The NSA.. for some little trojan and spying on women? These are the people who eavesdropped on the Japanese during WWII, give them a little more credit than wanting to hire pathetic little perverts with basic computer skills using 3rd party software.
Hate undoing my mods, but I have to say I agree 100%: Silverlight is perfect for WP7, a joy to develop in.
In fact the next iteration of Silverlight with lots of great new stuff for the next iteration of WP7 is coming out, and as long as they're maintaining it for WP7 it would make no sense whatsoever to ditch it.
Silverlight is going nowhere. Some snub that it wasn't mentioned at some unrelated conference (on an operating system!) is just a red herring.
That means no export of IP, that means you're getting all your IP elsewhere, that means you're relying on cheap labor / minerals / agriculture.
You could try only enforcing IP laws locally, but then you have trade wars and no export market for your IP. You could try sticking with cheap labor / minerals / agriculture, but then they run out and your economy goes nowhere.
Bear in mind also that patent lawsuits are a tiny fraction of the industry. A large chunk of it is tied up in writing software that helps business function efficiently; you really don't gain much by saying "we're not paying for Microsoft Office! screw having IP laws and writing our own software" when Microsoft Office is small potatoes compared to what having a bunch of smart Chinese software developers can do for Chinese businesses.
I'm not making a case for this for you, that would be pointless, I'm just pointing out why inevitably copyright laws will naturally be taken more seriously in developing countries for their own self-interest, and the GP was jerking off with the tired old anti-US / anti-IP line.
But then the rival has no IP laws, no incentive for people to develop software locally, and no-one develops software locally. That means no export of IP, that means you're getting all your IP elsewhere, that means you're relying on cheap labor / minerals / agriculture.
You could try only enforcing IP laws locally, but then you have trade wars and no export market for your IP. You could try sticking with cheap labor / minerals / agriculture, but then they run out and your economy goes nowhere.
Bear in mind also that patent lawsuits are a tiny fraction of the industry. A large chunk of it is tied up in writing software that helps business function efficiently; you really don't gain much by saying "we're not paying for Microsoft Office! screw having IP laws and writing our own software" when Microsoft Office is small potatoes compared to what having a bunch of smart Chinese software developers can do for Chinese businesses.
I'm not making a case for this for you, that would be pointless, I'm just pointing out why inevitably copyright laws will naturally be taken more seriously in developing countries for their own self-interest, and the GP was jerking off with the tired old anti-US / anti-IP line.
Yeah; as soon as the rest of the world eases up with its stringent copyright laws the US is done for!!
Seriously though; in the real world software is an "actual product", one which is valued by consumers and expensive to make.
Copyright law isn't enforced all over the developed world because the US is attacking anyone; it is enforced because that's the only way to build an environment where you get so much great software (proprietary and open source, US and EU).
As you move from cheap labor/cheap minerals to a knowledge-based economy developing IP in exchange for physical goods works out great for everyone. No amount of feel-good anti-US sentiment is going to stand up to economic reality.
Like that time Tepco ran a geiger counter on a piece of material and found a radiation spike 10 million times above normal? Then they realized the person running it had only made a single test which turned out to be inaccurate, and everyone laid into Tepco for inducing panic?
There are more dangerous things in the world than not knowing exactly what is meant by "relatively low".
It is brilliant, no question, but I was interesting in looking at the source but it seems to be obfuscated. I figured this was to compress it, but I've looked around and can't find the source anywhere.
I'm not apathetic; I find it laughable and counterproductive that people like you come along and spew out a bunch of wild ideas with no plan or research to back them up, no motivation to make it happen, but rather just coming along and asking "why hasn't someone else made this happened yet? Oh it must be because of that one person who most people agree did a bad job."
What about the economics of it, what about the ROI of a space elevator, what materials will it be made out of, what is the timeline, could the money be better used elsewhere, if it's profitable why hasn't private enterprise done it, what the hell do you know about space engineering?
None of these questions do you want the answers to, because it's much more fun to sit around, whine, and post a list of massive projects as if it's some kind of plan or original thinking.
