I know computer people have always looked down on business, but the truth is a good business/economics program is no easier than computer science
Well, I was going for the funny mod more than anything. I don't honestly believe buisness programs (the word encompasses so much, I was really refering to Marketing/HR/Sales/Managment) are inherently 'easier' than technical work, after all its a sound buisness model & management that make or break the buisness. But I do believe that the decision making process and/or the results of said decisions in the buisness world are often subjective (after all, how do you can you quantify people skills?), thus making it harder to identify the talented from the not-so-talented when compared to the technical side.
...why not be a buisness major instead? I mean, if you're not really passionate the work, why not pick an occupation that a) pays more and b) is easier to fake your way through?
It is like the population:innovation ratio -- as a population goes up, the amount of innovators being born goes up, too, leading to more innovations.
I would actually think that as the population increases, the ratio of innovations goes down as a large population requires maintaining a large infrastructure and the division of wealth/knowledge/etc increases. The quantity & significance of innovations may increase, though at the risk of collapsing in on itself.
I mean, take the real life examples of the India & China vs. the US and Europe. The enormous populations of former mean that there are a lot of innovators, and a lot of competition between bringing out some truly amazing stuff, but the same time said demographics are the biggest challenges facing nations with finite space and natural resources. Wherease the later may have fewer brilliant people, the nations tend to be more stable with a higher ratio of innovation.
Actually, I think that makes it even more analagous to MS vs. its competitors in terms of innovation and security problems.
Can't Apple be forced to release OS X for all x86?
It would be nice to be able to run OSX on the desktop without buying new hardware, I've been quite happy with it on the laptop. But I fear that supporting the near-infinite number of configurations would introduce stability problems and slow Apple's rate of development... which is a big reason that its attractive in the first place.
Honestly, the only reason I'd want to run OSX on generic x86 is simply because I don't like ANY of Apple's desktop setups. The Mac Mini is underpowered with a G4 and 64 meg video card, I don't like the concept of married Computers/Displays a la iMac, and the PowerMac is kind of overkill for my purposes. I mean, am I really the only one that wants (one) reasonable CPU & a nice (upgradable) video card of occasional gaming in a seperate tower so that I can upgrade thie display seperatley and use the machine as a server when its outlived its usefullness as a desktop?
This is stupid on so many levels, I can't figure out the insightful mod.
They'd try to run OS X on a typical PC, it'd suck and then they'd do the typical stupid computer user thing which is to say "this software fucking sucks."
Because the hardware support in OSX is rather finite, it won't just 'install on a typical PC'. To get it to run on a non-Apple machine, it would require a good amount of research in supported hardware and/or the ability to install BSD drivers, nevermind circumventing any DRM. Should a pirated version appear which handles all of the hardware issues (which I think is unlikely), the desire and ability to locate it is beyond the typical computer user. You're simultaneously implying reasonably advanced knowledge and ignorance.
Apple has to prevent piracy of its OS if for no other reason than to protect the brand from the idiots out there who aren't smart enough to realize that OSX is DESIGNED to work primarily with one specific hardware set
Just plain wrong. Apple prevents piracy of the OS and support of generic hardware because Apple is a hardware company at heart. Remember the Apple clones? The company isn't inherently against licensing its software , it just hasn't figured out a workable buisness model to do so.
that's too much mental heavy lifting for the average, at least American, computer user
How on earth can you come to the conclusion that American computer is stupid? The US drives the entire indistry and is home to MIT, Berkely, Stanford, Caltech, IBM, Apple, Micosoft, Sun, Oracle, and countless more. Posting on slashdot, I assume the basis of comparison is Europe? OK, SAP is in Germany and the Scandanavian countries have great state-sponsored telecommunications... but what else? Oh, maybe the the zombie PC capital of the planet? Slashdot seems to be full of self-hating Americans who have never flown oversees and think a crumbling socalist economy is utopia, and smug Europeans who think all Americans are rednecks, despite all of their entertainment & IT coming from SanFran/Boston/NYC/LA.
Wait... so Aventis Pharmaceuticals Pharmaceuticals outsources its IT security to IBM, who in turn charges Aventis $20,350 to reach the conclusion that their recent security breach was caused by a flaw in IBMs security policy: not removing clearance from disgruntled ex-employees who are disgruntled soley because they are being replaced by IBM? That's FUNNY.
Instead of sending him to jail for a crime which no one was hurt, have him repay the money AND then you save room in jail for a VIOLENT OFFENDER. But I guess it makes more sense to let child molesters on the street and keep a dangerous hacker behind bars! What has this country come to.
