I have a Zune, and I absolutely love it. I confess I wanted an iPod touch, but the 16GB model was close to $400. The 80GB Zune I bought was just over $200.
Lord, I feel your pain. I maintain an application that I inherited from the original developers. There were too many places in the code where the query was returning too many columns, and they were only consuming a subset. In one instance, it was a 37 to 6 ratio (37 returned, 6 consumed) dataset that was being bound to a datagrid. Only the six needed columns were visible, but the entire dataset was still being bound. The resulting web page was weighing in at just under 1MB. Talk about a performance killer!
I came in here to say something similar, and I find the first post has just about said it all. I completely concur with the parent, and only add my own personal view on the concept using an example from my job.
A hire of less than two years was recently asked to resign, so he's gone now. He is 23, with about 4 years of professional programming experience, and has a voracious appetite for technology. He had complete ownership of his first project here, and boy howdy did he knock a homerun with it. Great developer, imaginative, saw the benefits of standardization, and code re-use, and so on. In spite of the fact he is no longer here, I believe he has a very bright future, and I expect to hear big things from him in the future. Why was he to asked to leave? It's complicated, and there is enough blame to go around for all, but basically he would not follow instructions. Here's the scenario:
His boss, project manager A, announces what a homerun he hit. Everyone is thrilled. Project manager B says, I have a new project, much larger, do you think he can handle this project, and can I borrow him for it? Project manager A says sure, and suddenly he's technical lead on a new project. In the end, he couldn't handle the complexity of the project. It's in maintenance constantly for bug fixes, etc, and the powers that be are considering scrapping it and starting over, and tentatively I may be helming it (which doesn't bother me). He basically refused to work on what he was supposed to work on as directed, and chose to work on what he deemed more important. He was written up three times, at which point he was told "resign, or be fired." He elected to resign.
Back to the main point: These junior developers don't just talk bad about someone else's code, they downright refuse to work with it. They don't want to pore over thousands of lines of code to figure out how something works, simply because they didn't write it. They talk about "old school" and "old technology" and "old ways of programming that are no longer relevant". I've got news for you kids, in the strictest business sense, if it works and does what it is supposed to do, then it's not old, stupid, or irrelevant. Unless there is money in re-writing the system, it's just not going to happen.
Further, these junior programmers don't want to admit that they are exactly that: junior programmers. Four or five years developing do not a senior programmer make. There is a business side to the equation, a bigger picture, or why certain decisions are made on an application, and junior programmers lack not only the foresight to anticipate them, but the ability to understand them. There are always exceptions, but my point is many of these junior developers are only hobbyists in disguise. Eventually, if they don't survive, they will move on to a different career in something else, and continue their hobby on the side.
I think I saw someone else on here once say something along the lines of "It's a job, not a hobby. When the powers that be tell you that they want X, you give them X. We serve the customers needs, not our own whims." Truer words were never spoken.
You can knock someone else's code all you want, but more often than not it was written a certain way for a reason. Perhaps it was done out of ignorance, but there is always a method to the madness. I'm maintaining an application now that is old, implemented in many ways that might be considered irrelevant, and the database is de-normalized beyond belief, with the business logic and database constraints intermingled with the application code. Guess what? I don't like it, but I'm also not about to re-write this. It is a bear to maintain, true, but it also WORKS, and the customer is kitten-shitting happy with it.
Finally, my way is no better than anyone else's; programming is incredibly subjective. I've learned more lessons by reading someone else's code.
The shareholders did lost money in the form of lowered earnings per share. Of course, that's something that can be hidden in the end-of-year income statement. Anyone know how Apple accounts for stock options? Are they still using footnote disclosure, or are they actually expensing the cost of the options using the intrinsic value method?
So, the little device that caught this guy, the one that phoned home, is that strictly a standalone hardware device living inside the laptop with it's own embedded programming, or was this some software that phoned home the first time it booted up and found a network connection? I'm sure it's probably the former, but I didn't see it indicated anywhere in the article, and I'm afraid I don't have any experience with those types of laptop features.
I've got news for you, there's no volume licensed version of Vista, at least not in the sense of XP (where installing the VL version with the VL key would bypass activation). You can't even activate Vista Ultimate using one of Microsoft's servers. You have to have your own key management server in your environment (or, you can downgrade it using one of the MAK (multiple activation) keys. Furthermore, Vista Ultimate wants to be re-activated every three months, again, against that key management server.
