The recruiter asked, "Why would you at 39 still want to be a programmer? Shouldn't you be doing something else?"
This sort of thinking is common in IT. A lot of people view programming as something they have to do on their way to becoming a project manager. Needless to say, these people aren't very good programmers themselves, and they tend to view other programmers as "resources" instead of human beings, which means that there are vasts amounts of untapped skill in most IT shops. Anyway, thanks for reading, I'll step off my soapbox now...
BTW, I'm a 39 year old programmer, I don't do anything much other than Unix, C, and relational DBs, and I've never had problems finding work. I'm not sure where all these unemployed "older" programmers come from, but they're not from around here (MN).
Why is everyone so down on this whole idea? Just because it may not be typical Linux/OS stuff doesn't mean it isn't going to be really cool.
I've been following the Amiga news on/. quite closely for the past couple of weeks, and I've been wondering the same thing. One thing in particular -- Amiga isn't doomed to repeat their past mistakes as some people evidently feel is inevitable. Amiga is under new ownership, and they are in no way obligated to follow Commadore's example of ineptness. Some people seem to be blaming Gateway for Commadore's inablility to inovate or ship products.
I have no idea why this attitude is so prevalent, but I'm currently entertaining the theory that/. has been invaded by a disgruntled Atari ST user's group.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Sax. (The X configurator.)
I've never had any luck with Sax. I tried it with both SuSE 6.0/RIVA 128 and SuSE 6.1/RIVA TNT, and both times is hung the system when I tried to save the configuration and exit. I couldn't even kill the X server or soft boot; had to turn the power off. I ended up moving X86Config over from my OpenLinux installation.
Anyone else had this problem?
TedC
Re:No thanks, SGI analysts suggest STRONG BUY inst
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You also probably thought both Microsoft and Intel were going out of business 10 years ago because of the 640K 286 addressing limitation.
That was the 8086, not the 80286. The 80286 has a 24-bit address bus that can access 16 MB of physical memory. Actually, it's not even the 8086, which can access 1 MB of physical memory. IBM resevered the top 384K for the ROM BIOS and video frame buffers, hence the infamous 640K "limit".
Not that this pertains to the discussion or anything, but this is News for Nerds, after all.:-)
What are they doing that is tied to the platform? Are they planning on using any of the specialized hardware the new Amigas are supposed to have or what?
Nobody outside of Amiga knows for sure, but as long as everyone else is speculating, I'll throw in my two cents.
Amiga seems to have pretty ambitious plans for the time frame that they're working in; I seriously doubt that they can get half of what they've announced done by the time they ship. Either that, or their ship date is going to slip badly. I wouldn't be suprised to find the initial release of the Amiga OE to be little more than Linux (probably Debian/Corel) with Workbench hacked on top. I'm sure Amiga loyalists would damn this to hell before they even tried it, but I might like it.:-)
The other possibility is that they've been planning this for a some time, and already have a significant amount of coding done. This seems less likely.
In any case, most of the special features and capabilities the Amiga probably wouldn't be utilized by an office suite, at least not initially. OpenGL 3D dancing paperclips? I hope not!:-)
Macs don't have that, either. So are you going to run out and get a Mac now because of that?
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a new Samsung toaster oven.
It matters because having cruft close to the hardware like that doesn't do any favors for programmers. System programming is challenging enough without having to deal with quirks in the hardware. A software bug can be fixed, but insane hardware can torment one for years.
Java goes one step further by throwing confusing and proven bad pitfalls away, including pointers, templates, and broken control struct expressions.
Pointers and templates aren't confusing or bad; they're both powerful features if you know how to use them. It's very difficult (nearly impossible) to implement a generic programming language without them -- this alone makes the indispensible.
Except for USB support and DVD support I don't see anything here that we don't already have.
I think the big deal is what the Amiga MCC won't have -- the ancient PC/AT architecture.
No more IRQ2->IRQ9 cascade, shared interrupts, or a ROM chip full of obsolete BIOS routines. Sounds like they're using an off-the-shelf ATI graphics chip, so I guess CGA/EGA/VGA emulation will still be around, tho.
