What about the cost of scrappy hacked up software? I find computer science degrees valuable because practioners understand algorithms, good construction practices, and general computing terms better than other generic IT workers. Especially true in embedded software design. The cost to maintain code written by hacks, and potential bugs might not be considered at this point.
Pay will eventually work out over time, and, I think CS degree holders might find work easier when economy slows.
I notice that Microsoft lists 'Kernel mode drivers need to be Microsoft signed and compatible with hypervisor enforced code integrity' in their additional requirements section. I wonder if they will make developers pay for this, and, if so what will happen to the support for hardware devices that people out there already have. I understand where they are going with this, but it is likely going to have a lot of unintended consequences.
I do not think salary directly maps to the programming language a particular project at a particular company is using. Of course you should be aware of what languages the industry is using in your niche, and outside of your niche. You should hone your skills and learn a lot of different languages. All languages have unique capablities specific to their design and learning them will help you know what tool is best for a given job. A high-paying salary should come with expectations to do the job using the tools provided and expectations to have expertise to drive decisions on tools.
But it's a reality in tech that if you're 45 years of age and still writing C code or Cobol code and making $150,000.
It is basic business, if you know C (or pick your language) and are just a programmer and well "experienced" making 150K, a company looks at your as an expensive asset. You may think you have 20 years of experience and add value, but chances are you really have 5 years of experience 4 times over. The company will just replace you with a 5 year experienced programmer or new-grad and pay them half your salary.
You need to be more than just a good programmer these days to stay in the top-earning spots. You need to constantly evolve and gain experience and never rest on your laurels. It isn't an age thing, it's a laziness/comfort thing. It's becoming more of a youth-entitlement thing, but in the end the result is the same. You stop moving forward in your contributions and expect to have your salary keep moving forward. Companies know this and weed these people out.
I wonder if the lipid oil in the eggs could be used as a renewable energy source, or petrol replacement for the numerous products made from conventional oil.
The downgrade was going to happen with or without a math error. The financial sector did not like the game of chicken that Congress played with the economy and now is being punished. Of course, the rest of us suffer too, but what is a little collateral damage. All the fat-cats had their short sales scheduled last week.
I find it interesting that the U.S. is number 1 in usage (most unique IP's), but 14th in average connection speed. I would have thought the U.S. would have been a little bit better (speed-wise). China is #2 in both usage and speed. Interesting... Yet another area China will soon dominate the U.S. in (once they take the top spot in usage).
OK, some challenges exist. This seems like a good opportunity to solve a problem that we may need to solve if we are ever going to get to Mars. I doubt a Mars solution will include taking off from earth and heading directly to Mars. I imagine we will need some kind of staging area, in Orbit or on the moon. Hell, we did land on the moon, and then takeoff again so we have some experience there (just a smaller scale).
I am just saying that we have to stop thinking that any time we need to ditch something we can throw it into the ocean. I am not some screaming tree hugger, but I do enjoy nature and I enjoy the ability of humans being able to inhabit the earth. I think we are rapidly approaching a point where we have a choice to either clean up our act or go down a very unpleasant path for humanity.
It isn't about the scales, it's about doing the right thing.
I realize it is more effort to move the ISS from orbit to deep space or toward the sun than it would be to just crash it. I am saying it is worth the effort to choose the first option.
The link to our flotilla of trash is reminder of how much crap is out there, and that is just what we can see. The argument of "oh, just one more piece of trash isn't going to make a difference" is just, well, silly. I mean clearly if we keep that attitude, which is SOP at this point, we are surely all doomed.
Don't we put enough crap into the world's oceans? I mean we literally have an island of garbage floating around, why add to the pollution? Why can't we, as another poster said, thrust it off into space, or, thrust it toward the sun and let the sun's gravity suck it in and destroy it?
A link to a tool or instructions on how to remove the darn thing! I have been hit by some form of google re-direct twice and the last time I just gave up an re-formatted the hard-drive (it was due for a clean Windowz install anyway).
I agree the two monitors is nice, but it's a laptop. TFA points out that carrying a docking station (along with extra monitor) with you is not practical, but neither is carrying a giant 4.5kg brick, plus think of the real estate you will need in a conference room. As far as plugging in at the hotel, I find most hotels I stay at have modern TV's that have VGA/HDMI inputs and I just plug in to the TV for my second monitor, and voila, a dual monitor setup.
