I've never seen an IDE that did design work, so I think poor designs are unrelated to the IDE. Whether you use one or not, you come up with the design whether it is a bad or a good one, and an IDE isn't a crutch for that process.
As for when something goes wrong. If the IDE looked after messy details before, then it can keep right on looking after them while you figure out what went wrong. I haven't used a command line debugger in years, nor do I really recall the specifics of doing so for the several languages I've used. But I can darn well make a visual debugger from an IDE do magical things and find problems quickly. Keep on looking after those messy details I say. I don't need to know those messy details.
People often use the, "What if there were no IDE? What would you do then?" situation to encourage people to understand the nuts and bolts, but there's never been a time in 15 years when I didn't have a very functional IDE to take care of the busy work. I'm not well versed in electrical engineering either, but I can do some interesting things with a computer.
The first time a problem comes up that a person cannot solve because they are relying on an IDE to do some busywork and that busywork is bollucks, is the last time they will be ignorant of what the IDE is doing in that particular case. If they don't fill in the gap at that point, it's not the "using an IDE" that is the culprit. It's the person's fault. And you can't force a person to have initiative and curiosity and not be a lazyass by requiring them to take the tedious route.
The best developers learn what they need to get a job done and don't spend time learning other things. When my company switches to a different source control product, I don't bother learning its wonders if I can just plug it into my IDE and keep using the same simple commands to take care of business.
I mean honestly. Does anyone really think that a skilled programmer who has been working through an IDE for a couple years and created several interesting projects is going to be suddenly flummoxed when he has to figure out why the autogenerated WSDL is goofed in a particular situation? Heck, no. That's just your typical learning situation where you need to delve a bit and add to your knowledge.
The dangers of using an IDE are blown way out of proportion. Ok, don't use 'em. The second you as a student get bored out of your tree by not using them, use 'em. Any developer worth there salt will use an available tool to save time. It's the guy that says, "No. You can't use a tool to automate this tediuous process because I want you to learn your fundamentals..." that's the guy that is a problem. That's the guy with little to teach.
I guess I'm in the minority here, but I've been developing software in the industry for about 8 years and am considered competent by most. I'm really in favor of using an IDE at all times if it is available for the simple reason that what IDEs do is, in my opinion, trivial.
The really interesting work happens in my head when I am studying source code or looking at a list of requirements and coming up with a solution architecture or model. An IDE cannot even come close to that, and though I do understand what an IDE is doing it and could figure out what command line tools it is using, I'd prefer to just move on to the more interesting and important aspect of development.
When I see people saying, "Oh, no. Make them do it without an IDE so they learn those fundamentals," I am a little astonished because honestly, if you really need to know how to compile a program from scratch that involves using a command line tool and the second you get into a nontrivial project, you need make or an equivalent and you want version control.
Saying to do it the old fashioned way and not use an IDE is like telling me to do source control the old fashion way and name my files Woot.1, Woot.1.2, Woot.2.0 and keep a separate metadata file where I annotate what the changes were. Well, I hope people see what I am saying here. To me, using an IDE to handle something like building a project is no different than using a command line compiler that has dependency checking and recompiles source file dependencies.
I'm really quite surprised that people are so passionate on both sides of this issue. Pretty much as I see it, what I really want students to learn as fast as possible is how to think abstractly about a problem in terms of objects or procedures or functions (depending on the type of language), and then begin to delve into the interesting aspects of code evolutions (refactoring) and testing. If an IDE gets people to that point faster, than use it. If at some point they really need to do something without an IDE (I've never been in this situation in the real world--only in the artificial world of a class where it was enforced that you not use all the tools at your disposal), you can learn that.
A smart and capable student can learn to do basic things that an IDE does quite rapidly. But what a lot of students absolutely fail to learn coming out of school is how to leverage the hell out of whatever existing tools already exist to avoid reinventing the wheel.
The reason to switch from C++ to Java should come from your FTEs. If your group cannot see how it will be an advantage, then you will not gain the benefits since you are doing the actual work. A good plan is to selectively replace or consolidate problematic subsystems and do an implementation in Java. A better plan would be to do that, but to implement a solution in both Java and C++ and then compare.
