The fact that teens sneak out does not mean that the parents aren't lousy. They're still responsible, and they're still lousy for letting their teen sneak out in the first place. More to the point they are lousy parents for forcing their kid to feel like they have to lie and / or sneak out to do the things they want. I didn't sneak out, because I knew I could go to my parents and tell them exactly where I was going.
Spoken like a person who is either not a parent or a parent in denial. You gotta be kidding me. Even parents need to sleep sometime. I have a teenage boy at home, I'm fairly certain that because of the way my wife and I have raised him that he isn't sneaking out at night and he probably won't for at least another couple of years. The one thing I am sure about is that no matter how good my and my wife's parenting skills are, he will push his limits. At some point he is either going to sneak out, break curfew or do something else just as stupid and I'm going to have to come down on him for it. I did it, my siblings did it, my wife did it, her siblings did it, I think I may know 1 person who didn't. It's part of growing up, it's part of being human. We test our limits to find out how far we can go before consequences set in.
They are a complete waste of time and intellect and by "selling" your characters and / or platinum you are doing nothing more than perpetuating the problem. Keep wasting your time on these games and what kind of a job do you really think you can get? Game testing? Good luck, there are millions of players out there who will do it for free. Developing these games? If you're playing them, when do you have time to learn how to code? Not to mention the whole "face to face" thing. If you think touching the fun parts of another online character is the same as touching the fun parts of a real person, you are either a pre-teen n00b, or a border line serial killer, you decide.
MMORPGs, XBox Live and all these other on-line games are great if you want meet other people "on-line", but if you spend your time playing them, when do you actually meet these other people? Get out of your basements, go meet people. There is more to getting a job, any job, than just knowing how to do it. You need to be able to talk to people without a keyboard and an idealized avatar of yourself. There has to be a balance in your life between knowing how to do the job and being able to function in society without that damn keyboard.
If you have the choice between 1) Doing actual, real development work, 2) Playing some on-line game and 3) Going out and meeting real people, wich 2 are you going to choose? If one of your choices is not #3, you got problems and if one them is #2 then you are either giving up on your chosen profession or giving up on the human race.
Again, it's your choice, I just don't see any real benefit from being locked in your room / basement / bathroom / where ever and playing games. They do nothing to teach you about IT and nothing about real human interaction.
There are a lot of emotions, facts and fallacies brought to the surface when this topic is broached. Myself, I've been doing computer work for over 25 years and I don't have that damn piece of paper handed out to anyone with the money to complete 4 years of college. That doesn't mean I haven't gone to college, I just didn't finish it. I have 2 years of college with a double in Computer Science and Graphic Communications. Why did I leave? Because it's kind of counter productive for me to pay for college when I'm the one teaching the students and even in a couple of instances, assigning the books. I am entirely self taught. I have spent at least as much money on books and as much time reading them as any university student has spent on the education and time in class. The simple fact of the matter is this; colleges and universities in the U.S. (and probably around the world) are at the very least, 6 months behind the technology curve with professors who haven't spent actual time in the industry for many years. There are exceptions, I found one, but they are few and far between.
My best advice to anyone entering the technology field is to buy books, read and work on projects outside of work and / or school. You will learn more in 6 months doing this, than what you will learn in your entire time at college. Yes, that means you have to give up your pledging of some homo-erotic fraternity, drinking every night and playing those godforsaken MMORPGs. There is only one thing you need concern yourself about outside of the industry at this time, women, don't give up on women, they are important and in the right circumstances let you touch their fun parts. Geek womyn / grrls are especially nice because they will challenge you intellectually and will understand when you need to spend 12 hours behind the computer writing a program for work.
As far as "out sourcing" of our industry goes; it has been my experience that the people coming out of India are not as well versed in the industry as those of us who have spent time reading the books and doing projects outside of work. What we have to remember is this, if you are going to enter this industry you have to be willing to "work" outside of work, you have to be the best at what you do and be willing to either admit to what you don't know, or be willing to learn it in under 2 weeks. Part of the reason we are seeing this out sourcing of our industry is because there are way too many people out there who have entered this industry because they think that because they know how to launch FrontPage or know how to write viruses in VisualBasic that they are able to write enterprise level applications. So, companies hired them, found them to be the idiots they are and decided to go off shore where the knowledge is similar and the wages are less. If that is the way you are or you are in this industry only because of the money, GET OUT, you are the ones causing the off shoring and giving those of us who actually know the difference between pointer arithmetic and managed code a bad name. Go take a job at Burger King, finish your management degree, and get out of my industry, you don't belong, you're not needed.
Wayne E. Pfeffer Developer with a job and have never had a problem finding one.