So your argument is that white collar criminals aren't really criminals? I don't buy it.
other than that I don't think I'd bother. a couple of minutes here or there hardly matters.
Yeah, I didn't think it mattered too much on non-critical systems either. Then I ran MythTV and missed the last couple minutes on my Futurama episodes. Never again.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the WMF exploit will work regardless of whether or not you're running with full or nil permissions.
Well, sure any exploits will still work... but the arbitrary code executed (typicaly) runs with the premissions of the vunerable program. So you're right that the user's permissions are irrelevant if a system process is exploited - but OTOH all of the recent damage done by IE/Outlook/etc exploits could have been GREATLY reduced by using limited permission sets (and a good number of those zombie networks you mentioned might not exist).
Along the same lines, Virii and Spyware could be less of an issue as well (as they require user interaction to get themselves installed). With limited permissions, the damage they could do would be reduced, and the location and removal of them would be orders of magnitude easier. It does imply that the user should be aware of the dangers of installing something with admin permissions... but I don't think that is totally unreasonable. OSX & Linux handle it pretty well.
Perhaps more accurately, users of windows have made no progress.
Perhaps even more accurately, windows application designers have made no progress. Windows has supported multiple users & permission sets for quite some time, but it's still considered acceptable for normal applications to spew garbage into the registry and write to system folders. Until its easy (not merely 'possible') to run limited accounts & control permissions, we're going to see major problems.
is the brightness of the monitor. Two hours on a CRT makes my eyes feel like they're gonna bleed, but give me a LCD with the brightness turned down a tad and I can use it 24/7. I hear that low refresh rates give some folks headaches, but its hard for me to tell the difference.
My vision used to be awful with a minor astigmatism, but I had it corrected with lasik. Getting rid the glare/dirt/lack-of-perepherial vision associated with glasses and the dryness of contacts made working with computers a LOT easier too (though it temporarily increased said light sensitivity and dry eyes).
Ummmm.... No. The real AntiChrist might very well be GWB, the current POTUS.
Bush strikes me as merely incompetent, not evil. Much like the Ohio & Florida voters that put him there. With DeLay out of the picture, my antichrist vote might be Rupert Murdoch, the man behind the propaganda machine that is Fox News.
I'm by no means a MS fanboy, but.. c'mon already. The man and his family has shown more support for worthwhile causes than I'm sure some small countries have.
Thats not the issue. Obviously I prefer Gates helping the less fortunate to hoarding his money, I just happen to think that writing a few checks shouldn't buy the guy a hero's legacy and overshadow the 20 years of unethical/monopolistic buisness practices that created said money.
Oh, man, that's gotta hurt the Mac zealots even more than the switch to intel. Apple hiring *PC laptop designers* to build the next Powerbook.
I think Mac zelots (arguably myself included) are more enamored with the OS than the hardware. My gripe with PC manufactures out there is a lot of shoddy support, bottom-of-the-barrel parts, and bulky/ugly laptop design and only a handfull of gems.
In relation to the price of the changes the previous poster brought up, the problem with Apple, is instead of SP1 and SP2, you get 10.3 10.4 with a $100 fee each year.
How does Apple's release cycle differ from Microsofts (aside from MS missing ship dates)? XP was released shortly after Windows 2000 for the same price tag, and I would argue the change from OSX 10.3 to 10.4 is more significant than Win2k to WinXP. Windows service packs are largely fixes and security updates, just like OSX has equivelent services packs (for free) to go from version 10.X.Y to 10.X.Y+1.
Ah yes, throwing everything out and starting from scratch is a fantastic way to fix security holes and bugs.
See Also: Windows 95, Windows NT 3.1. Paragons of stability and perfect programming without a single bug all thanks to throwing everything out and starting over.
You seem to imply that every security hole is merely careless programming that could not have been avoided or reduced by better architecture. Biting the bullet & a major re-write worked pretty well for Apple. More incremental changes like protected memory have made big differences in win2k.
A long term plan for fixing the underlying architecture problems is as important as maintaining the current release... otherwise you're just turd polishing (which is more expensive to Redmond & the end users in the long run). System Architects and QA are almost apples and oranges too.
Not flame, genuine curiosity from a 20 year old IT major. Why do people just accept this... Businesses would never accept this kind of qualty from, for example, partners, suppliers, and so on, so why do they "just take" this seeminly QC-lacking products from redmond with glee?