What a very sad state we are. The whole healthcare reform bill ended up "costing", what, around 1 Trillion dollars? And what was it supposed to accomplish? I see, well, when people are resorting to crime to get healthcare I would say the reform act got it wrong. Seriously, for 1 Trillion the government could have just bought insurance policies for 100 million people.
I can see why Verizon is moving down this path. Higher speed, more reliable connections, and more users makes for a very expensive network. If people really don't like it, they will switch to another carrier who offers unlimited data, or resort to only connecting via Wi-Fi or tethering. What I don't understand is this low cap. 2 Gb is not very much data, especially considering all the advertising that shows streaming video and watching TV on your phone or tablet. The 2Gb limit is especially confusing when you look at tablet's. The tablet's will (IMHO) eat up a lot of the market share for laptops and netbooks very soon and people will want to surf seamlessly between connections (LAN, WLAN, 4G, etc.). In the end, I could easily see Verizon making a lot of money in the short term, but as other networks grow and offer better deals we will see the bandwidth caps go higher and possibly more data tiers.
OK, I am not sure what time frame you are looking at. You mentioned an awful lot of topics and comp. sci. would normally be studied for 4 years. I do not consider office tools a part of a traditional comp. sci. program, but they should be taught nonetheless. Assuming there is 4 years of high school I would recommend:
Year 1/Semester 1&2: OS and Office Tools - In this course I would expose the student to different operating systems: Windows, Ubuntu Linux, and Mac OS. I would have the student master some basic end-user activities, like installing software, installing new hardware, modifying system settings (i.e. env vars, etc) and finally touch on some shell scripts (batch files,.bash scripts). I would then move into basic office programs. I would show Word and Open Office and introduce the student to basic word processing and touch on some advanced editing (tables, formatting, formulas, etc.). In spreadsheets I would show the basics plus introduce macros, which are programming based. Also pivot tables and graphs. There would be plenty of material for 1 year of school, especially considering this as an "elective" which would not be studied more than 1-2 hours per week.
Year 2/Semester 1: Introduction To Programming - Just like it sounds, I would focus on basic programing. The tough part is what language - Pick whatever you are really comfortable with and able to teach. I personally would choose a slightly non-main-stream language like Ada. Focus on basic program structure, good commenting and the fundamentals of the language.
Year 2/Semester 2: Advanced Programming - Move into advanced aspects of the language, structs/records, user-defined types, compiler pragmas, memory management (pointers).
Year 3/Semester 1: Introduction To Data Structures - Classic CS course. Array/Stack/Queue/List
Year 3/Semester 2: Advanced Data Structures - Another Classic. Various Trees/Graphs/Heap
Year 4/Semester 1: Introduction to OO - Focus more on the design aspect. Also use a language that is a "pure" OO language. We used Eiffel, but the latest.NET stuff if pretty good too. I honestly would not use C++ or Java as the language hinders some of the pure OO techniques.
Year 4/Semester 2: Advances OO - Get into the more complicated OO stuff. Design patterns, multiple inheritance, repeated inheritance, etc.
That would cover a good bit of computer science...
FTA: It said the document outlines the US agenda "for partnering with other nations and peoples to ensure the prosperity, security, and openness that we seek in our increasingly networked world."
And the |-|4c|3r$ will be right there reading the strategy and figuring out more ways to exploit the net and make money or engage in other activities (terrorism, etc.). This sounds like a useless document.
I keep hearing about intrusions that result in data theft, including credit card numbers, etc. Can someone tell me why on earth this information is being stored as plain-text and not as encrypted files? Unless of course the data is encrypted and the passphrases are stored in open-text files with a filename of "password_to_our_files.txt"
Before any agency, public or private, starts making claims of getting to mars it would seem prudent to have demonstrated some baby steps toward that goal. SpaceX is one agency charged with replacing the Space Shuttle, and it seems years away from that. There are no detailed plans on the propulsion technology that would be used to get to mars, or even the moon. There are no plans for building various outposts that a mars vehicle could dock with to re-supply. I think mars is a stretch. Until we are avid moon visitors I hold any claims of getting to mars as a joke.
