Yes, you leave and go work for another company in the same industry, and there's a good chance that it also throws ridiculous amounts of money towards the executives. Of course, this should be reigned in by the board-of-directors. But often, the board members at one place are the executives at another, so you have a club of people who think they deserve this kind of wealth.
Those of us with our retirement money in mutual funds (most 401K's) are invested in these companies, and don't like to see money thrown away like this.
That's what works for me. Need to implement a large piece of code and don't know where to start? Pick the easiest part of the project, and implement that. Repeat. Before you know it, you're all done. This works particularly well with an object-oriented language like C++, since there are usually lots of little methods you can work on.
Another thing I find that helps: At the end of the day, try to leave something trivial for the start of the next day. That way, if you're not a morning person, you have something to warm up with until the coffee kicks in.
The above also works for writing. Tell yourself that you're going to write a 200-page novel, and you'll probably never get started. Instead, think of how a story might begin, and just write a couple pages. The next day, you'll think about what might happen next, and you add another page or two.
A senior person generally doesn't even need training, as he/she will self-train in a short amount of time. I think there must be employers out there that haven't a clue as to what constitutes being a strong software developer, since they've never hired one.
Vintage music on vintage vinyl on a vintage stereo...
Pretty much describes my setup, except my old Marantz receiver died about 12 years ago, so I have a modern A/V amp. But I still have the Lesa phonograph and KLH 17 speakers I bought as a kid (a looong time ago). I imagine that the speakers are pretty worn, but then my ears probably are too:-)
Good points, but I'm not sure about the thin-client idea. That's fine for office workers using word-processors or spreadsheets, but I'd guess that most of Google's employees are software developers, and they need all the processing power they can get. Would central servers work for them and still be more efficient than desktop work-stations?
Not to alarm you, and please don't take this as an insult, but... repeating the same thing over and over like that may be a sign of autism.
Re:There is a moral to this tale...
on
IT and Divorce?
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· Score: 1
I think the moral is that you're going to come out of this fairly well because you did not get married. You ought to be able to get your share of the house and other common assets, and you won't owe your ex-girl-friend anything else.
Imagine this: Your wife leaves you for another man, legally kicks you ought of the house, and you get to pay her "spousal support" for several years.
Re:Your career doesn't define your divorce.
on
IT and Divorce?
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· Score: 1
I agree that it's not the career. But it can be the type of people that go into that career.
A lot of us male technical types have fairly nerdy personalities, meaning that, growing up, we weren't as socially adept as others. The result is that some (but certainly not all, or even most) techies end up with women that more experienced fellows knew to stay away from. And I think there are certain hard-to-get-along-with women who target men like this (in the same way that abusive men go after women they think will be easy to push around).
Re:Your career doesn't define your divorce.
on
IT and Divorce?
·
· Score: 1
And then, a lot of it is due to the fact that we live much longer than before. If you're in an unhappy marriage, and you know that you're likely to live another 30 or 40 or 50 years, you're a lot more likely to look for a change.
Proprietary software can often be just as dependent on a single person. The big difference is that companies like to hide this; so that person gets no credit or publicity, lest a competitor tries to hire him away. In addition, many executives convince themselves that the lead engineer isn't that important, and that the product's success comes mainly from good management and marketing.
When the top people leave a company, few outsiders know what's going on. But a few years later, users will wonder why the product's quality has gone down.
If there's truly free trade, the American should be able to move to India and work there for $15/hour, which probably provides a better living than $50 in, say, California.
Or, Americans should be able to bid on the project. It's possible that a $50/hour US engineer could do the work entirely on his own, while the Indian project involves hiring 3 $15/hour engineer, along with a $100/hour executive in the US to manage the project.
I don't know about this claim. When my cat has had enough to eat, she sleeps, rather than going out and killing more prey. When we humans have enough to eat, we keep eating until we get fat. When we have a car that gets us around fine, we decide that we need a bigger car.
There's nothing particularly natural about this. Let people know that gas is going to cost $5/gallon, and most will stop buying such large cars. Tell us that if get sick from being overweight (ie, diabetes, heart attacks), we'll have to pay our own medical bills, more of us will make a point of thinning down.
Something I've wondered about (as a long-married geek): If you lived in SmallTown, Arkansas, I can see why you'd want to look in distant places for a mate. But you're in NYC, where there a millions of women!
I work in a group of ~50 software engineers with just one manager, so we're rarely told what to work on. How do I decide what to do?
1. I look at the bug list and pick ones that are critical and/or I have knowledge of. Often, a "bug" is really a missing feature or one that isn't well-implemented, so it's not just a quick fix. 2. I talk to marketing people, field-engineers, or support people. 3. We're implementing a new language, so I'll often look through the reference manual for features we haven't yet implemented.
And of course, I need to talk to the other engineers who work in the same area as myself so that we don't duplicate effort.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, and I've been writing software almost 30 years. It would be more accurate to call it "software art".
True. I'm thinking of Roberta Williams and the King's Quest series she wrote for Sierra On-Line.
Yes, you leave and go work for another company in the same industry, and there's a good chance that it also throws ridiculous amounts of money towards the executives. Of course, this should be reigned in by the board-of-directors. But often, the board members at one place are the executives at another, so you have a club of people who think they deserve this kind of wealth.