This way, you don't make a possibly insane transition based on "some Indian guys in India"'s idea (How well do they know your team, code, and history?), and your FTEs get hands on experience with Java. If there are advantages, they will become apparent to you and your fellows and you are the people that need to see and utilize those advantages.
What I remember most from transitioning away from C++ was that I could develop things faster because they syntax was simpler and code contained fewer errors because of the lack of pointers and need for handling garbage collection. Another potential advantage of Java is that it is the "bandwagon" at the moment and therefore many eyes (e.g. products) are out there to make necessary business tasks easier in Java.
The real value of Java that the 3rd party is alluding to is in the interoperability of Java with other components (you listed a few). If you are using some middleware or other software that meets an important business requirement that you have and that middleware plays nicer with Java, then you might have real value there. But even if that were the case, you could always use JNI or something like that to wrapper the quality pieces that you have written in C++ or whatever.
Anyway. Bottom line is you and your fellow FTEs need to have direct experience with the advantages and disadvantages, and the best way to get that is to selectively migrate (refactor, redesign, replace, etc.) the more troublesome components with Java code and see if that is better (faster to develop, fewer bugs, etc.) than what you could do in C++.
So, what if it was a choice between good vision and very high intelligence? How about between good vision or very low risk of cancer/heart disease?
Because we can inexpensively correct vision, I'd say if this coupling existed, we would already be naturally selecting toward bad vision. More people will die from cancer/heart disease than from glasses. Pretty sure about that. Since we haven't turned into mole people, I think the two are probably pretty independent though.
But I am still wondering about the intelligence/blonde connection,:-). I guess by my own reasoning, if there were such a coupling, there'd be no blondes. By contradiction of natural selection, intelligence and blonde are not connected. Q.E.D!
Phew.
Oh, damn. I have fallen victim to the dyed hair fallacy.
Now, what was it you were saying about there being a point in fighting for greater "understanding" of my position? Also, how exactly did I "choose" to "work under" either of these clowns?
Well, the option I was thinking of was not "pick your poison". What I was thinking of was making the decision to get involved in the political arena at least locally by running for a public office and going out there and getting support for your views.
That may seem futile, but the person I would really like to talk to is the one that went out there and tried just that and encountered obstacles. What are those obstacles? Which ones were avoidable? Which ones weren't? What good were they able to accomplish?
It's a real mistake to think that just because you vote represents 1/250millionth of the total voting power that it is irrelevant. If you really believe that, then any individual person is irrelevant to existence since there are billions of them, in which case, you, as such an individual are irrelevant and then spending time expressing your opinion is likewise utterly irrelevant.
So I would say that the fact that you state your position carefully indicates that you do think you are important. Well, I agree with that. And because you are important, so are your actions, whether they involve voting, not voting, or running for an office. Whatever you do, it makes a difference. Sometimes the difference seems insignificantly small, but how can you really have any idea? Catalysts are small things, but sometimes they start chain reactions. Unless you are omniscient, it is very hard to predict which of your tiny actions will have a huge effect.
If you really know the value of all of your actions and the effect that they have into the endless future, then there's not much point in talking to anyone about it, because pretty much no one else around has that degree of omniscience. I certainly don't. But I have seen a lot of situations--maybe they would seem small and insignificant to you--where one person made a big different just because they cared to actions that indicated it.
I don't think this is limited to voting, and I am not speaking about individuals. There are good apples and bad apples in every bunch. My point is that as a group, we do elect officials. In a company we support the appointment of leaders as well by choosing to work under them.
Agreed, those in the minority did not support an offical that is elected by a vote, but that does not mean that they have to accept the result in the long-term. You can fight for what you believe in or work toward greater understanding of your opinions by people that will support you. Or you can go entirely non-interactive and not participate in the process at all because everything seems futile and every option seems like a bad one.
But in any case, you do have a choice. Voting and not voting both effect the result of an election.
They lie. They lie all the time. They're not lying for our benefit, either -- they lie to do us harm, to hide things from us, to get certain people into office (or keep them there), they lie to take our property, our freedom, to erode our rights, and to diminish our ability to hold them accountable.
There is a huge barrier, however, in the form of a very very small number: Planck's Constant. Planck's constant = 6.626068 x 10-34 m2 kg/S. It's that 10**-34 that makes it difficult for low-energy electromagetism like wireless transmissions to interact with chemical reactions. Thirty-four zeros is a LOT of zeros after the decimal point.