I'm running it on my laptop right now. I got Vista Ultimate from my MSDN subscription, and installed it, only to find out a couple of weeks later I couldn't activate it. Again, I had to downgrade it using one of the MAK keys.
I doubt there will be a pirated volume-licensed version of Vista, at least not in the sense of XP, or any prior OS that required activation, being volume-licensed and skipping activation altogether.
When I think of inexpensive hardware clustered together for massive computing power, I think of the XServe G5 supercomputer cluster at Texas A&M Qatar.
It's an old article. I was over there a couple-three years ago, and I think they had 90 nodes up and running. I believe at this point in time they have 180 nodes at the Qatar campus alone. All the other satellite campuses in Education City were purchasing time on the cluster, including Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, Carnegie Mellon, and Georgetown. I thought it was very impressive.
Agreed. Take it from my experience. I returned to college at the ripe old age of 26. I did well in most things, and knew I had to have some math, so I signed up for Algebra one summer. When I made a 27 on the first test, the teacher approached me and asked point blank, "Are you sure you are supposed to be in this class?" She allowed me to take home the exam, and I spent an entire weekend correcting it. After all that work I finally made an 87, or something like that. I worked my ass off in that class, and made a high B. Then I took Pre-Calculus and made an A. Then I took Trig and made an A. Each class, I worked my ass off.
After graduating I looked back and could not believe how I managed to take and pass four semesters of caculus, abstract algebra, calculus-based discrete mathematics, and so on. From humble beginnings, right? My point is, I struggled each and every class. There was always someone in there who never studied, did their homework 30 minutes before class, but that wasn't me. We even had a couple of high schools kids in our classes, and on one occasion, a junior high student. They walked through these classes like they were nothing. But I gave up everything, and worked my ass off. Nights and weekends, baby.
I've three WinXP Pro machines that have been running fine for quite some time prior to this "stealth update", and continue to run fine afterwards. And, technically speaking, I've several other WinXP Pro installs that are fine as well (although they are running in virtual environments).
I've yet to see an exact date on when this "stealth update" was applied, but I've also a short attention span and never finished any of the articles regarding it. >:^)
"This, in turn, prevents Microsoft's 80 latest patches from installing -- even if the patches successfully downloaded to the PC."
That the trouble I had recently! A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to clean up three of her family computers that were crawling with spyware/adware, and trojans, as well as upgrade them from WinXP Home to WinXP Pro. I got them cleaned up fine, and did the upgrade. After booting to the desktop the first time, I ran Windows Update to grab the latest patches. On all three machines, WU would install some needed components, reboot, download all outstanding patches (approximately 80+), and then fail on the install on every single update.
Windows Update would NOT run without erroring out. It took me a few hours to realize I had to manually re-register all of the components for windows update, after which I also had to delete ALL of the downloaded patches, as well as all of the $NTUninstallKBXXXXX stuff.
Then again, maybe I just did the update wrong three times in a row?
There is no such thing as a raise and a bonus where I work, at least not like in the corporate world. I work in higher education, and although there are mandated cost of living increases each year (which are very small), merit increases are equally small. Plus, you'll never get both in the same year, unless you're just damn lucky. For example, I received a 4.5% merit increase this year, and because of that, I will not receive a cost of living increase. The economics of higher education is just alot different than the corporate world. I'm also about to finish my MBA, and as part of the program I've already taken and passed the CMBA. I've also finished several certifications this year, and will complete two more before the end of this year. All of this education IS appropriate for my job. And yet, I won't receive one red cent in a pay increase, nor can I expect a promotion. I'm a good worker, and way above the average I believe. When I received a 4.5% pay increase this year, 1.5% of that came from someone else's possible merit increase (3% across the board), so I know I've done better than most here. It's just not equitable. But, that is the tradeoff I made when I came here. A lot of stability, incredible benefits, nice retirement package, just not a pay scale that is equitable with a similar position in the corporate world. I could easily double my pay by moving north or south a couple of hours (I work at Texas A&M in College Station), but I like where I live. Again, a tradeoff.
Your comment about SQL Server and it's new support for XML and other non-relational formats, and a previous comment made by someone regarding using different products for different purposes (oracle for olap, and something else for the warehouse, for example) made me wonder about this: so where (or how) exactly would the non-relational features of an RDBMS fit into this picture? My question is not worded well, but the example I'm thinking of is Oracle and it's support for nested tables (a table within a column). Does this type of feature fit into this "column-based" approach?
Btw. most technical people I know that went into management at more than the small dev team level eventually got an MBA. Another thing I am not real anxious to do.
