AC poster, we'll never know.
Everyone has a different skill set, not all are cut out for coding. There is a place for everyone though; the cubicle down the hall, your parents basement, or even at McDonalds. Some may have a knack for novel algorithms but have trouble attracting mates - not an uncommon affliction among programmers. Don't worry, there is a place for you! As my old Comp. Architecture prof once said: "If you can't get laid, you might as well write some good code."
BTW: My editor of choice is JEdit, and eugenics has been thoroughly discredited except by Nazis and others who are fond of brown shirts. You may want to rethink your affiliation in that regard.
I would also recommend any of the newer web frameworks if you're planning on doing any sort of large-scale web development. If you like Python programming, Pylons is my current favourite. If you're a Ruby fan, Ruby-on-Rails is the one to use. PHP for web is not really the 'default' choice anymore, not among the web developers I work with anyway.
On one hand, given the fiasco of last summer in Lebanon, you could characterize the IDF as being heavy handed in its response to the terrorist activities of Hezbollah. But on the other hand, Israel is surrounded by countries that have attacked them in the past.
I am glad that the issue is so clear-cut for some, but it is certainly not a clear issue for me. If I lived in a country surrounded by enemies, where going to get groceries might get you killed, I might be quite enthusiastic about a heavy and brutal military response to idiots lobbing bombs into my hometown.
The UN Human Rights Declaration (UDHR) may be Western biased, but that's what we've got, even if it is somewhat toothless. As a reference point, it's better than nothing.
I see the merit in your point on democracy, yet I'd choose American style democracy over any flavour of monarchy from the Middle East on any day of the week (and I'm not American).
Is China 'Evil'? I don't know, but it does seem to be run by a bunch of assholes, IMHO. The Basic Law in Hong Kong is a joke. The Chinese government routinely tortures and imprisons people for their beliefs. Corruption is a way of life. Censorship is way over the top. Last year there was that video of Chinese army soldiers shooting Tibetan refugees in Nepal.
I recognize that I may be biased since the bastards tried to poison us the other month.
Idle comes bundled with the Windows installer. I use that all the time. It is pretty simple, a colourized text editor mostly, but it doesn't have the pokey feel of Eclipse. About my only complaint about Idle is that it doesn't have any line numbering down the left side of the window. Instead the line numbers are in the lower right corner in a box which makes me look away from my code. It might be just me though.
t ro/index.html
An good intro to Idle follows:
http://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dyoo/python/idle_in
The latest Web 2.0 Captcha:
C:\ W IN D O W S\ sys tem 32\config\S AMYou heard it here first!
That's about it. Welcome to Canada.
C'est tout. Bienvenue a Canada.
Very good point. Not everybody has fingerprints due to injury, disability, etc. I would imagine that there is a discrimination lawsuit in there somewhere if alternate means of service are not made available.
Barriers to entry have always been low for software, but as long as sufficiently painful problems can be solved by software automation you will continue to see entrepreneurs start-up technology companies.
Often, there are foreign influences that either depose one set of thugs for another, or else prop up clearly illegitimate governments. They'll supply weapons, military advisors, training, secure loans, add an air of international legitimacy or help cover-up atrocities.
Integrity is an important part of the equation to be sure, but also add generous amounts of money, popular support, transparency, accountability, a free press...The only remedy is education. Hopefully, the Chinese students we have in our universities will want to change their China into something better than that envisioned by the old men clinging to power.
Okay, but tags in lowercase.
<laugh type="maniacal"/>
What a load of crap and overgeneralizations. Government programs giving work to minority owned businesses are doing so to stimulate the economy, usually in ghettos where there is no cash flowing. The end result is a net increase of tax paying middle class people (who may be non-white) and all the benefits that go along with being affluent. Your painting of all minority owned businesses as incompetent borders on racist.
"Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century".
A link to some interesting biased commentary (with an incorrect citation). It is remarkable how well Bush et al. have managed to transform America in under ten years; I hardly recognize it at all.A Report of The Project for the New American Century, September 2000.
You might be too bright to be stimulated by the standard courses; it's not unheard of. Alternatively, you might be studying at a third-rate college or have had teachers who couldn't teach (but who were excellent researchers).
In Quebec they routinely deal with the 24 hour clock. Il est dix-sept heures moins dix. Tr: It is almost five-o'clock (in the afternoon).
This has nothing to do with the discussion at hand which is the file swapping decision.
That being said, I do feel that everyone working in IT should have some knowledge of programming (even if it is just the knowledge that they hate it). This means learning at least one programming language and a course in data structures. If your minor offers you the ability to get an introduction both the hardware and software side of things, plus theory, I'd say go for it.
From the comments, it seems that few have access to the SSRN papers via university subscription. The following are snippets of the paper which I feel are important. Much of the paper is a discussion of the econometric models the authors built. I never studied econometrics so I can't comment on those. No doubt those are important; I would be interested to hear what others thought about those models.
The authors investigate "whether voting technology has a differential impact on the turnout rates of different subgroups..[and if] certain subgroups of voters---for example, minorities---are more or less likely to turn out when balloting is conducted with touch screen machinery, or if their vote is more or less likely to be counted as valid, there could be an effect on election outcomes."(p.15)
They discuss some possible causes for a differential in use: Finally, they reach some conclusions on the use of electronic voting and its adoption in strategic states:The future of music is free. If you are an artist, give away your MP3s online at your web site. If users want to, they can buy CDs or higher quality MP3s online. You make your money not in the distribution of the music, but in the merchandising. Sell rights to advertisers and movie producers. Sell your brand to poster manufacturers. Then go out and sell-out your concerts and charge your fans an arm and a leg for tickets and t-shirts. Independent artists have the most to gain from this trend and large music publishers have the most to lose.