One must ask, "Why are the manufacturers pre-installing this bloat?". My guess is that it helps manufactures keep low prices on machines that otherwise would be out of reach for many consumers wrt to price. Consumers are hungry for slick deals and manufacturers need creative ways to re-coup money lost on razor thin profit margins. So, the manufacture reaches out to other companies and say "Hey, I will put a link to a 30-day trial of your software on our core image of all new laptops, just give us $10.00 per laptop." They do that 10 times and now they can sell the laptop for $10.00 over cost and still make $100 per laptop.
Ask yourself this, if you saw an option on the build-your-own-laptop build site that said "Clean O/S Install - No Advertising or Bloat" with a price tag of $99.95 would you check the box? What about the average Joe consumer looking for that great deal?
I agree that few people have true Broadband, but I think the important issue to look at is capacity. Most people, which jives from what I see in other posts, are fine with 1.5 - 3.0 mbps down and 128K-256K up. Where the problems lie now and in the future is being able to give everyone these speeds all the time. Usually, I run into bandwidth contention and I do not get my "non-broadband" speeds. I attribute this (perhaps incorrectly) to lack of capacity and having many more people online than the provider can serve.
In the future, I think more people will be more concerned about getting lower speeds consistently than they will be for getting higher speeds...
There is no money in getting back to the moon, at least at this point. The principle driving force of the commercial space program is the generation of profit... Perfecting the space "tour" is what seems to be the first goal so the commercial company can get a cash cow going. I believe that the commercial space program will eventually want to get to the moon (and beyond), but right now I think it is all about just getting into space in manner that provides profit potential.
While the IE is losing ground a bit, they have enough share to make it a pain to develop web apps...
I am still plagued with clients that have older IE versions and don't upgrade and I end up having to work around all the HTML and CSS standards that IE does not support or just plain ignore...
So, I am glad to hear they are losing ground. I wonder if it is because web developers have stopped making exceptions in their source code for shitty IE browser support of STANDARDS and people are switching browsers to get their web pages to look the right way... Microsoft, are you listening?
Slashdot Mirror
What about the cost of scrappy hacked up software? I find computer science degrees valuable because practioners understand algorithms, good construction practices, and general computing terms better than other generic IT workers. Especially true in embedded software design. The cost to maintain code written by hacks, and potential bugs might not be considered at this point. Pay will eventually work out over time, and, I think CS degree holders might find work easier when economy slows.
I notice that Microsoft lists 'Kernel mode drivers need to be Microsoft signed and compatible with hypervisor enforced code integrity' in their additional requirements section. I wonder if they will make developers pay for this, and, if so what will happen to the support for hardware devices that people out there already have. I understand where they are going with this, but it is likely going to have a lot of unintended consequences.
I do not think salary directly maps to the programming language a particular project at a particular company is using. Of course you should be aware of what languages the industry is using in your niche, and outside of your niche. You should hone your skills and learn a lot of different languages. All languages have unique capablities specific to their design and learning them will help you know what tool is best for a given job. A high-paying salary should come with expectations to do the job using the tools provided and expectations to have expertise to drive decisions on tools.
But it's a reality in tech that if you're 45 years of age and still writing C code or Cobol code and making $150,000.
It is basic business, if you know C (or pick your language) and are just a programmer and well "experienced" making 150K, a company looks at your as an expensive asset. You may think you have 20 years of experience and add value, but chances are you really have 5 years of experience 4 times over. The company will just replace you with a 5 year experienced programmer or new-grad and pay them half your salary.
You need to be more than just a good programmer these days to stay in the top-earning spots. You need to constantly evolve and gain experience and never rest on your laurels. It isn't an age thing, it's a laziness/comfort thing. It's becoming more of a youth-entitlement thing, but in the end the result is the same. You stop moving forward in your contributions and expect to have your salary keep moving forward. Companies know this and weed these people out.
I wonder if the lipid oil in the eggs could be used as a renewable energy source, or petrol replacement for the numerous products made from conventional oil.
If he wins a lot then he will be declared as having an unfair advantage, and if he loses (or just average) he will be declared as having no advantage.
The downgrade was going to happen with or without a math error. The financial sector did not like the game of chicken that Congress played with the economy and now is being punished. Of course, the rest of us suffer too, but what is a little collateral damage. All the fat-cats had their short sales scheduled last week.