That's what I did, after ten years or so as a developer, I went back and got my MBA. It was painful, and I hated returning to school, but it opened my eyes to a great many things. It was one of the best things I could have done, and I would do it again too. It truly explains the big picture.
All this is sort of avoiding the primary, fundamental issue: when you are a manager you have the power (and responsibility) to fire someone. This is the real rub. Can you do it?
This is only one of the uncomfortable things you will do as a manager, but definitely one of the most difficult, especially the first time, and especially if you personally know the person. Case in point: a couple of years ago I was in the difficult position of having to discipline my best friend. At the time I had known this man for well over ten years, thought for certain I knew his character. I gave him the initial talking to, and gave him three months to shape up, but it did no good. I gave him first level notice, and three more months to shape up, but it did no good. Second level notice, three more months, no good. The third level notice came, and I finally fired him. I sent him eight thousand miles back home, with his family in tow. He tried to crucify me during his appeals process, that I was a micro-manager, that I wouldn't allow him to do his job. He tried to put me through the wringer, and make me take the fall, when the fault was all his. I gave him every chance; management wanted me to dismiss him after the first notice, but I insisted on following the process. In the end, I couldn't keep him around for the sake of friendship because his poor performance would ultimately affect how well I do my own job. Sorry, I have a family to provide for. If it's down to them or me, it's going to be me who survives.
Believe me, I lost plenty of sleep over it. I still think about it. But, I would do it all over again. Rules are made to be followed.
It would certainly help if you had your MBA. A lot of the gripes I see on this thread are misplaced, angry retorts by hardcore developers who have no idea what the difference between leadership and management is; they're only victims of it. I've been a developer for about as long as you have. I've grown tremendously as a developer, but the last few years I've realized I'm ready to do other things. I want to do other things at a higher level. I returned to school and got my MBA, and also passed the CMBA exam. It was definitely worth it; you understand the other side of the coin, the big picture. It explained so very much to me. If school isn't an option for you, I can recommend two decent books:
These books won't give you management experience, but they will get your feet wet in a proper way. Also, here is a helpful list, from one developer who transitioned to management to another (I don't remember where I got this list, but I've kept a copy of it ever since):
Ten Signs of an Incompetent Leader
Poor leadership surrounds us, it's a fact of life and they seemingly find a way to keep their jobs. They are more focused on their personal needs and not of the professional needs of those below them. They have a hard time developing their employees because they lack the proper management techniques to do so. A leader is someone who you would follow to a place you would not go alone. Leadership is about action not status.
However, the question is, how do we know when we are dealing with these flaw-ridden individuals? A lot of the time, a poor manager can make the perception that he/she is busy and organized. I have developed a small guideline that can help pinpoint these leaders.
Incompetent Leaders will:
Delegate work rather than balance work loads. This allows all attention to be diverted from them in case of failure. It may seem to them that are managing their people but in actuality they are creating work imbalances within the group. It can create unnecessary overtime for some and under utilization of others. A good manager is aware of the skill sets of all the people below them and should allocate work accordingly while trying to enhance the skills of everyone to be even more productive.
Reduce all answers to Yes or No rather than explaining their reasoning. This is an example of a crisis manager who can not think farther than a few hours ahead. A yes/no manager finds it a waste of time to find the real answer through intellectual thought. They are already thinking about the next crisis.
Not separate personal life from professional life. They will bring their personal problem to work. Working for these types of managers can be very dramatic. They are unable to separate their emotional imbalances while trying to manage people. They are less focused and will not give you the attention and direction you need for success.
Manage crisis. If you are a company that has crisis managers, then you can say goodbye to innovation and progression. Proactive thinking is critical to the success of any company. If you are not finding ways to stop or reduce the amount of crisis that has to be managed, then your competition will pass you by. Leaders have to think out of the box and make change.
Any amount of basic machine upgrading, and it continues apace, won't make a jot of difference, as I am now the fundamental slowdown agent. I just can't work any faster.
I agree for the part. I am most definitely the slow part of the equation. However, in my own (any many others, I suspect) defense, I am interrupted a couple dozen times a day by people with matters so very, very trivial as to not even bear mentioning. I guess it's just something I'm going to have to learn to live with, since I want to have an open-door policy. But, come on, folks, read the documentation! Do a little research! This is programming! Sure, there are perfect answers, but who cares, as long as the business need is met! It's about productivity, not perfection.