It looks to me that they plan to cherry pick the best features from available hardware, the same way Linux has done with software. The end result could be better than the sum of the parts, if they make the right design decisions.
It seams strange that a new MM system will only have 32MB RAM as standard.
I thought the same. Reading between the lines, it seems as though they plan to solder 32 MB on the motherboard, and one or two DIMM sockets for expansion. Hopefully two. 128 MB seems like a more reasonable amount of RAM for a base system, but Amigas have always come out of the box memory starved -- the 1000 had 256K (+256K expansion) back when most PCs had 640K.
Income tax in the United States started out as a very small tax on very rich people, and it was supposed to be a temporary measure. This email tax is just more of the same.
Open source projects work better when there's more than one person working on it...
Maybe.
With one person working on a program, the end result is conceptually pure -- one person's idea of how things should be done. If you can add two other people with similar abilities and goals, things can get better, since you now have ideas bouncing back and forth on how to improve things. If concensus can be reached, this is ideal. Posting "developers needed for project xyz", however, almost always ends up with about a hundred people trying to get their name associated with the project, and about 10% of the people doing all the real work.
But the best reason NOT to use the new Amiga is that many of us got fscked over when Atari/Commodor/TI killed our favorite computer. The reason I work on Linux is that this cannot happen.
Excellent point. It will be interesting to see what Amiga plans to do with their software licensing, releasing specs on hardware, etc. Strict proprietary licensing could really dampen my enthusiasm.
Amiga fans trivialize what was a good hardware/software platform by assuming that the current owners of the trademark have anything to do with past success.
The first Amiga was a standout because of it's advanced hardware and OS at a bargain price. This opportunity no longer exists; hardware is a commodity item, and advanced operating systems are free (speech and beer).
What hasn't changed is the desire to make a computer better than anyone has before. Something "insanely great", as Steve Jobs would say.
Gateway is in a better position to do this than Commadore ever was. At least they've demonstrated their ability to successfully run a business over the long haul, which is something Commadore had problems with. As long as Amiga remains atonamous, they have the chance to do something great.
I'm dismayed at the number of/. posters (not to single you out in particular) who are predicting certain failure for Amiga, and seem to have no vision for what can be done. Someday someone will create a better computer, but it won't be done by people who are living in the past.
I didn't know anyone who bought one, because they were apparently very expensive.
The MircoMoog cost about $900 twenty years ago (yes, I'm really that old), and I think the MiniMoog must have been about double that. They could probably redesign the thing, retain the original sound, and end up with a Moog on a PCI card for less than $100. There's probably not much demand for them, tho.
The desire to quickly abandon a technology that's been around for as long as film has in exchange for a technology as new as digital is foolish.
I wouldn't call it quickly -- agonizingly slow is more like it.
I worked in the photo industry from 1985-1991, and I've been waiting ever since for a good, high resolution, affordable digital camera to replace my aging 1987 Canon EOS 650.
Is Moog still around? Last time I looked at synthesizers in a store, they were mostly Roland and Korg, and they were all digital.
I almost bought a MicroMoog way back, and I wish I had. As I recall, it was a single oscilator, and had that weird ribbon pitch bender. I used ARPs instead, which was a mistake, I think.
But while we're on the subject of digital cameras, does anyone know of one that works under linux?
Sony's digital cameras us floppies for storage -- you can't get much more portable than that. The FD91 is especially interesting; it has a 14X zoom with an image stabilizer that's 518mm f3.4 on the long end (35mm equiv.).
The down side is that you can't get may images on a floppy. A model that used 150 MB ZIP disks would be sweet.
On the plus side, using floppies means that at least the camera is big enough to hold for someone with big hands.
What have they said to make you think that? All they said was "Linux kernel." Can you even think of one reason why they would want to use X?
By using X they instantly gain access to a software base of thousands of existing programs, as well as anything written for Linux/BSD in the future. A lot of operating systems have failed in the marketplace because they didn't have a sufficiently large base of user software; by using X, Amiga can avoid this trap.