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The fact that teens sneak out does not mean that the parents aren't lousy. They're still responsible, and they're still lousy for letting their teen sneak out in the first place. More to the point they are lousy parents for forcing their kid to feel like they have to lie and / or sneak out to do the things they want. I didn't sneak out, because I knew I could go to my parents and tell them exactly where I was going.
Spoken like a person who is either not a parent or a parent in denial. You gotta be kidding me. Even parents need to sleep sometime. I have a teenage boy at home, I'm fairly certain that because of the way my wife and I have raised him that he isn't sneaking out at night and he probably won't for at least another couple of years. The one thing I am sure about is that no matter how good my and my wife's parenting skills are, he will push his limits. At some point he is either going to sneak out, break curfew or do something else just as stupid and I'm going to have to come down on him for it. I did it, my siblings did it, my wife did it, her siblings did it, I think I may know 1 person who didn't. It's part of growing up, it's part of being human. We test our limits to find out how far we can go before consequences set in.
They are a complete waste of time and intellect and by "selling" your characters and / or platinum you are doing nothing more than perpetuating the problem. Keep wasting your time on these games and what kind of a job do you really think you can get? Game testing? Good luck, there are millions of players out there who will do it for free. Developing these games? If you're playing them, when do you have time to learn how to code? Not to mention the whole "face to face" thing. If you think touching the fun parts of another online character is the same as touching the fun parts of a real person, you are either a pre-teen n00b, or a border line serial killer, you decide.
MMORPGs, XBox Live and all these other on-line games are great if you want meet other people "on-line", but if you spend your time playing them, when do you actually meet these other people? Get out of your basements, go meet people. There is more to getting a job, any job, than just knowing how to do it. You need to be able to talk to people without a keyboard and an idealized avatar of yourself. There has to be a balance in your life between knowing how to do the job and being able to function in society without that damn keyboard.
If you have the choice between 1) Doing actual, real development work, 2) Playing some on-line game and 3) Going out and meeting real people, wich 2 are you going to choose? If one of your choices is not #3, you got problems and if one them is #2 then you are either giving up on your chosen profession or giving up on the human race.
Again, it's your choice, I just don't see any real benefit from being locked in your room / basement / bathroom / where ever and playing games. They do nothing to teach you about IT and nothing about real human interaction.
Wayne E. Pfeffer
There are a lot of emotions, facts and fallacies brought to the surface when this topic is broached. Myself, I've been doing computer work for over 25 years and I don't have that damn piece of paper handed out to anyone with the money to complete 4 years of college. That doesn't mean I haven't gone to college, I just didn't finish it. I have 2 years of college with a double in Computer Science and Graphic Communications. Why did I leave? Because it's kind of counter productive for me to pay for college when I'm the one teaching the students and even in a couple of instances, assigning the books. I am entirely self taught. I have spent at least as much money on books and as much time reading them as any university student has spent on the education and time in class. The simple fact of the matter is this; colleges and universities in the U.S. (and probably around the world) are at the very least, 6 months behind the technology curve with professors who haven't spent actual time in the industry for many years. There are exceptions, I found one, but they are few and far between.
My best advice to anyone entering the technology field is to buy books, read and work on projects outside of work and / or school. You will learn more in 6 months doing this, than what you will learn in your entire time at college. Yes, that means you have to give up your pledging of some homo-erotic fraternity, drinking every night and playing those godforsaken MMORPGs. There is only one thing you need concern yourself about outside of the industry at this time, women, don't give up on women, they are important and in the right circumstances let you touch their fun parts. Geek womyn / grrls are especially nice because they will challenge you intellectually and will understand when you need to spend 12 hours behind the computer writing a program for work.
As far as "out sourcing" of our industry goes; it has been my experience that the people coming out of India are not as well versed in the industry as those of us who have spent time reading the books and doing projects outside of work. What we have to remember is this, if you are going to enter this industry you have to be willing to "work" outside of work, you have to be the best at what you do and be willing to either admit to what you don't know, or be willing to learn it in under 2 weeks. Part of the reason we are seeing this out sourcing of our industry is because there are way too many people out there who have entered this industry because they think that because they know how to launch FrontPage or know how to write viruses in VisualBasic that they are able to write enterprise level applications. So, companies hired them, found them to be the idiots they are and decided to go off shore where the knowledge is similar and the wages are less. If that is the way you are or you are in this industry only because of the money, GET OUT, you are the ones causing the off shoring and giving those of us who actually know the difference between pointer arithmetic and managed code a bad name. Go take a job at Burger King, finish your management degree, and get out of my industry, you don't belong, you're not needed.
Wayne E. Pfeffer
Developer with a job and have never had a problem finding one.