Yeah, I get burned each time I get 'shiny object syndrome'. I just HAVE to have this new motherboard and pay top dollar for it, only to find out my revision won't support technology X because there is a bug. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
Actually, we live and die by the clock:)
Well, for my own part, mostly die. Speaking of which, I have to leave for work; I'm already going to be 5 minutes late.
You know, I always thought that was kinda' funny... our president side stepping a question with all the grace of a sanitation worker performing interpretive dance... and then I realized that everyone who has taken philosophy in college has paid both time and money to discuss exactly what the meaning of 'is' is. I think it's even more ironic from that point of view. Kinda' like how when you're young Bugs Bunny is funny and when you grow up and get the references, Bugs Bunny is friggin' hilarious!
While I agree with absolutely everything you've said, I have one bone to pick with you on the C++ issue. It's not the standards committees' fault that GCC-3.2 will let me increment a pointer inline (against ISO definition of an lvalue) and that same code doesn't compile on GCC-3.4 which does honor the ISO standard. The problem isn't the language, it's the implementation. The same could be said for GNU's JVM, which I had the displeasure of forcefully ripping out of a Linux distro a few weeks ago when it ramped up the CPU to full utilization while I had Eclipse sitting idle.
Bah, I threw out my Youtube ages ago and only watch television now. I also make a point of mentioning it at every possible opportunity on message boards.
But honestly, and no sugar coating the answer, are you at all bitter about Comcast sending you that letter about your bandwidth usage?
Change their behavior? come on...these are teenagers...they'll just look for another way...say a friends computer or a shared computer.[...] I don't pirate software any more; I kinda' always assured myself that once I could afford software, I'd buy it. I also have my own moral issues with infringing. Ironically, being a software development major in college, I got fairly hardcore in to open source.
Anyways, prior to that, and in response to your post, "what, am I the only one who remembers the good old days of the 'sneaker net'? This game only requires two players, a mix of VIC-20's and/or Commodore-64's (or "IBM Compatible", depending on your age and what your cousin gave you when he upgraded), a neighborhood and bikes with baseball cards in the wheel spokes. Copy the disk (and the sheet of codes in the back of the manual for piracy protection, I forget what we used to call them), play the game twice, get bored of it, and repeat with another neighborhood kid. Just DON'T be that "kid whose computer can't run anything"! That's how you'll find yourself out of the loop at the bus stop.
Just wondering, can you give a rundown of what bothers you about Vista? Whenever I read reviews, they're always for a gimped version and I try to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt... but you're the second person I've heard of that has Ultimate and going back to XP. The other guy who told me this said it was because he could never find the underlying 'knobs' if he wanted to do anything non-trivial.
Personally, I'll probably never run Vista (and I'm running XP, BSD, OSX, Linux, and Solaris on occasion), if anything I'll skip it like the whole ME fiasco and wait for something that isn't made to fill a void between new technologies. However, sooner or later, this issue is going to affect me at work when our aging Dell desktops are starting to drop at about the same time I can no longer get XP preinstalled. My gut says buy OEM XP 10 packs and build 10 white boxes at volume cost for 10 cases, motherboards, etc... We only have about 10 desktops, but that seems to be the first discount tier for software and hardware. Then again, maybe it's just cheaper to save my time and buy preinstalled Vista if it'll play nicely with Samba(4 by then) and the 5 applications we actually use.
I didn't find this surprising (most developers/LOVE/ *NIX), until I read that you were in mgmt. Were you a developer who had the misfortune of being punished for writing good code by being dragged in to management? Or were you actually a manager... that would surprise me. I'm a software development major in college, among my peers it's almost a running joke that management just doesn't *get* *nix yet, but it'll grow on them over time if they give it a chance. I'd really be surprised to hear that technical managers (who aren't from a development or admin background) are running *nix, regardless of company. When I heard that the new CEO of Red Hat used to run Slackware, I/still/ nearly fell out of my chair!