In my own defense, I have learned to be very, very organized and resourceful with my time (forget for a moment I'm slashdotting), but still, I'm the slow part of the equation. Luckily for me, I'm the one of the faster workers here. I'm always waiting on someone else, so I suppose it balances itself out.
Wrong. For God's sake, you dweeby little junior programmers need to do some research before you open your damn mouths.
Escaping values only brings up new vulnerabilities. In database servers these are known as SQL truncation, and are the byproduct of buffer overruns in system functions (such as QUOTENAME and PATINDEX in T-SQL). These truncation attacks affect even parameterized queries, and the ubiquitous sp_executesql system stored procedure. I won't go into the details. All the info you need is is BOL, so look it up for yourself.
The real problem (again, in database servers) is dynamic SQL. That, and incorrect security permissions (some dbas need to be beaten with a stick), but I'm not here to teach a SQL Administration class. Many, many dynamic SQL statements, because they are only filtering the data set, can be re-written as a non-dynamic SQL stored procedure, but still afforded their dynamic nature. For example, this vulnerable stored procedure:
create proc sp_get_product @prod varchar(255) = null as declare @sql varchar(1000) set @sql = 'SELECT PRODUCTID, PRODUCTNAME, CATEGORY, PRICE FROM PRODUCTION' if @prod is not null set @sql = @sql + ' PRODUCTNAME LIKE ''' + @PRODNAME + ''' exec(@sql)
can be re-written to:
create proc sp_get_product @prod varchar(255) = null as select productid, productname, category, price from product where productname like coalesce(@prod, productname)
Coalesce returns the first non-null argument in it's argument list. If @prod has a value, the resulting dataset is filtered on it. If @prod is null, then the entire dataset will be returned because productname will filter on it's own value. Only near-infinite where clauses can't be done this way.
Also, production database server accounts should have no access to any database objects. They should only be able to run stored procedures, and that's it.
You're advice about "escaping" values is just as bad as those computer science professors in college that say "re-writing your conditional statements to automatically exclude bad data will eliminate the need to validate the data that makes it through."
Goddammit. Comments (and articles) like this make me so fucking mad.
I viewed it with FF2, and I wasn't aware of any links or popups on the page. I went straight to the videos. I don't think it was anything FF did though (maybe the popup blocking), because I have a ginormous HOSTS file blocking just about everything.
if you know how to program properly you can teach yourself any language without much difficulty
I agree, and I'll go a step further. I cut my teeth on C & C++, and that is all what I exclusively used for a few years. Believe it or not, it was very difficult for me to pick up VB6. But, at some point it just clicked, and I can pretty much work in one of any of a dozen or so languages I know "very strongly" (some fluently) without having to "translate" between one and another. How did I do this? I started researching the internals of each language, rather than thinking there is a line-by-line correlation and conversion between them. Looking back now, the programs I have written in various languages over the course of the last ten years are all so similar and redundant, but I'm looking at how the program is written, not at the language itself.
I don't enjoy programming as much as I used to, although I still love it. As I get a little older I find more and more it's the internals of languages and systems that draw my attention and appreciation. And, I get a much broader and deeper sense of satisfaction in architecting large systems now, rather than writing each and every line of code for them.
Looking back from where I am now, all I see when I look at the applications I've written and databases I've created are discrete mathematics, statistics, and data structures. The programming itself no longer has the meaning for me like it once did, but I don't consider it a loss; I consider I've matured and moved on to bigger and better things.
Last place I worked at, the Director of IT insisted on being an Enterprise Admin in active directory. She was a fucking pencil-pusher, and had no need for those privileges; I can only assume she wanted to read peoples mail, among other things.
And what about people with blackberrys that want to check their email? There has to be an account set up to reach out and grab their mail from Exchange.
I guess the point which I didn't make very well, but was intended is that they might as well be restricting things using dongles. It's all the same anyways. And you're right: there's always a way around this shit (dongle restrictions).
An IT shop I worked in a few years ago implemented a document imaging system, and the scanners were restricted to so many scans per month via a dongle. After the implementation was complete and the vendors had left, we were told by the IT director to find a way around the dongle restriction. It took a while, but we did. The dongles in question were merely an "is this here" kind of security check, the process that looked for the dongle updated a value (the number of documents scanned within a months time) in a sql server database table. Although the value in the database was encrypted, they key was easy to find (it was on the dongle), and the algorithm used for encrpytion was documented in the sys admin documentation for the imaging system. I guess they thought they were dealing with office assistants or something, and we wouldn't put two and two together.