Sunlight causes cancer and the Sun is 150 million kilometers away. These people were standing right underneath a powerful microwave transmitter for hours a day.
There are many numbers that I don't have so I will not try to make an argument (scientists will have great fun doing that for years, no doubt), but throwing out Planck's constant is not very meaningful unless you make a fairly accurate assessment of intensity and duration of power absorbed by these people and compare the power levels to other verifiable mutagenic sources of radiation.
I could just as well say, "Oh, the Sun doesn't cause skin cancer. It's 150 billion meters away and that's a LOT of zeroes!" Why your post gets a 5, I have no idea.
Wait a minute. My marriage feels like it costs me a billion dollars, there's definitely a billion pitfalls, and my wife has had me pigeonholed for years.
I think it's not a very good long-term view to only call an employer on overstepping the bounds of a salaried contract by quitting, but that is not really my point. My point is that when you don't act like a prima donna and you do quietly walk away, many employer' cry foul, as if you have done them some wrong. But you have not. You say you should have a sit-down to clarify what you consider to be a violation of your agreed upon employment terms. That is exactly the statement you quoted, though I didn't gussy it up in corporate politiness, but I also say that many employer's will consider such a conversation threating no matter how polite you are. Plenty of manager's are so consumed with the fear of not meeting performance requirements, that they overstep the reasonable bounds of an employment agreement and then they whine when you call them on it.
Perhaps you are one of them. Otherwise I wonder why this particular thread discomforts you to such an extent that you throw around terms like prima donna and say that a clear statement about the inappropriateness of asking for 2x the paid for hours is a threat.
He may not be bright but the thought of a TV announcer coming onstage and singing, "SOOOOOOOOOUL-gene!" (with Soultrain music in the background) as the intro to a reality show about the suspenseful life of bioengineers in a mouse lab *snore* is great.
Mouser Brand cigarettes will be a huge success. The only brand with a Surgeon General's Recommendation: "Mouser Brand cigarettes have been proven to fight cancer in a lab."
Do taichi in the NOC every hour or so. Takes up really little space. It's really low-key exercise, so people don't wig out and you don't have to work up a sweat. You can learn the shortform in a couple months and it takes about 5-7 minutes to go through it.
After a few months, you won't need drugs and you won't have to worry about DVT. And you'll end up really good at it,:-). Anyway, I have a similar job and that was the most economical solution that I found.
Intel Mobile 1,2,3,4,5,...
Intel Server 1,2,3,4,5,...
Intel <category> <generation>
Marketers frequently come up with something "creative" that they are just sure will provide them with the "edge" they need to get the consumer to pony up more cash. It works in the short-term and then in the long-term it is discovered that it has a negative impact on consumer recognition of the brand.
"Extreme Edition" is just a poor naming convention anyway. It does not in any way indicate to the consumer what the basis of differentiation is between this chip and the others. Category names should be functional names based on recognized consumer uses.
If those darn marketers would just listen to their programmers,...:-)
What I've never got -- even from my first job at age 13 -- is why people like you EXPECT employers to "care" about you?
I am not saying that I expect an employer to "care". Not at all. When a person is young and new to working in the industry, they might have such a fanciful notion that a company is a family of sorts and that there is similar benefit in investing in your coworkers. But then you realize most people come from dysfunctional families and the last thing they want is another one, so...:-)
In the real world, you see that employees are often commodities, and are treated in whatever way is expedient (cost-effective). A company is driven by money. And all too often it is driven by short-term money. I routinely see staffing choices made that effect 5+ year employees and they are made to balance a 3 month budget.
Now I do not at all say that employers have to care or that employees should expect them to care. What I was saying is that if you, as an employee, adjust to that, companies will usually cry foul.
"We need you in here on Saturday and Sunday this week and the next. You are a 9-5 employee and you're at 60 hours already, but that is how it is and no, we will not pay you overtime. You're salary and you're expected to make up for our mismanagement and refusal to listen to your feedback--err...you're expected to do your job."
"Ok, here's my feedback on that, sir. No."
"I'm sorry? Wait...I don't think you understand how this goes. We pay you."
"Oh...I get it."
"Great. See you Saturday."
"No, I get it. If you want me here 76 hours a week. You make me a new compensation offer and I will consider it, because you're right. You pay me."