If I may interject... isn't listing the languages part of the problem? Great developers don't care about languages in the same sense that recruiters do; we study languages from an abstract point of view. What are the weaknesses and advantages of this language? How does it 'play with others' interface wise?
If you're looking for a great programmer, it'll be the person who says, "none of the languages I am familiar with are a good fit for your problem, but I think *insert language here* that I've read up on a bit might fit it much better, as per your requirements. Give me a week to learn it, and I've got to get *insert plugin name here* for *insert IDE chosen for technological merits*." Not the person who says, "yeah, I can make *language* do that" without hesitation. Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers or are afraid to learn new languages where merited, and you will do well!
I had a high school teacher who was a retired navy nerd herder. He was a brilliant man, and I respected him very much; he just wanted to teach young minds. I used to stay after school and talk with him, and soak up as much as I could from him.
He had a theory that he explained to me about managing any group of people. There are 3 kinds of people described as:
-1s : these people will be a detriment to whatever project they are put on. They will drag down the next group, and group after that even more so.
0s : these people will do what they are told, nothing more, nothing less. They won't have an impact on the other two groups.
+1s : these are people who will succeed, are self driven, and go above and beyond without being asked. They're natural leaders, and the previous group (0s) will follow them, and -1s will avoid them. They won't try to lead (as they probably have no desire to lead), but will lead by example. On top of this, they are extremely rare and difficult to keep once you have them.
The only group you can really 'mold', one way or the other, are the 0s. Fortunately, they are the majority of the people you will work with.
I heard, a number of years ago, that Australia had bee locked in to using a single provider or two and the cost was astronomical. I think this was in Western Australia primarily, but the situation wasn't too much better even in the more populated Eastern Australia. Do you guys have any competition for broadband out there yet?
I base this on my assumption that hubris will be the RIAA's Archilles, and they'll maintain a brute force via bullying stance up until the bitter end. Bullies only increase aggressiveness when threatened. Just my $0.02, take it with a grain of salt.
While I agree with your assessment, I think you're missing a critical factor; the parents.
Neither of my parents have a degree. My mom had to quit college just short of graduation for circumstances beyond her control, and my dad barely made it out of high school. However, growing up, they both instilled in me a priority for education. Not just education for its own sake, but rather, a priority on learning. My father was stuck in a job that he couldn't stand because it payed enough to provide for a family and it was probably the best he could do without a degree. He always told me not to end up like him, and he's done everything that he can (and more in some cases!) to ensure that I get my degree and have a skill on top of that. So, I'm in college and have an internship.
I know other people whose parents didn't force this issue, and they're mostly just working a job or getting a degree 'because it's the Thing To Do'. Of these people, generally speaking, the ones who went in to the military (more specifically the air force) and learned a trade skill seem to be the best positioned and equipped for life. The people who went on to just learn a trade skill without the discipline of being in the military are still doing alright as they've at least got a skill set at the end of the day. Everyone going to school (my 'group' is just starting to finish undergrad) without a passion for learning has accrued debt, little to no real skill that experience brings, and a sudden sobering sense of reality. They need to get off the treadmill, and don't know how. They are probably at the highest risk for falling in to deep(er) debt and not getting out of the situation. Especially with a mortgage and maybe a family in the somewhat near future.
It appears that IBM is seeking to force patent reform by clogging the system with so many useless applications that soon it will be impossible to swing a dead cat without hitting a patent claim.
Sorry. That should read 'Method for controlling the trajectory of a deceased feline to avoid impact with preexisting intellectual property'.
Ah, but may we slashdotters still beat a dead horse, or will that fall under aforementioned patent?
I read somewhere that he said he removed the seat and threw it in a dumpster because he was sleeping in the car. It's the books about killing someone in the car that bothers me... who would leave something so incredibly incriminating in their car? I almost thought he was being framed when I read that; although there is just too much that he hasn't said anything about. As geeks we only do 'weird' things for a special reason that makes perfect sense to us, and we're the first ones to explain why we would be doing something so 'strange', as we've spent a good amount of time thinking about it in order to make the most 'logical' decision. Just my $0.02.