I find it interesting that the U.S. is number 1 in usage (most unique IP's), but 14th in average connection speed. I would have thought the U.S. would have been a little bit better (speed-wise). China is #2 in both usage and speed. Interesting... Yet another area China will soon dominate the U.S. in (once they take the top spot in usage).
OK, some challenges exist. This seems like a good opportunity to solve a problem that we may need to solve if we are ever going to get to Mars. I doubt a Mars solution will include taking off from earth and heading directly to Mars. I imagine we will need some kind of staging area, in Orbit or on the moon. Hell, we did land on the moon, and then takeoff again so we have some experience there (just a smaller scale).
I am just saying that we have to stop thinking that any time we need to ditch something we can throw it into the ocean. I am not some screaming tree hugger, but I do enjoy nature and I enjoy the ability of humans being able to inhabit the earth. I think we are rapidly approaching a point where we have a choice to either clean up our act or go down a very unpleasant path for humanity.
It isn't about the scales, it's about doing the right thing.
I realize it is more effort to move the ISS from orbit to deep space or toward the sun than it would be to just crash it. I am saying it is worth the effort to choose the first option.
The link to our flotilla of trash is reminder of how much crap is out there, and that is just what we can see. The argument of "oh, just one more piece of trash isn't going to make a difference" is just, well, silly. I mean clearly if we keep that attitude, which is SOP at this point, we are surely all doomed.
Don't we put enough crap into the world's oceans? I mean we literally have an island of garbage floating around, why add to the pollution? Why can't we, as another poster said, thrust it off into space, or, thrust it toward the sun and let the sun's gravity suck it in and destroy it?
A link to a tool or instructions on how to remove the darn thing! I have been hit by some form of google re-direct twice and the last time I just gave up an re-formatted the hard-drive (it was due for a clean Windowz install anyway).
I agree the two monitors is nice, but it's a laptop. TFA points out that carrying a docking station (along with extra monitor) with you is not practical, but neither is carrying a giant 4.5kg brick, plus think of the real estate you will need in a conference room. As far as plugging in at the hotel, I find most hotels I stay at have modern TV's that have VGA/HDMI inputs and I just plug in to the TV for my second monitor, and voila, a dual monitor setup.
What a very sad state we are. The whole healthcare reform bill ended up "costing", what, around 1 Trillion dollars? And what was it supposed to accomplish? I see, well, when people are resorting to crime to get healthcare I would say the reform act got it wrong. Seriously, for 1 Trillion the government could have just bought insurance policies for 100 million people.
I can see why Verizon is moving down this path. Higher speed, more reliable connections, and more users makes for a very expensive network. If people really don't like it, they will switch to another carrier who offers unlimited data, or resort to only connecting via Wi-Fi or tethering. What I don't understand is this low cap. 2 Gb is not very much data, especially considering all the advertising that shows streaming video and watching TV on your phone or tablet. The 2Gb limit is especially confusing when you look at tablet's. The tablet's will (IMHO) eat up a lot of the market share for laptops and netbooks very soon and people will want to surf seamlessly between connections (LAN, WLAN, 4G, etc.). In the end, I could easily see Verizon making a lot of money in the short term, but as other networks grow and offer better deals we will see the bandwidth caps go higher and possibly more data tiers.
Even CSS 2 isn't supported properly by some browsers.
And when is page-break-inside finally going to be supported? Man, that would be helpful.
What good is a standard if no browser fully supports it and when some browsers (*cough* IE *cough*) flat-out ignore them.
OK, I am not sure what time frame you are looking at. You mentioned an awful lot of topics and comp. sci. would normally be studied for 4 years. I do not consider office tools a part of a traditional comp. sci. program, but they should be taught nonetheless. Assuming there is 4 years of high school I would recommend: .bash scripts). I would then move into basic office programs. I would show Word and Open Office and introduce the student to basic word processing and touch on some advanced editing (tables, formatting, formulas, etc.). In spreadsheets I would show the basics plus introduce macros, which are programming based. Also pivot tables and graphs. There would be plenty of material for 1 year of school, especially considering this as an "elective" which would not be studied more than 1-2 hours per week. .NET stuff if pretty good too. I honestly would not use C++ or Java as the language hinders some of the pure OO techniques.