X isn't perfect, but with XFree86 adding OpenGL to 4.0, it should suit the Amiga faily well.
Um, right now Linux is more mainstream than Amiga is.
There are a few companies pre-installing Linux (VA Linux Systems, Penguin, Dell, etc.), but none of these systems are available at retail stores where most people buy their computers. Linux does not even exist at CompUSA and Best Buy, except in a box on the shelf. All of the systems they sell are preconfigured with either Windows or MacOS.
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The recruiter asked, "Why would you at 39 still want to be a programmer? Shouldn't you be doing something else?"
This sort of thinking is common in IT. A lot of people view programming as something they have to do on their way to becoming a project manager. Needless to say, these people aren't very good programmers themselves, and they tend to view other programmers as "resources" instead of human beings, which means that there are vasts amounts of untapped skill in most IT shops. Anyway, thanks for reading, I'll step off my soapbox now...
BTW, I'm a 39 year old programmer, I don't do anything much other than Unix, C, and relational DBs, and I've never had problems finding work. I'm not sure where all these unemployed "older" programmers come from, but they're not from around here (MN).
TedC
I was using a RIVA 128 for SuSE 6.0, and then upgraded to a RIVA TNT when I installed SuSE 6.1. Both boards are supported by XFree86 3.3.3.1.
TedC
I've been following the Amiga news on /. quite closely for the past couple of weeks, and I've been wondering the same thing. One thing in particular -- Amiga isn't doomed to repeat their past mistakes as some people evidently feel is inevitable. Amiga is under new ownership, and they are in no way obligated to follow Commadore's example of ineptness. Some people seem to be blaming Gateway for Commadore's inablility to inovate or ship products.
I have no idea why this attitude is so prevalent, but I'm currently entertaining the theory that /. has been invaded by a disgruntled Atari ST user's group.
TedC
I've never had any luck with Sax. I tried it with both SuSE 6.0/RIVA 128 and SuSE 6.1/RIVA TNT, and both times is hung the system when I tried to save the configuration and exit. I couldn't even kill the X server or soft boot; had to turn the power off. I ended up moving X86Config over from my OpenLinux installation.
Anyone else had this problem?
TedC
That was the 8086, not the 80286. The 80286 has a 24-bit address bus that can access 16 MB of physical memory. Actually, it's not even the 8086, which can access 1 MB of physical memory. IBM resevered the top 384K for the ROM BIOS and video frame buffers, hence the infamous 640K "limit".
Not that this pertains to the discussion or anything, but this is News for Nerds, after all. :-)
TedC
TedC
Nobody outside of Amiga knows for sure, but as long as everyone else is speculating, I'll throw in my two cents.
Amiga seems to have pretty ambitious plans for the time frame that they're working in; I seriously doubt that they can get half of what they've announced done by the time they ship. Either that, or their ship date is going to slip badly. I wouldn't be suprised to find the initial release of the Amiga OE to be little more than Linux (probably Debian/Corel) with Workbench hacked on top. I'm sure Amiga loyalists would damn this to hell before they even tried it, but I might like it. :-)
The other possibility is that they've been planning this for a some time, and already have a significant amount of coding done. This seems less likely.
In any case, most of the special features and capabilities the Amiga probably wouldn't be utilized by an office suite, at least not initially. OpenGL 3D dancing paperclips? I hope not! :-)
TedC
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a new Samsung toaster oven.
It matters because having cruft close to the hardware like that doesn't do any favors for programmers. System programming is challenging enough without having to deal with quirks in the hardware. A software bug can be fixed, but insane hardware can torment one for years.
TedC
Pointers and templates aren't confusing or bad; they're both powerful features if you know how to use them. It's very difficult (nearly impossible) to implement a generic programming language without them -- this alone makes the indispensible.
TedC
PS. You forgot to trash overloaded operators. ;-)
I think the big deal is what the Amiga MCC won't have -- the ancient PC/AT architecture.
No more IRQ2->IRQ9 cascade, shared interrupts, or a ROM chip full of obsolete BIOS routines. Sounds like they're using an off-the-shelf ATI graphics chip, so I guess CGA/EGA/VGA emulation will still be around, tho.