Parent was a quote from
The Tao Of Programming(read it for free there). It's great and I recommend it for every programmer and anyone who manages programmers. The sequel to it, "The Zen of Programming" is still in print, IIRC.
I'm a little lost... what $200 Billion? Ten years ago, I was thirteen and not very aware of politics.:) Are you talking about last mile infrastructure?
Although it probably doesn't mean all that much now, as a Slackware user and casual LQ.org poster, sorry about my fellow Slackers; the greater majority of us are laid back, fairly nice people (read: geeks). Although, if you don't know this (as many people don't), the LQ.org Slackware board is the officially unofficial Slackware home. Seriously, look it up, I couldn't have made that up if I tried. Unfortunately, this also makes the Slackware board feel like 'home', you know - our own turf, and some people feel the need, wrongly so, to treat it as such.
Anyways, I just wanted to apologize on behalf of the community I am part of, FWIW. BTW, did that new user ever switch or get their problem resolved? Just curious as to how it played out...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, we live and die by the clock :)
Well, for my own part, mostly die. Speaking of which, I have to leave for work; I'm already going to be 5 minutes late.
You know, I always thought that was kinda' funny... our president side stepping a question with all the grace of a sanitation worker performing interpretive dance... and then I realized that everyone who has taken philosophy in college has paid both time and money to discuss exactly what the meaning of 'is' is. I think it's even more ironic from that point of view. Kinda' like how when you're young Bugs Bunny is funny and when you grow up and get the references, Bugs Bunny is friggin' hilarious!
The Joy of C ?
While I agree with absolutely everything you've said, I have one bone to pick with you on the C++ issue. It's not the standards committees' fault that GCC-3.2 will let me increment a pointer inline (against ISO definition of an lvalue) and that same code doesn't compile on GCC-3.4 which does honor the ISO standard. The problem isn't the language, it's the implementation. The same could be said for GNU's JVM, which I had the displeasure of forcefully ripping out of a Linux distro a few weeks ago when it ramped up the CPU to full utilization while I had Eclipse sitting idle.
I guess Balmer is stronger on Mars...
But honestly, and no sugar coating the answer, are you at all bitter about Comcast sending you that letter about your bandwidth usage?
Anyways, prior to that, and in response to your post, "what, am I the only one who remembers the good old days of the 'sneaker net'? This game only requires two players, a mix of VIC-20's and/or Commodore-64's (or "IBM Compatible", depending on your age and what your cousin gave you when he upgraded), a neighborhood and bikes with baseball cards in the wheel spokes. Copy the disk (and the sheet of codes in the back of the manual for piracy protection, I forget what we used to call them), play the game twice, get bored of it, and repeat with another neighborhood kid. Just DON'T be that "kid whose computer can't run anything"! That's how you'll find yourself out of the loop at the bus stop.
But will it run on Linux?
Personally, I'll probably never run Vista (and I'm running XP, BSD, OSX, Linux, and Solaris on occasion), if anything I'll skip it like the whole ME fiasco and wait for something that isn't made to fill a void between new technologies. However, sooner or later, this issue is going to affect me at work when our aging Dell desktops are starting to drop at about the same time I can no longer get XP preinstalled. My gut says buy OEM XP 10 packs and build 10 white boxes at volume cost for 10 cases, motherboards, etc... We only have about 10 desktops, but that seems to be the first discount tier for software and hardware. Then again, maybe it's just cheaper to save my time and buy preinstalled Vista if it'll play nicely with Samba(4 by then) and the 5 applications we actually use.
I didn't find this surprising (most developers /LOVE/ *NIX), until I read that you were in mgmt. Were you a developer who had the misfortune of being punished for writing good code by being dragged in to management? Or were you actually a manager... that would surprise me. I'm a software development major in college, among my peers it's almost a running joke that management just doesn't *get* *nix yet, but it'll grow on them over time if they give it a chance. I'd really be surprised to hear that technical managers (who aren't from a development or admin background) are running *nix, regardless of company. When I heard that the new CEO of Red Hat used to run Slackware, I /still/ nearly fell out of my chair!