I really don't think there are that many people drinking the MS kool aid. People have been switching to Apple desktops and *nix servers fairly steadily, but you're not going to see an overnight change because the cost of migration is so high
I mean for home users, it boils down to a Wintel system or an Apple... if you're buying a new system its an easy choice IMHO, but what does an unhappy windows user do if they have nice x86 hardware? What do you really expect non-tech-savy users to do when presented with the options of (a) selling their current sytem at a loss and buy new hardware, (b) really making an effort educate themselves for the purpose of switching to an OS with little-to-no commercial apps/games/tech support, mediocre media playback, and a clunky UI (no, I'm not hating on Linux. Fantastic workstation/server, craptacular home desktop) or (c) just accept it & hit the reset button/ bust out the system recovery disk every now and then until it's time for a new box (or a stable release comes out).
For buisnesses, migrating workstations/servers is only possible if the application support is present, and you have the cost of re-training. Porting any custom C#/ASP/MSSQL/etc to cross-platform solutions is time consuming and software developers are expensive, ditto with *nix sysadmins. Not to mention the fact that any good Windows should be able to eliminate (or at least mitigate) the threat of said security flaws.
If you already paid for WinXP, why the hell should you have to pay AGAIN for the "security" that was supposed to be there...and in 2k, NT4, yadda yadda yadda?
Well I'm not exactly a MS fan, but I don't think its quite so sinister. Old versions (even pirated versions) are entitled to security patches for a few years, which is pretty reasonable. To expect lifelong upgrades for free is asking a bit much though. I mean, I expect Honda to issue recalls on any safety issues on my Accord, but don't angry when they won't retrofit it with a hybrid engine.
On the topic of OSX, why would anyone want to write commercial software for the OSX market? If your product is successful, Apple will simply duplicate the functionality, include it in OSX, and act like they invented it.
As opposed to Microsoft's strong arm tactics, or the Open Source community releasing free clones at zero cost and about 80% of the quality? I don't see a difference. Besides, as far as selling to home users, wouldn't Mac users be a better target audience? By and large, they don't mind paying top dollar for the best software whereas Windows users tend to be uneducated/apathetic and/or VERY cost-concious and prone to piracy, and the Linux crowd frowns on intelectual property altogether.
Well,
a) It was a joke, lighten up.
b) Of course riots happen elsewhere. My original comment was a dig at the paralyzed French government for lacking the resources to control the violence, not the underlying problems of race/class that exist everywhere. The '92 LA riots were bad, but the response was much better (national guard & the like, and largely controlled after the 3rd day). The Chicago & DC riots simply do not compare in size or duration to that of LA an Paris, so I wonder why you even bring them up while neglecting the '65 Watts riots (the worst in terms of violence & destruction).
France didn't actually surrender to something (not yet at least)!
Yes, but a couple weeks ago we learned that all it takes to capture Paris these days is sticks and rocks. One sufficently angry record exec with a 2'x4' with a nail through it should be enough to reverse the legislation.
Fair enough, the OP's numbers were low, but for entry level with zero experience, I don't think they were absurdly low. I'm actually from the Boston area, and I've toyed with the idea of moving to the Bay... but based on my own salary and the numbers I see floating around Craigslist & Monster and the like, it doesn't look like I'd be gaining or losing much $ either way (I'm mostly a Java & Database guy, not too far out of college). Lifestyle-wise, trading in my snowbard, Sox/Patriots/Celtics, and public transportation for warmer weather and generally friendlier people is a tough call for me.
Either way, I couldn't agree more that one should be willing to move to where the industry is. And I also agree that it would take a mighty sum of money for me tolerate New York:P
Anyone going into CS should be willing to move to silicon valley. You can add $50k to your salary levels, and while you'll pay through the nose for your housing, you'll also be able to easily max out 401k retirement investing, and that has a pretty amazing payoff in the long run.
Agreed, one should really be willing to move to where the industry is. But Silicon Valley is not the only tech center in the US. Boston is probably [a distant] second in that department given the number of tech jobs and universities... the pay is similar but the housing/transportation situation isn't quite so rediculous. There has been a lot of IT growth in SoCal & the Beltway as well, and a reasonable amount in NYC. Outside that though, I imagine it would be tough.