As for "overthrowing those who shouldn't be in power".. go for it.. Fight the power webmistressrachel!
The attitude that things are really just reinvented, and you can just do things like you used to but in a different format, can really hold things back.
Because when you hire someone it's usually because you need help, now. Hiring someone and then having more work because you have to train them yourself is not a good outcome unless things are pretty damn cushy.
Glad to hear you're staying relevant, but it's not really about moving onto new platforms where you have no choice but to learn new languages, rather about new ways of doing things. People who are used to procedural code are going to be very wary if you're sure a functional approach is the best way to model something.
Also I'm sure you have a wide range and lots of experience, but I really doubt anyone who goes back that far could really mentor someone like myself in things like jQuery or PHP (for example) which I got into as I learned and probably have done much more of.
The main thing I don't like about the "mentor" thing isn't that old guys don't have lots to offer (I work with a couple and they definitely do), but because "mentor" implies the mentor knows everything best and that is the one-way source of all knowledge and always the best person to make the call, and that is far from the truth.
So the idea is you didn't learn it at school, you didn't do it at work, you didn't do it as a hobby, but halfway through another career you can suddenly start doing something specialized but completely unrelated? And that requiring some example projects to prove that you really can make such a sudden shift is "so arrogant" and "bullshit"?
Well.. Good luck, but I'm sure whatever you're moving away from is completely mind-numbing if you think you can just switch a career path halfway though.
Coding full time does mean you spend less time coding as a hobby of course, but the idea that you can go into coding full time having only written academic stuff that you had to write is really misplaced. If you say you enjoy coding and are good at it, yet you don't have any code you want to show off, I just don't think you would be worth hiring.
Software is one of those industries which is moving so fast that being anchored in the past is a huge disadvantage. If you're young and have a "mentor" who is over 35 I think you're going to hear a lot of prejudice against the good new ideas, and that they will want you to learn what that they can continue to mentor you in, not what's most relevant or useful.
When it comes to software the only thing you can really trust is your own hard won experience. It'll probably me also resist change when I'm older, but if I don't follow it now I'll just miss out and delay progress.
I have to agree.. If you went through years of school and never wrote anything by yourself for people other than yourself are you really going to enjoy developing software anyway?
I wrote some JavaScript for a web game I wrote, just to take some load off the server: I did it quickly as an emergency measure, but I used the Prototype framework to try and make things easier and quicker.
Once I was done, writing it only for Firefox 3 and IE8, I found it all worked perfectly on IE6 (the simple CSS would look awful, but this pretty complex JS code ran first time). Since then it has needed little maintenance, has been extended by others, and works fine on all modern smartphone browsers (having been developed on and written with only Firefox and IE8 in mind).
There aren't many IE6-era standards which can still be used to do decent things: 99% of JavaScript sucks ass, but what's amazing is that the other 1% makes up for it so well. It could have been much worse (see ActiveX, VBscript, Flash, Java applets, for the alternatives championed with much more backing)..
It's just the old problem of a language being easy to write bad code in and/or a good language on a bad/inconsistent platform. Some JavaScript is a nightmare, and no-one would dispute that, but if you use a decent framework like Prototype, jQuery, or YUI, and don't try and write JavaScript like Java, you can write some very neat, concise, well-structured code.
As an aside: If you want something to show you why JavaScript doesn't have to be so bad (but not glossing over the awful stuff to avoid) check out Crockford's 6 lectures on JavaScript (much more than a dry guide to syntax).
He's also involved with the standards process and gives his commentary on the future along the way.
Slashdot Mirror
.. and they said Mac fanboys don't have a sense of humor!
The NSA.. for some little trojan and spying on women? These are the people who eavesdropped on the Japanese during WWII, give them a little more credit than wanting to hire pathetic little perverts with basic computer skills using 3rd party software.
I love how seriously we're all taking this..
Hate undoing my mods, but I have to say I agree 100%: Silverlight is perfect for WP7, a joy to develop in.
In fact the next iteration of Silverlight with lots of great new stuff for the next iteration of WP7 is coming out, and as long as they're maintaining it for WP7 it would make no sense whatsoever to ditch it.