Those of us with our retirement money in mutual funds (most 401K's) are invested in these companies, and don't like to see money thrown away like this.
That's what works for me. Need to implement a large piece of code and don't know where to start? Pick the easiest part of the project, and implement that. Repeat. Before you know it, you're all done. This works particularly well with an object-oriented language like C++, since there are usually lots of little methods you can work on.
Another thing I find that helps: At the end of the day, try to leave something trivial for the start of the next day. That way, if you're not a morning person, you have something to warm up with until the coffee kicks in.
The above also works for writing. Tell yourself that you're going to write a 200-page novel, and you'll probably never get started. Instead, think of how a story might begin, and just write a couple pages. The next day, you'll think about what might happen next, and you add another page or two.
Maybe someone will start selling a cellphone jamming device.
The airline should provide a "Cone of Silence" for cellphone users.
Blender's cryptic interface was developed long ago when it was proprietary software. Since becoming open-source, it has improved quite a bit.
There are many purely open-source projects, such as Amarok and K3b, that have perfectly fine UI's.
Yes, I feel the same way. And I don't think it's that odd, as:
1. You don't have to be Japanese to like sushi.
2. You don't have to be Latino to like pinatas.
3. You don't have to be Christian to like Christmas.
Funniest thing I've read in days! Wish I'd saved a mod. point for this.
A senior person generally doesn't even need training, as he/she will self-train in a short amount of time. I think there must be employers out there that haven't a clue as to what constitutes being a strong software developer, since they've never hired one.
Pretty much describes my setup, except my old Marantz receiver died about 12 years ago, so I have a modern A/V amp. But I still have the Lesa phonograph and KLH 17 speakers I bought as a kid (a looong time ago). I imagine that the speakers are pretty worn, but then my ears probably are too:-)
Good points, but I'm not sure about the thin-client idea. That's fine for office workers using word-processors or spreadsheets, but I'd guess that most of Google's employees are software developers, and they need all the processing power they can get. Would central servers work for them and still be more efficient than desktop work-stations?
Not to alarm you, and please don't take this as an insult, but... repeating the same thing over and over like that may be a sign of autism.
I think the moral is that you're going to come out of this fairly well because you did not get married. You ought to be able to get your share of the house and other common assets, and you won't owe your ex-girl-friend anything else.
Imagine this: Your wife leaves you for another man, legally kicks you ought of the house, and you get to pay her "spousal support" for several years.
I agree that it's not the career. But it can be the type of people that go into that career.
A lot of us male technical types have fairly nerdy personalities, meaning that, growing up, we weren't as socially adept as others. The result is that some (but certainly not all, or even most) techies end up with women that more experienced fellows knew to stay away from. And I think there are certain hard-to-get-along-with women who target men like this (in the same way that abusive men go after women they think will be easy to push around).
And then, a lot of it is due to the fact that we live much longer than before. If you're in an unhappy marriage, and you know that you're likely to live another 30 or 40 or 50 years, you're a lot more likely to look for a change.
Proprietary software can often be just as dependent on a single person. The big difference is that companies like to hide this; so that person gets no credit or publicity, lest a competitor tries to hire him away. In addition, many executives convince themselves that the lead engineer isn't that important, and that the product's success comes mainly from good management and marketing.
When the top people leave a company, few outsiders know what's going on. But a few years later, users will wonder why the product's quality has gone down.
If there's truly free trade, the American should be able to move to India and work there for $15/hour, which probably provides a better living than $50 in, say, California.
Or, Americans should be able to bid on the project. It's possible that a $50/hour US engineer could do the work entirely on his own, while the Indian project involves hiring 3 $15/hour engineer, along with a $100/hour executive in the US to manage the project.
Well, you didn't ask me, but I'm going to give you the secret to my success anyway:
Learn to type fast!
The faster you type, the faster you write code:-) It also helps you when you're typing stuff in the debugger.
Great choices. I'd say that Gabriel Knight is almost a perfect game: great plot, atmosphere, and voice-acting.
I don't know about this claim. When my cat has had enough to eat, she sleeps, rather than going out and killing more prey. When we humans have enough to eat, we keep eating until we get fat. When we have a car that gets us around fine, we decide that we need a bigger car.
There's nothing particularly natural about this. Let people know that gas is going to cost $5/gallon, and most will stop buying such large cars. Tell us that if get sick from being overweight (ie, diabetes, heart attacks), we'll have to pay our own medical bills, more of us will make a point of thinning down.
Something I've wondered about (as a long-married geek): If you lived in SmallTown, Arkansas, I can see why you'd want to look in distant places for a mate. But you're in NYC, where there a millions of women!
I wonder, could you simply lie and say $50,000, even if you make much more than that?
I work in a group of ~50 software engineers with just one manager, so we're rarely told what to work on. How do I decide what to do?
1. I look at the bug list and pick ones that are critical and/or I have knowledge of. Often, a "bug" is really a missing feature or one that isn't well-implemented, so it's not just a quick fix.
2. I talk to marketing people, field-engineers, or support people.
3. We're implementing a new language, so I'll often look through the reference manual for features we haven't yet implemented.
And of course, I need to talk to the other engineers who work in the same area as myself so that we don't duplicate effort.