Slashdot Mirror
I know computer people have always looked down on business, but the truth is a good business/economics program is no easier than computer science
Well, I was going for the funny mod more than anything. I don't honestly believe buisness programs (the word encompasses so much, I was really refering to Marketing/HR/Sales/Managment) are inherently 'easier' than technical work, after all its a sound buisness model & management that make or break the buisness. But I do believe that the decision making process and/or the results of said decisions in the buisness world are often subjective (after all, how do you can you quantify people skills?), thus making it harder to identify the talented from the not-so-talented when compared to the technical side.
...why not be a buisness major instead? I mean, if you're not really passionate the work, why not pick an occupation that a) pays more and b) is easier to fake your way through?
It is like the population:innovation ratio -- as a population goes up, the amount of innovators being born goes up, too, leading to more innovations.
I would actually think that as the population increases, the ratio of innovations goes down as a large population requires maintaining a large infrastructure and the division of wealth/knowledge/etc increases. The quantity & significance of innovations may increase, though at the risk of collapsing in on itself.
I mean, take the real life examples of the India & China vs. the US and Europe. The enormous populations of former mean that there are a lot of innovators, and a lot of competition between bringing out some truly amazing stuff, but the same time said demographics are the biggest challenges facing nations with finite space and natural resources. Wherease the later may have fewer brilliant people, the nations tend to be more stable with a higher ratio of innovation.
Actually, I think that makes it even more analagous to MS vs. its competitors in terms of innovation and security problems.
Microsoft offers China software for their missile guiding systems and naval fleet.
Wow, lucky break for Taiwan. They might just stand a chance now if China choses to use force.
Interesting, I swore I included the word 'user' in that sentence. Oh well, there goes my argument. Enjoy ;)
Can't Apple be forced to release OS X for all x86?
It would be nice to be able to run OSX on the desktop without buying new hardware, I've been quite happy with it on the laptop. But I fear that supporting the near-infinite number of configurations would introduce stability problems and slow Apple's rate of development... which is a big reason that its attractive in the first place.
Honestly, the only reason I'd want to run OSX on generic x86 is simply because I don't like ANY of Apple's desktop setups. The Mac Mini is underpowered with a G4 and 64 meg video card, I don't like the concept of married Computers/Displays a la iMac, and the PowerMac is kind of overkill for my purposes. I mean, am I really the only one that wants (one) reasonable CPU & a nice (upgradable) video card of occasional gaming in a seperate tower so that I can upgrade thie display seperatley and use the machine as a server when its outlived its usefullness as a desktop?
This is stupid on so many levels, I can't figure out the insightful mod.
They'd try to run OS X on a typical PC, it'd suck and then they'd do the typical stupid computer user thing which is to say "this software fucking sucks."
Because the hardware support in OSX is rather finite, it won't just 'install on a typical PC'. To get it to run on a non-Apple machine, it would require a good amount of research in supported hardware and/or the ability to install BSD drivers, nevermind circumventing any DRM. Should a pirated version appear which handles all of the hardware issues (which I think is unlikely), the desire and ability to locate it is beyond the typical computer user. You're simultaneously implying reasonably advanced knowledge and ignorance.
Apple has to prevent piracy of its OS if for no other reason than to protect the brand from the idiots out there who aren't smart enough to realize that OSX is DESIGNED to work primarily with one specific hardware set
Just plain wrong. Apple prevents piracy of the OS and support of generic hardware because Apple is a hardware company at heart. Remember the Apple clones? The company isn't inherently against licensing its software , it just hasn't figured out a workable buisness model to do so.
that's too much mental heavy lifting for the average, at least American, computer user
How on earth can you come to the conclusion that American computer is stupid? The US drives the entire indistry and is home to MIT, Berkely, Stanford, Caltech, IBM, Apple, Micosoft, Sun, Oracle, and countless more. Posting on slashdot, I assume the basis of comparison is Europe? OK, SAP is in Germany and the Scandanavian countries have great state-sponsored telecommunications... but what else? Oh, maybe the the zombie PC capital of the planet? Slashdot seems to be full of self-hating Americans who have never flown oversees and think a crumbling socalist economy is utopia, and smug Europeans who think all Americans are rednecks, despite all of their entertainment & IT coming from SanFran/Boston/NYC/LA.
Wait... so Aventis Pharmaceuticals Pharmaceuticals outsources its IT security to IBM, who in turn charges Aventis $20,350 to reach the conclusion that their recent security breach was caused by a flaw in IBMs security policy: not removing clearance from disgruntled ex-employees who are disgruntled soley because they are being replaced by IBM? That's FUNNY.