"Hrm...I guess we need to have a surprise meeting with HR. Uh...I hope I didn't just say that out loud."
There are many reasons this conversation very rarely happens. Futility jumps out at me as a big one. I've had this conversation before. Most people are smarter than me. They won't even go there. They know if they demand equitable treatment, it will get them the label of "problem" in the HR file or it will get them a pink piece of paper. They know that there is a quieter worker ant that they can abuse for short-term gain, and long-term implications of losing veteran employees be damned.
I'll just finish by saying that I don't expect any other kind of treatment from a company. You get what you get in life. But I think this type of attitude is a bit...not good for a company's longterm interest. And I think it's pretty hypocritical for companies to so cavalierly use and dispose of employees and then be upset when an employee reciprocates. But you know...even that is all right, as long as they keep their hypocritical indignation to themselves.
This speaks well to what I was referring to in the original post. Maybe a shorter way to say what I was saying is companies these days are playing the short-term game more and more, but when an employee naturally adjusts there attitude to cope, the employer cries foul. At least in many cases that I have seen.
I've worked at several jobs where "You wouldn't want to be looking for a job right now, would you?" was the standard way of asking for work to be done. "Hey, we need you in here on Saturday for 8 hours. I know you're a 9-5er and you've probably logged 60 hours already this week, but...oh, yes we need you here on Sunday, too." That is straight out of Office Space, and there's a reason it is a funny movie. It's because that scenario is not uncommon.
It really would be best if managers realized that they were in a business relationship with their employees, and nothing more. Just keep that relationship mutually beneficial and you don't have to worry about your employees leaving.
I see things somewhat differently. What I see in the industry is a definite trend toward companies caring much less about their employees. Employees are "resources" to be "utilized" in a "cost-effective" manner. The hypocrisy is that when an employee does the natural thing and protects themself by treating their employer in a similar fashion, employers get angry.
What they really want is the most cost-effective relationship possible. And that just may be slavery. There are laws against outright slavery, but "economic" slavery is not outlawed by any means. Most world economies thrive and require it.
Slashdot Mirror
As for when something goes wrong. If the IDE looked after messy details before, then it can keep right on looking after them while you figure out what went wrong. I haven't used a command line debugger in years, nor do I really recall the specifics of doing so for the several languages I've used. But I can darn well make a visual debugger from an IDE do magical things and find problems quickly. Keep on looking after those messy details I say. I don't need to know those messy details.
People often use the, "What if there were no IDE? What would you do then?" situation to encourage people to understand the nuts and bolts, but there's never been a time in 15 years when I didn't have a very functional IDE to take care of the busy work. I'm not well versed in electrical engineering either, but I can do some interesting things with a computer.
The first time a problem comes up that a person cannot solve because they are relying on an IDE to do some busywork and that busywork is bollucks, is the last time they will be ignorant of what the IDE is doing in that particular case. If they don't fill in the gap at that point, it's not the "using an IDE" that is the culprit. It's the person's fault. And you can't force a person to have initiative and curiosity and not be a lazyass by requiring them to take the tedious route.
The best developers learn what they need to get a job done and don't spend time learning other things. When my company switches to a different source control product, I don't bother learning its wonders if I can just plug it into my IDE and keep using the same simple commands to take care of business.
I mean honestly. Does anyone really think that a skilled programmer who has been working through an IDE for a couple years and created several interesting projects is going to be suddenly flummoxed when he has to figure out why the autogenerated WSDL is goofed in a particular situation? Heck, no. That's just your typical learning situation where you need to delve a bit and add to your knowledge.
The dangers of using an IDE are blown way out of proportion. Ok, don't use 'em. The second you as a student get bored out of your tree by not using them, use 'em. Any developer worth there salt will use an available tool to save time. It's the guy that says, "No. You can't use a tool to automate this tediuous process because I want you to learn your fundamentals..." that's the guy that is a problem. That's the guy with little to teach.
The really interesting work happens in my head when I am studying source code or looking at a list of requirements and coming up with a solution architecture or model. An IDE cannot even come close to that, and though I do understand what an IDE is doing it and could figure out what command line tools it is using, I'd prefer to just move on to the more interesting and important aspect of development.
