When I was working on my CS undergrad degree, more than one professor told me that I was really limiting my job prospects because I declined to take the elective COBOL classes. I knew enough about COBOL then to know that I could not drag myself out of bed in the morning to make a living with it.
The ranks of COBOL programmers out there are living drone like lives without passion or joy. That's not for me. I code for the love if it.
I agree that outsiders can shake an organization out of inbred complacency. However, Dwight Schrute is an anti-social asshole. The most effective outsiders don't need to be an asshole to have the positive effect this article is calling for.
What do you say to Google? They've built the most successful company of the last decade without using relational databases for their core business. Why would Google have built BigTable if 'nobody doing anything serious is going to consider them'? Is Google not serious?
This is another story that proves that small and medium size companies should not buy their own server hardware anymore. The economy of scale found in Google and Amazon sized companies can drive the hardware innovation like on-board batteries. Everyone else should just lease time on those systems while the big boys race ahead on hardware innovation. Buying your own server these days is an exercise in planned and accelerated obsolescence.
Why are benchmarks considered important here? How about real consumer acceptance that goes beyond the Ubuntu and Open Office hobby community? Wake me up when desktop Linux hits 5% of consumer desktops.
Nobody knows the cloud models that will work. Each customer's needs are different at this point. I'm not surprised that any cloud provider is willing to conform to any standards at this point. Give it a few years, the free market will begin to identify what to standardize on.
I'm not buying this story at all. I live and work in Silicon Valley. I do see lots of folks getting laid off at a higher rate than in the past. At the same time, I see the same folks quickly finding new work. Sometimes it involves a pay cut, often it does not. I just don't see IT in this area being affected as deeply as other professions in other parts of the country. It is not bad enough in IT that good people are turning to lives of crime to make ends meet.
Why are people wringing their hands over this? Those R rated super hero movies were placed out there in the free market and consumers made a voluntary choice to not spend money on them. The response by the studios is to move into a demographic (families with young children) where they can sell more tickets. What's wrong with that?
If you disagree with the studios, then start your own studio and then create an R rated super hero movie. That should be easy since you are so convinced that studios are run by idiots.
Silicon Valley is special to me because of its cultural diversity. In one medium sized company you can work shoulder to shoulder with people from every major world ethnic group and every major world religion (including no religion). They work together, peacefully, to make better lives for themselves and their children. Look around the rest of the world. This place is unique and special. I see lots of other places around the world where folks insist on segregating themselves by ethnicity and/or religion. They must hate my home, Silicon Valley.
Yes, I am aware of this and it is a tragedy. He won the war and then he was hounded to suicide because he was born gay. That disturbs me to no end. I'm frustrated as hell that Prop 8 passed in California and I use Turing as an example of how stupid it is for insecure jerk offs to de-humanize gay people.
Look at history. Alan Turing was an introverted nerd. He was gay in a society that persecuted gay people. Yet his ability to crack the Nazi enigma encryption system gave the allies huge advantages that saved countless lives on both sides and brought on the inevitable conclusion to that tragic war faster than would have been possible if he had been pushed away.
It is not oppressive. Your relationship with Amazon is voluntary. If they really become oppressive then that opens a door for a competitor to take their customers away by being more open.
I don't care about DRM-free. I like my Kindle and the easiest way to put book on it is at Amazon. I also think the user review network effect at Amazon is the best and most trustworthy that I have seen. I'm staying put because it meets my needs.
Nobody has to buy a Kindle. You don't need the heavy hand of the law when everyone votes with their wallet. Let the free market work. I'll enjoy my Kindle while you go Kindless. What's the big deal?
I received my as a gift from my lady friend. I really like it. Yes, it ties me to only purchasing books for it from Amazon but the convenience of the purchases, the low book prices, the knowledge that I'll never be caught without a book (big deal for me) is worth the tethering to a single provider. Someday the market will force it open but for now I am happy.
When I am using it, I just don't feel that I'm doing evil. I enjoy it. Using the Kindle is voluntary. The free market is working.
1. The product schedule and feature set was determined by a commission paid sales force of non-technical people that were selling this product to local governments. The sales people cared about their commission and nothing else. They certainly did not care about the pesky concerns of the nerdy engineers who were writing the code.
2. This is not a sexy product for software engineers to work on so it was a huge challenge to recruit engineers to work on it. The result was a weak team of under-performers who could not get jobs working on cool stuff.
The combination of these two issues has resulted in what we see today.
You make a good point about DRM and closed systems.
However, your first point about loggers and paper mills is lost on me. Is is my moral duty to buy paper books so a logger can keep his current job? Was Henry Ford a bad person because he destroyed the demand for blacksmiths in the United States?
I'm a hiring manager. I never ask a former employer company to give a reference for someone. All of the references come from people that are supplied by the prospective employee or from my own network. If you have been a great contributor at your company then there are plenty of colleagues who will vouch for your time there, whether or not some weenie manager says you are leaving on 'bad terms'. Just don't use that one bad manager as a reference.
Since you seem to know so much about it, why don't you start a web based email service. Then attract millions of users worldwide and then guarantee 100% uptime. That should be easy for a nice guy like you. Right?
Slashdot Mirror
When I was working on my CS undergrad degree, more than one professor told me that I was really limiting my job prospects because I declined to take the elective COBOL classes. I knew enough about COBOL then to know that I could not drag myself out of bed in the morning to make a living with it.