It looks to me that they plan to cherry pick the best features from available hardware, the same way Linux has done with software. The end result could be better than the sum of the parts, if they make the right design decisions.
TedC
I thought the same. Reading between the lines, it seems as though they plan to solder 32 MB on the motherboard, and one or two DIMM sockets for expansion. Hopefully two. 128 MB seems like a more reasonable amount of RAM for a base system, but Amigas have always come out of the box memory starved -- the 1000 had 256K (+256K expansion) back when most PCs had 640K.
TedC
TedC
Maybe.
With one person working on a program, the end result is conceptually pure -- one person's idea of how things should be done. If you can add two other people with similar abilities and goals, things can get better, since you now have ideas bouncing back and forth on how to improve things. If concensus can be reached, this is ideal. Posting "developers needed for project xyz", however, almost always ends up with about a hundred people trying to get their name associated with the project, and about 10% of the people doing all the real work.
TedC
Excellent point. It will be interesting to see what Amiga plans to do with their software licensing, releasing specs on hardware, etc. Strict proprietary licensing could really dampen my enthusiasm.
TedC
TedC
The first Amiga was a standout because of it's advanced hardware and OS at a bargain price. This opportunity no longer exists; hardware is a commodity item, and advanced operating systems are free (speech and beer).
What hasn't changed is the desire to make a computer better than anyone has before. Something "insanely great", as Steve Jobs would say.
Gateway is in a better position to do this than Commadore ever was. At least they've demonstrated their ability to successfully run a business over the long haul, which is something Commadore had problems with. As long as Amiga remains atonamous, they have the chance to do something great.
I'm dismayed at the number of /. posters (not to single you out in particular) who are predicting certain failure for Amiga, and seem to have no vision for what can be done. Someday someone will create a better computer, but it won't be done by people who are living in the past.
TedC
The MircoMoog cost about $900 twenty years ago (yes, I'm really that old), and I think the MiniMoog must have been about double that. They could probably redesign the thing, retain the original sound, and end up with a Moog on a PCI card for less than $100. There's probably not much demand for them, tho.
TedC
I wouldn't call it quickly -- agonizingly slow is more like it.
I worked in the photo industry from 1985-1991, and I've been waiting ever since for a good, high resolution, affordable digital camera to replace my aging 1987 Canon EOS 650.
TedC
Is Moog still around? Last time I looked at synthesizers in a store, they were mostly Roland and Korg, and they were all digital.
I almost bought a MicroMoog way back, and I wish I had. As I recall, it was a single oscilator, and had that weird ribbon pitch bender. I used ARPs instead, which was a mistake, I think.
TedC
I meant 250 MB ZIP disks...
I have a Carvin solid state that sounds more like a tube amp than a tube amp, as long as it's overdriven a sufficient amount (pre set to 3 or higher).
TedC
Sony's digital cameras us floppies for storage -- you can't get much more portable than that. The FD91 is especially interesting; it has a 14X zoom with an image stabilizer that's 518mm f3.4 on the long end (35mm equiv.).
The down side is that you can't get may images on a floppy. A model that used 150 MB ZIP disks would be sweet.
On the plus side, using floppies means that at least the camera is big enough to hold for someone with big hands.
TedC
By using X they instantly gain access to a software base of thousands of existing programs, as well as anything written for Linux/BSD in the future. A lot of operating systems have failed in the marketplace because they didn't have a sufficiently large base of user software; by using X, Amiga can avoid this trap.
X isn't perfect, but with XFree86 adding OpenGL to 4.0, it should suit the Amiga faily well.
TedC
Yes, I do.
TedC
There are a few companies pre-installing Linux (VA Linux Systems, Penguin, Dell, etc.), but none of these systems are available at retail stores where most people buy their computers. Linux does not even exist at CompUSA and Best Buy, except in a box on the shelf. All of the systems they sell are preconfigured with either Windows or MacOS.
If Amiga is smart, they can change this.
TedC