I've since moved on from that job, and I've no knowledge if the dongle/scanner licensing scheme is the same. Of course, I'm not mentioning the company; I've no desire to be sued into oblivion. >:^)
Slashdot Mirror
I have a Zune, and I absolutely love it. I confess I wanted an iPod touch, but the 16GB model was close to $400. The 80GB Zune I bought was just over $200.
Lord, I feel your pain. I maintain an application that I inherited from the original developers. There were too many places in the code where the query was returning too many columns, and they were only consuming a subset. In one instance, it was a 37 to 6 ratio (37 returned, 6 consumed) dataset that was being bound to a datagrid. Only the six needed columns were visible, but the entire dataset was still being bound. The resulting web page was weighing in at just under 1MB. Talk about a performance killer!
I came in here to say something similar, and I find the first post has just about said it all. I completely concur with the parent, and only add my own personal view on the concept using an example from my job.
A hire of less than two years was recently asked to resign, so he's gone now. He is 23, with about 4 years of professional programming experience, and has a voracious appetite for technology. He had complete ownership of his first project here, and boy howdy did he knock a homerun with it. Great developer, imaginative, saw the benefits of standardization, and code re-use, and so on. In spite of the fact he is no longer here, I believe he has a very bright future, and I expect to hear big things from him in the future. Why was he to asked to leave? It's complicated, and there is enough blame to go around for all, but basically he would not follow instructions. Here's the scenario:
His boss, project manager A, announces what a homerun he hit. Everyone is thrilled. Project manager B says, I have a new project, much larger, do you think he can handle this project, and can I borrow him for it? Project manager A says sure, and suddenly he's technical lead on a new project. In the end, he couldn't handle the complexity of the project. It's in maintenance constantly for bug fixes, etc, and the powers that be are considering scrapping it and starting over, and tentatively I may be helming it (which doesn't bother me). He basically refused to work on what he was supposed to work on as directed, and chose to work on what he deemed more important. He was written up three times, at which point he was told "resign, or be fired." He elected to resign.
Back to the main point: These junior developers don't just talk bad about someone else's code, they downright refuse to work with it. They don't want to pore over thousands of lines of code to figure out how something works, simply because they didn't write it. They talk about "old school" and "old technology" and "old ways of programming that are no longer relevant". I've got news for you kids, in the strictest business sense, if it works and does what it is supposed to do, then it's not old, stupid, or irrelevant. Unless there is money in re-writing the system, it's just not going to happen.
Further, these junior programmers don't want to admit that they are exactly that: junior programmers. Four or five years developing do not a senior programmer make. There is a business side to the equation, a bigger picture, or why certain decisions are made on an application, and junior programmers lack not only the foresight to anticipate them, but the ability to understand them. There are always exceptions, but my point is many of these junior developers are only hobbyists in disguise. Eventually, if they don't survive, they will move on to a different career in something else, and continue their hobby on the side.
I think I saw someone else on here once say something along the lines of "It's a job, not a hobby. When the powers that be tell you that they want X, you give them X. We serve the customers needs, not our own whims." Truer words were never spoken.
You can knock someone else's code all you want, but more often than not it was written a certain way for a reason. Perhaps it was done out of ignorance, but there is always a method to the madness. I'm maintaining an application now that is old, implemented in many ways that might be considered irrelevant, and the database is de-normalized beyond belief, with the business logic and database constraints intermingled with the application code. Guess what? I don't like it, but I'm also not about to re-write this. It is a bear to maintain, true, but it also WORKS, and the customer is kitten-shitting happy with it.
Finally, my way is no better than anyone else's; programming is incredibly subjective. I've learned more lessons by reading someone else's code.
The shareholders did lost money in the form of lowered earnings per share. Of course, that's something that can be hidden in the end-of-year income statement. Anyone know how Apple accounts for stock options? Are they still using footnote disclosure, or are they actually expensing the cost of the options using the intrinsic value method?
So, the little device that caught this guy, the one that phoned home, is that strictly a standalone hardware device living inside the laptop with it's own embedded programming, or was this some software that phoned home the first time it booted up and found a network connection? I'm sure it's probably the former, but I didn't see it indicated anywhere in the article, and I'm afraid I don't have any experience with those types of laptop features.
I've got news for you, there's no volume licensed version of Vista, at least not in the sense of XP (where installing the VL version with the VL key would bypass activation). You can't even activate Vista Ultimate using one of Microsoft's servers. You have to have your own key management server in your environment (or, you can downgrade it using one of the MAK (multiple activation) keys. Furthermore, Vista Ultimate wants to be re-activated every three months, again, against that key management server.