Silverlight is going nowhere. Some snub that it wasn't mentioned at some unrelated conference (on an operating system!) is just a red herring.
That means no export of IP, that means you're getting all your IP elsewhere, that means you're relying on cheap labor / minerals / agriculture.
You could try only enforcing IP laws locally, but then you have trade wars and no export market for your IP. You could try sticking with cheap labor / minerals / agriculture, but then they run out and your economy goes nowhere.
Bear in mind also that patent lawsuits are a tiny fraction of the industry. A large chunk of it is tied up in writing software that helps business function efficiently; you really don't gain much by saying "we're not paying for Microsoft Office! screw having IP laws and writing our own software" when Microsoft Office is small potatoes compared to what having a bunch of smart Chinese software developers can do for Chinese businesses.
I'm not making a case for this for you, that would be pointless, I'm just pointing out why inevitably copyright laws will naturally be taken more seriously in developing countries for their own self-interest, and the GP was jerking off with the tired old anti-US / anti-IP line.
But then the rival has no IP laws, no incentive for people to develop software locally, and no-one develops software locally. That means no export of IP, that means you're getting all your IP elsewhere, that means you're relying on cheap labor / minerals / agriculture.
You could try only enforcing IP laws locally, but then you have trade wars and no export market for your IP. You could try sticking with cheap labor / minerals / agriculture, but then they run out and your economy goes nowhere.
Bear in mind also that patent lawsuits are a tiny fraction of the industry. A large chunk of it is tied up in writing software that helps business function efficiently; you really don't gain much by saying "we're not paying for Microsoft Office! screw having IP laws and writing our own software" when Microsoft Office is small potatoes compared to what having a bunch of smart Chinese software developers can do for Chinese businesses.
I'm not making a case for this for you, that would be pointless, I'm just pointing out why inevitably copyright laws will naturally be taken more seriously in developing countries for their own self-interest, and the GP was jerking off with the tired old anti-US / anti-IP line.
Yeah; as soon as the rest of the world eases up with its stringent copyright laws the US is done for!!
Seriously though; in the real world software is an "actual product", one which is valued by consumers and expensive to make.
Copyright law isn't enforced all over the developed world because the US is attacking anyone; it is enforced because that's the only way to build an environment where you get so much great software (proprietary and open source, US and EU).
As you move from cheap labor/cheap minerals to a knowledge-based economy developing IP in exchange for physical goods works out great for everyone. No amount of feel-good anti-US sentiment is going to stand up to economic reality.
It has had a few burst dams, I guess..
Relying on another country for your electricity needs.. I hope the French are generous since they'll have you over a barrel.
Like that time Tepco ran a geiger counter on a piece of material and found a radiation spike 10 million times above normal? Then they realized the person running it had only made a single test which turned out to be inaccurate, and everyone laid into Tepco for inducing panic?
There are more dangerous things in the world than not knowing exactly what is meant by "relatively low".
New mega-scoop for slashdot submission: How GameboyRMH Knows About Your Internet Connection
Congrats, I think this is the most sexist post I've ever read on slashdot!
It is brilliant, no question, but I was interesting in looking at the source but it seems to be obfuscated. I figured this was to compress it, but I've looked around and can't find the source anywhere.
Is there somewhere I'm not looking?
I'm not apathetic; I find it laughable and counterproductive that people like you come along and spew out a bunch of wild ideas with no plan or research to back them up, no motivation to make it happen, but rather just coming along and asking "why hasn't someone else made this happened yet? Oh it must be because of that one person who most people agree did a bad job."
.. go for it.. Fight the power webmistressrachel!
What about the economics of it, what about the ROI of a space elevator, what materials will it be made out of, what is the timeline, could the money be better used elsewhere, if it's profitable why hasn't private enterprise done it, what the hell do you know about space engineering?
None of these questions do you want the answers to, because it's much more fun to sit around, whine, and post a list of massive projects as if it's some kind of plan or original thinking.