Instead of sending him to jail for a crime which no one was hurt, have him repay the money AND then you save room in jail for a VIOLENT OFFENDER. But I guess it makes more sense to let child molesters on the street and keep a dangerous hacker behind bars! What has this country come to.
So your argument is that white collar criminals aren't really criminals? I don't buy it.
other than that I don't think I'd bother. a couple of minutes here or there hardly matters.
Yeah, I didn't think it mattered too much on non-critical systems either. Then I ran MythTV and missed the last couple minutes on my Futurama episodes. Never again.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the WMF exploit will work regardless of whether or not you're running with full or nil permissions.
Well, sure any exploits will still work... but the arbitrary code executed (typicaly) runs with the premissions of the vunerable program. So you're right that the user's permissions are irrelevant if a system process is exploited - but OTOH all of the recent damage done by IE/Outlook/etc exploits could have been GREATLY reduced by using limited permission sets (and a good number of those zombie networks you mentioned might not exist).
Along the same lines, Virii and Spyware could be less of an issue as well (as they require user interaction to get themselves installed). With limited permissions, the damage they could do would be reduced, and the location and removal of them would be orders of magnitude easier. It does imply that the user should be aware of the dangers of installing something with admin permissions... but I don't think that is totally unreasonable. OSX & Linux handle it pretty well.
Perhaps more accurately, users of windows have made no progress.
Perhaps even more accurately, windows application designers have made no progress. Windows has supported multiple users & permission sets for quite some time, but it's still considered acceptable for normal applications to spew garbage into the registry and write to system folders. Until its easy (not merely 'possible') to run limited accounts & control permissions, we're going to see major problems.
is the brightness of the monitor. Two hours on a CRT makes my eyes feel like they're gonna bleed, but give me a LCD with the brightness turned down a tad and I can use it 24/7. I hear that low refresh rates give some folks headaches, but its hard for me to tell the difference.
My vision used to be awful with a minor astigmatism, but I had it corrected with lasik. Getting rid the glare/dirt/lack-of-perepherial vision associated with glasses and the dryness of contacts made working with computers a LOT easier too (though it temporarily increased said light sensitivity and dry eyes).
Ummmm.... No. The real AntiChrist might very well be GWB, the current POTUS.
Bush strikes me as merely incompetent, not evil. Much like the Ohio & Florida voters that put him there. With DeLay out of the picture, my antichrist vote might be Rupert Murdoch, the man behind the propaganda machine that is Fox News.
I'm by no means a MS fanboy, but.. c'mon already. The man and his family has shown more support for worthwhile causes than I'm sure some small countries have.
Thats not the issue. Obviously I prefer Gates helping the less fortunate to hoarding his money, I just happen to think that writing a few checks shouldn't buy the guy a hero's legacy and overshadow the 20 years of unethical/monopolistic buisness practices that created said money.
Oh, man, that's gotta hurt the Mac zealots even more than the switch to intel. Apple hiring *PC laptop designers* to build the next Powerbook.
I think Mac zelots (arguably myself included) are more enamored with the OS than the hardware. My gripe with PC manufactures out there is a lot of shoddy support, bottom-of-the-barrel parts, and bulky/ugly laptop design and only a handfull of gems.
In relation to the price of the changes the previous poster brought up, the problem with Apple, is instead of SP1 and SP2, you get 10.3 10.4 with a $100 fee each year.
How does Apple's release cycle differ from Microsofts (aside from MS missing ship dates)? XP was released shortly after Windows 2000 for the same price tag, and I would argue the change from OSX 10.3 to 10.4 is more significant than Win2k to WinXP. Windows service packs are largely fixes and security updates, just like OSX has equivelent services packs (for free) to go from version 10.X.Y to 10.X.Y+1.
Ah yes, throwing everything out and starting from scratch is a fantastic way to fix security holes and bugs. See Also: Windows 95, Windows NT 3.1. Paragons of stability and perfect programming without a single bug all thanks to throwing everything out and starting over.
You seem to imply that every security hole is merely careless programming that could not have been avoided or reduced by better architecture. Biting the bullet & a major re-write worked pretty well for Apple. More incremental changes like protected memory have made big differences in win2k.
Fix whats there!
A long term plan for fixing the underlying architecture problems is as important as maintaining the current release... otherwise you're just turd polishing (which is more expensive to Redmond & the end users in the long run). System Architects and QA are almost apples and oranges too.