Year 1/Semester 1&2: OS and Office Tools - In this course I would expose the student to different operating systems: Windows, Ubuntu Linux, and Mac OS. I would have the student master some basic end-user activities, like installing software, installing new hardware, modifying system settings (i.e. env vars, etc) and finally touch on some shell scripts (batch files,
Year 2/Semester 1: Introduction To Programming - Just like it sounds, I would focus on basic programing. The tough part is what language - Pick whatever you are really comfortable with and able to teach. I personally would choose a slightly non-main-stream language like Ada. Focus on basic program structure, good commenting and the fundamentals of the language.
Year 2/Semester 2: Advanced Programming - Move into advanced aspects of the language, structs/records, user-defined types, compiler pragmas, memory management (pointers).
Year 3/Semester 1: Introduction To Data Structures - Classic CS course. Array/Stack/Queue/List
Year 3/Semester 2: Advanced Data Structures - Another Classic. Various Trees/Graphs/Heap
Year 4/Semester 1: Introduction to OO - Focus more on the design aspect. Also use a language that is a "pure" OO language. We used Eiffel, but the latest
Year 4/Semester 2: Advances OO - Get into the more complicated OO stuff. Design patterns, multiple inheritance, repeated inheritance, etc.
That would cover a good bit of computer science...
FTA: It said the document outlines the US agenda "for partnering with other nations and peoples to ensure the prosperity, security, and openness that we seek in our increasingly networked world."
And the |-|4c|3r$ will be right there reading the strategy and figuring out more ways to exploit the net and make money or engage in other activities (terrorism, etc.). This sounds like a useless document.
I keep hearing about intrusions that result in data theft, including credit card numbers, etc. Can someone tell me why on earth this information is being stored as plain-text and not as encrypted files? Unless of course the data is encrypted and the passphrases are stored in open-text files with a filename of "password_to_our_files.txt"
They should give that reward to the US soldiers who were directly involved in the operation to take him down.
Before any agency, public or private, starts making claims of getting to mars it would seem prudent to have demonstrated some baby steps toward that goal. SpaceX is one agency charged with replacing the Space Shuttle, and it seems years away from that. There are no detailed plans on the propulsion technology that would be used to get to mars, or even the moon. There are no plans for building various outposts that a mars vehicle could dock with to re-supply. I think mars is a stretch. Until we are avid moon visitors I hold any claims of getting to mars as a joke.
One must ask, "Why are the manufacturers pre-installing this bloat?". My guess is that it helps manufactures keep low prices on machines that otherwise would be out of reach for many consumers wrt to price. Consumers are hungry for slick deals and manufacturers need creative ways to re-coup money lost on razor thin profit margins. So, the manufacture reaches out to other companies and say "Hey, I will put a link to a 30-day trial of your software on our core image of all new laptops, just give us $10.00 per laptop." They do that 10 times and now they can sell the laptop for $10.00 over cost and still make $100 per laptop.
Ask yourself this, if you saw an option on the build-your-own-laptop build site that said "Clean O/S Install - No Advertising or Bloat" with a price tag of $99.95 would you check the box? What about the average Joe consumer looking for that great deal?
I agree that few people have true Broadband, but I think the important issue to look at is capacity. Most people, which jives from what I see in other posts, are fine with 1.5 - 3.0 mbps down and 128K-256K up. Where the problems lie now and in the future is being able to give everyone these speeds all the time. Usually, I run into bandwidth contention and I do not get my "non-broadband" speeds. I attribute this (perhaps incorrectly) to lack of capacity and having many more people online than the provider can serve. In the future, I think more people will be more concerned about getting lower speeds consistently than they will be for getting higher speeds...
There is no money in getting back to the moon, at least at this point. The principle driving force of the commercial space program is the generation of profit... Perfecting the space "tour" is what seems to be the first goal so the commercial company can get a cash cow going. I believe that the commercial space program will eventually want to get to the moon (and beyond), but right now I think it is all about just getting into space in manner that provides profit potential.
While the IE is losing ground a bit, they have enough share to make it a pain to develop web apps... I am still plagued with clients that have older IE versions and don't upgrade and I end up having to work around all the HTML and CSS standards that IE does not support or just plain ignore... So, I am glad to hear they are losing ground. I wonder if it is because web developers have stopped making exceptions in their source code for shitty IE browser support of STANDARDS and people are switching browsers to get their web pages to look the right way... Microsoft, are you listening?