I'm running it on my laptop right now. I got Vista Ultimate from my MSDN subscription, and installed it, only to find out a couple of weeks later I couldn't activate it. Again, I had to downgrade it using one of the MAK keys.
I doubt there will be a pirated volume-licensed version of Vista, at least not in the sense of XP, or any prior OS that required activation, being volume-licensed and skipping activation altogether.
When I think of inexpensive hardware clustered together for massive computing power, I think of the XServe G5 supercomputer cluster at Texas A&M Qatar.
Opens in a new window (hopefully)
It's an old article. I was over there a couple-three years ago, and I think they had 90 nodes up and running. I believe at this point in time they have 180 nodes at the Qatar campus alone. All the other satellite campuses in Education City were purchasing time on the cluster, including Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, Carnegie Mellon, and Georgetown. I thought it was very impressive.
Also, don't get discouraged, Math Is Hard.
Agreed. Take it from my experience. I returned to college at the ripe old age of 26. I did well in most things, and knew I had to have some math, so I signed up for Algebra one summer. When I made a 27 on the first test, the teacher approached me and asked point blank, "Are you sure you are supposed to be in this class?" She allowed me to take home the exam, and I spent an entire weekend correcting it. After all that work I finally made an 87, or something like that. I worked my ass off in that class, and made a high B. Then I took Pre-Calculus and made an A. Then I took Trig and made an A. Each class, I worked my ass off.
After graduating I looked back and could not believe how I managed to take and pass four semesters of caculus, abstract algebra, calculus-based discrete mathematics, and so on. From humble beginnings, right? My point is, I struggled each and every class. There was always someone in there who never studied, did their homework 30 minutes before class, but that wasn't me. We even had a couple of high schools kids in our classes, and on one occasion, a junior high student. They walked through these classes like they were nothing. But I gave up everything, and worked my ass off. Nights and weekends, baby.
For some of us, math is indeed hard. Good luck!
I've three WinXP Pro machines that have been running fine for quite some time prior to this "stealth update", and continue to run fine afterwards. And, technically speaking, I've several other WinXP Pro installs that are fine as well (although they are running in virtual environments).
I've yet to see an exact date on when this "stealth update" was applied, but I've also a short attention span and never finished any of the articles regarding it. >:^)
Anyone know the exact date?
FTFA:
"This, in turn, prevents Microsoft's 80 latest patches from installing -- even if the patches successfully downloaded to the PC."
That the trouble I had recently! A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to clean up three of her family computers that were crawling with spyware/adware, and trojans, as well as upgrade them from WinXP Home to WinXP Pro. I got them cleaned up fine, and did the upgrade. After booting to the desktop the first time, I ran Windows Update to grab the latest patches. On all three machines, WU would install some needed components, reboot, download all outstanding patches (approximately 80+), and then fail on the install on every single update.
Windows Update would NOT run without erroring out. It took me a few hours to realize I had to manually re-register all of the components for windows update, after which I also had to delete ALL of the downloaded patches, as well as all of the $NTUninstallKBXXXXX stuff.
Then again, maybe I just did the update wrong three times in a row?
There is no such thing as a raise and a bonus where I work, at least not like in the corporate world. I work in higher education, and although there are mandated cost of living increases each year (which are very small), merit increases are equally small. Plus, you'll never get both in the same year, unless you're just damn lucky. For example, I received a 4.5% merit increase this year, and because of that, I will not receive a cost of living increase. The economics of higher education is just alot different than the corporate world. I'm also about to finish my MBA, and as part of the program I've already taken and passed the CMBA. I've also finished several certifications this year, and will complete two more before the end of this year. All of this education IS appropriate for my job. And yet, I won't receive one red cent in a pay increase, nor can I expect a promotion. I'm a good worker, and way above the average I believe. When I received a 4.5% pay increase this year, 1.5% of that came from someone else's possible merit increase (3% across the board), so I know I've done better than most here. It's just not equitable. But, that is the tradeoff I made when I came here. A lot of stability, incredible benefits, nice retirement package, just not a pay scale that is equitable with a similar position in the corporate world. I could easily double my pay by moving north or south a couple of hours (I work at Texas A&M in College Station), but I like where I live. Again, a tradeoff.
Your comment about SQL Server and it's new support for XML and other non-relational formats, and a previous comment made by someone regarding using different products for different purposes (oracle for olap, and something else for the warehouse, for example) made me wonder about this: so where (or how) exactly would the non-relational features of an RDBMS fit into this picture? My question is not worded well, but the example I'm thinking of is Oracle and it's support for nested tables (a table within a column). Does this type of feature fit into this "column-based" approach?