Not flame, genuine curiosity from a 20 year old IT major. Why do people just accept this... Businesses would never accept this kind of qualty from, for example, partners, suppliers, and so on, so why do they "just take" this seeminly QC-lacking products from redmond with glee?
I really don't think there are that many people drinking the MS kool aid. People have been switching to Apple desktops and *nix servers fairly steadily, but you're not going to see an overnight change because the cost of migration is so high
I mean for home users, it boils down to a Wintel system or an Apple... if you're buying a new system its an easy choice IMHO, but what does an unhappy windows user do if they have nice x86 hardware? What do you really expect non-tech-savy users to do when presented with the options of (a) selling their current sytem at a loss and buy new hardware, (b) really making an effort educate themselves for the purpose of switching to an OS with little-to-no commercial apps/games/tech support, mediocre media playback, and a clunky UI (no, I'm not hating on Linux. Fantastic workstation/server, craptacular home desktop) or (c) just accept it & hit the reset button/ bust out the system recovery disk every now and then until it's time for a new box (or a stable release comes out).
For buisnesses, migrating workstations/servers is only possible if the application support is present, and you have the cost of re-training. Porting any custom C#/ASP/MSSQL/etc to cross-platform solutions is time consuming and software developers are expensive, ditto with *nix sysadmins. Not to mention the fact that any good Windows should be able to eliminate (or at least mitigate) the threat of said security flaws.
If you already paid for WinXP, why the hell should you have to pay AGAIN for the "security" that was supposed to be there...and in 2k, NT4, yadda yadda yadda?
Well I'm not exactly a MS fan, but I don't think its quite so sinister. Old versions (even pirated versions) are entitled to security patches for a few years, which is pretty reasonable. To expect lifelong upgrades for free is asking a bit much though. I mean, I expect Honda to issue recalls on any safety issues on my Accord, but don't angry when they won't retrofit it with a hybrid engine.
On the topic of OSX, why would anyone want to write commercial software for the OSX market? If your product is successful, Apple will simply duplicate the functionality, include it in OSX, and act like they invented it.
As opposed to Microsoft's strong arm tactics, or the Open Source community releasing free clones at zero cost and about 80% of the quality? I don't see a difference. Besides, as far as selling to home users, wouldn't Mac users be a better target audience? By and large, they don't mind paying top dollar for the best software whereas Windows users tend to be uneducated/apathetic and/or VERY cost-concious and prone to piracy, and the Linux crowd frowns on intelectual property altogether.
Well,
a) It was a joke, lighten up.
b) Of course riots happen elsewhere. My original comment was a dig at the paralyzed French government for lacking the resources to control the violence, not the underlying problems of race/class that exist everywhere. The '92 LA riots were bad, but the response was much better (national guard & the like, and largely controlled after the 3rd day). The Chicago & DC riots simply do not compare in size or duration to that of LA an Paris, so I wonder why you even bring them up while neglecting the '65 Watts riots (the worst in terms of violence & destruction).
France didn't actually surrender to something (not yet at least)!
Yes, but a couple weeks ago we learned that all it takes to capture Paris these days is sticks and rocks. One sufficently angry record exec with a 2'x4' with a nail through it should be enough to reverse the legislation.
Fair enough, the OP's numbers were low, but for entry level with zero experience, I don't think they were absurdly low. I'm actually from the Boston area, and I've toyed with the idea of moving to the Bay... but based on my own salary and the numbers I see floating around Craigslist & Monster and the like, it doesn't look like I'd be gaining or losing much $ either way (I'm mostly a Java & Database guy, not too far out of college). Lifestyle-wise, trading in my snowbard, Sox/Patriots/Celtics, and public transportation for warmer weather and generally friendlier people is a tough call for me.
:P
Either way, I couldn't agree more that one should be willing to move to where the industry is. And I also agree that it would take a mighty sum of money for me tolerate New York
Forgot about Seattle :P
I hear it's quite MS-centric though, so nevermind.
Anyone going into CS should be willing to move to silicon valley. You can add $50k to your salary levels, and while you'll pay through the nose for your housing, you'll also be able to easily max out 401k retirement investing, and that has a pretty amazing payoff in the long run.
Agreed, one should really be willing to move to where the industry is. But Silicon Valley is not the only tech center in the US. Boston is probably [a distant] second in that department given the number of tech jobs and universities... the pay is similar but the housing/transportation situation isn't quite so rediculous. There has been a lot of IT growth in SoCal & the Beltway as well, and a reasonable amount in NYC. Outside that though, I imagine it would be tough.