The ranks of COBOL programmers out there are living drone like lives without passion or joy. That's not for me. I code for the love if it.
I agree that outsiders can shake an organization out of inbred complacency. However, Dwight Schrute is an anti-social asshole. The most effective outsiders don't need to be an asshole to have the positive effect this article is calling for.
What do you say to Google? They've built the most successful company of the last decade without using relational databases for their core business. Why would Google have built BigTable if 'nobody doing anything serious is going to consider them'? Is Google not serious?
So every database that is not relational sucks? Is there no application that needs non-relational object storage? You sound like a Luddite to me.
Latency does not matter for media streaming and downloads. This will soon be the dominant use of bandwidth.
The decision to use gmail is voluntary. The growth of gmail is a strong signal that the market trusts Google or simply does not care about privacy.
This is another story that proves that small and medium size companies should not buy their own server hardware anymore. The economy of scale found in Google and Amazon sized companies can drive the hardware innovation like on-board batteries. Everyone else should just lease time on those systems while the big boys race ahead on hardware innovation. Buying your own server these days is an exercise in planned and accelerated obsolescence.
Why are benchmarks considered important here? How about real consumer acceptance that goes beyond the Ubuntu and Open Office hobby community? Wake me up when desktop Linux hits 5% of consumer desktops.
Nobody knows the cloud models that will work. Each customer's needs are different at this point. I'm not surprised that any cloud provider is willing to conform to any standards at this point. Give it a few years, the free market will begin to identify what to standardize on.
I'm not buying this story at all. I live and work in Silicon Valley. I do see lots of folks getting laid off at a higher rate than in the past. At the same time, I see the same folks quickly finding new work. Sometimes it involves a pay cut, often it does not. I just don't see IT in this area being affected as deeply as other professions in other parts of the country. It is not bad enough in IT that good people are turning to lives of crime to make ends meet.
What is stopping you from following your own suggestion? It should be easy. Right?
Why are people wringing their hands over this? Those R rated super hero movies were placed out there in the free market and consumers made a voluntary choice to not spend money on them. The response by the studios is to move into a demographic (families with young children) where they can sell more tickets. What's wrong with that?
If you disagree with the studios, then start your own studio and then create an R rated super hero movie. That should be easy since you are so convinced that studios are run by idiots.
Silicon Valley is special to me because of its cultural diversity. In one medium sized company you can work shoulder to shoulder with people from every major world ethnic group and every major world religion (including no religion). They work together, peacefully, to make better lives for themselves and their children. Look around the rest of the world. This place is unique and special. I see lots of other places around the world where folks insist on segregating themselves by ethnicity and/or religion. They must hate my home, Silicon Valley.
Peace.
Yes, I am aware of this and it is a tragedy. He won the war and then he was hounded to suicide because he was born gay. That disturbs me to no end. I'm frustrated as hell that Prop 8 passed in California and I use Turing as an example of how stupid it is for insecure jerk offs to de-humanize gay people.
I've read extensively about the history of WWII. What is your specific point?
Look at history. Alan Turing was an introverted nerd. He was gay in a society that persecuted gay people. Yet his ability to crack the Nazi enigma encryption system gave the allies huge advantages that saved countless lives on both sides and brought on the inevitable conclusion to that tragic war faster than would have been possible if he had been pushed away.
It is not oppressive. Your relationship with Amazon is voluntary. If they really become oppressive then that opens a door for a competitor to take their customers away by being more open.
I don't care about DRM-free. I like my Kindle and the easiest way to put book on it is at Amazon. I also think the user review network effect at Amazon is the best and most trustworthy that I have seen. I'm staying put because it meets my needs.
OK, so don't buy one.
Nobody has to buy a Kindle. You don't need the heavy hand of the law when everyone votes with their wallet. Let the free market work. I'll enjoy my Kindle while you go Kindless. What's the big deal?
I received my as a gift from my lady friend. I really like it. Yes, it ties me to only purchasing books for it from Amazon but the convenience of the purchases, the low book prices, the knowledge that I'll never be caught without a book (big deal for me) is worth the tethering to a single provider. Someday the market will force it open but for now I am happy.
When I am using it, I just don't feel that I'm doing evil. I enjoy it. Using the Kindle is voluntary. The free market is working.
There are 2 reasons this happened:
1. The product schedule and feature set was determined by a commission paid sales force of non-technical people that were selling this product to local governments. The sales people cared about their commission and nothing else. They certainly did not care about the pesky concerns of the nerdy engineers who were writing the code.
2. This is not a sexy product for software engineers to work on so it was a huge challenge to recruit engineers to work on it. The result was a weak team of under-performers who could not get jobs working on cool stuff.
The combination of these two issues has resulted in what we see today.
Icebike,
You make a good point about DRM and closed systems.
However, your first point about loggers and paper mills is lost on me. Is is my moral duty to buy paper books so a logger can keep his current job? Was Henry Ford a bad person because he destroyed the demand for blacksmiths in the United States?
I'm a hiring manager. I never ask a former employer company to give a reference for someone. All of the references come from people that are supplied by the prospective employee or from my own network. If you have been a great contributor at your company then there are plenty of colleagues who will vouch for your time there, whether or not some weenie manager says you are leaving on 'bad terms'. Just don't use that one bad manager as a reference.
Since you seem to know so much about it, why don't you start a web based email service. Then attract millions of users worldwide and then guarantee 100% uptime. That should be easy for a nice guy like you. Right?