When I see people saying, "Oh, no. Make them do it without an IDE so they learn those fundamentals," I am a little astonished because honestly, if you really need to know how to compile a program from scratch that involves using a command line tool and the second you get into a nontrivial project, you need make or an equivalent and you want version control.
Saying to do it the old fashioned way and not use an IDE is like telling me to do source control the old fashion way and name my files Woot.1, Woot.1.2, Woot.2.0 and keep a separate metadata file where I annotate what the changes were. Well, I hope people see what I am saying here. To me, using an IDE to handle something like building a project is no different than using a command line compiler that has dependency checking and recompiles source file dependencies.
I'm really quite surprised that people are so passionate on both sides of this issue. Pretty much as I see it, what I really want students to learn as fast as possible is how to think abstractly about a problem in terms of objects or procedures or functions (depending on the type of language), and then begin to delve into the interesting aspects of code evolutions (refactoring) and testing. If an IDE gets people to that point faster, than use it. If at some point they really need to do something without an IDE (I've never been in this situation in the real world--only in the artificial world of a class where it was enforced that you not use all the tools at your disposal), you can learn that.
A smart and capable student can learn to do basic things that an IDE does quite rapidly. But what a lot of students absolutely fail to learn coming out of school is how to leverage the hell out of whatever existing tools already exist to avoid reinventing the wheel.
Probably doesn't work too well for eunuchs either, :).
This way, you don't make a possibly insane transition based on "some Indian guys in India"'s idea (How well do they know your team, code, and history?), and your FTEs get hands on experience with Java. If there are advantages, they will become apparent to you and your fellows and you are the people that need to see and utilize those advantages.
What I remember most from transitioning away from C++ was that I could develop things faster because they syntax was simpler and code contained fewer errors because of the lack of pointers and need for handling garbage collection. Another potential advantage of Java is that it is the "bandwagon" at the moment and therefore many eyes (e.g. products) are out there to make necessary business tasks easier in Java.
The real value of Java that the 3rd party is alluding to is in the interoperability of Java with other components (you listed a few). If you are using some middleware or other software that meets an important business requirement that you have and that middleware plays nicer with Java, then you might have real value there. But even if that were the case, you could always use JNI or something like that to wrapper the quality pieces that you have written in C++ or whatever.
Anyway. Bottom line is you and your fellow FTEs need to have direct experience with the advantages and disadvantages, and the best way to get that is to selectively migrate (refactor, redesign, replace, etc.) the more troublesome components with Java code and see if that is better (faster to develop, fewer bugs, etc.) than what you could do in C++.
But I am still wondering about the intelligence/blonde connection, :-). I guess by my own reasoning, if there were such a coupling, there'd be no blondes. By contradiction of natural selection, intelligence and blonde are not connected. Q.E.D!
Phew.
Oh, damn. I have fallen victim to the dyed hair fallacy.
That may seem futile, but the person I would really like to talk to is the one that went out there and tried just that and encountered obstacles. What are those obstacles? Which ones were avoidable? Which ones weren't? What good were they able to accomplish?
It's a real mistake to think that just because you vote represents 1/250millionth of the total voting power that it is irrelevant. If you really believe that, then any individual person is irrelevant to existence since there are billions of them, in which case, you, as such an individual are irrelevant and then spending time expressing your opinion is likewise utterly irrelevant.
So I would say that the fact that you state your position carefully indicates that you do think you are important. Well, I agree with that. And because you are important, so are your actions, whether they involve voting, not voting, or running for an office. Whatever you do, it makes a difference. Sometimes the difference seems insignificantly small, but how can you really have any idea? Catalysts are small things, but sometimes they start chain reactions. Unless you are omniscient, it is very hard to predict which of your tiny actions will have a huge effect.
If you really know the value of all of your actions and the effect that they have into the endless future, then there's not much point in talking to anyone about it, because pretty much no one else around has that degree of omniscience. I certainly don't. But I have seen a lot of situations--maybe they would seem small and insignificant to you--where one person made a big different just because they cared to actions that indicated it.
Agreed, those in the minority did not support an offical that is elected by a vote, but that does not mean that they have to accept the result in the long-term. You can fight for what you believe in or work toward greater understanding of your opinions by people that will support you. Or you can go entirely non-interactive and not participate in the process at all because everything seems futile and every option seems like a bad one.
But in any case, you do have a choice. Voting and not voting both effect the result of an election.