42. Carry on.
If you're looking for a great programmer, it'll be the person who says, "none of the languages I am familiar with are a good fit for your problem, but I think *insert language here* that I've read up on a bit might fit it much better, as per your requirements. Give me a week to learn it, and I've got to get *insert plugin name here* for *insert IDE chosen for technological merits*." Not the person who says, "yeah, I can make *language* do that" without hesitation. Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers or are afraid to learn new languages where merited, and you will do well!
He had a theory that he explained to me about managing any group of people. There are 3 kinds of people described as:
The only group you can really 'mold', one way or the other, are the 0s. Fortunately, they are the majority of the people you will work with.
You could place a brown paper bag over your head and lie down or something...
I heard, a number of years ago, that Australia had bee locked in to using a single provider or two and the cost was astronomical. I think this was in Western Australia primarily, but the situation wasn't too much better even in the more populated Eastern Australia. Do you guys have any competition for broadband out there yet?
Cowardly societies? No way, man! Simply, no effing way! My mom always told me if a stranger offered me candy, that I should just get in his van.
I base this on my assumption that hubris will be the RIAA's Archilles, and they'll maintain a brute force via bullying stance up until the bitter end. Bullies only increase aggressiveness when threatened. Just my $0.02, take it with a grain of salt.
Neither of my parents have a degree. My mom had to quit college just short of graduation for circumstances beyond her control, and my dad barely made it out of high school. However, growing up, they both instilled in me a priority for education. Not just education for its own sake, but rather, a priority on learning. My father was stuck in a job that he couldn't stand because it payed enough to provide for a family and it was probably the best he could do without a degree. He always told me not to end up like him, and he's done everything that he can (and more in some cases!) to ensure that I get my degree and have a skill on top of that. So, I'm in college and have an internship.
I know other people whose parents didn't force this issue, and they're mostly just working a job or getting a degree 'because it's the Thing To Do'. Of these people, generally speaking, the ones who went in to the military (more specifically the air force) and learned a trade skill seem to be the best positioned and equipped for life. The people who went on to just learn a trade skill without the discipline of being in the military are still doing alright as they've at least got a skill set at the end of the day. Everyone going to school (my 'group' is just starting to finish undergrad) without a passion for learning has accrued debt, little to no real skill that experience brings, and a sudden sobering sense of reality. They need to get off the treadmill, and don't know how. They are probably at the highest risk for falling in to deep(er) debt and not getting out of the situation. Especially with a mortgage and maybe a family in the somewhat near future.
It appears that IBM is seeking to force patent reform by clogging the system with so many useless applications that soon it will be impossible to swing a dead cat without hitting a patent claim.
Sorry. That should read 'Method for controlling the trajectory of a deceased feline to avoid impact with preexisting intellectual property'.
Ah, but may we slashdotters still beat a dead horse, or will that fall under aforementioned patent?I read somewhere that he said he removed the seat and threw it in a dumpster because he was sleeping in the car. It's the books about killing someone in the car that bothers me... who would leave something so incredibly incriminating in their car? I almost thought he was being framed when I read that; although there is just too much that he hasn't said anything about. As geeks we only do 'weird' things for a special reason that makes perfect sense to us, and we're the first ones to explain why we would be doing something so 'strange', as we've spent a good amount of time thinking about it in order to make the most 'logical' decision. Just my $0.02.
Parent was a quote from The Tao Of Programming(read it for free there). It's great and I recommend it for every programmer and anyone who manages programmers. The sequel to it, "The Zen of Programming" is still in print, IIRC.
I'm a little lost... what $200 Billion? Ten years ago, I was thirteen and not very aware of politics. :) Are you talking about last mile infrastructure?
Anyways, I just wanted to apologize on behalf of the community I am part of, FWIW. BTW, did that new user ever switch or get their problem resolved? Just curious as to how it played out...
That's brilliant. It's a Good Thing DNS was made to route around outages :) I salute you!
That would be the inversed square of the distance, no?