Agreed. It's called the "doctrine of command responsibility".
Btw. most technical people I know that went into management at more than the small dev team level eventually got an MBA. Another thing I am not real anxious to do.
That's what I did, after ten years or so as a developer, I went back and got my MBA. It was painful, and I hated returning to school, but it opened my eyes to a great many things. It was one of the best things I could have done, and I would do it again too. It truly explains the big picture.
All this is sort of avoiding the primary, fundamental issue: when you are a manager you have the power (and responsibility) to fire someone. This is the real rub. Can you do it?
This is only one of the uncomfortable things you will do as a manager, but definitely one of the most difficult, especially the first time, and especially if you personally know the person. Case in point: a couple of years ago I was in the difficult position of having to discipline my best friend. At the time I had known this man for well over ten years, thought for certain I knew his character. I gave him the initial talking to, and gave him three months to shape up, but it did no good. I gave him first level notice, and three more months to shape up, but it did no good. Second level notice, three more months, no good. The third level notice came, and I finally fired him. I sent him eight thousand miles back home, with his family in tow. He tried to crucify me during his appeals process, that I was a micro-manager, that I wouldn't allow him to do his job. He tried to put me through the wringer, and make me take the fall, when the fault was all his. I gave him every chance; management wanted me to dismiss him after the first notice, but I insisted on following the process. In the end, I couldn't keep him around for the sake of friendship because his poor performance would ultimately affect how well I do my own job. Sorry, I have a family to provide for. If it's down to them or me, it's going to be me who survives.
Believe me, I lost plenty of sleep over it. I still think about it. But, I would do it all over again. Rules are made to be followed.
It would certainly help if you had your MBA. A lot of the gripes I see on this thread are misplaced, angry retorts by hardcore developers who have no idea what the difference between leadership and management is; they're only victims of it. I've been a developer for about as long as you have. I've grown tremendously as a developer, but the last few years I've realized I'm ready to do other things. I want to do other things at a higher level. I returned to school and got my MBA, and also passed the CMBA exam. It was definitely worth it; you understand the other side of the coin, the big picture. It explained so very much to me. If school isn't an option for you, I can recommend two decent books:
Herding Cats: A Primer for Programmers Who Lead Programmers
http://www.amazon.com/Herding-Cats-Primer-Programm ers-Lead/dp/1590590171
The Ten-Day MBA 3rd Ed.: A Step-By-Step Guide To Mastering The Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools /0060799072/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-0787190-8957248?ie =UTF8&s=books&qid=1188391102&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Day-MBA-3rd-Step-Step/dp
These books won't give you management experience, but they will get your feet wet in a proper way. Also, here is a helpful list, from one developer who transitioned to management to another (I don't remember where I got this list, but I've kept a copy of it ever since):
Ten Signs of an Incompetent Leader
Poor leadership surrounds us, it's a fact of life and they seemingly find a way to keep their jobs. They are more focused on their personal needs and not of the professional needs of those below them. They have a hard time developing their employees because they lack the proper management techniques to do so. A leader is someone who you would follow to a place you would not go alone. Leadership is about action not status.
However, the question is, how do we know when we are dealing with these flaw-ridden individuals? A lot of the time, a poor manager can make the perception that he/she is busy and organized. I have developed a small guideline that can help pinpoint these leaders.
He must've been one of the few people fortunate to snag a PS3 during the Black Friday rush...
Any amount of basic machine upgrading, and it continues apace, won't make a jot of difference, as I am now the fundamental slowdown agent. I just can't work any faster.
I agree for the part. I am most definitely the slow part of the equation. However, in my own (any many others, I suspect) defense, I am interrupted a couple dozen times a day by people with matters so very, very trivial as to not even bear mentioning. I guess it's just something I'm going to have to learn to live with, since I want to have an open-door policy. But, come on, folks, read the documentation! Do a little research! This is programming! Sure, there are perfect answers, but who cares, as long as the business need is met! It's about productivity, not perfection.
In my own defense, I have learned to be very, very organized and resourceful with my time (forget for a moment I'm slashdotting), but still, I'm the slow part of the equation. Luckily for me, I'm the one of the faster workers here. I'm always waiting on someone else, so I suppose it balances itself out.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair (1878 - 1968)
and, Lord, isn't that the truth.