There are many numbers that I don't have so I will not try to make an argument (scientists will have great fun doing that for years, no doubt), but throwing out Planck's constant is not very meaningful unless you make a fairly accurate assessment of intensity and duration of power absorbed by these people and compare the power levels to other verifiable mutagenic sources of radiation.
I could just as well say, "Oh, the Sun doesn't cause skin cancer. It's 150 billion meters away and that's a LOT of zeroes!" Why your post gets a 5, I have no idea.
Where were you when I needed you, Warren!
Well, a predator is only dangerous to its prey. Dolphins play with sharks.
Perhaps you are one of them. Otherwise I wonder why this particular thread discomforts you to such an extent that you throw around terms like prima donna and say that a clear statement about the inappropriateness of asking for 2x the paid for hours is a threat.
Thanks, Rif!
Mouser Brand cigarettes will be a huge success. The only brand with a Surgeon General's Recommendation: "Mouser Brand cigarettes have been proven to fight cancer in a lab."
After a few months, you won't need drugs and you won't have to worry about DVT. And you'll end up really good at it, :-). Anyway, I have a similar job and that was the most economical solution that I found.
Intel Server 1,2,3,4,5,...
Intel <category> <generation>
Marketers frequently come up with something "creative" that they are just sure will provide them with the "edge" they need to get the consumer to pony up more cash. It works in the short-term and then in the long-term it is discovered that it has a negative impact on consumer recognition of the brand.
"Extreme Edition" is just a poor naming convention anyway. It does not in any way indicate to the consumer what the basis of differentiation is between this chip and the others. Category names should be functional names based on recognized consumer uses.
If those darn marketers would just listen to their programmers, ... :-)
In the real world, you see that employees are often commodities, and are treated in whatever way is expedient (cost-effective). A company is driven by money. And all too often it is driven by short-term money. I routinely see staffing choices made that effect 5+ year employees and they are made to balance a 3 month budget.
Now I do not at all say that employers have to care or that employees should expect them to care. What I was saying is that if you, as an employee, adjust to that, companies will usually cry foul.
"We need you in here on Saturday and Sunday this week and the next. You are a 9-5 employee and you're at 60 hours already, but that is how it is and no, we will not pay you overtime. You're salary and you're expected to make up for our mismanagement and refusal to listen to your feedback--err...you're expected to do your job."
"Ok, here's my feedback on that, sir. No."
"I'm sorry? Wait...I don't think you understand how this goes. We pay you."
"Oh...I get it."
"Great. See you Saturday."
"No, I get it. If you want me here 76 hours a week. You make me a new compensation offer and I will consider it, because you're right. You pay me."
"Hrm...I guess we need to have a surprise meeting with HR. Uh...I hope I didn't just say that out loud."
There are many reasons this conversation very rarely happens. Futility jumps out at me as a big one. I've had this conversation before. Most people are smarter than me. They won't even go there. They know if they demand equitable treatment, it will get them the label of "problem" in the HR file or it will get them a pink piece of paper. They know that there is a quieter worker ant that they can abuse for short-term gain, and long-term implications of losing veteran employees be damned.
I'll just finish by saying that I don't expect any other kind of treatment from a company. You get what you get in life. But I think this type of attitude is a bit...not good for a company's longterm interest. And I think it's pretty hypocritical for companies to so cavalierly use and dispose of employees and then be upset when an employee reciprocates. But you know...even that is all right, as long as they keep their hypocritical indignation to themselves.
I've worked at several jobs where "You wouldn't want to be looking for a job right now, would you?" was the standard way of asking for work to be done. "Hey, we need you in here on Saturday for 8 hours. I know you're a 9-5er and you've probably logged 60 hours already this week, but...oh, yes we need you here on Sunday, too." That is straight out of Office Space, and there's a reason it is a funny movie. It's because that scenario is not uncommon.
Unless it's a magic bag.
What they really want is the most cost-effective relationship possible. And that just may be slavery. There are laws against outright slavery, but "economic" slavery is not outlawed by any means. Most world economies thrive and require it.
So spend, spend, spend little consumerbots!
Bang, Bang... bang, bang, bang, ...
Yep, Barbie dolls have been out there for how long? Rated "M" for mature. My ass. Oops. That last statement makes this a rated "M" comment.