As for "overthrowing those who shouldn't be in power"
Fifth...
Cure cancer with open source and bring about world peace with organic farming.
Sixth...
Some chick like totally gives me a BJ for all my awesome ideas.
Seventh...
I secure the funds and bright minds and navigate the politics to get these obnoxiously presented ideas actually done.
Good luck webmistressrachel ! Keep us posted on your progress!
The attitude that things are really just reinvented, and you can just do things like you used to but in a different format, can really hold things back.
I wouldn't call showing someone business specific conventions and procedures "mentoring".
Because when you hire someone it's usually because you need help, now. Hiring someone and then having more work because you have to train them yourself is not a good outcome unless things are pretty damn cushy.
Glad to hear you're staying relevant, but it's not really about moving onto new platforms where you have no choice but to learn new languages, rather about new ways of doing things. People who are used to procedural code are going to be very wary if you're sure a functional approach is the best way to model something.
Also I'm sure you have a wide range and lots of experience, but I really doubt anyone who goes back that far could really mentor someone like myself in things like jQuery or PHP (for example) which I got into as I learned and probably have done much more of.
The main thing I don't like about the "mentor" thing isn't that old guys don't have lots to offer (I work with a couple and they definitely do), but because "mentor" implies the mentor knows everything best and that is the one-way source of all knowledge and always the best person to make the call, and that is far from the truth.
So the idea is you didn't learn it at school, you didn't do it at work, you didn't do it as a hobby, but halfway through another career you can suddenly start doing something specialized but completely unrelated? And that requiring some example projects to prove that you really can make such a sudden shift is "so arrogant" and "bullshit"?
Well.. Good luck, but I'm sure whatever you're moving away from is completely mind-numbing if you think you can just switch a career path halfway though.
Coding full time does mean you spend less time coding as a hobby of course, but the idea that you can go into coding full time having only written academic stuff that you had to write is really misplaced. If you say you enjoy coding and are good at it, yet you don't have any code you want to show off, I just don't think you would be worth hiring.
The incompetent need to eat too.
That's what taxes are for.
Why not mentor the moron. Maybe they will turn out to be Einstein.
Hiring someone to help with the workload in your department only to have to mentor them is a terrible outcome.
Software is one of those industries which is moving so fast that being anchored in the past is a huge disadvantage. If you're young and have a "mentor" who is over 35 I think you're going to hear a lot of prejudice against the good new ideas, and that they will want you to learn what that they can continue to mentor you in, not what's most relevant or useful.
When it comes to software the only thing you can really trust is your own hard won experience. It'll probably me also resist change when I'm older, but if I don't follow it now I'll just miss out and delay progress.
I have to agree.. If you went through years of school and never wrote anything by yourself for people other than yourself are you really going to enjoy developing software anyway?
I wrote some JavaScript for a web game I wrote, just to take some load off the server: I did it quickly as an emergency measure, but I used the Prototype framework to try and make things easier and quicker.
Once I was done, writing it only for Firefox 3 and IE8, I found it all worked perfectly on IE6 (the simple CSS would look awful, but this pretty complex JS code ran first time). Since then it has needed little maintenance, has been extended by others, and works fine on all modern smartphone browsers (having been developed on and written with only Firefox and IE8 in mind).
There aren't many IE6-era standards which can still be used to do decent things: 99% of JavaScript sucks ass, but what's amazing is that the other 1% makes up for it so well. It could have been much worse (see ActiveX, VBscript, Flash, Java applets, for the alternatives championed with much more backing)..
It's just the old problem of a language being easy to write bad code in and/or a good language on a bad/inconsistent platform. Some JavaScript is a nightmare, and no-one would dispute that, but if you use a decent framework like Prototype, jQuery, or YUI, and don't try and write JavaScript like Java, you can write some very neat, concise, well-structured code.
As an aside: If you want something to show you why JavaScript doesn't have to be so bad (but not glossing over the awful stuff to avoid) check out Crockford's 6 lectures on JavaScript (much more than a dry guide to syntax).
He's also involved with the standards process and gives his commentary on the future along the way.