Wrong. For God's sake, you dweeby little junior programmers need to do some research before you open your damn mouths.
Escaping values only brings up new vulnerabilities. In database servers these are known as SQL truncation, and are the byproduct of buffer overruns in system functions (such as QUOTENAME and PATINDEX in T-SQL). These truncation attacks affect even parameterized queries, and the ubiquitous sp_executesql system stored procedure. I won't go into the details. All the info you need is is BOL, so look it up for yourself.
The real problem (again, in database servers) is dynamic SQL. That, and incorrect security permissions (some dbas need to be beaten with a stick), but I'm not here to teach a SQL Administration class. Many, many dynamic SQL statements, because they are only filtering the data set, can be re-written as a non-dynamic SQL stored procedure, but still afforded their dynamic nature. For example, this vulnerable stored procedure:
create proc sp_get_product
@prod varchar(255) = null
as
declare @sql varchar(1000)
set @sql = 'SELECT PRODUCTID, PRODUCTNAME, CATEGORY, PRICE FROM PRODUCTION'
if @prod is not null set @sql = @sql + ' PRODUCTNAME LIKE ''' + @PRODNAME + '''
exec(@sql)
can be re-written to:
create proc sp_get_product
@prod varchar(255) = null
as
select productid, productname, category, price
from product
where productname like coalesce(@prod, productname)
Coalesce returns the first non-null argument in it's argument list. If @prod has a value, the resulting dataset is filtered on it. If @prod is null, then the entire dataset will be returned because productname will filter on it's own value. Only near-infinite where clauses can't be done this way.
Also, production database server accounts should have no access to any database objects. They should only be able to run stored procedures, and that's it.
You're advice about "escaping" values is just as bad as those computer science professors in college that say "re-writing your conditional statements to automatically exclude bad data will eliminate the need to validate the data that makes it through."
Goddammit. Comments (and articles) like this make me so fucking mad.
I viewed it with FF2, and I wasn't aware of any links or popups on the page. I went straight to the videos. I don't think it was anything FF did though (maybe the popup blocking), because I have a ginormous HOSTS file blocking just about everything.
I think your analysis is full of hot air.
if you know how to program properly you can teach yourself any language without much difficulty
I agree, and I'll go a step further. I cut my teeth on C & C++, and that is all what I exclusively used for a few years. Believe it or not, it was very difficult for me to pick up VB6. But, at some point it just clicked, and I can pretty much work in one of any of a dozen or so languages I know "very strongly" (some fluently) without having to "translate" between one and another. How did I do this? I started researching the internals of each language, rather than thinking there is a line-by-line correlation and conversion between them. Looking back now, the programs I have written in various languages over the course of the last ten years are all so similar and redundant, but I'm looking at how the program is written, not at the language itself.
I don't enjoy programming as much as I used to, although I still love it. As I get a little older I find more and more it's the internals of languages and systems that draw my attention and appreciation. And, I get a much broader and deeper sense of satisfaction in architecting large systems now, rather than writing each and every line of code for them.
Looking back from where I am now, all I see when I look at the applications I've written and databases I've created are discrete mathematics, statistics, and data structures. The programming itself no longer has the meaning for me like it once did, but I don't consider it a loss; I consider I've matured and moved on to bigger and better things.
Last place I worked at, the Director of IT insisted on being an Enterprise Admin in active directory. She was a fucking pencil-pusher, and had no need for those privileges; I can only assume she wanted to read peoples mail, among other things.
And what about people with blackberrys that want to check their email? There has to be an account set up to reach out and grab their mail from Exchange.
I guess the point which I didn't make very well, but was intended is that they might as well be restricting things using dongles. It's all the same anyways. And you're right: there's always a way around this shit (dongle restrictions).
An IT shop I worked in a few years ago implemented a document imaging system, and the scanners were restricted to so many scans per month via a dongle. After the implementation was complete and the vendors had left, we were told by the IT director to find a way around the dongle restriction. It took a while, but we did. The dongles in question were merely an "is this here" kind of security check, the process that looked for the dongle updated a value (the number of documents scanned within a months time) in a sql server database table. Although the value in the database was encrypted, they key was easy to find (it was on the dongle), and the algorithm used for encrpytion was documented in the sys admin documentation for the imaging system. I guess they thought they were dealing with office assistants or something, and we wouldn't put two and two together.
I've since moved on from that job, and I've no knowledge if the dongle/scanner licensing scheme is the same. Of course, I'm not mentioning the company; I've no desire to be sued into oblivion. >:^)